CalNews.com reports: Religion of Peace?

Well, you're joking of course, right President Bush? Let's look at the facts. Explore with us if you will, Mr. President, the latest reports on the practitioners of the "Religion of Peace"

Muslim killing spree continues in Africa
Islamist insurgents kill over 178 in Nigeria's Kano
By Reuters, Chicago Tribune
Gun and bomb attacks by Islamist insurgents in the northern Nigerian city of Kano last week killed at least 178 people, a hospital doctor said on Sunday, underscoring the daunting challenge President Goodluck Jonathan now faces to prevent his country sliding further into chaos. A coordinated series of bomb blasts and shooting sprees mostly targeting police stations on Friday sent panicked residents of Nigeria's second biggest city of more than 10 million people running for cover. The scale of the carnage makes this by far the deadliest strike claimed by Boko Haram, a shadowy Islamist sect that started out as a clerical movement opposed to western education but has become the biggest security menace facing Africa's top oil producer. "We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital said following Friday's attacks, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa. "There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early."

Islamic rage continues -- civilians, children slaughtered
Insurgents Kill Dozens in Southern Afghanistan
By TAIMOOR SHAH and ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
More than two dozen people were killed in a series of four insurgent attacks in southern Afghanistan that began late Wednesday and continued through Thursday afternoon, Afghan authorities said. As the violence intensified, a suicide car bomber detonated his explosives Thursday morning outside one of the gates at Kandahar airbase, one of the largest coalition bases in Afghanistan, Afghan and American officials said. At least seven civilians were killed, including two children, said Zalmai Ayoubi, a spokesman for the governor of Kandahar Province. He said another eight Afghans were wounded, and the death toll could rise. Taliban fighters also attacked a police checkpoint in Now Zad District, in Helmand Province, on Thursday afternoon. At least two police officers and 12 Taliban fighters, including a local commander identified as Mullah Abdul Baqi, were killed in the ensuing gun battle, which went on all morning, Dawoud Ahmadi, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said. Another two officers were wounded, he said. In Nad Ali District of Helmand Province, which authorities had declared largely cleared of insurgents over the past year, a roadside bomb on Wednesday killed the district head of the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence service, along with a member of the district council, or shura, and two other people, according to Mr. Ahmadi, the governor’s spokesman.

The Politically Incorrect Truth About Islam...
One Really Messed Up Religion
The first Islamic terror attack of 2012 took place a few minutes after midnight, when fundamentalists threw a grenade into a New Year's Eve party in Kenya. Last year, more than 9,000 people were killed in the name of Allah in at least 57 countries. Click here for more

Awlaki Allegedly Tied to British Terror Plot
By Catherine Herridge, FoxNews.com
New evidence against the nine suspects in an alleged terror plot in Great Britain claims to connect the men to Anwar al-Awlaki, the first American on the CIA's capture or kill list. In keeping wth Awlaki's online propaganda, the suspects allegedly chose highly symbolic targets including Big Ben and the U.S. embassy compound for their supposed plot. The nine suspects were swept into a British court on Tuesday under heavy guard. "They were all arrested under the terrorism act 2000 on the suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism," a Scotland Yard spokesman said. Investigators who searched the suspects' homes are said to have found two issues of "Inspire" magazine, Al Qaeda in Yemen's version of a lifestyle periodical -- a Martha Stewart Living for Jihadists. The driving force behind "Inspire" is Awlaki, who's believed to be hiding in Yemen.

Danish, Swedish police arrest 5 men suspected of planning shooting at prophet cartoon paper
By JAN M. OLSEN, Chicago Tribune
Five men planning to shoot as many people as possible in a building housing the newsroom of a paper that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad were arrested Wednesday in an operation that halted an imminent attack, intelligence officials said. Denmark's intelligence service said it arrested four men in two raids in suburbs of the capital, Copenhagen, and seized an automatic weapon, a silencer and ammunition. Swedish police said they arrested a 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin living in Stockholm. "An imminent terror attack has been foiled," said Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, or PET. He described some the suspects as "militant Islamists with relations to international terror networks" and said that more arrests were possible. PET said it seized a 44-year-old Tunisian, a 29-year-old Lebanese-born man and a 30-year-old who were living in Sweden and had entered Denmark late Tuesday or early Wednesday. The fourth person detained was a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum-seeker living in Copenhagen.

Burqa blast murders 40
By Reuters, New York Post
A woman covered in a head-to-foot burqa carried out a suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people in Pakistan, government officials said yesterday. An increased use of women as bombers may complicate efforts by Pakistani security forces to stem a spreading wave of Islamist suicide attacks because it is harder to spot burqa-clad attackers. Saturday's bombing illustrated the resilient ability of militants to stage attacks despite army offensives against them. The woman blew herself up amid a crowd of men, women and children heading toward a food distribution center of the World Food Program in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border.

Merry Christmas from the Religion of Peace?

"When we should be celebrating peace, here we are crying"
Terror attacks kill dozens in Nigeria, Pakistan; Nigerian governor calls it a 'black Christmas'
By HELEN KENNEDY, New York Daily News
It was a bloody Noel for refugees lining up for food in Pakistan and last-minute Christmas shoppers in Nigeria, where separate terrorist attacks killed scores of people. At least 42 people were killed and another 100 injured when a female suicide bomber blew herself up in a crowd of people waiting for United Nations emergency food rations in north-west Pakistan. The burqa-clad attacker lobbed grenades into the crowd of mostly women and children before detonating the explosives wrapped around her waist, officials said. The victims were refugees from fighting in the Bajaur region who had gathered at a World Food Program site in the town of Khar. Meanwhile in Africa, seven blasts ripped through the restive Nigerian city of Jos, killing at least 31 people in a region riven by conflict between Christians and Muslims. Officials said 74 people were hurt, many of them seriously. Gov. Jonah Jang called it a "black Christmas." "When we should be celebrating peace, here we are crying," he said. Many of the dead were last-minute Christmas shoppers, or commuters caught in the cars by traffic jams caused by the first explosions.

Meddling Neighbors Undercut Iraq Stability
By MICHAEL R. GORDON, New York Times
Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a regional menace that sent shudders through its neighbors.Today’s Iraqi leaders are struggling to restrain the ambitions of the countries that share Iraq’s porous borders, eye the country’s rich resources and vie for influence. “All Iraq’s neighbors were interfering, albeit in different ways, the Gulf and Saudi Arabia with money, Iran with money and political influence, and the Syrians by all means,” Jalal Talabani, Iraq’s president and the senior Kurdish official in the government, told Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates in a Dec. 10, 2009, meeting, according to a diplomatic cable. “The Turks are ‘polite’ in their interference, but continue their attempts to influence Iraq’s Turkmen community and Sunnis in Mosul.” With American troops preparing to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011, the meddling threatens to aggravate the sectarian divisions in the country and undermine efforts by Iraq’s leaders to get beyond bitter rivalries and build a stable government. It also shows how deeply Iraq’s leaders depend on the United States to manage that meddling, even as it exposes the increasing limits on America’s ability to do so.

Iranian minister's Hill chill
By KATE SHEEHY, New York Post
Hillary Rodham Clinton got a double dose of international diss. The secretary of state tried to speak to Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki twice at a global security conference in Bahrain on Friday but was rebuffed, Clinton said. "I got up to leave, and [Mottaki] was sitting a couple of seats down from me and shaking people's hands, and he saw me, and he stopped and began to turn away," Clinton told reporters. "I said, 'Hello, minister.' He just turned away." Later, as both were outside to leave, Clinton again called out to Mottaki -- only to be shunned by him a second time, a source told The Cable blog of Foreign Policy magazine. Some sources suggested that Mottaki wouldn't talk to her because she's a woman; others said it was because of the United States' ongoing tension with Tehran.

Business as usual for the Taliban
Suicide bombers kill 41 in Pakistan
By Alex Rodriguez, Chicago Tribune
A pair of suicide bombers attacked a large gathering of anti- Taliban elders inside a government compound in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 41 people in one of the worst terror strikes to hit the country's volatile tribal belt this year. The attack occurred in the town of Ghalanai at the administrative headquarters of Mohmand, a region along the Afghan border that continues to see periodic clashes between Taliban militants and Pakistani troops. A meeting was underway at the compound between leaders of a local anti-Taliban militia and a top Mohmand official, authorities said. Witnesses said more than 300 people were inside the building when the two attackers appeared. One of the bombers was dressed in a police uniform and was able to walk into the offices where the crowd had gathered. A second bomber was stopped at a perimeter security gate. Both men detonated their explosives seconds apart.

Yemeni al-Qaida boasts plane package plots cost $4,200, boasts of more to come
By KIMBERLY DOZIER, Chicago Tribune
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is promising more small-scale attacks like its attempts to bomb two U.S.-bound cargo planes, which it likens to bleeding its enemy to death by a thousand cuts, in a special edition of the Yemeni-based group's English on-line magazine, Inspire. The editors boast that what they call Operation Hemorrhage was cheap, and easy, using common items that together with shipping, cost only $4,200 to carry out. Alerted to the late October bomb plot by Saudi intelligence, security officials chased the packages across five countries, trying frantically over the next two days to prevent an explosion that could have come at any moment. The pursuit showed that even when the world's counterterrorism systems work, preventing an attack is often a terrifyingly close ordeal. The group says it's part of a new strategy to replace spectacular attacks in favor of smaller attacks to hit the U.S. economy, according to the special edition of the online magazine, made available by both Ben Venzke's IntelCenter, and the Site Intelligence Group. "To bring down America we do not need to strike big," the editors write. With the "security phobia that is sweeping America, it is more feasible to stage smaller attacks that involve less players and less time to launch" thereby circuventing U.S. security, they conclude.

Local jihadist website tied to terror thugs returns under new name, IslamPolicy.com
Purpose of the site and its successor is to promote a doctrine of "pure Islam" and religion-based Sharia law
By JAMES GORDON MEEK and ALISON GENDAR, New York Daily News
A militant New York website tied to terror plotters - and shut down for promoting violence - has resurfaced under a new name. Revolution Muslim has been linked to at least a third of almost two dozen homegrown terror schemes exposed during the past year, investigators said. The site was taken down Nov. 5, after an uproar over a user posting that called for the assassination of members of the British Parliament who voted for the Iraq war. The posting, which gave tips on how to meet with the pols, went up after a 21-year-old woman radicalized through the site was sentenced to life for trying to stab an MP. Sources said Google pulled the plug on Revolution Muslim on Nov. 5 at the prompting of the U.S. and U.K. government officials. Eleven days later, a notice went up that its new home was IslamPolicy.com. Muhammad, who grew up as Jesse Norton before converting to Islam a decade ago, founded Revolution Muslim in 2007 with the help of Brooklyn-born Yousef al-Khattab. He says the purpose of the site and its successor is to promote a doctrine of "pure Islam" and religion-based Sharia law - and that the feds have no business meddling. Anti-terrorism experts say no matter what the name, the site is a breeding ground for anti-American hatred and validates terrorist fantasies.

Germans hunt 'suicide bombers'
By TIM PERONE, New York Post
German authorities are hunting for two suspected suicide bombers who may be targeting the country's parliament building or another prominent public place, according to a report. The suspects likely arrived in Berlin about six weeks ago from Pakistan and are trying to avoid detection by staying away from mosques and wearing western-style clothing, the Wall Street Journal said. Officials are scouring travel records in the hopes of locating the two before they are able to strike, the paper said.
It is not clear if the bombers are planning to target Americans. The report comes in the wake of last month's travel advisory from the State Department to Americans traveling in Europe, including Germany.

Christian sentenced to death after being accused of insulting Islam
Dozens of Pakistanis - many of them Christians - are sentenced to death each year for blasphemy
By the Evening Standard
A Pakistani Christian woman condemned to death for blasphemy against Islam, has tearfully pleaded her innocence and asked that her life be spared. The case of Asia Bibi, 45, has drawn appeals from Pope Benedict XVI and human rights groups to free her. She was sentenced to death earlier this month and has been in prison for the last 18 months. Mrs Bibi has appeared in a televised interview at her prison, protesting her innocence to reporters and maintaining the case stemmed from a personal dispute. "It was just the outcome of a rivalry. I would never even think of blasphemy," she said weeping. "I have small children. For God's sake, please set me free." The verdict has drawn attention to Pakistan's blasphemy laws, which critics say are used to persecute Christian and other minorities and fan extremism. They are also often exploited to settle personal grudges. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minority affairs, said that President Asif Ali Zardari has asked for a report on the case. "The president has taken notice of this case ... he is concerned on this issue," Mr Bhatti said, adding that Zardari has the power to pardon her even ahead of the court appeal. Her husband said Mrs Bibi's original spat was in June 2009 with a group of Muslim women who refused to drink from the same water bowl as a Christian when they were picking fruit in an orchard in their village of Attian Wali, west of Lahore in Punjab province. After Mrs Bibi argued with them, the women told the local imam that Mrs Bibi had insulted the Prophet Mohammed. The imam told the police and she was arrested. A local court sentenced her to death on November 8. Dozens of Pakistanis - many of them Christians - are sentenced to death each year for blasphemy.

Woman arrested in San Diego on charge of providing money to Somali terrorists
By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
A woman has been arrested in San Diego on federal charges of providing money and other assistance to a terrorist group in Somalia that is trying to topple that government and create an Islamist state. Nima Ali Yusuf, 24, was arrested Friday, according to federal prosecutors. She is charged with aiding Al Shabab, listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. Al Shabab claimed responsibility for bombings in Uganda that killed 76 people, including an American, during the World Cup finals last July. Three San Diego men also face charges of helping the group: Saeed Moalin, 33; Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, 38; and Issa Doreh, 54. All remain in custody. Al Shabab is known to have ties to Al Qaeda, according to U.S. officials.

Tunnel on Mexican border highlights fears of smuggling by terrorists
By Sara A. Carter, Washington Examiner
The discovery of a sophisticated tunneling system on the U.S.-Mexican border has caused intelligence and law enforcement agencies in the Southwest to increase their alert status. The concern for security officials is twofold: They are trying to avoid a spillover of the spiraling drug violence in Mexico that has been characterized by beheadings and shootouts. At the same time authorities tell The Washington Examiner that Islamic extremist groups are eyeing the porous border as the easiest way to smuggle terrorists into the country. "Our number one concern is national security," said a senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the 1,800 foot tunnel discovered in California. "The vulnerability created by the tunnel being used by terrorist organizations is there." One official involved in anti-terrorism efforts referred to a 2006 Department of Homeland Security intelligence report that revealed al Qaeda was recruiting citizens in Central America. "It's very concerning when you have a border that allows for anyone to cross over," the official added.

Cargo bomb was '17 minutes from blast'
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a Yemen-based group, has already admitted responsibility for the plot
By Peter Allen and Martin Bentham, London Evening Standard
One of the cargo flight bombs sent from Yemen last week was defused 17 minutes before it was timed to go off, a French minister said today. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux made the dramatic claim in a television interview following the arrest of two men in France for alleged terrorist offences. He refused to say whether he was refering to the bomb found at East Midlands airport, or the one discoverd in Dubai, although sources suggest that it was not the British device. His comments provide further apparent confirmation of the seriousness of the plot, which has already led to stricter security rules being imposed on both British cargo and passenger flights. “There were parcel bombs from Yemen heading for the United States, and I can tell you, for example, that one of these parcels was disarmed 17 minutes before the planned explosion,” Mr Hortefeux said. Both devices were discovered last week on board cargo flights to the United States. They were intercepted in Dubai and the UK and defused following a tip-off given by a Guantamo Bay inmate to Saudi intelligence. "The circumstances are still being investigated," a French Interior Ministry source added. "More information will be made available as and when."

YouTube Withdraws Cleric’s Videos
By JOHN F. BURNS and MIGUEL HELFT, New York Times
Under pressure from American and British officials, YouTube on Wednesday removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring calls to jihad by Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born, Yemen-based cleric who has played an increasingly public role in inspiring violence directed at the West. Last week, a British official pressed for the videos to be removed and a New York congressman, Anthony Weiner, sent YouTube a letter listing hundreds of videos featuring the cleric. The requests took on greater urgency after two powerful bombs hidden in cargo planes were intercepted en route from Yemen to Chicago on Friday, with the prime suspect being the Yemen-based group Mr. Awlaki is affiliated with, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. In an e-mail, Victoria Grand, a YouTube spokeswoman, said that the site had removed videos that violated the site’s guidelines prohibiting “dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech, and incitement to commit violent acts,” or came from accounts “registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization,” or used to promote such a group’s interests.

Did America just get lucky this time?
Plotters Didn't Know Where Mail Bombs Would Go Off
By the Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report
The plotters behind last week's unsuccessful mail bombings could not have known exactly where their Chicago-bound packages were when they were set to explode, even after a suspected test run, U.S. officials say. The communication cards had been removed from the cell phones attached to the bombs, meaning the phones could not receive calls, officials said, making it likely the terrorists intended the alarm or timer functions to detonate the bombs. "The cell phone probably would have been triggered by the alarm functions and it would have exploded midair," said a U.S. official briefed on the investigation of the bombs taken off cargo planes Friday in England and the United Arab Emirates. This person, like other officials in this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case. The official also said Tuesday that each bomb was attached to a syringe containing lead azide, a chemical initiator that would have detonated PETN explosives packed into each computer printer toner cartridge. Both PETN and a syringe were used in the failed Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner linked to an al-Qaida branch in Yemen.

Dozens die in rescue raid on Iraqi church
Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on what it called the "dirty place of the infidels"
By the New York Post Wire Services
As many as 37 people were reported killed last night when Iraqi forces stormed a Catholic church in Baghdad where about 100 worshippers were being held hostage. The dead included 25 hostages, seven Iraqi troops and five of the attackers, local security forces told the BBC. Many others were reported injured. The armed hostage-takers entered Our Lady of Salvation church during evening Mass and demanded the release of jailed al Qaeda terrorists in return for the congregants' safety. One of the freed hostages, an 18-year-old, said the first thing the intruders did was shoot the priest, London's Daily Telegraph reported. "They entered the church with their weapons, wearing military uniforms," the young man said. "They came into the prayer hall and immediately killed the priest." Al Qaeda's Iraqi affiliate, the Islamic State of Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on what it called the "dirty place of the infidels." US troops officially ended combat operations in Iraq at the end of August, but there were reports that American soldiers participated in the church raid. Earlier yesterday, militants attacked Baghdad's stock exchange.

Suicide bomber wounds 32 in main Istanbul square
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Chicago Tribune
A suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday beside a police vehicle in a major Istanbul square near tourist hotels and a bus terminal, wounding 32 people, including 15 policemen. The attack in Taksim Square, which was followed by police gunfire and sent hundreds of panicked people racing for cover, coincided with the possible end of a unilateral cease-fire by Kurdish rebels, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Turkey, a NATO ally that has deployed troops in a non-combat role in Afghanistan, is also home to cells of radical leftists and Islamic militants. Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said the bomber tried but failed to get into a parked police van and detonated the bomb just outside the vehicle, blowing himself to pieces. Riot police are routinely stationed at Taksim, a popular spot for street demonstrations that abuts a major pedestrian walkway whose shops and restaurants are usually packed. At least 32 people, including 15 police officers, were injured, at least two of them seriously, Istanbul Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu said.

Obama Calls British, Saudi Leaders About Bomb Plot
The plot has raised fears of a new al-Qaida terror attack
By the Associated Press, Fox News
President Obama has called British Prime Minister David Cameron and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to discuss the thwarted mail bomb attacks. White House spokesman Bill Burton says the president also received a briefing Saturday from his national security adviser, John Brennan. Yemeni authorities are checking more packages in the search for terrorists who tried to mail bombs to Chicago-area synagogues. The plot has raised fears of a new al-Qaida terror attack. Obama is campaigning Saturday in Bridgeport, Conn., Philadelphia and Chicago.

Yemeni authorities now investigating 24 other suspicious packages
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Yemeni authorities are checking dozens more packages in the search for terrorists who tried to mail bombs to Chicago-area synagogues in a brazen plot that heightened fears of a new al-Qaida terror attack. Authorities on three continents thwarted the attacks when they seized explosives on cargo planes in the United Arab Emirates and England on Friday. The plot sent tremors throughout the U.S., where after a frenzied day searching planes and parcel trucks for other explosives, officials temporarily banned all new cargo from Yemen. Several U.S. officials said they were increasingly confident that al-Qaida’s Yemen branch, the group behind the failed Detroit airliner bombing last Christmas, was responsible. President Barack Obama called the coordinated attacks a “credible terrorist threat.” A Yemeni security official said investigators there were examining 24 other suspect packages in the capital, San’a. He spoke on condition on anonymity because he was not authorized to release information and refused to provide more details. Authorities were questioning cargo workers at the airport as well as employees of the local shipping companies contracted to work with FedEx and UPS, the official said.

“We are grateful to the Iranians for this”
Afghan Leader Admits His Office Gets Cash from Iran
By DEXTER FILKINS and ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times
President Hamid Karzai acknowledged on Monday that he regularly receives bags of cash from the Iranian government in payments amounting to millions of dollars, as evidence mounted of a worsening rift between his government and its American and NATO supporters. During an often hostile news conference, Mr. Karzai also accused the United States of financing the “killing” of Afghans by paying private security contractors to guard construction projects and convoys in Afghanistan. He has declined to postpone a December deadline he set for ending the use of private security forces despite urgent pleas from Western organizations, including development organizations, that need protection here. His statements were the latest indication that American relations with Mr. Karzai were badly frayed, despite diplomatic efforts to mend ties and improve governance in Afghanistan. The tensions threaten to undermine President Obama’s goal of handing responsibility for the war against the Taliban to Mr. Karzai and the Afghan military, allowing the United States to begin withdrawing troops next year. “They do give us bags of money — yes, yes, it is done,” Mr. Karzai said, responding to questions about a report in The New York Times on Sunday that Iran sends regular cash payments to his chief of staff, Umar Daudzai. “We are grateful to the Iranians for this.”

Karzai gets 'bags of money' from Iran
By HAMID SHALIZI, Toronto Sun
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday his office receives cash in bags from Iran, but said it is a transparent form of aid that helps cover expenses at the presidential palace and that the United States makes similar payments. The comments came after a report Sunday that Karzai’s chief of staff, Omar Dawoodzai, receives covert bagfuls of money — possibly as much as $6 million in a single payment — from neighboring Iran in a bid to secure influence and loyalty. The New York Times, citing an unnamed Afghan official, said that millions of dollars in cash channelled from Iran have been used to pay Afghan lawmakers, tribal elders and Taliban commanders. Karzai said he gets money from several “friendly countries“ but named only the United States and Iran, the latter contributing up to 700,000 euros ($976,500) twice a year. He would continue to ask for Iranian money, he added.

Karzai's cash, Obama's crisis
By the New York Post
President Obama has a Karzai problem. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is up to his elbows in Iranian cash, using bribes from Tehran to help buy the loyalty of friends and rivals. Every other month, The New York Times reports, Iran sends over about $1 million to $2 million, which Karzai and his chief of staff dole out to maintain power over a network of tribal leaders, government officials and Taliban warlords. Karzai's in bed with the US for much more than Tehran dishes out, but Iran's gifts are entirely off the books -- literally delivered, as they are, in bags. "We have no choice but to be friendly with Iran," said Afghanistan's finance minister. Friendly ain't the half of it.

Guilty Plea in Threat Against ‘South Park’ Creators
By REUTERS, New York Times
A Virginia man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to trying to help Somalia's islamic militant group al Shabaab and making threats against the writers of the satirical "South Park" television show for their depiction of the Prophet Mohammad. Zachary Chesser, 20, pleaded guilty to three counts including communicating threats, soliciting others to threaten violence and material support to al Shabaab, prosecutors said. He could face up to 30 years in prison. Prosecutors said he tried to fly twice to Somalia to join al Shabaab, which has ties to al Qaeda. He once tried to take his infant son on the trip in hopes that would help him avoid detection, they said. Chesser also ran numerous websites and called for violence against Americans. In one instance he published the home addresses for the writers of the "South Park" show after they lampooned the Prophet Mohammad and he urged readers to "pay them a visit."

Taliban: Terror Attacks Imminent In United States; British Muslims Largely Fund Jihad
By Matthew Keys, Chicago Tribune
Taliban insurgents say the bulk of the money it uses to fight off American and British forces in remote parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan come from the United Kingdom. A report released Thursday by the British-based Sky News Channel revealed Taliban insurgents rely heavily upon money donated to them from individuals, organizations and mosques in other countries to fight holy wars known as Jihads. "We get donations from our Muslim brothers in Britain for Jihad," an unidentified Taliban commander told Sky News journalists Stuart Ramsay. "We are not like a government, we depend on individuals." The Taliban leader went on to say that insurgents live within the borders of Britain and are "waiting for our orders" to carry out terrorist attacks. The leader also said attacks are imminent within other European countries and the United States.

Islamics attack
Gunmen Dead After Attack on Chechen Parliament
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, New York Times
Heavily armed gunmen burst onto the grounds of the Chechen Parliament in southern Russia on Tuesday morning, killing at least three people and wounding more than a dozen before they were killed, officials said. Investigators said that three men entered the grounds of Parliament in Grozny, the Chechen capital, and opened fire close to the office of the Parliament’s speaker, Dujuvakha Adurakhmanov. The speaker was evacuated from the building, though at least two security guards and a parliamentary employee were killed in the attack. At least one of the attackers blew himself up in an apparent suicide attack, according to a statement on the Web site of the prosecutor general’s investigative wing. The three gunmen entered right through the front gates of the parliament complex, which is located in a busy section of downtown Grozny. Without uttering a word they executed two police officers standing guard at the entrance, said Alvi A. Karimov, the press secretary for Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Chechnya’s leader. One of the militants then blew himself up, killing a staff member, while the others opened fire, he said.

Killings in Nigeria Are Linked to Islamic Sect
By ADAM NOSSITER, New York Times
A rash of mysterious killings by gun-wielding motorcycle assassins of policemen, politicians and others in this city near the desert has led authorities to declare that a radical Islamic sect thought to have been crushed by Nigerian troops last year has been revived. In a market in Maiduguri, Nigeria, residents blamed the government for recent conflicts, saying money was not fairly distributed. Soldiers have been deployed here again, a curfew has been imposed and many residents worry about bold daylight attacks that officials call a renewal of the anti-Western sect’s strikes on police stations and soldiers that took place last year. An outright challenge to the Nigerian government appears to be under way, with an audacious twilight prison break last month in Bauchi that freed over 700 — including many jailed sect members — the firebombing of a police station in Maiduguri last week and the killing of numerous police officers and other leaders in recent months. The violence here in the north comes at a delicate time for Nigeria, one of the world’s top oil producers and a major supplier to the United States. Though the nation remains stable, it is struggling to organize elections next year that will test the capacity and, ultimately, the legitimacy of its young democracy.

Beat your wife, just do not bruise her, says United Arab Emirates high court
By the New York Post
The highest court in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ruled that a man is allowed to beat his wife and children as long as he does not leave bruises or other marks. "Although the [law] permits the husband to use his right [to discipline], he has to abide by the limits of this right," wrote Chief Justice Falah al Hajeri in a ruling issued this month and released in a court document Sunday. The limit, as the court defines it, is physical evidence of a beating that takes the accepted punishment to a more severe level. According to Islamic law, the man of the house is permitted to use physical discipline against his family if admonishing them and abstaining from sex with his wife do not work, local newspaper The National reported Monday. Judges were forced to clarify the legal boundaries of beating after a UAE man slapped and kicked his daughter and wife, leaving bruises and facial injuries on them. Bruises and other physical marks were evidence, the court said, that the man had abused his right to discipline.

With Pakistan's help Bin Laden and deputy believed to be living comfortably
By the New York Post
Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding near each other in relative comfort in northwest Pakistan, a senior NATO official said Monday. The two men are believed to be living in homes near one another and are protected by members of Pakistan's spy agency, the ISI, and locals, the network reported. Pakistan strongly denies protecting members of the terror network, according to a CNN report. "Nobody in Al Qaeda is living in a cave," the unnamed official was quoted as saying. Bin Laden is believed to have escaped from Afghanistan's Tora Bora region, a Taliban stronghold, during a U.S. bombing raid in 2001 and has moved around Pakistan since. In this April 1998 file photo, exiled al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is believed to be in Afghanistan. The official told CNN the Al Qaeda leader is likely to have traveled in recent years throughout the country's rugged tribal region from near the Chinese border to neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied the two men are in Pakistan but said that any contradicting information should be shared with country officials so that they can take "immediate action" to arrest the Al Qaeda leaders.

Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda terrorist leader, hunted in Pakistan by CIA
By JAMES GORDON MEEK, New York Daily News
The CIA hunted for Osama Bin Laden in a remote section of northwestern Pakistan in recent years based on at least two sightings considered credible, the Daily News has learned. One of the sightings was a grainy photo of Bin Laden inside a truck traveling in the North-West Frontier Province's Chitral district, a former senior counterterror official revealed. The source, who had access to all reporting on Bin Laden, responded to a series of March 2009 reports in The News that pinpointed where the CIA's tribal operations unit had hunted for Al Qaeda's founder. The intelligence was obtained years ago and wasn't fresh enough to find and kill Bin Laden, who was first marked for death in 1995, the source added. Asked by ABC last December about the last hard intelligence on Bin Laden's location since he escaped Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains in December 2001, Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted, "I think it's been years."

Six NATO soldiers killed in Afghanistan
By NEWSCORE, New York Post
Six NATO soldiers were killed in three separate attacks in Afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force officials said Wednesday. Four soldiers were killed when an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in southern Afghanistan. Another IED attack killed a soldier in a separate attack in the south of the country and a sixth soldier was killed in an attack in the eastern part of the country.

For Egyptians, Lebanese Pop Star's Murder Was Her Own Fault
By MONA EL-NAGGAR, New York Times
An Egyptian real estate tycoon falls in love with a Lebanese pop star. After three to four years, she decides to leave him. He pays another man $2 million to kill her. She is found dead, with her throat slit. He is found guilty of inciting and ordering the murder. And what do women here have to say about the homicide victim? Mostly, that she deserved it. The story of Hisham Talaat Moustafa and Suzanne Tamim has engrossed men and women of all ages in the Arab world for more than two years now. In the latest episode last month, Mr. Moustafa, who was also a prominent politician and leading member of Egypt’s ruling party, was saved when an Egyptian appeals court reduced his sentence from death to 15 years in jail. The fact that Mr. Moustafa, who has wealth and influence, has whittled down his spell in prison to the point where he now looks like he might walk away from his crime has enraged public opinion on several levels.

France Arrests Rwandan Over Congo Atrocities
By MARLISE SIMONS, New York Times
French police on Monday arrested a Rwandan believed to be a leader of a movement involved in a recent terror campaign in the Kivu region of Congo in which thousands of civilians have been killed and raped. Armed with an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, police detained the Rwandan, Callixte Mbarushimana, 47, shortly after dawn at his home in Paris, a court official said. He is wanted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to a statement from the court. The Rwandan’s activities had been tracked for more than 18 months in several countries including France, Germany, the Congo and Rwanda, the court official said. Mr. Mbarushimana, who has the status of political refugee and has lived in France for several years, was to appear later Monday before a local judge, who must decide on his transfer to the international court in The Hague. The process could take several days, because the decision can be appealed. The prosecutor’s office in The Hague in a statement said that Mr. Mbarushima was one of the top leaders of the Rwandan rebel group FDLR, that from its base in the Congo was fighting to gain power in Rwanda and was using massive crimes against civilians to demonstrate its power.

Killing of Doctor Part of Taliban War on Educated
By JANE PERLEZ, New York Times
A week ago, two Taliban hit men, disguised in casual clothes and with stubble on their chins instead of beards, climbed the stairs to Dr. Khan’s second-floor office and, as he had lunch between streams of patients, shot him at close range. The assassination of Dr. Khan, cool and quick, was the latest in what appears to be a sustained campaign by the Taliban to wipe out, or at least silence, educated Muslims in Pakistan who speak out against the militants, their use of suicide bombings and their cry of worldwide jihad. At least six Muslim intellectuals and university professors have been killed or kidnapped in the past year in Pakistan, each death met with momentary notice in the media, promises of inquiries by the government and then a frightened quiet.

Mosque Blast Kills Afghan Governor
"He was the target, and the terrorists were able to kill him"
By the Associated Press, New York Times
A provincial governor and at least 19 other people were killed by a massive bomb blast inside a packed mosque during Friday prayers in northern Afghanistan, where insurgents have stepped up violence amid intensified NATO-Afghan military operations. Thirty-five people were wounded in the explosion while praying at the Shirkat mosque in Takhar province, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary. Gen. Shah Jahan Noori, the provincial police chief, said the governor of neighboring Kunduz province, Mohammad Omar, was killed along with 14 other people. The bomb was meant to kill Omar, who regularly attends Friday prayers at the mosque, Takhar Gov. Abdul Jabar Taqwa said. "He was the target, and the terrorists were able to kill him," Taqwa said. "This is a big loss for us because Mohammad Omar was a very brave and good governor." Wounded people wrapped in bloodstained blankets were rushed to the hospital. One man, his face charred black from the blast, was carried on a stretcher.

Stronger Hezbollah Emboldened for Fights Ahead
By THANASSIS CAMBANIS, New York Times
It was from this shrub-ringed border town that Hezbollah instigated its war with Israel in 2006, and supporters of the militant Shiite movement sound almost disappointed that they have not fought since. “I was expecting the war this summer,” said Faris Jamil, a municipal official and small-business owner. “It’s late.” He has yet to finish rebuilding his three-story house, destroyed by an Israeli bomb that year. In 2006, Hezbollah guerrillas crossed the border a few hundred yards from the town center, ambushed an Israeli patrol and retreated through Aita al Shaab with the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah officials and supporters said they were now sending a pointed message to Israel through their efforts to rebuild, repopulate and rearm the south. “We are not sleeping,” said Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah official and member of Parliament. “We are working.” He receives visitors every weekend in a family home in Taibe, the site of a deadly tank battle in 2006. Four years later, Hezbollah appears to be, if not bristling for a fight with Israel, then coolly prepared for one. It seems to be calculating either that an aggressive military posture might deter another war, as its own officials and Lebanese analysts say, or that a conflict, should it come, would on balance fortify its domestic political standing.

Malawi Muslims burning Bibles
By Reuters, New York Post
Muslims in southern Malawi have been burning Bibles to protest their distribution in Islamic schools by Gideon's International, a Muslim Association of Malawi official said yesterday. The Bibles "annoyed some parents and other leaders, who have resorted to burning the holy books . . . in protest," said Sheik Imran Sharif. He said the burning of bibles was carried out by a few Muslim fanatics, and the association has ordered them to stop.

Afghan police seize 22 tons of explosives from Iran
By AFP / NEWSCORE, New York Post
Afghan police said Wednesday they had seized 22 tons of explosives stashed in boxes marked "food, toys and kitchenware" that were imported from neighboring Iran. The discovery was made Tuesday in a customs office in the western province of Nimroz on the Iranian border, deputy provincial police chief Mohammad Musa Rasouli said. "We found these materials hidden in a 40 foot (12 meter) shipping container that had come from Iran. The explosives were disguised as merchandise like food, toys and kitchenware," he added. Bombs made from old ammunitions and explosives are the main weapon used by the Taliban and other insurgents fighting against the Western-backed Afghan government and Western troops, and cause the bulk of military casualties. Foreign military commanders and some Afghan officials have accused Iran of providing weapons to the Taliban, the chief group leading the insurgency since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion ousted its regime from power.

Japan joins U.S., U.K., issues travel warning; Jihadists in Germany at heart of Europe terror scare
By MICHAEL SHERIDAN, New York Daily News
A group of German jihadists have reportedly taken center stage in the terror scare that has swept through Europe, sparking several nations to issue alerts to its citizens abroad. Japan joined the United States and Britain on Monday, warning travelers to be wary of a "possible terrorist attack" as they vacationed in the west. The fears originated from a plan by a group in Hamburg, according to CNN. A member of the cabal, Ahmed Sidiqi, who was arrested in Afghanistan in July and taken to the U.S.'s Bagram Airfield, reportedly offered up details about the alleged plot. A German national of Afghan descent, Sidiqi allegedly joined a jihadist group in 2009 along with ten others, German intelligence officials told CNN.

Italian police arrest French al Qaeda suspect
By REUTERS, New York Post
Italian antiterrorist police have arrested a French man suspected of belonging to al Qaeda and capable of securing explosives, sources close to the investigation said on Sunday. The operation took place in a night raid in Naples between Sept 4 and 5 and France has filed a request for extradition of the 24-year-old suspect, who was of North African origin and considered dangerous, the sources said. “In France, he is accused of participating in subversive activities,” one source said. There was no word on whether the man was linked to any immediate threat but news of the arrest coincides with a heightened alert over security in western Europe. Last month, French authorities said they had received news that a suicide bomber was preparing to attack the Paris metro system and Western intelligence sources also said they had uncovered plans for a coordinated attack on European cities. Police declined to give details of the Naples arrest but the sources said he had been under observation since late August and computer materials had been seized from the place where he was staying in the city centre.

U.S. Issues Terrorism Alert for Travel to Europe
By SCOTT SHANE, New York Times
The U.S. State Department issued an alert on Sunday urging Americans traveling to Europe to be vigilant about possible terrorist attacks in a statement that specifically cites the potential involvement of Al Qaida. The British government, meanwhile, raised the threat of terrorism to "high" from "general" for Britons in France and Germany. The decisions to caution travelers came as counterterrorism officials in Europe and the United States are assessing intelligence about possible plots originating in Pakistan and North Africa aimed at Britain, France and Germany. The U.S. travel alert urges extra caution and does not discourage Americans from visiting Europe. An American official who confirmed the warning on Saturday, who did not want to be identified speaking about internal government deliberations, said a stronger “travel warning” that might advise Americans not to visit Europe was not under consideration. European officials have been concerned about the impact on tourism and student travel from any official guidance to American travelers. "Current information suggests that Al Qaida and affiliated organizations continue to plan terrorist attacks. European governments have taken action to guard against a terrorist attack," according to the State Department statement.

New bin Laden speech says climate change is worse than wars
al Qaeda leader blamed major industrial nations for climate change
By AFP / NEWSCORE, New York Post
Osama bin Laden expressed concern about global climate change and flooding in Pakistan in an audio recording that hit the internet Friday. "The number of victims caused by climate change is very big ... bigger than the victims of wars," said the voice, whose authenticity could not be immediately verified and was made available by SITE Intelligence Group. The tape would be the first time bin Laden has spoken publicly since March 25. It was not clear when the tape was made, but bin Laden congratulated Muslims on the holy fasting month of Ramadan, which ended September 10. "The catastrophe [in Pakistan] is very big and it is difficult to describe it," said the leader of al Qaeda. "What we are facing ... calls for generous souls and brave men to take serious and prompt action to provide relief for their Muslim brothers in Pakistan." Bin Laden made

a series of recommendations to deal with climate change, namely preventive measures that he said should be taken by governments in the face of disasters. He suggested "setting up studies of urban areas that lie by rivers and valleys in the Muslim world," pointing to floods that hit the Saudi city of Jeddah earlier this year. He also called for a review of security guidelines concerning dams and bridges in Muslim nations and said more should be done to invest in agriculture to guarantee food security for all. He added, "Investment in agriculture needs a lot of efforts and yields small gains. The issue today is not about gains or losses, but about life or death." In one of two tapes issued in January, bin Laden blamed major industrial nations for climate change -- a statement the U.S. State Department said showed that he was struggling to stay relevant. In his most recent remarks, he warned that al Qaeda would kill Americans if the alleged mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, were executed.

Militant plot to attack British, French, German cities thwarted, report says
By Reuters, Los Angeles Times
Intelligence agencies have disrupted plans for multiple attacks on European cities by a group thought to be linked to Al Qaeda, Britain's Sky News said on Tuesday. Militants based in Pakistan were planning simultaneous strikes in London, as well as cities in France and Germany, the channel's foreign affairs editor, Tim Marshall, said. Asked about the Sky News report, U.S. security officials said they could not confirm that a plot had been disrupted. But they said they believed that the threat of a plot or plots was continuing. U.S. counter-terrorism agencies are poring over intelligence reports suggesting a major attack plot is in the works against unspecified targets in Western Europe or possibly the United States, they said. Four U.S. security officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, said that initial intelligence reports about the threat first surfaced roughly two weeks ago, around the time of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Israel Kills Three Islamic Jihad Terrorists in Gaza
Terrorists were preparing to fire rockets from the central Gaza Strip into Israel
By FARES AKRAM, New York Times
Three Palestinian terrorists were killed late Monday in an Israeli bombing in Gaza, witnesses, medical and security personnel said, a continuation of sporadic violence in the territory that is controlled by the Islamist group Hamas. Witnesses said that an explosion was heard outside the Al-Burij refugee camp in central Gaza an hour before midnight. The Israeli Defense Forces said in a statement posted on its Web site that an aircraft had “targeted and identified hitting a number of militants preparing to fire rockets from the central Gaza Strip into Israel.” Ambulance workers said the bodies of three men were removed from the site. Security personnel said the three were members of Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, but a spokesman for the brigades, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the fighters “were not in an official mission.” Adham Abu Selmia, of the Hamas government’s medical services, said the dead were between the ages of 18 and 24. An hour and half before the Israeli shelling, a blast ripped through near Al-Nussirat, also in central Gaza, witnesses said. The Israeli Defense Forces did not comment on that explosion, but some security personnel said it was caused by a stray rocket fired by Palestinian militants.

Danish newspaper 'shocked' by revelations of new terror attack plan
By AFP / NEWSCORE, New York Post
A Danish newspaper was shocked Tuesday at revelations of a new plan to attack its offices after it published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad five years ago, its chief editor said. Norwegian police announced earlier Tuesday that an Iraqi Kurd in custody in Norway admitted to plotting an attack on Denmark's largest daily, Jyllands-Posten. "This is not a case we have heard of before," editor in chief Joern Mikkelsen said on the newspaper's website. "As with previous revelations of terror plots against Jyllands-Posten, this is very shocking for the paper's employees and their families. Nonetheless, we feel we are in very good hands with the police and the security police." The head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said it was collaborating with the Norwegian investigation, adding that Denmark was a prime target for terrorist attacks. "This is the second time in a very short period that the public has learned that [newspaper] Jyllands-Posten has probably been the target of organized terrorist acts," PET head Jakob Scharf said in a statement. "This naturally illustrates that, among Islamic militants, it is a priority objective to lead terrorist attacks against Denmark and symbols related to the caricature case."

Video Shows Taliban Allegedly Stoning Pakistan Woman
By REUTERS, New York Times
Turbaned men in Pakistan gather around a woman with a black hood over her head, pick up large rocks and repeatedly throw them at her until she lies motionless, stretched along the ground, a video purports. A Dubai-based television station which released the footage said the stoning was carried out in northwest Pakistan, apparently by Taliban militants, incensed because she was seen out with a man. The footage is a stark reminder that despite a series of military offensives the army said had weakened insurgents, militants still control areas of the northwest and impose their harsh version of Islam at will. Dubai's Al Aan television, which focuses on women's issues in the Arab world, said it got the tape from its sources and that it took place in Orakzai agency in northwest Pakistan. It said it had other footage of a man who was executed by shooting, possibly the one the woman was seen with.

Ahmadinejad's monster's ball
Wacky week in NY for wolf in cheap clothing
By BRAD HAMILTON, New York Post
It was a strange week for the loony strongman from Iran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's six nights in New York featured a secret sit-down with militant minister Louis Farrakhan, heckling in a hotel bar, and a fear of being rubbed out that bordered on paranoia. The president shared a hush-hush meal with Farrakhan and members of the New Black Panther Party Tuesday at the Warwick Hotel on West 54th Street. The meeting of the podium smackers took place in a banquet room, where the fiery leaders presumably exchanged theories on what's wrong with the world. On Thursday night, Sudanese diplomats trying to get in to see Ahmadinejad at the Hilton Manhattan East, on 42nd Street, squared off with security and a pushing match ensued. Two well-dressed women in their 40s came in, sat at the hotel bar and ordered drinks. One of them caught the attention of the president's security detail, which had set up a station in the hotel lobby. She was soon surrounded by eight angry Iranians, who ordered her to leave. She refused. A manager tried to calm things down. Suddenly, the woman stood up and pointed at the Iranians, yelling, "You stoned my sister! You're murderers!" Paranoia was on parade at the Hilton the moment the president checked in on Saturday, Sept. 18. His team took six floors to themselves in the hotel's south tower, overlooking Tudor City, about 90 rooms in all. More than 20 were just for security. Still, Ahmadinejad, who wore the same tacky suit and shirt all week, took every precaution. He never set foot in the lobby. Bulletproof glass was installed over room windows. When he left for meetings at the Iranian Mission, on Third Avenue, or the United Nations, he departed by an employee entrance, the path covered in a white tent -- a veritable tunnel to his vehicle. His head was covered with a white cloth. No one saw him on the street. The entourage dined in but not on room service. Meals -- mostly lamb, shish kebabs, spiced ground meat and basmati rice -- were prepared by a Persian restaurant and carried in by Secret Service agents. A source said the spicy grub made "the whole hotel stink like hell."

Ahmadinejad: United Nations needs to investigate my 9/11 conspiracy theory
By SAMUEL GOLDSMITH, New York Daily News
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the UN to find the "true reason" behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks Friday during a press conference near Ground Zero. "Don't you feel that the time has come to have a fact finding committee?" the outspoken leader asked, echoing a speech he gave Thursday to the UN General Assembly, when he accused the US government of having a hand in the attacks. "An event occurred, and under the pretext of that event two countries were invaded and up to now hundreds of thousands of people have been killed as a result. Don't you feel that that excuse has to be revised?" he asked Friday. "Why do you assume that all nations must accept what the US government tells them?"

Merkel Takes Tough Line on Integration to Party Cheers
By REUTERS, New York Times
Chancellor Angela Merkel told conservative party members on Saturday that immigrants needed to do more to integrate into German society, including learning the language and obeying "every single" law. Her comments follow weeks of heated debate over a best-selling book by ex-central banker Thilo Sarrazin, in which he accuses Turkish and Arab immigrants of lowering Germany's intelligence quotient and living off the state. "Anyone who wants to live here in our country has to obey our laws, want to learn our language and accept the rules of our society and every single article of our constitution," Merkel told a cheering CDU party meeting in the western town of Mainz. "That means everything from equal rights for women and everything else -- that's our motto and there's no tolerance for anything else," said Merkel, whose center-right coalition has fallen about 15 points behind the opposition in opinion polls. There are about four million Muslims living in Germany. The vast majority are of Turkish origin and an estimated 280,000 have an Arab background. Some are well integrated into German society, but others live in communities where Muslim traditions prevail and very little German is spoken. In the midst of the Sarrazin debate, opinion polls showed that a substantial number of Germans would support a new party that took a tougher line on immigration -- a warning to Merkel that she must broaden her appeal to conservatives disillusioned by her shift to the left. Anti-immigrant parties are on the rise across Europe, throwing mainstream center-right parties that have shied away from tough rhetoric on immigration onto the defensive. "There will be demands made on those who don't want to be helped," Merkel said, calling integration a "vital task for the future." "If there is any corner of a city where police have the feeling they aren't welcome anymore, there must be a public outcry," Merkel said. "The state monopoly of power must be valid everywhere. Otherwise, it would be the end of our democracy."

Suicide Bombers Attack NATO Base In Afghan East
By REUTERS, New York Times
At least five insurgents were killed when suicide bombers attacked a NATO-run base in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, NATO and Afghan officials said, the latest assault in the volatile Taliban stronghold. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the attack was launched on a forward operating base (FOB) in Gardez city in Paktia province, not far from Afghanistan's porous border with Pakistan. Rising violence and casualties are of deep concern in Washington, where President Barack Obama is due to conduct a strategy review of the increasingly unpopular war in December. Afghanistan is under renewed scrutiny after last weekend's parliamentary election was hit by violence and widespread claims of fraud, the second flawed poll in 13 months. The Taliban and other insurgents such as the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network have launched a series of brazen assaults on foreign bases and government buildings in the past year in a bid to topple the government and force out foreign troops.

Rebels Carry Out Rapes In Congo With Impunity: U.N.
By REUTERS, New York Times
Rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) responsible for hundreds of violent rapes are not being brought to justice in the vast, lawless country, United Nations officials said Friday. A report by the U.N. human rights office in Congo pointed to serious shortcomings by the Congolese army and police and said their failure to prevent or stop the attacks was compounded by further failings in the U.N. peacekeepers in Congo, known as MONUSCO. MONUSCO forces had not received any specific training in protecting civilians in the region, it said. The U.N. investigation into a series of brutal rapes in North Kivu province of the central African country was itself curtailed by continuing violence in the region and reports, still unconfirmed, of further rapes. The report into the atrocities in 13 villages in North Kivu said at least 303 civilians -- 235 women, 52 girls, 13 men and 3 boys -- were raped, in many cases multiple times, between July 30 and August 2. No deaths were confirmed.

Islamic States Push U.N. To Condemn Koran Burning
By REUTERS, New York Times
Islamic states sought on Wednesday to have the United Nations human rights council condemn a U.S. pastor's suspended plan to burn Korans, saying it was part of a pattern of global anti-Muslim violence. A resolution submitted by Pakistan for the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) asks the council to speak out against what it dubbed "the recent call by an extremist group to organize a 'Burn a Koran Day'." The resolution, which diplomats said was likely to be passed as the OIC and its allies have a majority on the 47-nation body, made no reference to condemnation of the plan by President Barack Obama and other U.S. and foreign leaders. But it said the project, championed by little-known Florida preacher Terry Jones, was among "instances of intolerance, discrimination, profiling and acts of violence against Muslims occurring in many parts of the world." The move came amid increasing efforts by the OIC -- which has Russia, China and Asian and African states as allies in the council -- to have the U.N. recognize "Islamophobia" as racism and open to challenge under international law.

Terrorists Continue to Thrive
Two Car Bombs Kill Dozens in Baghdad
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and YASIR GHAZI, New York Times
At least 29 people were killed and more than 100 others injured when a pair of bombs exploded almost simultaneously Sunday in Baghdad. One of the bombs was apparently aimed at a sales office of Asiacell, a large Iraqi mobile phone company that has been a frequent target of insurgent extortion attempts. The target of the second bombing, the more lethal of the two, was a branch office of the Ministry of National Security in Khadimiya, a predominantly Shiite area in northern Baghdad. Nineteen people were killed and 53 others were wounded in that bombing. The blasts are the latest in a series of attacks that have occurred across Iraq during the past several weeks coinciding with the country’s ongoing political crisis. Iraq held parliamentary elections more than six months ago, but the country’s political leaders have failed thus far to agree on a coalition government. Insurgents have sought to take advantage of the power vacuum during what has been a violent summer in the country.

Muslims plot to kill pope
6 Muslims busted in 'assassination plan'
By ANDY SOLTIS, New York Post
British anti-terror police arrested six Muslim men yesterday in a suspected plot to assassinate Pope Benedict during his historic London visit. Five of the men, described as Algerians ages 26 to 50, were seized at gunpoint in a predawn raid at a garbage depot, authorities said. The men, all street cleaners, were about to start a shift collecting trash near Westminster Hall, where the pope addressed 2,000 people 12 hours later, Sky News reported. Authorities said they were tipped off to suspicious activity late last night, shortly after Benedict arrived in Britain for a four-day visit, the first UK visit by a pope in 28 years. Some of the suspects had been overheard talking of a possible threat to the pope, the Guardian newspaper reported. A sixth man, a 29-year-old street cleaner, was arrested by late afternoon as police raided 10 homes and businesses in north, east and central London. Vatican officials said that Benedict was "totally calm" after hearing of the arrests and that no changes in his itinerary were planned. "We have complete trust in the police," the Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, told reporters.

Taliban Say They Kidnapped 30 Involved in Election
By ROD NORDLAND and SHARIFULLAH SAHAK, New York Times
The Taliban on Friday claimed to have kidnapped 30 campaign workers, election officials and even a candidate for Parliament as Afghans prepared to vote in elections Saturday. Government officials confirmed most of the kidnappings. On Thursday evening in northern Badghis Province, 8 workers with the Independent Election Commission and 10 campaigners for a candidate went to meet with village elders in Qolghai, in Muqur District, about opening a polling station, but armed Taliban insurgents in the village took them prisoner, according to Sharafuddin Majidi, a spokesman for the provincial governor. In eastern Afghanistan, a candidate, Mollawi Hayatullah Purqani, was driving in the Alishing District of Laghman Province on Friday morning when he was stopped by the Taliban and taken away, according to Abdul Rahman Muhabat, head of the election commission in the province, who said that others with Mr. Muhabat may have been kidnapped as well. Hours after the reports of the kidnappings, the deputy minister of the interior in charge of police, Gen. Munir Mohammed Mangar, said at a news conference here that preparations for protecting the elections were proceeding peacefully. “I promise our people they will be secure,” he said. “There won’t be any problems.” Asked about the kidnappings in Badghis, General Mangar ignored the question. He did, however, say that two campaign workers had been kidnapped in Herat on Wednesday. He ended the news conference after 10 minutes. Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said the Taliban were responsible for the kidnapping of Mr. Purqani in Laghman, and added that 10 of Mr. Purqani’s campaign workers were also captured.

Charges of Getting Cash to Failed Times Sq. Bomber
By BENJAMIN WEISER, New York Times
A Long Island man has been charged with providing thousands of dollars in cash that was used to support the failed plot to bomb Times Square in May, according to an indictment unsealed on Wednesday. The man, Mohammad Younis, provided the money to Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani immigrant who developed the plot while he was taking explosives training with the Pakistani Taliban last December, the authorities said. Mr. Shahzad drove a crude car bomb into Times Square on May 1 and unsuccessfully tried to detonate it. In June, he pleaded guilty to 10 counts, including the attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He faces a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment when he is sentenced on Oct. 5. The indictment says he arranged to have the money delivered to Mr. Shahzad through an informal money-transfer system known as hawala, which operates outside normal banking channels and relies on brokers, known as hawaladars, around the world.

"They will kill me openly in broad daylight"
Gay Saudi diplomat seeking asylum says 'they will kill me openly'
Consular official says he would be in 'great danger' if forced to return to Saudi Arabia, where homosexuality is outlawed...his friendship with a Jewish woman may also make him a target
By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times
In a public plea for help, a Los Angeles-based Saudi diplomat said he is seeking asylum because he believes his life will be in danger if he is forced to return to his country. The diplomat, who gave his name as Ali Ahmad Asseri, sent an e-mail to news organizations saying that Saudi officials had refused to renew his passport, revoked his health benefits and effectively terminated his position as first secretary at the consulate in Los Angeles after learning that he is gay and friends with a Jewish woman. "My life is in a great danger here, and if I go back to Saudi Arabia they will kill me openly in broad daylight," Asseri wrote in the message, a copy of which was provided to The Times on Tuesday. Asseri, who has been in the U.S. for five years, has fled his West Hollywood apartment and is in hiding, according to supporters. Asseri's lawyer, Ally Bolour, told NBC News — which first reported the story Saturday — that his client applied for asylum on the grounds that he is a member of a "particular social group" that would subject him to persecution if he returns home. Bolour said his client was questioned Aug. 30 by a Department of Homeland Security official in Los Angeles. He declined further comment until the case has been decided. In the Middle East, where some Internet commentators have accused him of betraying his country, Asseri's account has been received with some skepticism. But human rights activists say he has reason to be afraid. Homosexuality is illegal in Saudi Arabia. An Amnesty International report cited a 2002 case in which three Saudi men were executed after being convicted of homosexual acts. The most recent U.S. State Department report on human rights in the country cites a 2007 newspaper report that said two men had been flogged 7,000 times after being found guilty of sodomy.

Mosque man blinks
Imam says delaying project on the table
By TOM TOPOUSIS, New York Post
With tension mounting over plans to build a mosque and Islamic community center near Ground Zero, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the project's prime mover, said yesterday he's considering delaying the venture over the controversy. "Our advisers have been looking at every option, including that," Rauf said during an appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations on the Upper East Side, where he delivered a speech and took questions from the think tank's audience. Rauf's statement was in response to a question from audience member Kathwari M. Farooq, chairman of the Ethan Allen furniture company, who asked if it wasn't a good idea to put the project on hold to allow for more discussion. "We are exploring all options as we speak right now, and we are working through what will be a solution, God willing, that will resolve this crisis, defuse it and not create any unforeseen or untoward circumstances that we do not want to see happen," he said. Pressed by Richard Haass, president of the council, for details about possible compromises, including relocating the mosque, Rauf said, "Everything is on the table," declining to be more specific.

Imam Says Resolution to NYC Mosque Debate in Works
''It is absolutely disingenuous as some have suggested that the block is hallowed ground''
By the Associated Press, New York Times
The imam leading the effort to build an Islamic center and mosque near the World Trade Center site said Monday that a resolution to the raging debate over its location is being examined. ''We are exploring all options as we speak right now, and we are working to what will be a solution, God willing, that will resolve this crisis, diffuse it and not create any unforeseen or untoward circumstances that we do not want to see happen,'' Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said during a question-and-answer session following a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations. He did not elaborate on whether the options included moving the center from a site two blocks from ground zero. But in response to a later question, Rauf said the proposed location, while controversial, was important. ''We need a platform where the voice of moderate Muslims can be amplified. ... This is an opportunity that we must capitalize on so the voice of moderate Muslims will have a megaphone,'' he said. The imam said he wanted to clarify a ''misperception'' that the Islamic center's proposed site was sacred ground. ''It is absolutely disingenuous as some have suggested that the block is hallowed ground,'' he said, noting its proximity to strip joints and betting parlors.

American jailed in Iran can leave, for a price
Sarah Shourd's lawyer says the Swiss Embassy in Tehran will arrange for her $500,000 bail
By Borzou Daragahi, Chicago Tribune
In the latest twist to the seesawing fortunes of three Americans held in an Iranian prison, a prosecutor now says one of them can leave jail -- provided she puts up half a million dollars bail. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jaffar Dowlatabadi told reporters Sunday that bail had been set at the equivalent of $500,000 for Sarah E. Shourd, according to the semi-official Iranian Labor News Agency. The 32-year-old woman was arrested last year along with Americans Joshua Fattal and Shane Bauer along the Iran-Iraq border during what relatives of the detainees call an ill-fated hiking trip. None have been formally charged, though Iranian officials have accused them of espionage. But Dowlatabadi said an "indictment of charges against the three accused has been issued and their cases are ready to be submitted to the court." He also said the "order of arrest for the other two American nationals has been extended."

Analysis: What our grandparents knew
By Arnold Ahlert, New York Post
Dec. 7 and Sept. 11 are iconic American anniver saries. Both days represent our greatest failures to understand the true nature of evil. And while each day will be treated with a similar veneration reserved for national tragedies, there is one aspect that truly divides them: resolution. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941. Four years later, they surrendered unconditionally. If one posits that the war against radical Islam began in 2001 (at least for us), we are in the midst of a nine-year-old conflict that shows no signs of resolution. How is this possible? In terms of manpower and machinery, Japan was a far more formidable foe than the various umbrella groups that make up Islamic jihadism. Why are we having more trouble defeating them? Because we've "sanitized" warfare. The same nation that detonated two atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki no longer believes in victory, if such victory requires too much "collateral damage," a k a civilian casualties. Sounds enlightened, does it not? Who could possibly prefer relentless onslaught and destruction over "winning hearts and minds" and "nation-building?" Yet consider how out of phase such thinking is. How do you win hearts and minds or nation-build before the enemy is defeated? How do you convince Afghans during the day to risk their lives siding with us, when the Taliban kills them at night -- because they still can?

Violence Erupts as Thousands of Muslims March In Indian Kashmir
Muslims set fire to government and police buildings ..."There is no God but Allah"
By REUTERS, New York Times
Tens of thousands of Muslims marched through Indian Kashmir's main city on Saturday, setting fire to government and police buildings in the latest of what are the biggest protests in two years against Indian rule. Police fired tear gas and live ammunition into the air to disperse crowds in Srinagar, the heart of a 20-year insurgency against New Delhi's rule of a region crucial to peaceful relations between India and Pakistan. Three-month-long protests have killed 70 people so far. After special Eid prayers to mark the end of the Ramadan fasting month, tens of thousands people poured into the streets from mosques in Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital, waving green Islamic flags and chanting "There is no God but Allah" and "Go India, go back." The main demonstration was led by the region's senior separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq. The violence comes as New Delhi is trying to respond to demonstrations reminiscent of the late 1980s when protests against India's rule sparked an armed separatist conflict that has so far officially killed more than 47,000 people. A radicalized young generation is driving the violent protests, and analysts say mass protests rather than militant attacks to promote the cause of independence may prove a huge political challenge for the Indian government.

Islam center's eerie echo of ancient terror
By Amir Taheri, New York Post
Should there be a mosque near Ground Zero? In fact, what is pro posed is not a mosque -- nor even an "Islamic cultural center." In Islam, every structure linked to the faith and its rituals has a precise function and character. A mosque is a one-story gallery built around an atrium with a mihrab (a niche pointing to Mecca) and one, or in the case of Shiites two, minarets. Other Islamic structures, such as harams, zawiyyahs, husseinyiahs and takiyahs, also obey strict architectural rules. Yet the building used for spreading the faith is known as Dar al-Tabligh, or House of Proselytizing. The groups fighting for the project know this; this is why they sometimes call it an Islamic cultural center. But there is no such thing as an Islamic culture. Islam is a religion, not a culture. Islam is an ingredient in dozens of cultures, not a culture on its own. In fact, the proposed structure is known in Islamic history as a rabat -- literally a connector. The first rabat appeared at the time of the Prophet. The Prophet imposed his rule on parts of Arabia through a series of ghazvas, or razzias (the origin of the English word "raid"). The ghazva was designed to terrorize the infidels, convince them that their civilization was doomed and force them to submit to Islamic rule. Those who participated in the ghazva were known as the ghazis, or raiders. After each ghazva, the Prophet ordered the creation of a rabat -- or a point of contact at the heart of the infidel territory raided. The rabat consisted of an area for prayer, a section for the raiders to eat and rest and facilities to train and prepare for future razzias. Later Muslim rulers used the tactic of ghazva to conquer territory in the Persian and Byzantine empires. After each raid, they built a rabat to prepare for the next razzia. It is no coincidence that Islamists routinely use the term ghazva to describe the 9/11 attacks against New York and Washington. The terrorists who carried out the attack are referred to as ghazis or shahids (martyrs). Thus, building a rabat close to Ground Zero would be in accordance with a tradition started by the Prophet. To all those who believe and hope that the 9/11 ghazva would lead to the destruction of the American "Great Satan," this would be of great symbolic value.

Car Bomb, Gunmen Attack Mogadishu Airport: 7 Dead
By the Associated Press, New York Times
A suicide car bomber and gunmen attacked the front gate to Mogadishu's seaside airport on Thursday, triggering an explosion and gunbattle, officials said. At least seven people were killed, including six security forces. The coordinated attack was the latest in a surge of assaults by Islamist insurgents, who last month declared a new, stepped-up effort to oust the country's weak government. The barrage took place about 40 minutes after Somalia's president flew out of the country. After the car bomb exploded, a second vehicle full of militants opened fire at African Union and Somali security forces, said Osman Dahir, a police officer at the airport. He said there were several dead bodies of insurgents lying in front of the airport, but he didn't know how many. Two soldiers with the African Union force and four Somali police officers were killed, said Maj. Barigye Bahoku, the spokesman for the AU force. One Somali civilian was also killed, he said.

Growing Islamic Insurgency
Car Bomb Kills 15 At Market In Russia's Caucasus
By Reuters, New York Times
A suicide bomber set off a powerful blast near a busy market in Russia's restive North Caucasus on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and wounding dozens, authorities said. The attacker detonated a bomb packed with metal bars, bolts and ball bearings in a car outside the entrance to the market in Vladikavkaz, capital of North Ossetia province, the Russian prosecutor general's Investigative Committee said. A Reuters witness saw at least five bloodied bodies lying among scattered vegetables and shattered glass near the market entrance, around 10 metres from a burning car. "Where is the ambulance?" a woman said, sobbing. Car alarms wailed as firefighters doused the flames from a car blackened and mangled from the explosion. People used pieces of wood as makeshift stretchers for the wounded. The bombing in mostly Orthodox Christian North Ossetia is a fresh blow to the Kremlin, which is struggling to rein in a growing Islamic insurgency in the neighbouring, mainly Muslim North Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Abbas against 'even one concession' in Washington-brokered peace talks
He refuses to discuss the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state
By Bridget Johnson, The Hill
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hosting a U.S. congressional delegation in Jerusalem on Monday, implored Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas not to abandon Washington-brokered peace talks following threats Abbas made to leave the process. Abbas told Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds while visiting Libya "I'll grab my briefcase and leave" if he's pressured to make concessions, namely on 1967 borders, refugees and other issues. "I will not be pressured into signing anything or taking even one concession with relation to all the aggressive attitudes around me," Abbas was quoted by the newspaper Monday. "The issues are clear. It is true that we are entering negotiations but we will not digress from our position on certain issues," Abbas said. "The borders issue, which will be discussed in the coming days, will determine many other issues related to the negotiations with Israel," he added. Abbas also said he refuses to discuss the recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. "Israel can call itself what it likes," Abbas told the East Jerusalem-based newspaper.

Iran to West: Butt out of death by stoning case of widow Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani
By MICHAEL SHERIDAN, New York Daily News
Tehran has smacked down pleas by France, the European Union and even the Vatican to reconsider the punishment of a mother of two sentenced to death by stoning for adultery. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, convicted in the Islamic Republic of having an "illicit relationship" in 2006 and given 99 lashes, was later convicted of "adultery while being married" and sentenced to death by stoning. That sentence was postponed in July in response to the international outrage and is being reviewed. The 43-year-old widow alleged confession was televised on state TV, but her attorney claims the admission was the result of torture. "We condemn such acts, which have no justification under any moral or religious code," he told the European Parliament in Strasbourg. "I'm ready to do anything to save her," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told reporters on Monday. "If I must go to Tehran to save her, I'll go to Tehran." On Sunday, a Vatican spokesman said "the Holy See is following this affair with attention and commitment," and would intervene through its diplomatic channels if asked." Ashtiani may have recently received yet another 99 lashes over a photo error in a British newspaper, but Iranian officials have denied the claim.

Suicide Bomber Hits Pakistani Police Station
By ISMAIL KHAN and SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a police station in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing 19 people and injuring at least 46, according to officials and local news outlets. Among the dead were nine police officers, eight civilians and two children, according to local and provincial authorities. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately turned to Taliban militants, who are believed to have been behind a wave of suicide attacks across the country in the past week. Militants have repeatedly attacked law enforcement officials and government buildings to batter public and government morale. The attacks came as Pakistan’s government grappled with record flooding that has displaced millions of people. Monday’s attack occurred in Lakki Marwat, a town in the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province. The bomber rammed the vehicle into the rear wall of the police station, according to the authorities. Several people were trapped in the debris as the police building collapsed after the blast.

Junior jihadists don't kid around
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, New York Post
When these girl scouts come to your door, you don't want to find out what they are packing inside their cookie boxes. The group of Hezbollah al-Mahdi scouts showed what it takes to earn a merit badge in jihad, as they take part in Al-Quds Day celebrations, which included rappelling down the face of an 11-story building near Beirut, Lebanon. One of the girls was a 3-year-old named Zahra, who was spotted sporting a bandana. No, it didn't say "Death to America." It read "Jerusalem -- God Promised Freedom." The anti-Israel al-Quds Day holiday was established in 1979 in Iran to protest Israel and express solidarity with the Palestinians. The celebration in Beirut comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meet in Washington for peace talks led by President Obama.

New Iran cruelty
By NEWSCORE, New York Post
An Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery was also sentenced to 99 lashes for a photo published of her without a headscarf, according to her son. In an interview published on the Web site of the French magazine La Regle du Jeu and the blog Dentelles et Tchador, Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani's son, Sajjad, said they learned of the new punishment from released inmates.

Iran's president says Israel 'can be removed from the world'
By AFP / NEWSCORE, New York Post
Hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that the people of the Middle East are "capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene" in an annual Palestinian solidarity day address in Tehran. "If the leaders of the region do not have the guts, then the people of the region are capable of removing the Zionist regime from the world scene," he said as the crowd chanted "Death to America! Death to Israel!" Ahmadinejad said that direct peace talks, which Western-backed Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas relaunched with Israel in Washington on Thursday after a 20-month hiatus, were "doomed" to fail. "What do they want to negotiate about? Who are they representing? What are they going to talk about?" the Iranian president asked of the Palestinian leadership. "Who gave them the right to sell piece of Palestinian land? The people of Palestine and the people of the region will not allow them to sell even an inch of Palestinian soil to the enemy.The negotiations are stillborn and doomed," he added. Iran is implacably opposed to the new peace talks and has given strong support to the Islamist Hamas movement which controls Gaza and which carried out two shooting attacks against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in the run-up to their relaunch that killed four and wounded two.

'Hamas' mosque funder
By JENNIFER GOULD KEIL, New York Post
An Egyptian-born businessman who lives on Long Island — and who once gave thousands of dollars to a Hamas front group — is a major investor in the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, it was reported last night, in the first disclosure of the money behind the controversial project. Hisham Elzanaty was a “significant investor” in developer Sharif el-Gamal’s $4.8 million purchase of the former Burlington Coat Factory building, where the mosque and Islamic cultural center will be built, the donor’s lawyer, Wolodymyr Starosolsky, told Fox 5 News. El-Gamal himself has refused to disclose where he got the money to buy the building in July 2009. Elzanaty owns a $2million home in Roslyn Heights, and operates medical companies out of a building in The Bronx. He also owns the New York Neuro and Rehab Center in Morningside Heights. State records show he was ordered to repay $331,000 after an audit revealed Medicaid had overpaid him in 2004-2005. Elzanaty didn’t return calls last night. Starosolsky would not discuss the Fox 5 report with The Post. Shortly after the Burlington building was acquired, Elzanaty also co-signed a $39million mortgage so that el-Gamal’s company, Soho Properties, could buy a $45.7million building in Chelsea from developer Stei k ff money man,” a source told The Post. In 1999, he donated $6,000 to the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was later shut down because of its ties to terrorism. The foundation was the largest Islamic charity in the US until the feds froze its assets and designated it a terrorist organization following an FBI probe after 9/11. In 2008, five of its leaders were convicted of providing material support to Hamas. Elzanaty’s contribution to the Holy Land Foundation was uncovered by the DCbased Investigative Project on Terror.

Explosion at Shiite Protest Kills at Least 40 in Pakistan
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
A blast ripped through a Shiite protest, the second such attack in three days, in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 40 people and wounding 80, police and rescue officials said. The aftermath of an explosion during a Shiite procession in Quetta, Pakistan on Friday. It was not immediately clear whether the bomb was detonated by a suicide bomber or a remote-controlled device, and there were no claims of responsibility. Militants are intensifying their violent attacks to pressure a government that has been struggling to cope with devastating monsoon-driven floods, described as the worst in the country’s history. The attack was aimed at a procession of Shiite Muslims who were part of nationwide marches to mark “Al Quds Day,” an annual protest to express solidarity with Palestinians and to condemn Israel. It came just two days after three suicide bombers struck a Shiite procession in the eastern city of Lahore, killing 31 people and setting off violent demonstrations by infuriated survivors.

Cops let terrorists walk free
Prospective terrorism case against detained Yemenis is closed
By Katherine Skiba, Los Angeles Times
Two Yemenis who flew from Chicago to Amsterdam, where they were arrested on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack, were released Wednesday, Dutch officials said. "They are free men.... This case is closed," said Martijn Boelhouwer, a spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service in Rotterdam. The pair, en route to Yemen, missed a flight from Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to Washington Dulles International Airport, but their luggage flew to Dulles. It was removed before the plane left for Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when officials realized they weren't aboard. Initial tests of the luggage at Dulles showed "the possibility of a trace of explosives," Boelhouwer said, but further testing proved there were "no traces of explosives whatsoever." U.S. officials had notified the Dutch about the initial tests, and the men were arrested when they landed in Amsterdam.

Hamas armed wing claims latest West Bank attack
By the Associated Press, New York Post
The military wing of Hamas early Thursday claimed responsibility for a shooting attack that wounded two Israelis in the West Bank -- the second in 24 hours in the territory. In a terse statement issued in Gaza, the Ezzedine al Qassam Brigades claimed "responsibility for the heroic operation" that took place east of Ramallah, the political capital of the occupied West Bank. "The Ramallah operation is a message to those who promised the Zionists that the Hebron operation would not be repeated," the statement said referring to an attack Tuesday by the same group that claimed the lives of four Jewish settlers in the southern Hebron region of the West Bank. Late Wednesday, two Israelis were wounded in a shooting as they drove in a car near the Jewish settlement of Rimonim, an Israeli army spokesman said.

Iran calls for Carla 'to die'
No comment from Senator Hatch...
By Reuters, New York Post
An Iranian newspaper yesterday stepped up its ugly attack on France's first lady, saying Carla Bruni deserved to die for expressing solidarity with a woman sentenced to be stoned to death for adultery. The hard-line, regime-backed daily Kayhan, which already had called the wife of President Nicolas Sarkozy a "prostitute," said her lifestyle meant she deserved a fate similar to that of the doomed Iranian woman Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani. "Studying Carla Bruni's record clearly shows the reason why this immoral woman is backing an Iranian woman who has been condemned to death for committing adultery and being [an] accomplice in her husband's murder and, in fact, she herself deserves to die," Kayhan wrote. French Foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero called the comments "unacceptable," and said Paris had told that to the mullahs' regime.

Hamas thugs slay 4 to show what they think of peace talks
By ANDY SOLTIS, New York Post
Hamas gunmen murdered a pregnant woman and three other Jewish settlers in a brazen and bloody West Bank attack last night on the eve of the kickoff of President Obama's Mideast peace push. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- who learned of the attack while flying to Washington -- rejected calls to cancel the summit. But his government vowed to "exact a price from the murderers and those who sent them." The well-planned ambush -- which orphaned seven children -- was the worst terror incident in the West Bank in four years and comes on the eve of Obama hosting a dinner with Netanyahu and Arab leaders tonight and the launch of long-delayed talks tomorrow. Israeli authorities said the victims were Yitzhak and Tali Imes -- who had six children, including a year-and-a-half-old infant -- and two other settlers, Kochava Even-Haim and Avishai Schindler. All were 25 to 40 years old and from the Beit Hagai settlement. A member of the Israeli emergency group ZAKA, which helps remove the remains of victims of terror attacks for proper burial, rushed to the scene -- and made a shocking discovery. "That's my wife! That's my wife!" screamed the volunteer, Momy Ben-Haim, after spotting the bloodied body of his spouse, Even-Haim. Weeping, he was hastily taken away.

Iranian state media calls Carla Bruni a "prostitute" in editorial slamming the French first lady
By MEENA HARTENSTEIN, New York Daily News
France's first lady Carla Bruni is known as a model, actress, and singer, but Iranian media just slapped her with one more label: "prostitute." Iranian newspaper Kayhan, a state-run publication, slammed Bruni in an editorial titled "French prostitutes join the human rights protest," the BBC reports. The editorial attacked Bruni, wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for her public support of the movement to save Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, an Iranian woman sentenced to death for adultery. Ashtiani, 43, was sentenced to death by stoning for conducting so-called "illicit relationships" after the death of husband. Her case captured the world's attention this summer when her lawyer publicized it on his blog, drawing support from numerous politicians and celebrities. France has called on the E.U. to pressure Iran with new sanctions over the case, and Bruni wrote an open letter to the mother of two to express her support.

Two Detroit-area men detained on terror charges in Amsterdam after arriving on flight from US
Neither man was on the no-fly list or in the Terrorist Screening Database
By the New York Post
Two men who arrived on a flight from Chicago were detained Monday at the request of U.S. authorities in the Netherlands and charged with “preparation of a terrorist attack,” by U.S. law enforcement officials. The men were apparently traveling with “mock bombs” in their luggage. “This was almost certainly a dry run, a test,” a senior law enforcement official told ABC News. The men, identified as Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al Soofi and Hezam al Murisi, were reportedly cleared to fly by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) on Sunday night even though officials had security concerns about one of them. Neither man was on the no-fly list or in the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), and neither had any active warrants, Fox News Channel confirmed. Soofi first raised alarm among security officials in Birmingham, Ala., due to his “bulky clothing,” ABC News reported. Officials who searched his luggage found he was carrying $7,000 in cash, a box cutter, three large knives, a cell phone taped to a Pepto-Bismol bottle and three cell phones taped together. However, Soofi and his luggage were cleared for the flight from Birmingham to Chicago after additional screening failed to indicate he was carrying explosives. Officials said that when Soofi arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, he checked his luggage onto a flight bound for Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, D.C., with connections to Dubai and Yemen. He then boarded the United Airlines flight to Amsterdam with al Murisi, ABC News reported. When officials discovered Soofi was not on the Dulles-bound flight with his luggage, they ordered the plane to return to the gate in Chicago. No explosives were found in the baggage.

German Official Defends Comments on Race
By JUDY DEMPSEY, New York Times
Thilo Sarrazin, a leading German banker whose disparaging remarks about Muslims has created a public outcry, brushed aside calls Monday for his dismissal from the central bank and his expulsion from the Social Democratic Party. Speaking during a news conference to mark the publication of his book “Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab” (Germany Does Away With Itself), Mr. Sarrazin repeated his views that Muslims threatened the culture of European societies. He said Germans were in danger of becoming “strangers in their own country,” claiming that the high birth of Turkish immigrants would overtake Germans. Despite the criticism, the Bundesbank has not moved to dismiss Mr. Sarrazin. But under increasing pressure to react, it issued an uncharacteristically critical statement Monday concerning his numerous interviews. “The board of the Bundesbank concludes that Dr. Sarrazin’s utterances do harm to the image of the Bundesbank,” it said in a statement. “Board members of the Bundesbank are under obligation to show restraint in their political activities. Dr. Sarrazin with his utterances disregards this obligation in a continuous manner.” The Bundesbank said it would immediately hold discussions with Mr. Sarrazin and then decide what further steps to take. Late Sunday, Chancellor Angela Merkel told ARD public television that Mr. Sarrazin’s remarks were “completely unacceptable,” and she urged the Bundesbank to take action against him. But Mr. Sarrazin said Monday that it was unlikely Mrs. Merkel had read his 460-page book. “I can’t imagine the chancellor has had the time to read my book,” he said. “It’s very balanced.”

In Iran, shackling the Bahai torchbearers
By Roxana Saberi, Washington Post
For several weeks last year, I shared a cell in Tehran's notorious Evin prison with Mahvash Sabet and Fariba Kamalabadi, two leaders of Iran's minority Bahai faith. I came to see them as my sisters, women whose only crimes were to peacefully practice their religion and resist pressure from their captors to compromise their principles. For this, apparently, they and five male colleagues were sentenced this month to 20 years in prison. I had heard about Mahvash and Fariba before I met them. Other prisoners spoke of the two middle-aged mothers whose high spirits lifted the morale of fellow inmates. The Bahai faith, thought to be the largest non-Muslim minority religion in Iran, originated in 19th-century Persia. It is based on the belief that the world will one day attain peace and unity. Iranian authorities consider it a heretical offshoot of Islam. After I was transferred to their cell, I learned that Mahvash had been incarcerated for one year and Fariba for eight months. Each had spent half her detention in solitary confinement, during which time they were allowed almost no contact with their families and only the Koran to read. Recently the two had been permitted to have a pen. Oh, how they cherished it! But they were allowed to use it only to do Sudoku and crossword puzzles in the conservative newspapers the prison guards occasionally gave them. Mahvash, Fariba and their five colleagues faced accusations that included spying for Israel, insulting religious sanctities and, later, "spreading corruption on earth." All three could have resulted in the death penalty.

Park51 developer Sharif El-Gamal has a history of run-ins with the law
By JAMES FANELLI, New York Daily News
Years before his latest real-estate project ignited an uproar, Sharif El-Gamal racked up at least seven run-ins with the law, including a bust for patronizing a prostitute. His most recent arrest was for a Sept. 10, 2005, assault on a barber who sublet a Manhattan apartment from El-Gamal's brother, Sammy. The brothers and another man went to the apartment that afternoon to retrieve back rent from Mark Vassiliev, criminal and civil court records show. El-Gamal allegedly cursed at Vassiliev, called him the Arabic curse word "sharmouta" and punched him in the face, breaking his nose and cheekbones. The son of a bank executive, El-Gamal has said he turned to Islam after 9/11 and that his religious awakening followed a troubled youth.

BP in Libya stonewall
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Outgoing BP CEO Tony Hayward has refused a request by US senators to testify next month about his company's role in the release of the Libyan agent who bombed Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. In a letter this week, Hayward told Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) that he was focused on ensuring a "smooth and successful leadership change" at the company and would be unable to testify. The committee is looking into whether the British-based oil company had sought Abdel Baset al-Megrahi's release last August to boost a $900 million exploration agreement with Libya. Menendez initially planned the hearing for last month, but Hayward claimed he was busy and offered to send a regional vice president. The senator then postponed the hearing until September. Hayward made it clear in his latest letter that this was more than a scheduling conflict. Citing comments from British officials that BP played no role in Megrahi's release, Hayward said, "BP has nothing to add to these clear, unequivocal statements."

Iran Clamps Down on Reporting on Protest Leaders
By WILLIAM YONG and ROBERT F. WORTH, New York Times
In a further clampdown on Iran’s cowed political opposition, the authorities have issued a ban on any news relating to the leaders of the protest movement that arose after the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last year, opposition Web sites reported. The reporting ban has also applied to Mir Hussein Moussavi, opposition Web sites in Iran have said. A leaked copy of a letter that has appeared on opposition Web sites orders the editors of all domestic newspapers and news agencies to refrain from publishing the names, photographs and statements of two defeated presidential candidates, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, as well as former President Mohammad Khatami, because of the “probable negative influence” this would have on the public mind. Officials from the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance did not respond to requests for comment on the letter’s authenticity. If genuine, the letter would be the first public confirmation of such a ban, though the opposition has been largely absent from the Iranian news media for months. The government has shut down at least 10 newspapers and magazines since the presidential election in June 2009, including major reformist dailies and magazines that have been critical of the government. The publications have been accused of infractions like “printing news contrary to reality,” “disturbing public opinion” and “casting doubt on the elections.”

Iraq hell: Suicide bombers kill 50, wound 200
By Reuters, New York Post
Suicide bombers killed more than 50 people in apparently coordinated attacks on Iraqi security forces in Baghdad and elsewhere on today, less than a week before U.S. troops formally end combat operations. The bombings also wounded more than 200 people, underscoring how fragile Iraq's security is, and how tense its political situation, more than five months after an election that produced no outright winner and as yet no new government. In the southern city of Kut, 95 miles southeast of Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed at least 26 policemen and wounded 87, said Lieutenant Colonel Aziz al-Amarah, commander of the rapid response police force in the province of Wasit. "Parts of the building collapsed and there are still policemen's bodies, including the police chief, under the rubble," Amarah said by telephone. In Baghdad, a suicide truck bomber killed 15 people and wounded at least 56 others in an attack on another police station, Interior Ministry and police sources said. Parts of the police station in Baghdad's northern Qahira district collapsed and surrounding houses were severely damaged, the Interior Ministry source said. Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim al-Moussawi put the death toll at four, with 35 wounded. In the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, southwest of Baghdad, at least 29 people were wounded when a car bomb went off near a police station, a health department source said.

Carter Arrives in North Korea
Carter has been a contentious figure among South Koreans
By CHOE SANG-HUN, New York Times
Former President Jimmy Carter arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Wednesday on a mission to win the release of an American held prisoner in the North, its state-run media reported. Analysts in Seoul said Mr. Carter, on his second trip to Pyongyang, would also try to help break an impasse in relations between the United States and North Korea. Mr. Carter was greeted at Pyongyang airport by Kim Kye-gwan, a senior North Korean diplomat, according to the North’s official news agency, KCNA. Mr. Kim is North Korea’s main envoy to the six-nation talks on ending its nuclear weapons program. The talks have been stalled for more than two years. Carter, 85, was traveling with his wife on a private jet.

Islamic militants storm Somali capital, kill 32
Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are believed to be helping train members of al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaida
By the Associated Press, New York Post
A suicide bomber and gunmen wearing military uniforms attacked a hotel near Somalia's presidential palace today, sparking a running gun battle with security forces. At least 32 people were killed, including six Somali parliamentarians. A parliamentarian who was at the Muna Hotel said there were "dead bodies all over" and he labeled the scene a massacre. The multi-pronged assault came less than 24 hours after the country's most dangerous militant group — al-Shabab — threatened a "massive" war against what it labeled as invaders, a reference to the 6,000 African Union troops in Mogadishu. The attack on the Muna Hotel raised the two-day toll to at least 70 people, a high number even by Mogadishu's violent standards. Fighting that rocked Mogadishu on Monday killed 40 people, health officials said. Militant veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are believed to be helping train members of al-Shabab, which has links to al-Qaida. Tuesday's assault is only the latest in a series of increasingly lethal attacks. Last month the group claimed responsibility for twin bombings during the World Cup final in Uganda's capital, blasts that killed 76 people.

Saudi court rules: Paralyze man
'Eye-for-eye' verdict stirs outrage
By the Washington Times
A Saudi Arabian court has ruled that a convicted man's spinal cord should be severed so he is paralyzed as part of the kingdom's Islamic-law-oriented retribution for similar injuries he is said to have inflicted upon another man in a fight. The ruling has prompted an outcry from human rights groups and an intervention from Saudi officials who say they are trying to persuade the victim to accept monetary compensation for his injuries instead of the punishment against the criminal. According to reports from Saudi Arabia, the court in Tabuk, on the northwest coast of the kingdom, has approached a number of hospitals about the possibility of cutting the convicted man's spinal cord. In the Saudi justice system, the court establishes guilt and the family of the victim or the victim himself has the option of inflicting the same injury upon the guilty party, seeking blood money or offering a pardon.

5 Guards Killed in Tajikistan Prison Break
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, New York Times
More than two dozen prisoners with suspected ties to Islamic militants have escaped from a detention center in Tajikistan after a shootout that left five guards dead. Tajikistan’s National Security Committee said in a statement that at least 25 prisoners escaped after they overpowered guards at a detention center in Tajikistan’s capital, Dushanbe, late Sunday night. The men initially killed one guard, and changed into camouflaged uniforms before fleeing the prison with stolen weapons, the statement said. A few hours later they attacked a holding facility run by the Ministry of Justice, killing four more guards. The prisoners’ whereabouts remained unknown Monday. The Tajik government has asked Russia and Afghanistan for assistance in tracking them down, the Interfax news agency reported. Also, President Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan asked the interior minister to form a group overseeing the search.

3 bombs kill 36 in northwest Pakistan
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Three bomb attacks in northwest Pakistan — two in tribal regions near the Afghan border and a third near the region's main city of Peshawar — killed at least 36 people Monday, officials and a witness said. The attack on the outskirts of Peshawar killed the leader of an anti-Taliban militia, Israr Khan, and two aides as he passed through a market in the village of Matni, said police official Khurshid Khan. Three more people were injured. The government supplies a string of militias with arms and money to fight the Taliban militants. The deadliest blast was a suicide attack at a mosque inside a religious school in South Waziristan that killed 26 people and injured 40 more, said an intelligence official in the region. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the orders set down by his agency. He said Maulana Noor Mohammad, a former lawmaker who ran the school, was among the dead. Yar Mohammad, a local tribesman who was present inside the mosque, also said it was a suicide blast. Islamist militants often have attacked clerics or others who do not support them. Earlier, a bomb exploded inside a school during a meeting of elders in Kurram tribal region, killing seven people.

Iran unveils unmanned bomber, dubbed 'ambassador of death' by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
"The jet has a main message of peace and friendship"
By MICHAEL SHERIDAN, New York Daily News
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated his country's latest piece of military hardware on Sunday, boasting Iran's new unmanned bomber aircraft. The jet, dubbed "Karrar" ("striker" in Farsi), which measures about 13 feet, can travel a distance of 620 miles and carry up to four cruise missiles, state TV reports. Ahmadinejad claimed the aircraft is not just meant as a means to attack Iran's enemies, but also serves as a deterrent against attack. "The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship," he said during the inauguration ceremony, which fell on the country's national day for its defense industries. Iran routinely boasts of its military capabilities and hardware, with no verification from independent sources that its weapons can do what the government claims. State TV later showed video footage of the plane taking off from a launching pad and reported that the craft traveled at speeds of 560 mph and could alternatively be armed with two 250-pound bombs or a 450-pound guided bomb.

Despite Sanctions, Iran Fuels First Nuclear Reactor
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Iranian and Russian engineers began loading fuel Saturday into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has pledged to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production. After years of delays, the fueling of the Bushehr plant in southern Iran marks the startup of a facility for energy production that the U.S. once hoped to block as a way to pressure the country to stop separate nuclear activities of far greater concern. There have not been strong objections to the Bushehr plant itself as there have been with Iran's separate efforts at other sites to accelerate uranium enrichment -- a process that makes the fuel for power plants but which can also be used in weapons production. Even as Iran's nuclear chief said the plant demonstrated the country has only peaceful aims, he celebrated it as a defiant ''symbol of Iranian resistance and patience'' in the face of Western pressure. ''Despite all pressure, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran's peaceful nuclear activities,'' Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters inside the plant.

While terrorists wreak havoc around the world...Bush-bots side with Islamic mosque supporters
Ex-Bush advisers urge Republicans to soften criticism of mosque near Ground Zero
Bush famously called Islam a "religion of peace" during his presidency
By Perry Bacon Jr., Washington Post
Many of the Republicans who have urged their party to tone down its sharp rhetoric against the construction of an Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero or who don't oppose the project share a common trait: service as top advisers to then-President George W. Bush. Although prominent Republican figures such as former House speaker Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin have loudly condemned the proposed mosque, several top Bush aides have criticized President Obama's handling of the issue but urged a more nuanced debate among Republicans. They have not coordinated with one another, nor the former president, who has said nothing about the mosque or virtually any other issue since he left office in January 2009. But their comments illustrate what has emerged since Bush left office: a GOP that has not fully rejected or embraced the ex-president's legacy. Bush famously called Islam a "religion of peace" during his presidency, a phrase few in the party have invoked in discussing the current controversy.

Two al Qaeda operatives surrender in Yemen
By the New York Post
Two members of al Qaeda, including one linked to the bombing of a French oil tanker in 2002, have surrendered to authorities in Yemen, a spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington, D.C., said. Hezam Mujali, a local leader of the terrorist organization, surrendered himself to Yemeni security authorities, Fox News Channel reported, citing spokesman Mohammed Albasha. He was among 23 detainees that escaped prison in 2006, and he survived a December 2009 raid on an al Qaeda hideout in the Arhab district. Mujali had been sentenced to death in August 2004 for killing an army officer and was also accused of hiding al Qaeda officers who bombed the French-flagged oil tanker, the Limburg, in 2002, which killed one crew member and injured 12 others. He was also charged with attacking a helicopter of the Texas-based Hunt oil company in 2002. According to Albasha, another al Qaeda-linked operative, Jomaan Safian, surrendered to authorities earlier this month in Al-Jawf province. Safian allegedly harbored dozens of foreign operatives and provided logistical support. Al Qaeda militants are believed to be using Yemen’s northern provinces as a safe haven. Militants thought to be hiding out in the region include Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical U.S.-born cleric who has been linked to the massacre at Fort Hood in Texas in November 2009 and the failed bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner a month later.

Saudi judge asks hospital if it can damage convict's spine as punishment for paralyzing man
By the Associated Press, Chicago Tribune
A Saudi judge has asked several hospitals in the country whether they could damage a man's spinal cord as punishment after he was convicted of attacking another man with a cleaver and paralyzing him, the brother of the victim said Thursday. Abdul-Aziz al-Mutairi, 22, was left paralyzed and subsequently lost a foot after a fight more than two years ago. He asked a judge in northwestern Tabuk province to impose an equivalent punishment on his attacker under Islamic law, his brother Khaled al-Mutairi told The Associated Press by telephone from there. He said one of the hospitals, located in Tabuk, responded that it is possible to damage the spinal cord, but it added that the operation would have to be done at another more specialized facility. Saudi newspapers reported that a second hospital in the capital Riyadh declined, saying it could not inflict such harm.

Afghan President Karzai calls Taliban stoning of couple 'unforgivable'
By AFP/NEWSCORE, New York Post
Afghan President Hamid Karzai reacted to the stoning death of a young couple by the Taliban on Tuesday, describing the act as "unforgivable." Local authorities said the Taliban killed the man and woman in a remote village in the northeastern province of Kunduz on Sunday for allegedly having an affair. "President Hamid Karzai condemned the stoning to death of two youths by the Taliban in Kunduz, deeming it unforgivable," the president's office said. Karzai ordered security officials to bring the culprits to justice. Local authorities said a 23-year-old woman and 28-year-old man were killed in public because "they had an affair," though according to the statement from Karzai's office, they "were supposed to get married." Abdul Satar, a resident of Mullah Quli village, said that about 100 people, most of them Taliban insurgents, gathered Sunday evening as a statement was read out saying the pair confessed to their affair. The couple had their hands bound behind their backs and were forced to stand in an empty field as their sentence was carried out, he said.

Baghdad suicide attack kills 60
By the Associated Press, New York Post
A suicide bomber blew himself up today among hundreds of army recruits who had gathered near a military headquarters in an attack officials said killed 60 and wounded 125, one of the bloodiest bombings in months in the Iraqi capital. The massive strike just outside a major division headquarters and recruitment center is an embarrassment to Iraqi security forces and casts doubts on their ability to protect themselves and the nation just two weeks before all but 50,000 U.S. troops head home. Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for enlisting the bomber, whose upper body he said was found at the scene of the blast. Insurgents have threatened to step up attacks ahead of the U.S. troop departure and violence has increased in recent weeks. Iraqi army, police and other security forces have been targeted, but civilians also have been killed by the hundreds. The blast took place around 7:30 a.m. outside the former Iraqi Ministry of Defense building that now houses the army's 11th division headquarters. The site receives about 250 new recruits each week as Iraqi security forces try to bolster their ranks to prepare for the U.S. military's looming withdrawal after seven years of war. Bodies of young men, some still clutching job applications and other documents in their hands, could be seen scattered about at the blast site, which Iraqi soldiers closed off. U.S. helicopters hovered overhead as frantic Iraqis showed up to search for relatives.

Hamas nod for Ground Zero mosque
Terror group's leader: 'Have to build it'
By S.A. MILLER and TOM TOPOUSIS, New York Post
A leader of the Hamas terror group yesterday jumped into the emotional debate on the plan to construct a mosque near Ground Zero -- insisting Muslims "have to build" it there. "We have to build everywhere," said Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas and the organization's chief on the Gaza Strip. "In every area we have, [as] Muslim[s], we have to pray, and this mosque is the only site of prayer," he said on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on WABC. Hamas, he added, "is representing the vast majority of the Arabic and Islamic world -- especially the Islamic side." Zahar said Muslims around the world, including those who live in this country, are united in a common cause. "First of all, we have to address that we are different as people, as a nation, totally different," he said. "Islam is controlling every source of our life as regard to marriage, divorce, our commercial relationships," Zahar said. Politicians who previously had lots to say on the matter were not nearly as eager to discuss the latest development. Mayor Bloomberg, a strong supporter of the plan, declined comment through a spokesman. Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the proposed mosque, and two other leaders of the plan who previously had commented extensively, were silent yesterday.

Lockerbie doc shock
By CATHY BURKE, New York Post
The four cancer doctors who were treating Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi were never consulted about his early prison release, according to a new report. "I was surprised when I heard [about it], because I wasn't asked for my opinion," urologist Zak Latif told The Sunday Times of London. "It's a bit odd." Megrahi, reportedly undergoing chemotherapy for prostate cancer, could live another 18 months, doctors say. At the time of his release on compassionate grounds, he was supposedly at death's door. His four top docs were cited by Scottish authorities as sharing "a firm consensus" about his prognosis, yet none was contacted before the Aug. 20, 2009, release. Instead, the Scots consulted Libyan-paid Dr. Ibrahim Sherif, who concluded that Megrahi had only three months to live -- the requisite time for a compassionate release to be granted.

BP to start Libyan deepwater drilling by October, Libya's oil head says
By the Dow Jones News Service, New York Post
U.K. oil giant BP was expected to start its deepwater drilling operations in Libya by October at the latest, Libya's top oil official said Monday. "They are delaying because of technical problems. They want to be assured that all the instruments are working well, and they don't want a repeat of Macondo. It may take another two months at most," said Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp. The Gulf of Mexico oil spill began after an April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and caused the Macondo well to release 4.9 million barrels of oil into the sea. BP was not immediately available for comment.

One by one, the entire team -- Little, Woo, five other Americans, one German and two Afghans -- were wiped out
Taliban's chilling hunt & slaughter
Killers 'used Facebook' to track aid group
By GINGER ADAMS OTIS, New York Post
"What's going on?" Upstate optometrist Tom Little, 62, reportedly shouted his final words as Taliban fighters, faces covered by scarves and bodies wrapped in blankets, rushed at him and nine other charity workers. In an account of the terrorist atrocity, the Sunday Times of London reported that the small group, led by Little, had just stopped their all-terrain vehicles after navigating a river that had washed out part of the dirt track they'd followed in Afghanistan's remote Badakhshan province. Little, a father of three from Delmar, outside Albany, yelled his last words as the 10 masked thugs began shooting in the air. His answer was a blow from the butt of an AK-47 -- and a bullet to the gut. In a terrible twist, the sole survivor of the attack, driver Safiullah, said that one of the gunmen was part of a group of three that the convoy had offered to drive through the rugged terrain. Two women with Little made a desperate bid to escape by climbing into a nearby ATV. But a Taliban goon calmly lobbed a hand grenade into the vehicle, killing them both, the newspaper reported. The account also revealed that British aid worker Karen Woo was lashed across the face by a gunman wielding a Kalashnikov. She fell face-first onto the stony track, and the gunman shot her twice in the back. The team's cook was fatally shot as he hid beneath an ATV. Only their driver, who fell to his knees and recited from the Koran, was spared.

Lawyer: Iranian who faced stoning likely tortured
By the Associated Press, New York Post
A lawyer for an Iranian woman who had faced death by stoning on an adultery conviction said Thursday he suspects she was tortured into confessing that she was an unwitting accomplice to her husband's murder. Iranian state television broadcast the purported confession of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, 43, on Wednesday night in an apparent attempt to deflect criticism of her case by the U.S., other countries and rights groups. Instead of the adultery charge, it focused on allegations she was involved in murder - something the U.S. and other countries also punish by death. Human Rights Watch has said Ashtiani, a mother of two, was first convicted in May 2006 of having an "illicit relationship" with two men after the death of her husband and was sentenced by a court to 99 lashes. Later that year, she was also convicted of adultery and sentenced to be stoned to death, even though she retracted a confession that she claims was made under duress.

Heat's on Lockerbie doc
By Reuters, New York Post
Scottish authorities yesterday defended the doctor who said Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset al-Megrahi had just three months to live, after the US senators from New York and New Jersey asked them to release the Libyan's medical records. The senators are probing the release last August of Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, which killed 270 people. Megrahi is alive a year after Scottish authorities freed him on compassionate grounds. A letter signed by Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, of New York, and Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, of New Jersey, cited news reports that the three-month prognosis was based on the opinion of a single doctor. The medical report, compiled by Dr. Andrew Fraser, the Scottish Prison Service's director of health and care, said Megrahi had terminal prostate cancer and could die in three months. Fraser was "a professional of unimpeachable integrity" who consulted a range of experts before reaching his prognosis, a Scottish government spokeswoman said yesterday.

Scottish Government Pressed to Release Medical Advice That Led to Lockerbie Bomber’s Release
Scottish government let killer walk free
By JOHN F. BURNS, New York Times
Ten days before the first anniversary of the release of the Lockerbie bomber, the Scottish government on Tuesday came under fresh pressure to justify its decision to release the bomber, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, on medical grounds. The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Labor party opposition in the Scottish assembly demanded that the government publish full details of the medical advice that led Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to rule that Mr. Megrahi, serving a life sentence for the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in which 270 people died, should be released on compassionate grounds because he was suffering from advanced prostate cancer that made it likely that he had less than three months to live. Nearly a year later, Mr. Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence agent, remains alive in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, where he was greeted on his return as a hero. Mr. MacAskill has said that he relied on the advice of Dr. Andrew Fraser, medical director of the Scottish prison services, who was said by the justice secretary to have relied on the judgments of cancer specialists. But the specialists’ recommendations have not been published, and recent reports have revealed that Mr. Megrahi had not yet begun a recommended course of chemotherapy when he was flown home to Libya. British specialists in prostate cancer have said that a man in his condition might live as long as 10 years.

Call to reveal doctors' advice on Lockerbie bomber
Killer of 270 walked away a free man
By KATIE CASSIDY, New York Post
The Scottish Government faced calls Tuesday to name the doctors whose advice resulted in the assessment that the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing had three months to live. Abdelbaset al Megrahi -- who is suffering from prostate cancer -- was released from jail on compassionate grounds last August. The bomber -- the only man convicted for the December 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 with the loss of 270 lives -- was given three months to live, but is still living with his family in the Libyan capital of Tripoli. Scotland's Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill made the decision to free the Libyan after receiving advice that no specialist "would be willing to say" if a three-month prognosis was reasonable. Dr. Andrew Fraser, director of health and care of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), said in his report to MacAskill that his clinical assessment drew on expert advice from a number of cancer specialists. The opposition Scottish Labour Party has now called on the government to reveal the identities of those doctors and what their prognosis was. The party's community safety spokesman James Kelly said: "It's time that Kenny MacAskill released the full facts surrounding the medical evidence of Megrahi's release. So far, the government have released the report by the SPS director of health and care, Dr. Andrew Fraser, but have never released the information he was working on. It's time that circle was squared and we have full disclosure."

New Wave of Iranians Seek U.S. Studies
More Iranians in the country now than at any other point since 1994
By YEGANEH JUNE TORBATI, New York Times
Even as a teenager in Iran, Atefeh Fathi knew she would eventually study abroad. Now 30 and studying engineering at the University of Oklahoma, Ms. Fathi said that although she had applied to universities in Sweden and Canada, her first choice was the United States. “Everyone says the U.S. is easier for foreigners” to acclimate to, she said while on a break from working in her university’s laboratory. As children, Iranians are taught English in school, making it easier for them to blend in immediately in the United States. Ms. Fathi is part of a wave of Iranians studying in the United States in numbers not seen in more than a decade. Since 1979, when tens of thousands of Iranians studied in the United States, the number of Iranian students in the United States has taken an almost uninterrupted nosedive, bottoming out at fewer than 1,700 students in 1999. Since then, the number of students has begun a slow but steady rise, with more Iranians in the country now than at any other point since 1994, says the Institute of International Education in New York.

Netanyahu: Action against Gaza aid ship was ordered as 'last resort'
By Joel Greenberg, Washington Post
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Monday told an Israeli commission investigating a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May that the action was ordered as a "last resort" after diplomatic efforts failed, and that the army was told to make every effort to avoid casualties. Netanyahu, the first witness to testify before the inquiry panel, said that the Israeli government had anticipated resistance aboard the largest ship carrying Turkish activists and tried to plan for the public relations fallout of a confrontation. Statements by the flotilla organizers indicated that they wanted to break Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip by "creating a provocation" and instigating "media-covered friction at sea with the Israel Defense Forces" that would create "international pressure to remove the naval blockade," Netanyahu said.

Prayer time....WTF?
2 US Marines killed by prisoner in Afghanistan
By the New York Post
A prisoner killed two U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan after escaping a prayer room and grabbing a rifle, NATO said Monday. "The prisoner escaped a room where he was observing prayer time, acquired a rifle and subsequently engaged Afghan and coalition forces. The Marines were killed while trying to subdue the prisoner," NATO said in a statement. The alliance said the gunman was later shot dead and that the incident, on Saturday, was under investigation. Another NATO soldier was killed Monday by a bomb in the south, adding to the toll of victims of explosives laid by insurgents, which rises almost daily. Eight foreign troops were killed over the weekend, two by the prisoner and six by bombs -- the Taliban's weapon of choice in their southern heartlands of Helmand and Kandahar provinces, where 30,000 international troops are deployed. The latest death brings the overall number of foreign troops killed in Afghanistan this year to 426, compared to 520 for all of 2009.

Iraq blast kills 8
By the Associated Press, New York Post
A suicide car bomber struck a police patrol west of Baghdad yesterday and killed eight people, most of them civilians standing in line outside a post office to collect the monthly stipend for the country's poorest, officials said. The blast comes just a day after explosions tore through a market in the south killing 43 people. Violence across Iraq has spiked in the past month as the US moves ahead with a major drawdown of its troops set to be completed by the end of the month.

Slain American volunteers were devoted to service
The six Americans, among 10 medical volunteers killed in a militant ambush in Afghanistan, spent years helping the world's most destitute
By Laura King and Ashley Powers, Chicago Tribune
They were a disparate group of American altruists who had long cared for the poor and ailing, thrown together on a mission to provide medical help in the most daunting and needy of places. Last week, the six Americans were among 10 volunteers shot to death in a remote swath of Afghanistan while returning from an aid mission, a tragic end to their years of risk-laden service in the war-ravaged and impoverished nation. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the ambush in a rugged, isolated valley, which also killed two Afghan men, a German woman and a British woman working with the International Assistance Mission. The Taliban accused the Christian group's volunteers of proselytizing and spying for Western military forces, which the charity vehemently denied. The charity team, which had been providing eye care and other health services to villagers, had hiked over a steep mountain pass into neighboring Nuristan province, where insurgents had been battling Afghan and Western forces. Police theorized that the assailants might have followed them back from there. Two other Afghan members of the group escaped the massacre: an interpreter who had left before the ambush and a driver who told police he recited verses from the Koran as he pleaded for his life. Afghan authorities are still questioning the driver about his account of the incident, and police said it would take two days for investigators to reach the scene of the killings. The Western military condemned the attack as part of a pattern of insurgent behavior that exacerbated the suffering of Afghan civilians.

Ahmadinejad says 9/11 attacks were exaggerated
By Reuters, New York Post
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that the 9/11 attacks were exaggerated, in a broadside at the United States just days after President Obama voiced willingness to talk to Iran. At a Tehran conference, Ahmadinejad said there was no evidence that the death toll at the World Trade Center was as high as reported, and spouted an already-debunked tale that “Zionists” had been tipped off in advance. “What was the story of Sept. 11? During five to six days, and with the aid of the media, they created and prepared public opinion so that everyone considered an attack on Afghanistan and Iraq as [their] right,” he said in a televised speech.

A kinder, gentler Taliban
Terrorist propaganda can't hide murderous strategy
By the Washington Times
The Taliban can't stop killing the people they supposedly are trying to help. A new directive from leader Mullah Omar instructs Taliban fighters to go easy on Afghan civilians. On Monday, however, five Afghan children fell victim to Taliban suicide bombs. Apparently, Islamist guerrillas believe they have to destroy kids in order to save them. The Taliban "layeha," or rule book, says, "All efforts must be made to avoid harming civilians in attacks." In this battle for hearts and minds, the Taliban are failing miserably. A June Congressional Research Service report showed that from December 2009 to March 2010, 737 Afghan civilians were killed and 979 were wounded in the ongoing conflict. Two-thirds of these casualties were the result of Taliban actions, up from 59 percent in 2009. Of those killed by the Taliban, 78 percent of the deaths were caused by indiscriminate attacks by improvised explosive devices (IEDs), an insurgent weapon of choice. According to Pentagon sources, since July 27 - when news broke of the release of Mullah Omar's new directive - the Taliban have slain 43 Afghan noncombatants and wounded 65. Data collected by the International Security Assistance Force show that in July, there were nearly 300 insurgent acts of violence and oppression against Afghan civilians. This includes more than 160 murders and injuries and more than 100 cases of various types of coercion, including extortion, prohibiting girls from attending school and destroying development projects. Over that same period, the Taliban killed 220 civilians and injured more than 360.

14 in U.S. accused of supporting Somali terrorist group
By Ken Dilanian, Los Angeles Times
Fourteen people have been accused of providing support to the Somali terrorist group Shabab in indictments unsealed Thursday that shed light on "a deadly pipeline" of funding and fighters to the group from cities across the United States, Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said. Most of those charged were U.S. citizens of Somali descent. It has long been known that disaffected Somali Americans were leaving their homes in Minnesota and other states to join Shabab, an Islamist army whose several thousand fighters are battling Somalia's weak government. The indictments show that the U.S. government is directing significant investigative resources at the problem. Shabab, which routinely beheads its enemies, has been branded a terrorist group by the U.S. and other nations, and in turn has declared war on the United Nations and humanitarian organizations in Somalia. The group claimed responsibility for a bombing last month that killed 76 people, including an American aid worker, who were watching a World Cup soccer match in Uganda's capital. It is not known to be responsible for an attack on U.S. soil.

New al Qaeda leader lived 15 years in U.S.
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A suspected al Qaeda operative who lived for more than 15 years in the U.S. has become chief of the terror network's global operations, the FBI says, marking the first time a leader so intimately familiar with American society has been placed in charge of planning attacks. Adnan Shukrijumah, 35, has taken over a position once held by 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in 2003, Miami-based FBI counterterrorism agent Brian LeBlanc told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview. That puts him in regular contact with al Qaeda's senior leadership, including Osama bin Laden, Mr. LeBlanc said. Shukrijumah and two other leaders were part of an "external operations council" that designed and approved terrorism plots and recruits, but his two counterparts were killed in U.S. drone attacks, leaving Shukrijumah as the de facto chief and successor to Mohammed — his former boss. "He's making operational decisions is the best way to put it," said Mr. LeBlanc, the FBI's lead Shukrijumah investigator. "He's looking at attacking the U.S. and other Western countries. Basically through attrition, he has become his old boss."

Suicide bomber kills 7 Afghan police
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A suicide car bomber struck a convoy of NATO troops and Afghan police Thursday in northern Afghanistan, killing seven police officers and wounding at least 11 people. The suicide bombing occurred in the morning in Kunduz province's Imam Sahib district, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. In addition to the deaths, six police and five civilians were wounded, it said. The vehicles were stopped in preparation for an operation in the area, and the killed police officers were standing outside of their trucks as they mobilized, said Abdul Rahman Aqtash, deputy police chief of Kunduz province. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to the Associated Press. The insurgent group regularly launches attacks against military forces or government workers as part of their campaign against the government. Kunduz and other northern provinces have become increasingly violent in recent months as insurgent activity has spread into areas beyond the militants' longtime bases in the south and east of the country. This expansion of militant attacks has happened as the United States and its allies are rushing thousands of reinforcements to try to turn back the Taliban. The focus of U.S. and NATO operations has been in the ethnic Pashtun south.

Iranian media say president's convoy attacked
By the Associated Press, New York Post
An Iranian website said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad escaped an assassination attempt after a handmade grenade exploded near his convoy on Wednesday, but Tehran state TV denied the report. The website, khabaronline.ir, said the grenade detonated near Ahmadinejad's convoy as he was on his way to address a crowd in the western Iranian town of Hamedan but did not harm him. The president later gave his speech as planned, and it was broadcast live on state television. He made no mention of the attack in his remarks, focusing instead on the country's disputed nuclear program. He struck a hard line against Western demands that Iran halt its nuclear activities. One person was arrested in connection with the attack, the website report said, adding that Ahmadinejad's car was about 100 yards from the blast. It also said there was no information whether anyone was injured. Iran's state-run Press TV, the government's main English-language broadcast arm, said an informed source in Ahmadinejad's office vehemently denied the allegation, insisting "no such attack had happened." In May, Ahmadinejad was jeered by a crowd demanding jobs when he was speaking during a similar visit to the southern Iranian town of Khorramshahr. In 2005, bandits reportedly killed a bodyguard of Ahmadinejad during his visit to restive Sistan-Baluchistan province in southeastern Iran. However, the president had left the province before the attack occurred.

Two men convicted in JFK airport plot
Defreitas ranted about punishing the United States with an attack that would "dwarf 9/11"
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Two men were convicted Monday of plotting to blow up jet fuel tanks at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. A jury in Brooklyn federal court deliberated for five days before finding Russell Defreitas, 66, and Abdul Kadir, 58, guilty of multiple conspiracy charges. Defreitas, a former JFK cargo handler, and Kadir, once a member of Guyana's parliament, were arrested in 2007 after an informant infiltrated the plot. Prosecutors alleged that Defreitas, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Guyana, and Kadir wanted to kill thousands and cripple the American economy by using explosives to blow up the fuel tanks and the underground pipelines. Authorities say the men sought the help of militant Muslims, including an al-Qaeda operative, in Guyana. Defense lawyers described their clients as clueless trash-talkers led astray by the informant, a convicted drug dealer. The government's case relied heavily on secretly recorded tapes of Defreitas bragging about his knowledge of JFK and its vulnerabilities. He also marveled at the lack of security, saying: "No soldier. Nothing at all." In other tapes, Defreitas ranted about punishing the United States with an attack that would "dwarf 9/11."

45 Die in Revenge Attacks in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Gunmen killed at least 45 people in Pakistan's largest city after the assassination of a prominent lawmaker set off a cycle of revenge attacks, officials said Tuesday. Dozens of vehicles and shops were set ablaze as security forces struggled to regain control of Karachi. Schools were closed and most business ground to a halt Tuesday in the southern city of more than 16 million, Pakistan's main commercial hub. While a thriving trading center, Karachi has a history of political, ethnic and religious violence and has long been a hide-out for al-Qaida and Taliban militants. The latest unrest came after Raza Haider, a provincial lawmaker, was shot dead along with his bodyguard in a mosque while preparing to offer prayers Monday in Nazimabad area. Haider was a member of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the political party that runs the city and represents mainly descendants of Urdu-speaking migrants from India who settled in Pakistan when it was created in 1947.

Iraq deaths mount
By Reuters, New York Post
The civilian death toll from violence in Iraq almost doubled in July from June, a sign that insurgents may be trying to exploit political tensions after an election that produced no outright winner. A total of 396 civilians were killed by bomb blasts or other attacks last month, after 204 died in June, government figures issued Saturday showed.

UAE, Saudi Arabia to block BlackBerrys
Government censors in the UAE already routinely block access to websites and other media deemed to carry content that runs contrary to conservative Islamic values
By Adam Schreck, Washington Times
The UAE said Sunday it will block key features on BlackBerry smart phones, citing national security concerns because the devices operate beyond the government's ability to monitor their use. Neighboring Saudi Arabia quickly indicated it planned to follow suit. The decision could prevent hundreds of thousands of users in the Mideast country from accessing e-mail and the Web on the handsets starting in October, putting the federation's reputation as a business-friendly commercial and tourism hub at risk. Analysts and activists see it as an attempt to more tightly control the flow of information in the conservative country, a U.S. ally that is home to the Gulf business capital Dubai and the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi. Within hours of the announcement, a telecommunications official in neighboring Saudi Arabia said that desert kingdom would begin blocking the BlackBerry messaging service starting later this month. The Saudi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media, said the country's telecommunications regulator would issue a statement on the move soon. Like in Saudi Arabia, government censors in the UAE already routinely block access to websites and other media deemed to carry content that runs contrary to the nation's conservative Islamic values or could stoke political unrest.

Afghan Women: Fearing a Taliban Future
By ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times
Behind compound walls and deep in government offices, schools and in hospitals, Afghan women have made great strides in the last nine years. In every province, thousands of girls attend — even in the war torn ones. In most government offices there are at least a few women workers. Most hold jobs involving limited, if any, responsibility. A few have powerful positions but even in the minor jobs, it is important that they are there, a reminder of the more than half the population that in earlier days was kept at home. A reminder, too, that women and the workplace are not antithetical concepts. They have miles to go. Around 85 percent of women and girls cannot read; the maternal mortality rate remains one of the highest in the world, and women rarely hold jobs of authority other than teachers. Women fear that even these small steps will be threatened if the Afghan government and western donors, in their anxiety to stop the fighting, make a peace that does not allow small steps to become larger ones. The most important thing is that women are dreaming again, dreaming of more learning, of making Afghanistan a better place. Violence breeds a climate of impunity in which women are easy to prey on because in most cases there will be no reprisal if they are harmed, even killed. “It ’s clear that in the provinces where we don’t have security, where the fight is going on, most of the girls’ schools that were open in 2003 and 2004 are closed now,” said Dr. Sima Simar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. She agreed that the Taliban brought stability, the question is: at what price? “It was more secure during the time of Taliban rule,” said Dr. Simar. “Because half of the population — the women — were practically in prison, “It’s very secure in a prison, in a jail; but do we want that kind of security?”

Afghan mayhem
6 more GIs slain in worst month
By ROBERT H. REID, New York Post
NATO announced yesterday that six more US troops have died in Afghanistan, bringing the death toll for July to at least 66 and surpassing the previous month's record as the deadliest for American forces in the nearly 9-year-old war. In Kabul, police fired weapons into the air to disperse a crowd of angry Afghans who shouted "Death to America," hurled stones and set fire to two vehicles after an SUV, driven by US contract employees, was involved in a traffic accident that killed four Afghans, according to the capital's criminal-investigations chief, Abdul Ghaafar Sayedzada. The contractor, DynCorp International, confirmed that its employees, working on a program sponsored by the State Department, were involved in an accident on the airport road. In a written statement, DynCorp said that when its employees got out of their vehicle, they and other DynCorp employees who arrived at the scene to help were attacked by the crowd, which burned their vehicles. "Our condolences go out to the families of those who were killed or injured," DynCorp said. "An investigation is under way." People at the scene said foreigners fired shots, killing and wounding Afghan civilians. DynCorp said the contractors fired no shots and that Afghan police helped move the contractors to safety away from the crowd. Hospital officials said the deaths and injuries were caused by the traffic accident.

As Young Muslims Turn to Radicalism, Concern Grows
By SOUAD MEKHENNET, New York Times
Before Abi left her parents’ house in northern Germany last year, she asked her father, “Daddy, what can I bring you from my journey?” He looked up from his book and answered, “Some perfumed oil.” “Will do,” she said, hugging him goodbye. Abi, now 23, and her husband never made the trip they said they had planned to Saudi Arabia to visit Mecca and Medina. Instead they became part of a growing number of young Muslims from Germany and other European countries who travel to the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, eventually ending up in the camps of groups affiliated with Al Qaeda or the Taliban. A Turkish-language Web site announced that in recent days nine foreign fighters were killed as they traveled to carry out operations with the Taliban. Two of them were identified as Germans, from Bonn and Berlin. Others have been arrested on a variety of charges. In one case, several people were convicted of planning attacks against American military facilities in Germany. Intelligence officials are concerned that the young people, most in their 20s, will be used by the militants for propaganda purposes or trained to take up arms. They also worry that some will slip back into Germany to recruit others or to join sleeper cells and ultimately commit acts of terrorism.

Nuke-smuggling network in demand
Agents seek to lure group 'out of retirement'
By Eli Lake, Washington Times
Scientists, engineers and financiers involved in the A.Q. Khan nuclear-smuggling network are being contacted by several governments in an effort to lure these specialists out of retirement. The development is raising concerns among U.S. intelligence agencies about the revival of the proliferation network that was thought to have been shut down years ago. Two U.S. intelligence officials and other U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports said information compiled over the past seven months showed that agents from several foreign governments — including Brazil, Burma, Iran, Nigeria, North Korea, Sudan and Syria — pursued members of the network named after Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist considered to be the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. The A.Q. Khan network supplied "starter kits" for uranium enrichment, based on large numbers of centrifuges, to Iran, Libya and North Korea from the 1980s until it was shut down in 2003 and 2004. Mr. Khan has confirmed much of these charges in interviews.

Blast kills 25 on bus in southern Afghanistan
By Laura King, Chicago Tribune
A bomb blast tore through a crowded passenger bus on a desert highway in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing 25 of those on board and injuring about 20 others, some seriously, government officials said. All were described as civilians. Afghan and Western officials denounced the insurgency for the planting of homemade bombs along roads heavily used by civilians. So-called improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, are usually aimed at Afghan and NATO forces, but often wind up maiming and killing noncombatants instead. Some 7,000 Afghan civilians were killed by IEDs from 2004 to 2009, according to classified military documents posted on the Internet this week by the advocacy group WikiLeaks. The bus, whose passengers included women and children, was traveling on a main road in Nimroz province, bound for the capital, Kabul, when it struck the buried bomb. Many Afghans cannot afford cars and are reliant on poorly maintained, jam-packed passenger buses and minivans, especially for travel between major cities.

Bombings leave at least 20 dead in Iraqi city of Karbala
By Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post
Two car bombs targeting pilgrims in the southern city of Kabala killed at least 20 people Monday evening, and a bombing outside the Baghdad bureau of a popular Arab satellite television station left at least six people dead earlier in the day, Iraqi officials said. The car bombs detonated near the southern entrance of the holy city of Karbala, which has a revered shrine that millions of Iraqi and Iranian Shiite pilgrims visit each year. Karbala Police spokesman Ala al-Ghanemi said that at least 50 people were wounded in the bombing, most of them pilgrims entering the city on foot.

France Confirms Al Qaeda Killed French Hostage
By SCOTT SAYARE, New York Times
President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday vowed to retaliate for the killing of a French hostage held in the Sahara by Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb announced Sunday that it had executed Michel Germaneau, 78, in response to a French-led rescue attempt last week that left six Qaeda fighters dead. “This crime committed against Michel Germaneau will not go unpunished,” Mr. Sarkozy said, adding that the failed rescue effort, which involved French and Mauritanian forces, had been France’s “obligation.” Mr. Germaneau, a retired engineer, had been working for a humanitarian association in Niger when he was abducted in late April.

Suicide Bomber Kills 7 in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, New York Times
A Taliban suicide bomber struck Monday near the home of a Pakistani provincial minister whose only son was recently killed by the militants, officials said. Seven people were killed and 25 wounded. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa province and an outspoken critic of the Taliban, was the apparent target. He was receiving condolences from visitors elsewhere in Pabbi town at the time of the blast and was safe. Some of his relatives were also receiving mourners at a mosque near the house, and two were hurt, police said. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying their goal was to kill Hussain because his political party is allied with the United States. The Awami National Party is a secular-leaning political group that has been outspoken against militant activity in Pakistan.

Terrorism case baffles remote Alaska town
The FBI says the weatherman in tiny King Salmon, aided by his wife, had an assassination list and was an adherent of Islamic extremism
By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
He was the local weatherman, sending up weather balloons twice a day above this remote community of 450 full-time residents near Bristol Bay and preparing short-term forecasts for pilots and fishermen. She was a stay-at-home mom who drove their 4-year-old to preschool, sang in the town choir and picked berries with her girlfriends. She took part in the community play, in which she portrayed a fairy godmother who acted as a prosecutor in court, confronting the Big Bad Wolf for his crimes against Little Red Riding Hood, the Three Little Pigs and the Boy Who Cried Wolf. So beloved were Paul Rockwood Jr. and his wife, Nadia, that when they left King Salmon in May to move to England, where Nadia was born, more than 30 people — pretty much their entire circle of friends — showed up at the airport. The choir sang "Wherever You Go," and "people were just bawling," said Rebecca Hamon, a friend of the couple. What none of them could have known was that FBI agents were meeting the small turboprop plane in Anchorage to question the Rockwoods on suspicion of domestic terrorism-related crimes. This week, Paul and Nadia Rockwood pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Anchorage to one count of willfully making false statements to the FBI; in Paul Rockwood's case, it was a statement about domestic terrorism. The plea agreements state that Rockwood, 35, had become an adherent of extremist Islam who had prepared a list of assassination targets, including U.S. service members. And, though no plot to carry out the killings was revealed, he had researched methods of execution, including guns and explosives, the agreements say.

Afghan bombing kills 5 U.S. service members
By Laura King, Chicago Tribune
Bombings in the country's tinderbox south killed five American service members on Saturday, four of them in the same blast, military officials said. Multiple troop deaths in a single incident are becoming more common as insurgents plant larger numbers of homemade bombs and as the explosive payload of these crude weapons increases. For Western troops in Afghanistan, IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, pose the greatest threat to life and limb. That is despite a major Pentagon push this year to reduce such casualties with better technology, more training and what military officials describe as greater cooperation from Afghan villagers in pointing out where buried bombs are. NATO's International Security Assistance Force, which announced the latest deaths, did not specify where they occurred. American troops are heavily concentrated in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, both longtime Taliban strongholds. Both provinces have been the focus of large-scale military efforts this year. A long-delayed operation in and around Kandahar city, the urban hub of the south, is finally gathering momentum. In announcing Saturday's fatalities, the NATO force did not release the nationalities of the five dead, but U.S. officials confirmed all were Americans. U.S. troop deaths have reached their highest levels of the nine-year war. Last month a record 60 Americans were killed in Afghanistan; the most recent fatalities bring the tally for July to more than 50.

Behind the mosque
Wahhabism -- whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists -- is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the "state Shintoism" of imperial Japan
By ANDREW G. BOSTOM, New York Post
Imam Feisal Rauf, the central figure in the coterie planning a huge mosque just off Ground Zero, is a full-throated champion of the very same Muslim theologians and jurists identified in a landmark NYPD report as central to promoting the Islamic religious bigotry that fuels modern jihad terrorism. This fact alone should compel Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg to withdraw their support for the proposed mosque. In August 2007, the NYPD released "Radicalization in the West -- The Homegrown Threat." This landmark 90-page report looked at the threat that had become apparent since 9/11, analyzing the roots of recent terror plots in the United States, from Lackawanna, NY, to Portland, Ore., to Fort Dix, NJ. The report noted that Saudi "Wahhabi" scholars feed the jihadist ideology, legitimizing an "extreme intolerance" toward non-Muslims, especially Jews, Christians and Hindus. In particular, the analysts noted that the "journey" of radicalization that produces homegrown jihadis often begins in a Wahhabi mosque. At least two of Imam Rauf's books, a 2000 treatise on Islamic law and his 2004 "What's Right with Islam," laud the implementation of sharia -- including within America -- and the "rejuvenating" Islamic religious spirit of Ibn Taymiyyah and al-Wahhab. In short, Feisal Rauf's public image as a devotee of the "contemplative" Sufi school of Islam cannot change the fact that his writings directed at Muslims are full of praise for the most noxious and dangerous Muslim thinkers. Wahhabism -- whether in the form promoted by Saudi money around the globe, or in the more openly nihilist brand embraced by terrorists -- is a totalitarian ideology comparable to Nazism or, closer still, the "state Shintoism" of imperial Japan.

Man linked to 'South Park' internet warning is charged with supporting Somali extremists
By Reuters, Chicago Tribune
A 20-year-old Virginia man linked to internet warnings to the creators of the animated show "South Park" was arrested Wednesday on charges of providing material support to Shabab, an extremist group based in Somalia with ties to Al Qaeda, the U.S. Justice Department said. The defendant, Zachary Adam Chesser, a U.S. citizen living in Fairfax County in Virginia, told federal agents that he attempted twice to travel to Somalia to join Shabab as a foreign fighter, the department said. After he was prevented from boarding a flight from New York to Uganda on July 10, Chesser admitted to the agents that he intended to travel from Uganda to Somalia, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court in Virginia. Chesser said he had planned to join Shabab, but that he had a change of heart after learning about the deadly bombings in Uganda earlier this month for which the group has claimed responsibility. One American was among the 73 that were killed in the attack. In 2008, the U.S. State Department designated Shabab as a foreign terrorist organization, describing it as a violent extremist group.

Terrorists in the ranks...
Suspected Afghan army trainer opens fire on fellow instructors
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
A suspected Afghan army trainer on a shooting range in northern Afghanistan opened fire on his fellow instructors Tuesday, killing two American civilian trainers and one other Afghan soldier before being killed himself, NATO officials said. On a day when world diplomats gathered in Kabul for an international conference intended to further a transition to Afghan security responsibility, the violence showed the risks and setbacks that can come with a rapid expansion of Afghan military forces. The shooting, at a weapons training base near the city of Mazar-e Sharif, comes just one week after another rogue Afghan soldier killed three British soldiers at a base in Helmand province.

"It is almost impossible to obtain a public service in Afghanistan without paying a bribe"
End Afghanistan's bribe system? Good luck, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
By RICHARD SISK, Los Angeles Daily News
Not even her best pals gave Secretary of State Clinton much of a shot at putting a dent in Afghan corruption as she headed for Kabul on the first stop of a week-long Asia swing. Clinton will preside at a donors conference of more than 35 nations beginning tomorrow with United Nations Secretary Ban Ki-moon. At the meeting, Afghan President Hamid Karzai will push for getting half of the aid money funneled through his feeble government. But Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.), possibly Clinton's best friend on Capitol Hill, warned against letting Karzai and his cronies anywhere near the money. At a hearing of her House Appropriations Subcommittee, Lowey, who has slapped a hold on $3.9 billion in U.S. funds for Afghanistan, cited "rampant corruption and theft of U.S. government assistance" and "concerns with billions in cash leaving Kabul Airport." Donald Gambatesa, inspector general for the State Department's Agency for International Development, agreed that "it is almost impossible to obtain a public service in Afghanistan without paying a bribe."

Dozens Killed in Iraq Suicide Attacks
By TIM ARANGO, New York Times
In the latest high-profile attack against former insurgents who switched sides to fight alongside American forces here, more than 40 were killed Sunday morning after a man detonated himself outside an Iraqi Army base as Awakening members lined up to receive their paychecks. The bomber struck around 8 a.m. on Sunday — the first day of the work week here — in Radwaniya, a largely Sunni neighborhood southwest of central Baghdad. The latest casualty figures from an official at the Ministry of the Interior was 43 killed and 40 wounded. The dead also included Iraqi army soldiers. About two hours later another attacker blew himself up in Al Qaim, a city in western Iraq near the Syrian border, also killing Awakening members. According to a police official, a man walked in to a building where Awakening members had gathered, opened fire with a rifle and then detonated a suicide vest. According to the official, seven were killed and 11 wounded. The latest violence against members of the Sunni Awakening, now backed by the Iraqi government, follows a series of assassinations and attacks in recent months against the former members of Al Qaeda in Iraq whose decision to switch loyalties was pivotal in quelling the apocalyptic violence of 2006 and 2007.

Second terror attack may have targeted city's clubs, restaurants
The Islamic terrorists allegedly discussed conducting the attack on Dec. 25, to coincide with the Christmas holiday
By Mike Levine, New York Post
The failed bombing attempt over Detroit on Christmas Day may not have been the only attack that extremists planned for the 2009 holiday, with intelligence from overseas indicating three weeks earlier that a plot targeting New York City on the same day may have been in the works, according to an FBI report. "The final target of the attack was not known, but extremist members had allegedly discussed restaurants and night clubs located in New York City," the FBI's assistant legal attache in London wrote in a so-called threat report exactly three weeks before Christmas. The Dec. 4 report, sent to U.S. and British counterterrorism officials, warned that "extremists allegedly planned to conduct a test run" that evening, hiding components for an improvised explosive device in a shipment of khat, a plant often chewed like tobacco that is a tradition for many in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Release of Lockerbie bomber was a mistake, British government says
It was a mistake to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Britain's ambassador to the United States said Friday
By the Chicago Tribune
It was a mistake to release convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, Britain's ambassador to the United States said Friday. The British government believes it was wrong to let Al Megrahi out of prison and return home to Libya in August 2009, Ambassador Nigel Sheinwald said in a statement. The government at the time also felt the same way, he said. The decision to release Al Megrahi, however, was up to the devolved Scottish executive and the British government therefore had no power to stop it, Sheinwald said.

Somali Islamists claim Uganda carnage
Officials warn of al-Shabaab threat with American recruits
By Shaun Waterman and Benjamin Birnbaum, Washington Times
A senior member of the Somali Islamist insurgent group al-Shabaab on Monday claimed responsibility for a pair of terrorist attacks in Uganda that left 74 World Cup viewers dead, including one American. The bombings triggered fears of a new wave of attacks in the region by al-Shabaab, although a U.S. intelligence official told the Washington Times that "this does not move the needle" on concerns about a possible strike in the United States by the group, which has recruited U.S. citizens as fighters. "We will carry out attacks against our enemy wherever they are," Sheik Ali Mohamud Rage, a senior al-Shabaab official, told the Associated Press in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "No one will deter us from performing our Islamic duty." Ugandan investigators said from the beginning that they had suspected al-Shabaab — which has pledged loyalty to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network — was behind Sunday's blasts. They occurred within 10 minutes of each other at two locations in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, including an Ethiopian restaurant. A Ugandan police spokesman said 74 people had been killed and scores more injured, and the U.S. State Department said five Americans were among those injured.

Air France jet lands in Brazil after bomb threat
Flight 443 was on the same route as an Air France jet that crashed last June off Brazil’s northeastern coast, killing all 228 on board
By the Associated Press, New York Post
An Air France passenger jet headed from Rio to Paris made an emergency landing in northeastern Brazil due to a bomb threat. All 405 passengers and 18 crew members were safely evacuated from Air France Flight 443 on Saturday night, said Jorge Andrade, a spokesman for airport authority Infraero. A spokesman for Air France in Brazil said the bomb threat was phoned in to Rio’s international airport by a female voice about 30 minutes after the plane took off. The control tower contacted the jet and the decision was made to land in Recife, the Air France spokesman said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter. In Paris, Air France spokesman Jerome N’Guyen said a full inspection of the plane had been completed and nothing suspicious had been found. The plane could not take off immediately because of regulations on rest time for flight personnel, but was expected to leave from Recife at 6 p.m. and reach Paris Monday morning, he added. Flight 443 was on the same route as an Air France jet that crashed last June off Brazil’s northeastern coast, killing all 228 on board. While no definite cause has been determined in the crash, authorities have repeatedly ruled out foul play.

Wanted: Jihadists to Marry Widows
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
A snippet of news from a shadowy corner of Iraq: Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia recently issued a fatwa telling its fighters to marry the widows of those who have fallen. This may seem odd or insignificant, but it is one of the rare grains of news to emerge publicly about the inner workings of the Iraqi offshoot of Al Qaeda. So terrorism experts and others have been picking it over, hoping for clues to the strength of this group, which remains a critical part of the Iraqi insurgency. Still, trying to make sense of the directive, which has been passed down only by word of mouth so far, is a bit like reading a cloud. What you see depends mostly on who is looking at it. Not surprisingly, the terrorism analysts have an entirely different viewpoint from that of the jihadist newlyweds, who are trying to do what they see as their duty. But even among outsiders, the fatwa has different interpretations: a sign of weakness or cleverness; an act of rationality or utter cynicism about mixing affection and politics.

Suicide bombers kill more than 50 in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Two suicide bombers struck outside a government office Friday in a tribal region where Pakistan's army has fought the Taliban, killing more than 50 people and wounding more than 100, officials said. The attack, one of the deadliest in Pakistan this year, indicated that militants remain a potent force in the country's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan despite army offensives. The U.S. has praised Pakistan for taking on Islamist extremists that use the tribal region to plan attacks on Western troops across the border, but the militants have often retaliated on Pakistani soil. The bombers detonated their explosives near the Yakaghund village office of Rasool Khan, a deputy administrator of the Mohmand tribal region who escaped unharmed. At least one bomber was on a motorcycle. Nearby, officials were distributing wheelchairs to disabled people and equipment to poor farmers, said Mohmand's chief administrator, Amjad Ali Khan. He said more than 50 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded. One of the bombs appeared fairly small but the other was huge, and they went off within seconds of each other, Amjad Ali Khan told the Associated Press. Some 70 to 80 shops in the area were damaged or destroyed, Rasool Khan said. A prison building also was damaged, and some 28 prisoners — ordinary criminals, not militants — had apparently escaped, he said. "After the blast, I saw destruction. I saw bodies everywhere. I saw the injured crying for help," security official Esa Khan told the Associated Press in the main northwest city of Peshawar, where he helped escort some of the wounded to a hospital.

Makeshift bombs at all-time high in Afghanistan
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
Use of the Taliban's deadliest weapon, crude homemade bombs, has reached an all-time high in Afghanistan, where in the last week of June more than 300 of the devices either exploded or were found before they could detonate. The number of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, in the country has risen relentlessly in recent years, up from about 50 a week during summer 2007. The bombs -- made using vast supplies of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, much of it brought in from Pakistan -- account for about two-thirds of NATO's troop fatalities in the nearly nine-year war. That figure also hit a per-month peak in June, with 102 dead. Ashton Carter, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters in Kabul on Thursday that the United States is in the process of delivering $3 billion worth of counter-IED equipment to Afghanistan, at least doubling what it now spends. That includes doubling to 64 the number of surveillance blimps that float above cities and military bases to detect Taliban activity and adding more explosive-residue detection kits and new drone aircraft.

"We love death"
Al Qaeda operatives indicted in New York plot
The indictment names new suspects in the case, including two who allegedly were planning a similar attack in Britain
By Julia Love, Los Angeles Times
An unsuccessful plan to detonate homemade bombs in the New York subway system last year was orchestrated by senior Al Qaeda leaders who were also plotting a comparable attack in Britain, according to a terrorism indictment unsealed Wednesday. "The charges announced today illustrated the coordinated and persistent attempts by our adversaries to harm American citizens," said George Venizelos, acting assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York office. Adnan Shukrijumah, a U.S. citizen who was regarded as one of Al Qaeda's best hopes to execute a plot in post- 9/11 America, is among several new alleged Al Qaeda figures charged in the botched Manhattan attempt. Two others indicted Wednesday, Abid Naseer and Tariq Ur Rehman, are also allegedly connected to the attack that was planned for English soil. "These charges underscore the global nature of the terrorist threat we face," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security. Three U.S. citizens have already been charged with plotting a series of suicide bombings on the New York subway during rush hour that would have taken place days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, both Afghan immigrants, pleaded guilty this year. The indictment alleges that after Zazi was taken into custody, Medunjanin tried again to complete a suicide attack. On Jan. 7, he crashed his car into another vehicle in Queens, N.Y., dialing 911 moments before to state his name and his motives, authorities said. "We love death," he told the 911 operator, according to the indictment.

3 arrested in Norway al-Qaida bomb plot
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Three suspected al-Qaida members were arrested Thursday morning in what Norwegian and U.S. officials said was a terrorist plot linked to similar plans in New York and England. The three men, whose names were not released, had been under surveillance for more than a year. Officials believe they were planning attacks with portable but powerful bombs like the ones at the heart of last year’s thwarted suicide attack in the New York City subway. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has called that one of the most serious terrorist plots since 9/11. On Wednesday, prosecutors revealed the existence of a related plot in Manchester, England. Officials believe the Norway plan was organized by the same top-level al-Qaida officials in charge of planning worldwide attacks. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. The Norwegian Police Security Service said only that the three were arrested on suspicion of “preparing terror activities.”

Bin Laden chef pleads guilty in 1st terror conviction under Obama commissions
By the New York Post
A longtime associate of Osama bin Laden on Wednesday pleaded guilty at Guantanamo Bay to terror charges of conspiracy and material support, marking the first-ever conviction under the military commission system resurrected by President Obama. Al Qosi was accused of supporting terrorism by serving on a Taliban mortar crew and occasionally as bin Laden's bodyguard. While not a household name, it is alleged that al Qosi, who is Sudanese, knew bin Laden from his days in Sudan in the early '90s and ultimately followed the Al Qaeda leader to Afghanistan. Court documents claim that he served in a number of roles for his longtime friend -- from driver to accountant to cook in the kitchen at bin Laden's Afghanistan compound before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Perhaps most importantly, he allegedly facilitated bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora in late 2001.

Reporter hails terrorist as "one of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot"
CNN fires Middle Eastern editor over tweet
By David Bauder, Washington Times
CNN has fired an editor responsible for Middle Eastern coverage after she posted a note on Twitter expressing admiration for a late Lebanese cleric considered an inspiration for the Hezbollah militant movement. Octavia Nasr later apologized for her tweet, but CNN's senior vice president for international newsgathering, Parisa Khosravi, said Wednesday that Ms. Nasr's credibility had been compromised. The Atlanta-based Ms. Nasr worked at CNN for 20 years, starting as an assignment editor on the international desk. Her job was mostly off the air, but she occasionally would appear as an onscreen analyst during discussions of Middle Eastern news. Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died Sunday after a long illness. He was staunchly anti-American and linked to bombings that killed more than 260 Americans, a charge he denied. In a Twitter posting over the weekend, Ms. Nasr said she was sad to hear of Fadlallah's death. She called him "one of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."

Ahmadinejad: 'They know they cannot do a damn thing with sanctions'
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out over the weekend in the wake of Obama signing congressional sanctions into law
By Bridget Johnson, The Hill
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out over the weekend in the wake of President Barack Obama signing into law last week the toughest-ever sanctions to come out of Congress. "Bullying powers know that no room will remain for them in the world if the Iranian nation mounts its efforts," Ahmadinejad said, according to the government-owned Press TV. "They know they cannot do a damn thing with sanctions." The president encouraged a unified effort to counter Western measures taken against the Islamic Republic for its growing nuclear program. "At any juncture that Iranians were vigilant and united, even the most bullying powers were brought to their knees," Ahmadinejad said. Obama on Thursday signed the sanctions law, measures in addition to the latest round of U.N. sanctions on Iran. The Senate had approved the bill 99-0, and the House OK'd the unilateral sanctions by 408-8.

Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi still alive in Libya, despite 'terminal cancer'
By Michael Sheridan, New York Daily News
Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi remains alive and well in Libya, despite doctors' claims that he would have died within weeks after his controversial release in August 2009. Perhaps the expert's should have gotten another opinion. Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Al-Megrahi remains alive and well in Libya nearly a year after his early release and months after several doctors said the cancer-stricken terrorist was supposed to have died. Now one of those same doctors claims Megrahi could potentially live another decade. "There was always a chance he could live for ten years, 20 years... But it's very unusual," cancer specialist Professor Sikora told London's Sunday Times. Megrahi is the only terrorist to be convicted in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed 270 over Lockerbie, Scotland. He was given a life sentence, but received an early release in August for "compassionate" reasons because doctors concluded he would be dead within three months from terminal prostate cancer. The terrorist received a hero's welcome when he returned to Libya after his release in August, and since has reportedly been on the mend. Although he was required to keep Scottish doctors apprised of his health after his release, his lawyers have kept his medical records sealed. "There was a 50 per cent chance that he would die in three months," Sikora said. "But there was also a 50 per cent chance that he would live longer." Megrahi's continued health has caused outrage among the families of those who died in 1988, many of whom were angry he had been let go at all. It was reported last year that Megrahi's release had little to do with his health, but was tied to political dealings related to the oil trade between the United Kingdom and Libya.

Muslim family of 'Harry Potter' actress charged with threatening to kill her over boyfriend
Threatened to kill her because of her relationship with an unidentified Hindu man
By ANDY SOLTIS, New York Post
The strict Muslim father and brother of "Harry Potter" actress Afshan Azad have been charged with threatening to kill her because she has a boyfriend. Azad, 22, fled the suburban English home she shared with her father, Abdul, 54, mother, Nilofar, and three brothers after the bizarre incident on May 21, authorities said. A spokesman for prosecutors said her brother Ashraf, 28, physically attacked her and both he and their father threatened to kill her because of her relationship with an unidentified Hindu man. They confronted her in her bedroom and left her "badly bruised" when she refused to stop seeing the man, the Daily Express said. Afshan, who appeared in four Potter movies is believed to have taken refuge at the London home of friends. Both of the accused men appeared in Manchester Magistrates' Court and were ordered not to travel to London while the case was adjourned until July 12. Their bail conditions also required them to observe a curfew of 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. and not to contact an unnamed man, believed to be the boyfriend. No other details of the incident were disclosed. But Ashraf told the Daily Telegraph that the family will suffer as a result of the scandal.

Suicide Bombers Strike Sufi Shrine in Pakistan
The attack was part of a pattern of increased violence in Pakistan’s heartland, the province of Punjab, a troubling expansion of the Taliban insurgency tormenting the country
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and WAQAR GILLANI, New York Times
The death toll rose to 42 on Friday after suicide bombers struck Pakistan’s most important Sufi shrine, a devastating attack by hard-line militants on the moderate, more flexible blend of Islam that is practiced by most Pakistanis. The two bombers attacked in the city of Lahore just before midnight, the peak worship time for the shrine, known as Data Ganj Baksh. Thousands of people were at the shrine at the time, according to the Pakistani police. In addition to the fatalities, about 175 people were injured, according to police officials. The strike on such a revered place of worship seemed to enrage Pakistanis, who are growing weary of violence that has spiked in the past four years. On Friday, about 2,000 demonstrators marched through Lahore, calling on the government to do more to thwart militants, according to news reports from Pakistan. The attack was part of a pattern of increased violence in Pakistan’s heartland, the province of Punjab, a troubling expansion of the Taliban insurgency tormenting the country’s western border.

Terror -- and candor in describing the Islamist ideology behind it
"One has to understand where I'm coming from . . . I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier"
By Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post
Holder's avoidance of the obvious continues the absurd and embarrassing refusal of the Obama administration to acknowledge who out there is trying to kill Americans and why. In fact, it has banned from its official vocabulary the terms jihadist, Islamist and Islamic terrorism. Instead, President Obama's National Security Strategy insists on calling the enemy -- how else do you define those seeking your destruction? -- "a loose network of violent extremists." But this is utterly meaningless. This is not an anger-management therapy group gone rogue. These are people professing a powerful ideology rooted in a radical interpretation of Islam, in whose name they propagandize, proselytize, terrorize and kill. Why is this important? Because the first rule of war is to know your enemy. If you don't, you wander into intellectual cul-de-sacs and ignore the real causes that might allow you to prevent recurrences.

Embodiment of evil: There are few degrees of separation between terrorists
By the New York Daily News
Authorities frequently try to console us that one terror attack or another is a one-off or the work of a lone wolf. By and large, it's a lie. As new revelations about the foiled bombing of New York's subways prove, seemingly disparate Islamist plots are the work of a sophisticated, interconnected network. In fact, we now know that one man is tied to four known plots against New York, including 9/11, and is sure to be planning more. Adnan Shukrijumah, Saudi-born and American-raised, is a top Al Qaeda operative with a particular interest in striking the U.S. with nukes. Meantime, he has assisted plots that would wreak smaller-scale death and havoc. Officials revealed Wednesday that Shukrijumah met at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan with Zarein Ahmedzay, who pleaded guilty with Najibullah Zazi in the subway plot. That was but the most recent emergence of a man who, in 2004, was declared an urgent threat by then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Confront the Saudis for teaching hate
'The Jews worship the devil," the teachers tell 8th-graders
By ADAM ROZELL & JOSHUA HABER, New York Post
'The Jews worship the devil," the teachers tell 8th-graders. Later, in 10th-grade history class, students will learn that the Jews were responsible for the French Revolution and, of course, the Bolshevik Revolution. These are mild examples of the blatantly untrue "information" systematically taught in schools across Saudi Arabia. It is no wonder anti-Semitism is still alive and well. Every year, the Saudi education system breeds a new pool of extremists. Students are taught to hate Jews and Christians (as well as people of other religions) and encouraged to act violently against them. In a 9th-grade textbook on selected Hadiths, or sayings by the Prophet, students learn that "The [hour of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them." It says "there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." The Saudi curricula includes false lessons on historical events -- such as the "fact" that Jews instigated World War I. An 8th grade Saudi textbook teaches students that Jews and Christians were "punished by being turned into apes and swine" for "losing their religion" during the pre-Islamic era. These texts also instruct children that Muslims are engaged in an existential battle against both Jews and Christians in a never-ending global jihad -- which is essentially the same line as al Qaeda.

JFK bomb plot nicknamed 'The Shining,' witness tells court in testimony against alleged ringleaders
"There was talk about people getting killed. Women, children, pregnant women. Some people was saying this is a sacrifice we have to make. Some people were saying 'collateral damage.'"
By John Marzulli, New York Daily News
They called it "The Shining." That was the nickname of a plot to blow up Kennedy Airport - because the inferno would have lit up the entire borough of Queens, a cooperating witness testified Thursday. Donald Nero, 51, a Guyanese national, said he was recruited to join the conspiracy by alleged ringleader Russell Defreitas, a former airport worker with a grudge against America. "According to Mr. Defreitas when the explosion takes place, you can see the explosion of the airport throughout Queens," Nero testified Thursday in Brooklyn Federal Court. The plan to blow up fuel tanks and fuel lines in 2006 was motivated by Defreitas' hatred of the U.S. for supporting Israel, he said. "America was putting missiles, bombs, war equipment on planes to send to Israel to kill Palestinians," Nero said. "He (Defreitas) said he put those things personally on planes." Assistant U.S. Attorney Berit Berger asked the witness if the plotters were aware an attack would cause carnage beyond economic damage. "According to what was said about 'The Shining' of Queens, there was going to be destruction of a lot of buildings," Nero replied. "At the airport there's a lot of people going in and out of the airport," he added. "There was talk about people getting killed. Women, children, pregnant women. Some people was saying this is a sacrifice we have to make. Some people were saying 'collateral damage.'"

Jihad journal
Qaeda's explosive mag for terror fans
By TODD VENEZIA, New York Post
Anna Wintour just got a rival for the title of most coldblooded editor in the world. Cave-dwelling al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden and his minions apparently are putting out an English-language magazine with stories on topics close to the jihadi heart -- such as "Make a bomb in the kitchen of your mom." The new mag, called "Inspire," marks the biggest publishing foray by a criminal since Martha Stewart Living. It reportedly was scheduled to be available Wednesday on terror Web sites before a computer glitch scuttled the plan. The magazine has all the info that today's on-the-go jihadist needs to plan his weekend of hate and mayhem, including a piece on "Sending and receiving encrypted messages," and one explaining "Open source jihad." Three pages of what's purported to be the murderous mag were obtained by The Atlantic yesterday, including a table of contents showing a piece titled "The way to save the Earth" supposedly taken from a speech by Osama himself. Another page with an "Editor's Letter" explains the magazine's purpose. "In the West, in the East . . . and elsewhere there are millions of Muslims whose first or second language is English," the editors wrote. "It is our intent to be a platform to present the important issues facing [al Qaeda] today to the wide and dispersed English speaking Muslim readership." An article called "A message to the people of Yemen" is purportedly by al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The magazine is said to have been published out of Yemen by a group called al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula. The Atlantic reported that a US official told them the terrorist title appears genuine. The cover of this inaugural issue features a shadowy figure of what appears to be a terrorist goon holding a rifle. On Page 21, the magazine promises an article on "The Cartoon Crusade," Page 48 looks at "The schools of jihad," while Page 56 has an article purportedly penned by Anwar al-Awlaki, who has been linked to the perpetrators of the Fort Hood massacre and the failed Christmas Day airliner bombing. "May our souls be sacrificed for you!" Awlaki wrote.

The danger of an Islamized Gaza
Torture and arrests for 'morality offenses' by Hamas police, the people of Gaza are prisoners
By Bill Van Esveld, Los Angeles Times
A notorious example is the expanded role of Gaza's "morality police." Last summer, these black-uniformed police began to patrol the beaches to ensure that men and women are dressed "appropriately" — there is no written rule but a woman was punished for swimming in a T-shirt and jeans — and that unrelated men and women are not mingling. They make sure clothing stores display only modestly dressed female mannequins in their windows. They have enforced bans on women riding motorcycles and on male hairdressers working in women's hair salons. Couples walking down the street are routinely stopped, separated and questioned by plainclothes officers asking whether they're married. "You basically have to carry a copy of your marriage license on you at all times, or risk being humiliated," one young couple told us. And parents say their daughters are under pressure to dress more conservatively for school. But the problem goes beyond such invasions of privacy. In some cases, the security services use "morality offenses" to expand their authority, including punishing people for breaking rules that are not on the books.

Twin Car Bombs Kill 27 in Baghdad
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Two suicide car bombers struck a crowded area outside a state-run bank Sunday in Baghdad, killing nearly 30 people in the latest attack targeting a high-profile part of the capital. The blast, which tore the glass facade off the three-story Trade Bank of Iraq building, leaving chairs and desks exposed, occurred shortly after 11 a.m. as the area was packed with people at the start of the local work week. Iraqi officials initially said the explosives-packed cars were parked a few hundred yards (meters) apart, but later said the attacks were staged by suicide bombers. Security forces swarmed through the debris while cleanup crews used cranes to move the charred wreckage of several vehicles destroyed by the blast.

Killed for collaborating with U.S.?
Iraqi son accused of killing father
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
An al-Qaida-linked insurgent shot and killed his own father as he slept in his bed Friday for refusing to quit his job as an Iraqi interpreter for the U.S. military, police said, a rare deadly attack on a close family member over allegations of collaborating with the enemy. The attack happened on a particularly bloody day in Iraq, with at least 27 people killed nationwide in bombings and ambushes largely targeting the houses of government officials, Iraqi security forces and those seen as allied with them.

Violence Up Sharply in Afghanistan, Report Finds
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
Violence in Afghanistan increased substantially over the past three months, most of it due to attacks by “anti-government forces,” the United Nations said in a report released here Saturday. Especially alarming were increases in suicide bombings and assassinations, as well as a near-doubling of roadside bombings compared to the same period in 2009, according to the quarterly report of the U.N. Secretary General to the Security Council. “The number of security incidents increased significantly, compared to previous years and contrary to seasonal trends,” the report said, adding that most of this was a consequence of military operations in the southern part of the country, particularly Helmand and Kandahar provinces where increased NATO military operations have been underway.

Beware of jihad, ex-prosecutor says
Book outlines Islamist intentions to Muslimize the West
By Michal Elseth, Washington Times
Andrew C. McCarthy, a decorated former federal prosecutor who won convictions in the 1995 World Trade Center bombings, has issued a warning to America: Beware of the Islamist intent to Muslimize the Western world through jihad. Mr. McCarthy says he wants to alert the public about the Islamist challenge to Americans' freedom in his book "The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America." The book was released last month. "While Islamists carefully execute their plans to impose Allah's law, which directly contradicts the bedrock principles of American society, President Obama and the Left are not only asleep at the wheel, but complicit in the effort. Simply put, the prognosis for liberty could not be more dire," he writes. The alliance between Mr. Obama's hard-left followers and radical political Islam, also known as Islamism, has its roots in a relationship that has been around since at least the last century, Mr. McCarthy said. He said that people are now afraid to say anything negative against Muslims or Muslim groups because they think they would be perceived as racist. A contributing editor at the National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, Mr. McCarthy, 51, is no stranger when it comes to dealing with the threat of Islamist terror. He was the lead prosecutor in the trial of "Blind Sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman and 10 other Muslim terrorists who were convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Al Qaeda recruits in Africa
Congress hears how 'predatory' governments, strife aid terrorist groups
By Ashish Kumar, Washington Times
The Horn of Africa is becoming a major recruiting ground for al Qaeda and other terrorists as a result of oppressive governments and regional civil strife, a panel of experts told Congress on Thursday. The United States has good ties with most governments in the region but "the problem is that those governments are in fact enemies of large sections of their populations," Kenneth John Menkhaus, professor of political science at Davidson College, said during a hearing before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa and global health. "Recruitment by al Qaeda or other radical groups is going to be in ideal conditions, where people are angry with repressive, predatory governments that are supported by the United States," Mr. Menkhaus said. Some analysts link the growth of terrorist groups such as the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab that operates in Somalia to U.S. support for the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. Ted Dagne, an African affairs specialist at the Congressional Research Service, said the ouster of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia at that time created a security vacuum that was quickly filled by radical Islamists. "Al Qaeda and its allies are much stronger today than they were a few years ago," Mr. Dagne said.

Militant Group Expands Attacks in Afghanistan
By ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times
A Pakistani-based militant group identified with attacks on Indian targets has expanded its operations in Afghanistan, inflicting casualties on Afghans and Indians alike, setting up training camps, and adding new volatility to relations between India and Pakistan. The group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, is believed to have planned or executed three major attacks against Indian government employees and private workers in Afghanistan in recent months, according to Afghan and international intelligence officers and diplomats here. It continues to track Indian development workers and others for possible attack, they said. Lashkar was behind the synchronized attacks on several civilian targets in Mumbai, India, in 2008, in which at least 163 people were killed. Its inroads in Afghanistan provide a fresh indication of its growing ambitions to confront India even beyond the disputed territory of Kashmir, for which Pakistan’s military and intelligence services created the group as a proxy force decades ago.

Red Cross: 'Several hundred' dead in Kyrgyz unrest
By the Associated Press, New York Post
The Red Cross says several hundred people have been killed in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan since rioting began last Thursday. The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has no precise death figures, but spokesman Christian Cardon says "we are talking about several hundreds" of people killed. The southern part of the impoverished nation has been convulsed by days of rioting targeting minority Uzbeks, which has left the country's second-largest city, Osh, in ruins and sent tens of thousands of Uzbeks fleeing toward the border with Uzbekistan.

Cleric Says Iran Should Produce Nuclear Arms
By the Associated Press, New York Times
The hard-line spiritual mentor of Iran’s president has made a rare public call for producing the “special weapons” that are a monopoly of a few nations, which represents a veiled reference to nuclear arms. The Associated Press on Monday obtained a copy of a book written by the spiritual adviser, Ayatollah Muhammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, in which he wrote that Iran should not deprive itself of the right to produce these “special weapons.” Iran’s government, as well as its clerical hierarchy, has repeatedly said that the country is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, as the United States and other Western nations suspect. The United Nations Security Council last week imposed a fourth round of sanctions in response to Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which it maintains is only for a civilian nuclear energy program, but which could conceivably be used to produce material for nuclear weapons. The new United Nations sanctions call for an asset freeze of 40 additional companies and organizations in Iran, including 22 involved in the nuclear program or developing ballistic missiles.

"God help us! They are killing Uzbeks like animals"
Ethnic clashes in Kyrgyzstan leave 100-plus dead, more than 1,000 hurt
By the New York Daily News
Ethnic tension has boiled over into horrific violence in Kyrgyzstan, as more than 1,000 people have been wounded in rioting, with 100 or more killed. Troops were ordered by the government to shoot rioters in an effort to end the violence, but that failed to calm the upheaval. Witnesses saw bodies lying on the streets of the Central Asian republic's second largest city Osh as houses and shops in an Uzbek neighborhood burned for a third day. Snipers fired at ethnic Uzbeks fleeing for the nearby border with Uzbekistan in fighting that has spread to the city of Jalalabad and surrounding villages. "God help us! They are killing Uzbeks like animals. Almost the whole city is in flames," Dilmurad Ishanov, an ethnic Uzbek human rights worker, told Reuters by telephone from Osh. Thousands of Uzbeks have fled in panic to the nearby border with Uzbekistan after their homes were torched by roving mobs of Kyrgyz men. Some Uzbek women and children were gunned down as they tried to escape, witnesses said.

Report: Pakistani spy agency supports Taliban
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Pakistan’s main spy agency continues to train, fund and arm the Taliban despite U.S. pressure to sever ties with the group that Islamabad helped rise to power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, said a research report released Sunday. The findings could raise tensions between Pakistan and the U.S., which has provided billions of dollars in military assistance to Islamabad since 2001 to help fight the Taliban. U.S. officials believe Pakistan’s support is key to defeating the insurgency. But the country’s powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, continues to work closely with the Taliban and is even represented on the group’s leadership council, said the report, which was issued by the London School of Economics and is based on interviews with more than a dozen unnamed Taliban commanders. Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, spokesman for the Pakistani army, which controls ISI, rejected the report, calling it “rubbish.” “In the past, these kinds of baseless and unsubstantiated allegations have surfaced and we have rejected them,” said Abbas. Many analysts have suggested in the past that current or former ISI officials have maintained links to the Taliban. But the report offers one of the strongest cases that assistance to the group is official ISI policy, and even extends to the highest levels of the Pakistani government.

Terrorists hit the jackpot thanks to US taxyapers...
Obama pledges $400 million for Palestinians
Hamas controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization
By Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
President Obama pledged an infusion of $400 million in aid for housing, school construction and business development in the Palestinian territories Wednesday, saying after a one-on-one meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that the situation in Gaza is "inherently unstable." The Obama administration's promise of aid includes money to increase access to clean drinking water, create jobs and build schools and affordable housing. State Department officials called the projects "a down payment" on the U.S. commitment to improving life in Gaza. Last year, U.S. officials pledged a total of $900 million for Gaza and the West Bank, but acknowledged the difficulty of distributing the funds, especially because Hamas controls Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization. The aid announced Wednesday may be distributed through organizations performing relief work, State Department officials said. Abbas said he saw Wednesday's aid pledge as a positive sign for Gaza and the West Bank.

Taliban hang 7-year-old boy accused of being a spy
By SEAN ALFANO, New York Daily News
A 7-year-old boy accused of being a spy was hanged by Taliban militants, according to a report Thursday. The child was allegedly put on trial by the militant group and later found guilty of working for Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai’s government, reports the Daily Mail. Karzai called the act a "crime against humanity." "I don't think there's a crime bigger than that that even the most inhuman forces on earth can commit," Karzai said. The child was publicly hanged in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand province. "A 7-year-old boy cannot be a spy," Karzai added. "A 7-year-old boy cannot be anything but a seven-year-old boy, and therefore hanging or shooting to kill a seven-year-old boy... is a crime against humanity."

Suicide bomber kills 40 at Afghan wedding
The assailant strikes during a wedding dinner in Kandahar province
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
A suicide bomber killed at least 40 people and wounded more than 70 late Wednesday during a wedding in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, local officials said. A police official said Thursday that a suicide bomber went to a party in Nagahan village in Arghandab district where hundreds of people were sitting and blew himself up. The explosion came during the wedding dinner, between 9:30 and 10 p.m., reportedly striking the area where male guests were dining separately from the women. All the casualties were men or boys, village officials said, according to media reports.

Taliban Aim at Officials in a Wave of Killings
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
The Taliban have been stepping up a campaign of assassinations in recent months against officials and anyone else associated with local government in an attempt to undermine counterinsurgency operations in the south. Government assassinations are nothing new as a Taliban tactic, but now the Taliban are taking aim at officials who are much more low-level, who often do not have the sort of bodyguards or other protection that top leaders do. Some of the victims have only the slimmest connections to the authorities. The most egregious example came Wednesday in Helmand Province, where according to Afghan officials the insurgents executed a 7-year-old boy as an informant.

The faces of hate
The pair talked of the best ways to chop off their victims' heads
By CAROLYN SALAZAR, PERRY CHIARAMONTE and CHUCK BENNETT, New York Post
These are the faces of evil. Officials last night released the mug shots of New Jersey terror suspects Mohamed Alessa, 20, and Carlos "Omar" Almonte, 24. They were taken after the two hate-spewing terrorist wannabes were captured as they headed to Somalia, allegedly to wage holy war on Americans. Their neighbors weren't surprised -- they said jihad started early for the two. They were

terrors in their suburban communities years before they were busted last Saturday at Kennedy Airport. Not a single school could handle Alessa. He openly talked of blowing up his schools in the name of Islam. Almonte was picked up by cops several times for increasingly violent behavior. The duo are due back in Newark federal court today for a bail hearing on charges of plotting to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas. The pair talked of the best ways to chop off their victims' heads and said they'd eagerly wage jihad back home as battle-hardened veterans, according to the federal complaint. Attorneys for Alessa and Almonte didn't return calls for comment.

Jersey 'jihadi' school ordeal
By JEANE MacINTOSH and DAN MANGAN, New York Post
One of the two aspiring Islamic terrorists busted at JFK Airport over the weekend was considered so dangerous as a teenager that he was barred from attending classes in his New Jersey high school, it was revealed yesterday. Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, "was placed on home instruction" three months after starting North Bergen HS in 2004, an administrator told The Post.

Two Arrested at Kennedy Airport on Terror Charges
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM, New York Times
Two New Jersey men who were bound for Somalia with the stated intention of joining an Islamic extremist group to kill American troops were arrested at Kennedy International Airport late Saturday, federal and local authorities said on Sunday. The men, Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, were seeking to join Al Shabab, a group that claims ideological kinship with Al Qaeda and was thought to have provided a haven to Qaeda operatives wanted for bombings of United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, prosecutors said in court papers. The men were taken into custody as they prepared to take separate flights to Egypt, the first leg of their journey to Somalia to join Al Shabab, according to federal and local officials.

Brave cop nailed wanna-be jihadists
By MURRAY WEISS and LEONARD GREENE, New York Post
A fresh-faced rookie cop with ties to New York and the Middle East was the undercover who eventually brought down a pair of would-be jihadists gunning for Americans. The NYPD officer was only a couple of years out of the Police Academy when he was assigned the treacherous duty of hanging out with suspects Mohamed Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24. Operating out of a Jersey City apartment, the cop — who is of Egyptian descent — grew a thick beard and adopted a convincing enough demeanor to fool the two wannabe terrorists into providing him with all the details of their gruesome plot to train overseas and kill countrymen.

Israel kills 4 members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in waters off Gaza
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Israeli naval forces shot and killed four men wearing wet suits in the waters off the coast of Gaza Monday, and a militant group said they were members of its marine unit training for a mission. The attack was the latest escalation in tensions over the 3-year-old blockade of Gaza. Vice President Joe Biden said Monday the U.S. is closely consulting with Egypt and other allies to find new ways to "address the humanitarian, economic, security, and political aspects of the situation in Gaza." He spoke in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Taliban Attacks Shake Afghan Peace Gathering
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
President Hamid Karzai’s peace council, called a jirga, came under fire from inside and out on its first day Wednesday. Even as the Afghan president spoke, inviting the Taliban to join in peace efforts, insurgents sent a pair of potential suicide bombers, disguised in women’s clothing, in a failed attempt to disrupt it. Inside the sprawling jirga tent, a former president who led anti-Taliban warlords was appointed chairman, prompting some prominent delegates to pronounce the deliberations doomed. “This is a mistake; all the warlords were there in the front row,” said Mir Joyenda, an independent member of Parliament from Kabul. “There is no change that will come to Afghanistan,” he said, reflecting widespread disgust with the continued prominent role of former warlords in the government.

Terror group tries to run Israeli blockade

At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla
By ISABEL KERSHNER, New York Times
Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning. The Israeli Defense Forces said more than 10 people were killed when naval personnel boarding the six ships in the aid convoy met with “live fire and light weaponry." At least four Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation, some from gunfire, according to the military. Television footage from the flotilla before communications were cut showed what appeared to be commandos sliding down ropes from helicopters onto one of the vessels in the flotilla, while Israeli high-speed naval vessels surrounded the convoy. Named the Freedom Flotilla and led by the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the convoy was the most ambitious attempt yet to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza. At a news conference on Monday in Jerusalem, Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said the flotilla’s intent was “not to transfer humanitarian things to Gaza” but to break the Israeli blockade. “This blockade is legal,” he said, “and aimed at preventing the infiltration of terror and terrorists into Gaza.”

Refused to dock in Israel and have relief supplies unloaded and inspected
By Janine Zacharia, Washington Post
At least 10 pro-Palestinian activists were killed and dozens were wounded aboard an aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip when Israeli naval commandos seized control of the boats early Monday, the Israeli army said. Israel had warned the organizers of the flotilla -- transporting items such as concrete to help Gaza rebuild after last year's war with Israel -- that they would not be allowed to sail directly through the blockaded region. The activists refused to dock in Israel and have relief supplies unloaded and inspected there, saying they did not trust that Israel would allow the contents to be trucked to the Gaza Strip. Overnight, Israeli naval personnel dropped from helicopters onto the largest passenger ship from Turkey, which had several hundred people aboard. Short video clips broadcast on various television stations showed demonstrators clubbing the navy personnel with metal bars and showed at least one soldier firing. The Israeli army said demonstrators attacked the navy personnel with knives and live fire and seized at least one of the soldier's weapons. "This IDF naval operation was carried out under orders from the political leadership to halt the flotilla from reaching the Gaza Strip and breaching the naval blockade," the Israeli army said in its statement.

U.S. Presses Pakistan for More Data on Travelers
By ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times
The Obama administration is increasing pressure on Pakistan to provide the United States with much broader airline passenger information, a crucial tool that American investigators use to track terrorist travel patterns, but a step that Pakistan has resisted, American officials said Sunday. Pakistan, like other countries, currently provides the names of airline passengers traveling to the United States. But the administration is pressing for information on Pakistanis who fly to other countries, to feed into databases that can detect patterns used by terrorists, their financiers, logisticians and others who support them, the officials said. Pakistan has for several years rebuffed this politically unpopular request as an invasion of its citizens’ privacy. But the issue is now on a “short list” of sticking points between the two countries — including some classified counterterrorism programs, a long-running dispute over granting visas to American government workers and contractors in Pakistan, and enhanced intelligence sharing — that have intensified since the failed Times Square car bombing on May 1, two senior administration officials said. The two officials and several others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the continuing negotiations.

Accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad received crash course in terrorism in Pakistan
By JAMES GORDON MEEK, New York Daily News
The accused Times Square car bomber got a crash course in killing from thugs in Pakistan's two top terror towns, the Daily News has learned. Pakistani immigrant Faisal Shahzad, who was charged with planting the dud bomb in a Nissan Pathfinder on May 1, had recently spent time in the towns most associated with Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies, a senior military officer in Islamabad said. The Tehrek-e-Taliban, or TTP - an umbrella group made up of a mix of militants in Pakistan's tribal belt - has been accused by Attorney General Eric Holder of teaching Shahzad to murder fellow Americans. "It was TTP groups from Miran Shah and Mir Ali," the Pakistani officer told The News. "It's a cauldron, an epicenter of extremist activity," said a U.S. official. "There are boomtowns and then there are 'boom' towns, and that's what these are." But the amateurish device found smoking in Times Square on a bustling Saturday night showed Shazad's training was pitiful. "There is less belief that he had any formal training or was a hardened militant," the Pakistani officer said. "He might have gotten some briefings, but not much." "Hardcore" militants typically get about five to six months' training at modest camps near Afghanistan, officials said. Shahzad's shorter time in North Waziristan's most notorious towns - "a couple of months" - wasn't enough for advanced terror instruction, the officials added.

Attackers Hit Mosques in Pakistan
By WAQAR GILLANI and JANE PERLEZ, New York Times
Hafeez Malik heard the gunfire outside the mosque, then shots inside the prayer hall. “People were dying one after the other,” said Mr. Malik, a 55-year-old architect. “I could count more than 20 people dead around me.” From inside another mosque several miles away near the central train station, his brother, Abdul Rashid Malik, 65, an engineer, called his family on his cellphone. He was a hostage and had been shot in the leg, he said. He has not been heard from since, Hafeez Malik said. More than 80 worshipers of a minority Muslim sect, the Ahmadis, were killed and more than 110 wounded Friday in a coordinated assault by seven well-trained attackers on two mosques in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city, the authorities said. At the mosque known as Dar-ul-Zakir, near the train station, two attackers blew themselves up inside the prayer hall after spraying the congregation with bullets, police officers said. The target was the Ahmadis, a group of about two million Muslims in Pakistan who are considered heretical by many mainstream Muslims because the Ahmadis believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their movement in 1889, was the messiah foretold by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam.

Homeland Security memo warns: Terror attacks at all time high, and will likely get worse
By MICHAEL SHERIDAN, Los Angeles Daily News
Terror attacks on the United States are on the rise, and according to the Department of Homeland Security, it's only going to get worse. An unclassified intelligence memo states "the number and pace of attempted attacks against the United States over the past nine months have surpassed the number of attempts during any other previous one-year period." Terror organizations will also target the United States with "increased frequency," the memo warned. "We have to operate under the premise that other operatives are in the country and could advance plotting with little or no warning," it said. Noted in the memo are the recent attempts to attack New York City, including the failed Times Square car bombing and Najibullah Zazi's alleged plot to blow up the city's subways. Future attacks will be more challenging to stop or prevent, because operatives will likely be more ingrained in our society, and be able to develop weapons with commonly available items which are more difficult to track. It also warns that possible terrorists would likely spend less time overseas "compared to lengthier training cycles for earlier operations, reducing our ability to detect their activities." Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan, the terrorist group which is believed to have had a hand in the attempted Times Square attack, as well as Al Qaeda, were mentioned in the memo.

Tight pants ban takes effect in Indonesia's Aceh
Islamic police will determine whether a woman's clothing violates the dress code; During raids women's pants were confiscated
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Authorities in a devoutly Islamic district of Indonesia's Aceh province have distributed 20,000 long skirts and prohibited shops from selling tight dresses as a regulation banning Muslim women from wearing revealing clothing took effect Thursday. The long skirts are to be given to Muslim women caught violating the dress code during a two-month campaign to enforce the regulation, said Ramli Mansur, head of West Aceh district. Islamic police will determine whether a woman's clothing violates the dress code, he said. During raids Thursday, Islamic police caught 18 women traveling on motorbikes who were wearing traditional headscarves but were also dressed in jeans. Each woman was given a long skirt and her pants were confiscated. They were released from police custody after giving their identities and receiving advice from Islamic preachers. "I am not wearing sexy outfits, but they caught me like a terrorist only because of my jeans," said Imma, a 40-year-old housewife who uses only one name. She argued that wearing jeans is more comfortable when she travels by motorbike.

Tight pants ban takes effect in Indonesia's Aceh
Islamic police will determine whether a woman's clothing violates the dress code; During raids women's pants were confiscated
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Authorities in a devoutly Islamic district of Indonesia's Aceh province have distributed 20,000 long skirts and prohibited shops from selling tight dresses as a regulation banning Muslim women from wearing revealing clothing took effect Thursday. The long skirts are to be given to Muslim women caught violating the dress code during a two-month campaign to enforce the regulation, said Ramli Mansur, head of West Aceh district. Islamic police will determine whether a woman's clothing violates the dress code, he said. During raids Thursday, Islamic police caught 18 women traveling on motorbikes who were wearing traditional headscarves but were also dressed in jeans. Each woman was given a long skirt and her pants were confiscated. They were released from police custody after giving their identities and receiving advice from Islamic preachers. "I am not wearing sexy outfits, but they caught me like a terrorist only because of my jeans," said Imma, a 40-year-old housewife who uses only one name. She argued that wearing jeans is more comfortable when she travels by motorbike.

U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk
“When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America"
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.” No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government, including President Obama. “They have planted this character Faisal Shahzad to implement their script,” said Hashmat Ali Habib, a lawyer and a member of the bar association. Who are they? “You must know, you are from America,” he said smiling. “My advice for the American nation is, get free of these think tanks.” Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history. Since 2001, the United States has taken center stage, looming so large in Pakistan’s collective imagination that it sometimes seems to be responsible for everything that goes wrong here. “When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore.

Iranian author Roxana Shirazi's 'The Last Living Slut' chronicles her hot sexcapades with rock stars
"I think I would get killed if I went back to Tehran"
IBy RUSH & MOLLOY, New York Daily News
Roxana Shirazi engaged in some risky sex while hanging with rock's raunchiest hair bands. But the unrepentant groupie is courting bigger danger with her memoir, "The Last Living Slut: Born in Iran, Bred Backstage." Shirazi says several editors and agents passed on her manuscript for fear of a fatwa - the Islamic death sentence that once put "Satanic Verses" author Salman Rushdie in fear of his life. But her two champions, authors Neil Strauss and Anthony Bozza, finally persuaded HarperCollins to publish it under the new Igniter imprint. It's not hard to see what might incite the mullahs in Tehran, where Shirazi lived until she was 10. "I haven't attacked Islam itself," she tells us. "But they probably don't think I should be writing about doing sex during my Koran classes." Her later rock debauchery is so explicit as to make Pamela Des Barres' famous "I'm With the Band" read "like a nun's diary," the book warns. There's also the art: photos of a naked Shirazi, and another of her dressed in a traditional chador while making an obscene gesture with her fingers and tongue. "I think I would get killed if I went back to Tehran," says the thirtysomething Londoner, who holds a master of fine arts degree and lectures on gender and identity.

Imam planning Islamic center, mosque near Ground Zero rips Tea Party's Mark Williams, other critics
By BARRY PADDOCK AND SAMUEL GOLDSMITH, New York Daily News
The Imam planning an Islamic community center and mosque near Ground Zero says his critics are bigots and the project will stamp out terrorism - not fan the flames. "We condemn terrorists. We recognize it exists in our faith, but we are committed to eradicate it," said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is leading the charge to build the Cordoba House. "We want to rebuild this community," he said. "This is about moderate Muslims who intend to be and want to be part of the solution." Rauf appeared with city leaders Thursday at 45 Park Place, the future home of the Cordoba House less than three blocks from Ground Zero. The meeting came one day after Tea Party Express chairman Mark Williams called the project a monument to 9/11 attackers "for the worship of the terrorists' monkey-god." Williams later issued a ham-handed apology to the "millions of Hindus who worship Lord Hanuman, an actual Monkey God."

Taxpayers to pick up terrorist's defense tab
Bomber's 1st time before judge
By BRUCE GOLDING, New York Post
Accused Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad yesterday made his first court appearance since being nabbed trying to flee the country. The Taliban-linked suspect was brought to Manhattan federal court under extremely tight security to face five felony raps. Just before he was brought before a judge around 5:20 p.m., authorities emptied the courtroom for 15 minutes for a final security sweep. Shahzad -- who is accused of trying to detonate a car bomb in pedestrian-packed Times Square on May 1 -- appeared in a full beard and sporting a gray sweat suit. He was not handcuffed when he was brought in, surrounded by six US marshals. About 20 federal prosecutors and FBI agents also were in the courtroom. Before the hearing, the suspected terrorist sat impassively at the defense table, quietly chatting with his federal public-defender lawyer, Julia Gatto. During the proceeding, Magistrate Judge James Francis IV asked Shahzad if everything in the financial affidavit that he had filled out to qualify for a public defender was true. The suspect replied, "Yes." It was the only time Shahzad publicly spoke during the five-minute proceeding.

Suicide Car Bomber Hits U.S. Convoy in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS, New York Times
A man driving a Toyota minivan crammed with explosives steered into an American convoy Tuesday morning here, killing 18 people, including five American troops, officials said. At least 47 people were wounded, nearly all of them civilians caught in rush-hour traffic. A sixth soldier from an unidentified NATO country was also reported killed. The blast sent a fireball billowing into the air, set cars aflame and blew bodies apart. Limbs and entrails flew hundreds of feet, littering yards and walls and streets. The survivors, many of them women and children, some of them missing limbs, lay in the road moaning and calling for help.

For Car Bomb Suspect, a Long Path to Times Square
His anger toward his adopted country seemed to have grown in lockstep with his personal struggles
By ANDREA ELLIOTT, SABRINA TAVERNISE and ANNE BARNARD, New York Times
Just after midnight on Feb. 25, 2006, Faisal Shahzad sent a lengthy e-mail message to a group of friends. The trials of his fellow Muslims weighed on him — the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the plight of Palestinians, the publication in Denmark of cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. Mr. Shahzad was wrestling with how to respond. He understood the notion that Islam forbids the killing of innocents, he wrote. But to those who insist only on “peaceful protest,” he posed a question: “Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood flows? “Everyone knows how the Muslim country bows down to pressure from west. Everyone knows the kind of humiliation we are faced with around the globe.” Yet by some measures, Mr. Shahzad — a Pakistani immigrant who was then 26 years old — seemed to be thriving in the West. He worked as a financial analyst at Elizabeth Arden, the global cosmetics firm. He had just received his green card, making him a legal resident in the United States. He owned a gleaming new house in Shelton, Conn. His Pakistani-American wife would soon become pregnant with their first child, whom they named Alisheba, or “beautiful sunshine.” Four years later, Mr. Shahzad stands accused of planting a car bomb in Times Square on a balmy spring evening. After his arrest two days later, on May 3, while trying to flee to Dubai, the few details that surfaced about his life echoed a familiar narrative about radicalization in the West: his anger toward his adopted country seemed to have grown in lockstep with his personal struggles. He had lost his home to foreclosure last year. At the same time he was showing signs of a profound, religiously infused alienation.

White House adviser says authorities believe Pakistan Taliban behind Times Square bomb attempt
By ANNE FLAHERTY, Chicago Tribune
Citing newly obtained evidence, senior White House officials said Sunday that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the failed Times Square bombing. The attempt marks the first time the group has been able to launch an attack on U.S. soil. And while U.S. officials have downplayed the threat — citing the bomb's lack of sophistication — the incident in Times Square and Christmas Day airline bomber indicate growing strength by overseas terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida even as the CIA says their operations are seriously degraded. The finding also raises new questions about the U.S. relationship with Pakistan, which is widely known to have al-Qaida and other terrorist groups operating within its borders. Attorney General Eric Holder said that new evidence shows that the Pakistani Taliban was "intimately involved" in the bombing plot. John Brennan, the president's homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, made similar remarks, linking the bomber to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.

Times Square car bomb signals new terror focus on US targets: officials
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
The failed bombing in New York's Times Square is a possible signal that militant leaders in Pakistan have shifted their focus to targets in the U.S. and other Western countries instead of sticking to their home base, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials. The attack, they also warned, could be only the first by terrorist groups that seek to avoid detection by using simpler methods that are more independently planned. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly. U.S. investigators and intelligence agencies are trying to establish whether accused bomber Faisal Shahzad was trained or recruited for the Times Square operation by any Pakistan-based terrorist organization, including the Pakistani Taliban. Shahzad, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, spent five months in Pakistan before returning to the United States in February and preparing his attack. Shahzad has told investigators that he trained in the lawless tribal areas of Waziristan, where both al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban operate.

Imam’s Path From Condemning Terror to Preaching Jihad
“Jihad is becoming as American as apple pie and as British as afternoon tea"
By SCOTT SHANE and SOUAD MEKHENNET, New York Times
In the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, the eloquent 30-year-old imam of a mosque outside Washington became a go-to Muslim cleric for reporters scrambling to explain Islam. He condemned the mass murder, invited television crews to follow him around and patiently explained the rituals of his religion. “We came here to build, not to destroy,” the cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, said in a sermon. “We are the bridge between Americans and one billion Muslims worldwide.” At first glance, it seemed plausible that this lanky, ambitious man, with the scholarly wire-rims and equal command of English and Arabic, could indeed be such a bridge. CD sets of his engaging lectures on the Prophet Muhammad were in thousands of Muslim homes. American-born, he had a sense of humor, loved deep-sea fishing, had dabbled in get-rich-quick investment schemes and dropped references to “Joe Sixpack” into his sermons. A few weeks before the attacks he had preached in the United States Capitol. Nine years later, from his hide-out in Yemen, Mr. Awlaki has declared war on the United States.

Times Square bomb suspect had ties to key Pakistani militants
By Richard A. Serrano and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles times
Faisal Shahzad, the would-be Times Square bomber, grew up in a Pakistani family whose circle of acquaintances included two future militants — a Taliban leader and one of the participants in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, a government source said Friday. Officials now believe this family background may help explain why Shahzad, after immigrating to the United States, grew radicalized and allegedly contacted the Pakistani Taliban via the Internet. The group would have welcomed him because as a naturalized U.S. citizen, he could easily travel to and from Pakistan. Agents interviewing Shahzad, 30, who lived in Connecticut, also learned that he was upset over repeated CIA drone attacks on militants in Pakistan, his native country. He was also troubled by marital and financial difficulties and a foreclosure on his home, said the government source, who has been briefed on the investigation. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is continuing.

Pakistani Taliban Are Said to Expand Alliances
By CARLOTTA GALL and SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
The Pakistani Taliban, which American investigators suspect were behind the attempt to bomb Times Square, have in recent years combined forces with Al Qaeda and other groups, threatening to extend their reach and ambitions, Western diplomats, intelligence officials and experts say. Since the group’s formation in 2007, the main mission of the Pakistani Taliban has been to maintain their hold on territory in Pakistan’s tribal areas to train fighters for jihad against American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and, increasingly, to strike at the Pakistani state as the military pushes into these havens. Pakistan’s military offensives and intensifying American drone strikes have degraded their capabilities. But the Pakistani Taliban have sustained themselves through alliances with any number of other militant groups, splinter cells, foot soldiers and guns-for-hire in the areas under their control.

India gives death penalty to gunman in Mumbai terrorist attack
By Rama Lakshmi, Washington Post
The lone surviving Pakistani gunman in a 2008 terrorist attack on Mumbai was sentenced Thursday to die for his role in the bloody siege that killed about 166 people and strained relations between nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan. Ajmal Amir Kasab, 22, convicted of killing 52 people, sat still in the courtroom looking ashen and staring at the floor. He wept as the judge, M.L. Tahiliyani, sentenced him to death by hanging for four offenses, including murder and waging war against India. Ten militants attacked a railway station, two five-star hotels, a restaurant and a Jewish outreach center in the November 2008 siege of Mumbai, India's financial nerve center. Surveillance cameras showed Kasab shooting people with an automatic weapon at the railway station before police arrested him on the first night of the attack. According to lawyers and police officers present in the courtroom, the judge said, "The common man will lose faith in the courts if this man is let loose, if death is not awarded."

Explosions inside a Somali mosque kill at least 30
By the Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Two bombs exploded inside a mosque in Mogadishu's main market on Saturday in the first Iraq-style bombing inside a house of worship in Somalia. At least 30 people were killed and 70 wounded, officials said. The blasts in the Bakara market went off while people were sitting inside the Abdala Shideye mosque waiting for noon prayers. The bombings highlight the increasingly violent path Somali militants are taking following an influx of insurgents into the country from the Afghanistan conflict, fighters who are now training Somali militants. Most of the victims were worshippers, said businessman Ahmed Abdulle, a witness. "The first one occurred at the back of the mosque and the other one at the front. I saw the dead bodies of at least 11 people and 18 injured," said a businessman, Isma'il Dahir. "The blood stained the walls and human flesh was scattered everywhere." Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service, said at least 30 people were killed and 70 wounded. Abdullahi Haji Ilmi, a witness, said he counted 32 bodies.

Pakistani smugglers supplying Afghan bombmakers
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
Twice a week, a caravan of trucks lumbers out of this volatile northwest Pakistan city in the dead of night and makes its way toward Afghanistan, loaded with one of the most coveted substances in a Taliban bombmaker's arsenal: ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Every time the illicit caravan makes its trip, it moves unhindered past a gantlet of Pakistani police checkposts along the Pak-Afghan Highway. A string of bribes paid out to police, politicians and bureaucrats ensures that the smuggled explosive agent reaches its destination, middlemen on the Afghan side of the border who sell it to insurgents, says the co-owner of a Pakistani trucking firm that dispatches the caravans. Banned in Afghanistan, ammonium nitrate is the basic ingredient of the Taliban's roadside bombs. The amounts ferried into Afghanistan are staggering. Each truck carries 130 bags, each of which contains 110 pounds of ammonium nitrate. A caravan typically has least 12 trucks, which means a single night's shipment can move 85 tons of the fertilizer. The caravans head out every third night.

Pakistan, in Shift, Weighs Attack on Militant Lair
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, CARLOTTA GALL and ISMAIL KHAN, New York Times
The Pakistani military, long reluctant to heed American urging that it attack Pakistani militant groups in their main base in North Waziristan, is coming around to the idea that it must do so, in its own interests. Western officials have long believed that North Waziristan is the single most important haven for militants with Al Qaeda and the Taliban fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan has nurtured militant groups in the area for years in order to exert influence beyond its borders. The developing shift in thinking — described in recent interviews with Western diplomats and Pakistani security officials — represents a significant change for Pakistan’s military, which has moved against Taliban militants who attack the Pakistani state, but largely left those fighting in Afghanistan alone.

Blast in Yemen Misses U.K. Ambassador
By CHIP CUMMINS, Wall Street Journal
Yemeni authorities said a suicide bomber attempted to kill Britain's ambassador in an early-morning attack Monday in the capital Sana'a, but the diplomat and his staff survived unharmed. Yemen's interior ministry said in a statement that the assassination attempt bore "the fingerprints of al Qaeda," without elaborating. It said the bomber targeted the car of Ambassador Timothy Torlot at around 8 a.m. The statement said the explosion killed the attacker. British officials in Sana'a and London confirmed a "small" explosion next to the ambassador's car, and said the U.K. had shuttered its embassy for the time being. A spokeswoman for the British embassy in Sana'a said no British embassy staff or U.K. nationals had been harmed in the attack. U.K. officials were working with their Yemeni counterparts to investigate the incident, she said. Yemen has been the focus of U.S. and U.K. antiterror efforts in recent months, particularly after the alleged Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound flight by a Nigerian man, who told U.S. investigators he received terrorist training in Yemen.

Bombs targeting Shiite mosques in Baghdad kill scores
By Reuters, Los Angeles Times
Bombs targeting Shi'ite areas killed at least 56 people in Baghdad on Friday in a possible backlash after Iraq touted a series of blows against al Qaeda. Eight people were also killed by bombs in the Sunni west of the country. Seven blasts hit different areas of the Iraqi capital around the time of Muslim prayers, mostly near Shi'ite mosques and at a marketplace, an interior ministry source said. Around 112 people were wounded. "Targeting prayers in areas with a certain majority," Baghdad security spokesman Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said, referring to Iraq's Shi'ite Muslim majority, "is a revenge for the losses suffered by al Qaeda. "We expect such terrorist acts to continue."

Wave of Fatal Bombs in Iraq After Killing of Qaeda Chiefs
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, New York Times
A series of bombings on Friday struck mosques, a market and a shop in Baghdad, as well as the homes of a prosecutor and police officers in western Iraq, killing dozens, only five days after a joint Iraqi-American raid killed the top two leaders of the insurgency. Iraq’s leaders had hailed the killings and arrests of insurgent leaders this week as a devastating blow to the group known as Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia but warned that retaliation was almost certain to come. It was not clear that the group, also known as Al Qaeda in Iraq, was behind the latest jolt of violence. The attacks were the worst of an intermittent wave of bombings since the parliamentary election on March 7, providing a violent backdrop to stalled efforts to finalize the results of the vote and form a new government.

Killings Rattle Pakistan’s Swat Valley
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
A number of anti-Taliban political leaders in the valley of Swat in northern Pakistan have been murdered in the past two weeks, residents there said, raising fears that the Taliban forces that once ruled the area are regrouping. Unknown gunmen shot and killed at least five pro-government leaders in three separate cases starting on April 13, residents of the valley said in telephone interviews on Thursday. It was not clear who the killers were, but all the victims had been central to peace talks in the valley, the residents said, raising suspicions that the Taliban may had been involved. The Swat Valley was the site of a major military operation against Taliban militants last spring and has been relatively peaceful since then. Now, a year later, the killings, first reported in The Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, are raising fresh fears that the Taliban, whose top leader is still at large, are trying to reassert themselves.

Iran's Shiite clerics predict deadly quake as punishment from God
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post
Iran's influential Shiite clerics have a warning: The country's sprawling capital is about to be hit by a killer earthquake. Millions will perish. The reason for the coming apocalypse, the clerics say, is simple: Vice has spread through Tehran, and God intends to punish the sinners. "Go on the streets and repent for your sins," Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaqt, one of the country's highest clerics, told worshipers during a recent sermon in northern Tehran. "A holy torment is upon us. Leave town." Even among the many urbane inhabitants of this capital of 12 million, the warning of imminent doom has not been taken lightly. Tehran is one of the most earthquake-prone capitals in the world, built upon the intersection of two major tectonic plates. There are more than a hundred fault lines beneath the city. A quake in the city of Bam, in eastern Iran, killed tens of thousands in 2003. Fears about Tehran being hit by "the big one" are not new. But the increased seismic activity worldwide -- from earthquakes in remote China to Baja California, to say nothing of the volcanic eruption in Iceland -- has only heightened fears. Never mind that scientists say the exact timing of a quake is nearly impossible to predict. "If it is vice that causes earthquakes, there should be floods and volcano eruptions as well in Tehran, because all sins are committed in this huge city," said an unemployed resident who gave his name only as Maysam.

Gunmen kill Kandahar official praying in mosque
The deputy mayor is not the first area dignitary to be targeted
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
Taliban gunmen burst into a mosque and gunned down the deputy mayor of Kandahar at his prayers, officials said Tuesday -- a brazen attack that underscored the immense challenges faced by Western forces as they push to restore law and order in the volatile southern city. Kandahar and its surrounding districts are the focus of an expected drive this spring and summer to try to expel the Taliban and establish credible governance in Afghanistan's second-largest population center. The operation is already in its early stages. In the meantime, serving as a municipal or provincial official in Kandahar has become one of the country's most hazardous occupations. Azizullah Yarmal, the deputy mayor killed Monday night, was the latest in a roll call of local dignitaries marked for death in recent months by insurgents.

Iran bans the country's two remaining official opposition parties
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post
Iranian authorities banned the country's two remaining official opposition parties Monday after two of their leaders received prison sentences. The move, subject to confirmation by Iran's judiciary, effectively silences the last parties legally permitted to promote political change in Iran and prevents foes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from gaining power through elections. The parties, the Islamic Iran Participation Front and the Mujaheddin of the Islamic Revolution Organization, advocated more civil liberties and changes in Iran's system of Shiite religious rule. Together they formed one of the country's main political blocs. The action follows the sentencing Sunday of two of the parties' leading ideologues -- Mohsen Mirdamadi of the Front and Mostafa Tajzadeh of the Mujaheddin -- to six years in prison. They were also banned for 10 years from political activities after being found guilty of illegal assembly, conspiring against national security and propagating falsehoods against the state. Both were among the leaders of young militants who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held 53 Americans hostage for more than a year. They backed Ahmadinejad's main challengers in Iran's presidential election last June.

White House Quietly Courts Muslims in U.S.
Emergency directive, enacted after a failed Dec. 25 bombing plot, has been replaced
By ANDREA ELLIOTT, New York Times
When President Obama took the stage in Cairo last June, promising a new relationship with the Islamic world, Muslims in America wondered only half-jokingly whether the overture included them. After all, Mr. Obama had kept his distance during the campaign, never visiting an American mosque and describing the false claim that he was Muslim as a “smear” on his Web site. Nearly a year later, Mr. Obama has yet to set foot in an American mosque. And he still has not met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders. But less publicly, his administration has reached out to this politically isolated constituency in a sustained and widening effort that has left even skeptics surprised. Muslim and Arab-American advocates have participated in policy discussions and received briefings from top White House aides and other officials on health care legislation, foreign policy, the economy, immigration and national security. They have met privately with a senior White House adviser, Valerie Jarrett, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to discuss civil liberties concerns and counterterrorism strategy. The impact of this continuing dialogue is difficult to measure, but White House officials cited several recent government actions that were influenced, in part, by the discussions. The meeting with Ms. Napolitano was among many factors that contributed to the government’s decision this month to end a policy subjecting passengers from 14 countries, most of them Muslim, to additional scrutiny at airports, the officials said. That emergency directive, enacted after a failed Dec. 25 bombing plot, has been replaced with a new set of intelligence-based protocols that law enforcement officials consider more effective. Also this month, Tariq Ramadan, a prominent Muslim academic, visited the United States for the first time in six years after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton reversed a decision by the Bush administration, which had barred Mr. Ramadan from entering the country, initially citing the U.S.A. Patriot Act. Mrs. Clinton also cleared the way for another well-known Muslim professor, Adam Habib, who had been denied entry under similar circumstances. Arab-American and Muslim leaders said they had yet to see substantive changes on a variety of issues, including what they describe as excessive airport screening, policies that have chilled Muslim charitable giving and invasive F.B.I. surveillance guidelines. But they are encouraged by the extent of their consultation by the White House and governmental agencies. “For the first time in eight years, we have the opportunity to meet, engage, discuss, disagree, but have an impact on policy,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington. “We’re being made to feel a part of that process and that there is somebody listening.”

Suicide bombers kill 41 at refugee camp in northwest Pakistan
By Alex Rodriguez and Zulfiqar Ali, Los Angeles Times
Two suicide bombers attacked a refugee camp in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least 41 people and injured 64 others in what appeared to be retaliation for the military's latest military offensive against Taliban militants in the volatile tribal areas' Orakzai region. The dead and wounded were all Orakzai tribespeople who had been queueing up for food at a refugee camp in the Kohat region, said North-West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain. Police said a suicide bomber dressed in a burqa rushed up to the line and blew himself up. As other tribespeople and rescue personnel rushed to the blast site to help the wounded, a second bomber, also dressed in a burqa, detonated his explosives. "The second explosion was more devastating than the first," said Dilawar Khan Bangash, a senior Kohat police officer. Bangash said the death toll was likely to rise.

Taliban targets U.S. contractors working on projects in Afghanistan
By Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
The Taliban has begun regularly targeting U.S. government contractors in southern Afghanistan, stepping up use of a tactic that is rattling participating firms and could undermine development projects intended to stem the insurgency, according to U.S. officials. Within the past month, there have been at least five attacks in Helmand and Kandahar provinces against employees of U.S. Agency for International Development contractors who are running agricultural projects, building roads, maintaining power plants and working with local officials. The USAID "implementing partners," as they are known, employ mainly Afghans, who are overseen by foreigners. The companies' role is becoming increasingly important as more aid money floods into southern Afghanistan as part of a dual effort to generate goodwill and bolster the Kabul government. A suicide car bomb that exploded Thursday evening outside a compound used by Western contractors in Kandahar City was the latest and deadliest attack. The 9:30 p.m. blast killed at least four Afghan security guards and wounded 16 other people, including at least two Americans, along with South African and Nepalese employees.

In Turkey, military's power over secular democracy slips
By Janine Zacharia, Washington Post
Since the Turkish republic's founding 87 years ago, the military has stood as unquestioned guardian of secular democracy, intervening when it deemed necessary to keep religion out of politics in this overwhelmingly Muslim nation. But now, battered by allegations of corruption and scandal, the authority of the once-unchallenged military is being whittled away by an increasingly assertive and confident public. The critics are a diverse array of democracy advocates, head-scarf-wearing Muslim women, journalists and others who complain that the military's grip on power has largely benefited wealthy and secular elites.

Life illustrates challenge radical Islam poses in Russia
By Philip P. Pan, Washington Post
He had been a bright but lonely child from a sleepy city near the Mongolian border, in a Buddhist region of Russia far from the nation's Muslim centers. But by the time he was killed last month, thousands of miles away in the volatile North Caucasus, Alexander Tikhomirov had become the face of an Islamist insurgency. After two young women blew themselves up on the Moscow subway last week, killing 40 people in the city's worst terrorist attack in years, investigators said they suspected that Tikhomirov had recruited and trained them, and perhaps dozens of other suicide bombers. How the schoolboy whom neighbors called Sascha became the tech-savvy militant known as Sayid Buryatsky remains a question wrapped in rumor and speculation. But the outline of Tikhomirov's journey from the Siberian steppes to the mountains of Chechnya provides a sense of the challenge that radical Islam poses in Russia and the speed with which the insurgency in the nation's southwest is changing.

Iraq Bombings Raise Fears of Resurgent Violence
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and YASMINE MOUSA, New York Times
A series of explosions shook Baghdad on Tuesday for the second time in three days, security officials said, deepening fears that the country was teetering on the edge of a new outbreak of insurgent and sectarian violence. The bombings, in residential areas of the city, killed at least 28 people and injured more than 90 and came against a backdrop of continuing political instability after Iraq’s March 7 parliamentary elections, which rendered a fractured result that has left no single group with the ability to form a government. A similar political void in 2005 preceded Iraq’s bloody sectarian warfare, which engulfed the country in 2006 and 2007 and from which it has only begun to emerge. The explosions on Tuesday came two days after at least 30 people were killed and more than 240 people were injured during attacks on diplomatic buildings in Baghdad, including the Iranian Embassy.

Blasts Shake U.S. Consulate in Peshawar
By TOM WRIGHT, Wall Street Journal
Suspected Islamist militants attacked the U.S. consular office in the Pakistani city of Peshawar Monday, the latest strike against a U.S. government installation in the war-wracked country. The U.S. embassy in Islamabad said at least two Pakistani security personnel guarding the consulate were killed and a number of others seriously wounded. The coordinated attacks involved a suicide bomber in a vehicle followed by militants attempting to enter the building using grenades and weapons fire, the embassy said ina a statement. Security forces repelled the attacks. There was no mention in the statement of any American deaths. Bashir Bilour, a senior local government official, said officials recovered the bodies of at least four people presumed to be among the attackers. The bodies of three other people—two of them identified as security officials—were recovered, he added. Police said the attackers were disguised in paramilitary uniforms to allow them to get inside the heavily-guarded area of government buildings where the consular office is located. Two of the bodies presumed to be those of the attackers were wearing unexploded suicide vests, police officials said.

Car bombs kill at least 30 in Baghdad
By Leila Fadel and Aziz Alwan, Washington Post
Suicide attackers detonated three car bombs near diplomatic missions in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 30 people and wounding scores, security officials said. The attacks, the deadliest in the capital since the March 7 parliamentary elections, come as Iraq's political factions are locked in a dispute over the outcome of the vote. Analysts say the violence could trigger a more intense round of fighting among the rivals that threatens to spill into the streets. The strikes against the Iranian, German and Egyptian diplomatic missions appeared to be a continuation of attacks that began in August against government and high-profile buildings that killed hundreds. But accusations started soon after Sunday's bombings, with former prime minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqiya bloc calling on the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to "restore security" and blaming security forces for failing to prevent the attacks. "This is a serious crime in which the Iraqi people are being consumed in the process of what we can call the conflict over who should have the upper hand in Iraq," political analyst Ibrahim al-Sumaidaie said.

35 dead as back-to-back explosions rock Baghdad
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Suicide attackers detonated three car bombs near foreign embassies in Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 35 people and wounding more than 185, authorities said. The attack deepened fears that insurgents will seize on the political turmoil after last month's parliamentary elections to sow further instability. The blasts went off within minutes of each other -- one near the Iranian embassy, and two others in an area that houses several foreign embassies, including the Egyptian and German embassies, said Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for the city's operations command center. It was not immediately clear whether anyone from the embassies was among the dead or wounded. "These explosions targeted diplomatic missions," al-Moussawi told The Associated Press. "It's a terrorist act. We expect the death toll to rise." He said all three explosions were suicide car bombs. Multiple, coordinated bombings in the capital have become a hallmark of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Gunmen in Uniform Kill 25 in Sectarian Slaughter Near Baghdad
By MUHAMMED AL-OBAIDI and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
The killers came at night, speaking passable English and wearing uniforms and carrying weapons that resembled those of the American military. By the time they left the village of Hawr Rajab on Friday evening, they had fatally shot or slit the throats of 25 members of an extended family, Iraqi officials said Saturday, in a chilling episode of violence reminiscent of the worst days of the country’s sectarian warfare in 2006 and 2007. Most of the 19 male victims were members of Iraqi security forces or of Awakening Councils, groups that now partner with American forces and are employed by the Iraqi government to protect Sunni neighborhoods, but whose members had once been allied with Sunni extremist groups like Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia during fighting against American troops.

Moscow suicide bomber was teenage widow of Islamist rebel leader, Russian authorities say
By Philip P. Pan, Washington Post
Russian authorities said Friday that one of the two suicide bombers who struck the Moscow subway system this week was the 17-year-old widow of an Islamist rebel leader, and officials circulated unsettling photos of the cherub-faced teenager brandishing a handgun and a grenade. Citing genetic evidence, law enforcement agencies said the young woman, Dzhanet Abdullayeva, set off the second of the two explosions that killed 40 people and injured more than 80 during Monday morning's rush hour.

Chechen Rebel Says He Planned Attacks
Umarov announced an ideological sea change, declaring himself the emir of the Caucasus Emirate, which aimed to establish a Shariah-based state
By ELLEN BARRY, New York Times
A former Chechen separatist who reinvented himself as a proponent of global jihad stepped out of the shadows on Wednesday to take responsibility for two suicide bombings on Moscow’s subway, and to offer himself as the face of an increasingly lethal pan-Caucasus insurgency. The separatist, Doku Umarov, last year revived a suicide battalion believed to be behind some of the most notorious attacks of the past decade, and then issued a warning in February that he was planning attacks in central Russia. In the recording released Wednesday, Mr. Umarov seemed to take pleasure in thrusting the bloody violence of the Caucasus upon the comfortable residents of the capital. “You Russians hear about the war on television and the radio,” Mr. Umarov said on the video, apparently made hours after the subway blasts. “I promise you the war will come to your streets, and you will feel it in your own lives and on your own skin.” In 2007, Mr. Umarov announced an ideological sea change, declaring himself the emir of the Caucasus Emirate, which aimed to establish a Shariah-based state independent of Russia. With him came many of the former separatist fighters. Last April, Mr. Umarov took another decisive step by announcing the revival of Riyadus-Salikhin, or the “Garden of Martyrs,” a suicide formation once led by Shamil Basayev that had lain dormant for five years. The battalion took responsibility for a 2002 hostage-taking at a Moscow theater.

Russia Mourns Attack Victims and Considers Its Response
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY, New York Times
Russians held impromptu memorial services on Tuesday at two subway stations in Moscow where suicide bombers conducted brazen attacks a day earlier that killed 39 people and stirred fears of a revival of terrorism. The city’s entire subway system was open for the morning rush hour, but it was less crowded than usual as some nervous commuters delayed trips to work or stayed home altogether. At the landmark stations that were bombed within 40 minutes of one another during the Monday morning rush, people deposited candles and flowers to honor those who died. “The mood of the city is evident on people’s faces,” said Maria Anzhaurova, 21, a student, at the Lubyanka station, the site of the first attack on Monday. “People are watching each other closely. It is clear that people are afraid, very afraid.” The authorities offered no new information on Tuesday on the search for the organizers of the attacks, carried out by two women, but they said they continued to suspect Muslim extremists in the Caucasus region of southern Russia, which includes Chechnya.

E.U. Expands Airline 'Blacklist' on Safety Concerns
By NICOLA CLARK, New York Times
The European Union on Tuesday banned all airlines from the Philippines and Sudan from flying into the region’s airports, citing “serious safety deficiencies” found by the United Nations and U.S. aviation authorities. The European Commission, which manages the airline “blacklist,” acknowledged recent efforts by Philippine regulators and by two carriers — Philippine Airlines and Cebu Airlines — to improve safety standards. But the commission said it would bar those airlines and 45 others from flying into the 27-country bloc as a precaution until its remaining concerns could be addressed. It added that Brussels was prepared to send a delegation of safety experts to visit the country. “We are ready to support countries that need to build up technical and administrative capacity to guarantee the necessary standards in civil aviation,” the European transport commissioner, Siim Kallas, said in a statement. “But we cannot accept that airlines fly into the E.U. if they do not fully comply with international safety standards.” The new measures go into effect Thursday, said Helen Kearns, a spokeswoman for the transport commission.

Suicide bombers hit two Moscow subway stations
At least 38 people are killed and many hurt as two female suicide bombers blow themselves up during rush hour
By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times
Two female suicide bombers blew themselves up on packed subway cars in Moscow's bustling downtown early Monday morning, officials said, killing at least 38 people and injuring dozens more. The massive explosions roared through the underground at rush hour, just as the city's commuters jam the metro system on their way to work and school. The first strike came just before 8 a.m., when a woman set off a suicide bomb just as the doors of the subway carriage slammed shut at Lubyanka station. Set just a few blocks from the Kremlin, Lubyanka holds a deep and unsettling place in the Russian consciousness as the headquarters of the Soviet KGB, and now its successor, the FSB. Less than an hour later, a second explosion hit Park Kultury, another iconic station alongside Gorky Park, where Russian children flock for roller coasters, sprawling gardens and ice skating. The bombings come amid a quiet but intensifying war of attrition between the government and rebels in Russia's southern, largely Muslim republics. Amid increased fighting and instability in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan, Russia has stepped up abductions and assassinations of Islamist leaders. The Islamists, in turn, have vowed to visit bloodshed on cities in the heart of Russia.

Afghan corruption: How to follow the money?
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
Hamed Wardak, the soft-spoken Georgetown University-educated son of an Afghan cabinet minister, has a Defense Department contract worth up to $360 million to transport U.S. military goods through some of the most insecure territory in Afghanistan. But his company has no trucks. Instead, Wardak sits atop a murky pyramid of Afghan subcontractors who provide the vehicles and safeguard their passage. U.S. military officials say they are satisfied with the results, but they concede that they have little knowledge or control over where the money ends up. According to senior Obama administration officials, some of it may be going to the Taliban, as part of a protection racket in which insurgents and local warlords are paid to allow the trucks unimpeded passage, often sending their own vehicles to accompany the convoys through their areas of control.

Bombs Kill Five Near House of Iraqi Candidate
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Several bombs exploded Sunday near the home of a prominent Sunni figure who ran in this month's parliamentary elections in Iraq, killing five people and wounding 26 others, a police official said. The attack adds to fears of serious postelection violence as bitter rivals enter what are expected to be drawn out talks on forming the government that will rule Iraq as U.S. troops leave by the end of 2011. Sunday's blasts took place in the town of Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad and on the border with Syria, the police official said. The first bomb, planted at a house under construction, went off at 7 a.m. in a busy area of Qaim. As onlookers gathered, four more bombs hidden in trash littered around the site detonated, causing the casualties. The official said the house belongs to Sheik Murdhi Muhammad al-Mahalawi, a Sunni candidate who ran on the Iraqiya list led by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the top vote-getter in the March 7 balloting.

Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning Atomic Sites
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD, New York Times
Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands. The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment. In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, “will be built inside mountains,” presumably to protect them from attacks.

Kandahar, a Battlefield Even Before U.S. Offensive
By CARLOTTA GALL, New York Times
American forces have begun operations to push back Taliban insurgents in this most important southern province, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban, and a full-scale offensive is expected in coming weeks. But the Taliban have already turned this city into a battlefield as they prepare for the operation, which American officials hope will be decisive in breaking the insurgency’s grip on southern Afghanistan. When American forces all arrive, they will encounter challenges larger than any other in Afghanistan. Taliban suicide bombings and assassinations have left this city virtually paralyzed by fear. The insurgents boldly walk the streets, visit shops and even press people into keeping guns and other supplies in their houses for them in preparation for urban warfare, residents say. The government, corrupt and ineffective, lacks almost any popular support. Anyone connected to the government lives in fear of assassination. Its few officials sit barricaded behind high blast walls. Services are scant. Security, people say, is at its worst since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.

American Terror Suspect Traveled Unimpeded
By JANE PERLEZ, New York Times
An American charged with helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, moved effortlessly between the United States, Pakistan and India for nearly seven years, training at a militant camp in Pakistan on five occasions, according to a plea agreement released by the Justice Department last week. The odyssey of David C. Headley, 49, included scouting targets in several cities in India and meeting with a senior operative of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas. These and other new details of Mr. Headley’s activities, contained in the plea agreement, raise troubling questions about how an American citizen could travel for so long undetected from his home base in Chicago to well-established terrorist training camps in Pakistan. The document shows that Mr. Headley made two trips to North Waziristan, the heart of Qaeda operations in the tribal area where the United States is still pushing Pakistan for a military offensive to clear out militants. His handlers, the document reveals, included a former Pakistani military commander with ties to a Pakistani extremist group and even Al Qaeda. From there, Mr. Headley not only helped plan the Mumbai attack, it says, but he was put in contact with a Qaeda cell in Europe that may still be operative.

Bin Laden warns US not to kill alleged 9/11 chief
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has threatened to kill any captured Americans if the U.S. executes the alleged mastermind of Sept. 11. In a new audio message aired on Al-Jazeera TV Thursday, bin Laden said if the U.S. executes Khalid Sheik Mohammed that it would mean a "death sentence" for Americans captured by al-Qaida. Mohammed is currently in U.S. custody. The Obama administration is still debating where to hold his trial.

Somali Backlash May Be Militants’ Worst Foe
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times
For the past three years, the Shabab, one of Africa’s most fearsome militant Islamist groups, have been terrorizing the Somali public, chopping off hands, stoning people to death and banning TV, music and even bras in their quest to turn Somalia into a seventh-century-style Islamic state. At the same time, they have drawn increasingly close to Al Qaeda, deploying suicide bombers, attracting jihadists from around the world and prompting American concerns that they may be spreading into Kenya, Yemen and beyond. But could Somalia finally be reaching a tipping point against the Shabab? Not only is Somalia’s transitional government gearing up for a major offensive against the Shabab — with the American military providing intelligence and logistical support — but Mogadishu’s beleaguered population, sensing a change in the salt-sticky air, is beginning to turn against them.

Contractors Kill Somali Pirate, Prompting Fears of Rise in Violence
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Private security guards shot and killed a Somali pirate during an attack on a merchant ship off the coast of East Africa in what is believed to be the first such killing by armed contractors, the EU Naval Force spokesman said Wednesday. The death comes amid fears that increasingly aggressive pirates and the growing use of armed private-security contractors aboard vessels could fuel increased violence on the high seas. The handling of the case may have legal implications beyond the individuals involved in Tuesday's shooting. The guards were aboard the MV Almezaan when a pirate group approached it twice, said EU Naval Force spokesman Cmdr. John Harbour. During the second approach on the Panamanian-flagged cargo ship which is United Arab Emirates owned, there was an exchange of fire between the guards and the pirates. An EU Naval Force frigate was dispatched to the scene and launched a helicopter that located the pirates. Seven pirates were found, including one who had died from small caliber gunshot wounds, indicating he had been shot by the contractors, said Cmdr. Harbour. The six remaining pirates were taken into custody.

Iranians train Taliban to use roadside bombs
By Miles Amoore, Sunday Times
Taliban commanders have revealed that hundreds of insurgents have been trained in Iran to kill Nato forces in Afghanistan. The commanders said they had learnt to mount complex ambushes and lay improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have been responsible for most of the deaths of British troops in Helmand province. The accounts of two commanders, in interviews with The Sunday Times, are the first descriptions of training of the Taliban in Iran. According to the commanders, Iranian officials paid them to attend three-month courses during the winter. Instructors in plain clothes provided daily exercises in live firing. The first month was devoted largely to teaching the Taliban how to attack convoys and how to escape before Nato forces could respond. During their second month they were shown how to plant IEDs in sequence so that the rescuers of soldiers wounded in one blast would be caught in further explosions. The third month was spent on storming bases and checkpoints. A hilltop fort was among the locations used for practice by a Taliban platoon.

Explosives Found on Indian Plane
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
A newspaper-wrapped package containing explosive material was found Sunday in the cargo hold of a passenger aircraft after it landed in the southern Indian state of Kerala, police said. Police were investigating how the powder got on board the flight from Bangalore, India's information technology hub, to Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's capital, despite stringent security measures. "It was explosive material which is commonly used in firecrackers, but can also be used to make a crude bomb," city police commissioner Ajith Kumar said by telephone from Thiruvananthapuram. The package was found by airline staff during a routine check of the Kingfisher Airlines aircraft after passengers disembarked at Thiruvananthapuram, Mr. Kumar said. Airports across India have been on high alert since January after reports that al Qaeda-linked militants planned to hijack a plane. Security checks at Thiruvananthapuram airport were tightened further after the explosive material was found, with more checks of passengers and staff at the airport, police said.

Religious tensions flare in Malaysia
Canings and church firebombings have some wondering whether the nation's Muslims are becoming more conservative and less tolerant of Christians and other minority groups
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
The Metro Tabernacle Church, a storefront with metal shutters, sits gutted, black smoke stains on the concrete pillars bearing witness to the intense fire that destroyed the property. The attacks on this and more than a dozen other houses of worship in January, followed in February by the caning of three Muslim teenagers for extramarital sex and a kerfuffle this month over an insulting act during a Christian service have prompted some soul-searching in Malaysia. Though religious tensions have occasionally simmered in this multicultural society, these were the first attacks in recent memory, and left some Malaysians wondering how committed their nation remains to its relatively tolerant brand of Islam and what the cost could be to its global image, foreign investments and tourism trade.

CIA director says secret attacks in Pakistan have hobbled al-Qaeda
By the Washington Post
Aggressive attacks against al-Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal region have driven Osama bin Laden and his top deputies deeper into hiding and disrupted their ability to plan sophisticated operations, CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday. So profound is al-Qaeda's disarray that one of its lieutenants, in a recently intercepted message, pleaded with bin Laden to come to the group's rescue and provide some leadership, Panetta said. He credited improved coordination with Pakistan's government and what he called "the most aggressive operation that CIA has been involved in in our history," offering a near-acknowledgment of what is officially a secret war. "Those operations are seriously disrupting al-Qaeda," Panetta said. "It's pretty clear from all the intelligence we are getting that they are having a very difficult time putting together any kind of command and control, that they are scrambling. And that we really do have them on the run."

Why glorify the murderers?
Dalal Mughrabi helped kill 38 innocent men, women and children in Israel...Palestinians named a square after her
By Ron Kehrmann, Yossi Mendelevich and Yossi Zur, Los Angeles Times
Vice President Joe Biden took umbrage last week when Israel announced during his visit that it had approved new housing construction in East Jerusalem. But another contentious incident that took place during Biden's visit got far less scrutiny. March 11 marked the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel's history, and this year the Palestinian Authority decided to honor the 19-year-old leader of the attack, Dalal Mughrabi, by naming a square in a town outside Ramallah after her. The commemoration was scheduled for the anniversary. The official ceremony was ultimately canceled to avoid antagonizing Biden during his visit, but the square was nevertheless named for Mughrabi, and several dozen Palestinian students from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement gathered in her honor for an unofficial dedication.

Pakistan indicts 5 Americans on terror charges
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
A Pakistani court Wednesday indicted five young Americans from the Washington, D.C., area on charges of plotting terrorist attacks in Pakistan. The men have been held in the eastern city of Sargodha since their arrests in December. If convicted, they could be sentenced to life in prison. The five men, ages 18 to 24, are U.S. citizens of Pakistani, African and Egyptian descent. They lived within blocks of each other in Alexandria, Va. Police say the men left their homes in late November and flew to Pakistan with the hope of waging jihad, or holy war, against American forces in Afghanistan. Khalid Khawaja, one of the lawyers representing the men, said they were also charged with plotting attacks in Afghanistan, and with funding banned Pakistani extremist organizations.

Suicide attack in northwest Pakistan kills 13
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
A suicide bomber driving a motorized rickshaw blew himself up at a security checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, officials said, killing at least 13 people, injuring 52 and underscoring the nation's relentless security threat. The blast in the small town of Saidu Sharif in Pakistan's violence-battered Swat Valley was the second major attack in the country in less than 24 hours, raising fears of a new wave of violence by anti-government militants. Suicide bombers killed 55 people in near-simultaneous blasts Friday in the eastern city of Lahore.

Suicide bombers kill 39 in Pakistan
The attack leaves nearly 100 wounded and sparks fear of a new wave of violence
By Alex Rodriguez and Aoun Sahi, Los Angeles Times
Two suicide bomb blasts spaced just 15 seconds apart rocked the eastern city of Lahore Friday, killing at least 39 people and sparking fears of a new wave of militant violence in major cities following a period of relative calm. The attacks targeted two Pakistani military vehicles near a crowded market known as the RA bazaar. The bombers detonated vests filled with explosives after walking up to the vehicles, said Lahore police official Chaudhry Shafiq. More than 95 people were injured in the explosions. The twin blasts come just four days after a suicide car bomb attack at a building that houses terrorism investigations in Lahore killed at least 13 people and wounded 80 others.

Massacres Shake Uneasy Nigeria
By WILL CONNORS, Wall Street Journal
The attackers came at night and surrounded this small farming village, firing shots in the air to scare residents from their homes. Men, women and children were hacked with machetes as they rushed out. Several houses were set on fire with residents still inside. Details are beginning to emerge from attacks Sunday on four villages in central Nigeria, where witnesses say members of the predominantly Muslim Fulani ethnic group targeted villages that were home to members of the mostly Christian Berom ethnic group. On Monday, local officials counted 378 bodies in the villages of Dogo Nahawa, Rasat, Zot and Shen. The dead, in a freshly dug mass grave, included a pregnant woman and at least one infant. A few miles away in Jos, a city of a half-million at the crossroads of Nigeria's Muslim north and predominantly Christian south, troops patrolled the outskirts and set up checkpoints. There was a light police presence in Dogo Nahawa. "I was sleeping at night next to my husband when I heard shooting," said villager Nomi Dung, 38 years old, her eyes red. "My husband told us to run, but I said, 'No I will not run—even if I die, let me die in my home.' My husband ran, and entered into the [attackers'] hands. My children ran outside because they were afraid from the shooting." Ms. Dung could not finish. A relative said her three children, ages 8, 5 and 3, had been killed.

A nasty attempt to coerce Danish newspapers into apologizing for the cartoons of Muhammad
By Christopher Hitchens, Slate
I have just finished reading one of the most astoundingly stupid and nasty documents ever to have landed on my desk. It consists of a letter from a law firm in Saudi Arabia, run by a man named Ahmed Zaki Yamani, to a group of newspapers in Scandinavia. I quote directly from its main paragraphs:

Ethnic Violence in Nigeria Kills 500, Officials Say
The victims were Christians killed by rampaging Muslim herdsmen
By ADAM NOSSITER, New York Times
Officials and human rights groups in Nigeria said Monday that about 500 people had died in weekend ethnic violence near the central city of Jos, considerably more than what had initially been reported. A government spokesman said Sunday that the dead numbered more than 300. The victims were Christians killed by rampaging Muslim herdsmen. The head of a leading Nigerian rights group, Shehu Sani of the Civil Rights Congress, said in a telephone interview on Monday that his organization had counted 492 bodies, mainly in the village of Dogo Nahawa. A spokesmen for the government of Plateau State, Gregory Yenlong, said the number of dead was about 500. “Those that were injured have been dying,” he said. “The communities are taking inventory.” Those figures, however, did not seem to represent the final tally. Shamaki Gad Peter of the League for Human Rights, who was in the Dogo Nahawa area, put the provisional death toll at around 250. In Abuja, the Nigerian capital, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it could not yet give an estimate of the number of dead as its representatives had not been able to reach all of the villages that were attacked. The killings took place in Plateau State near the city of Jos, for years a hotbed of ethnic and religious violence near the dividing line between the country’s mainly Christian south and Muslim north. Hundreds on both sides were killed as recently as January, though the victims this time were Christians, according to the information commissioner for Plateau, Gregory Yenlong, and a local human rights organization. Many appeared to have been cut down with machetes after being driven from homes set ablaze by attackers in the predawn darkness, said Shamaki Gad Peter of the League for Human Rights, a Nigerian group. Mr. Yenlong said the attackers were “hoodlums, Fulani herdsmen” — Muslims from a neighboring state, Bauchi, who were going after Christian members of Plateau’s leading ethnic group, the Berom, in the villages of Ratt and Dogo Nahawa. “They attacked those villages and killed well over 300 people, mostly women, children and the aged,” Mr. Yenlong said. “They killed them unprovoked. Innocent people were massacred.” Witnesses, including Mr. Peter, spoke of bodies littering the streets of Ratt. One victim was less than 3 months old, he said.

'American al Qaeda' apprehended
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
The American-born spokesman for al Qaeda has been arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers in the southern city of Karachi, two officers and a government official said Sunday as video emerged of him urging U.S. Muslims to attack their own country. The arrest of Adam Gadahn is a major victory in the U.S.-led battle against al Qaeda and will be taken as a sign that Pakistan, criticized in the past for being an untrustworthy ally, is cooperating more fully with Washington. It follows the recent detentions of several Afghan Taliban commanders in Karachi, including the movement's No. 2 commander. U.S. officials did not immediately confirm Gadahn's capture. Gadahn has appeared in more than half a dozen al Qaeda videos, taunting and threatening the West and calling for its destruction. A U.S. court charged Gadahn with treason in 2006, making him the first American to face such a charge in more than 50 years. He was arrested in the sprawling southern metropolis of Karachi in recent days, two officers who took part in the operation said. A senior government official also confirmed the arrest, but said it happened Sunday. The discrepancy could not immediately be resolved. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. The intelligence officials said Gadahn was being interrogated by Pakistani officials. Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the operation or questioning. In the past, Pakistan has handed over some al Qaeda suspects arrested on its soil to the United States. His most recent video was posted Sunday, praising the U.S. Army major charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, as a role model for other Muslims. The video appeared to have been made after the end of the year, but it was not clear exactly when. Al Qaeda has used Gadahn as its chief English-speaking spokesman. In one video, he ceremoniously tore up his American passport. In another, he admitted his grandfather was Jewish, ridiculing him for his beliefs and calling for Palestinians to continue fighting Israel. The last person in the U.S. convicted of treason was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese-American sentenced to death in 1952 for tormenting American prisoners of war during World War II.

Explosions Hit Baghdad as Iraqis Vote in Pivotal Election
At least 38 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Baghdad alone by the time polls officially closed there
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, New York Times
A concerted wave of attacks struck Baghdad and other cities across the country on Sunday as Iraqis voted to elect a new parliament and possibly a new prime minister. Explosions reverberated across the capital moments before the polls opened and continued through the morning haze for the first hours of voting. At least 38 people were killed and dozens more wounded in Baghdad alone by the time polls officially closed there, the Interior Ministry reported. Insurgents in Iraq had vowed to disrupt the election, and the attacks appeared timed to frighten voters away from polling sites. If that were the intent, it did not succeed entirely. By late morning the attacks — dozens of mortars, rockets and bombs — had tapered off, and Iraqis lined up to vote, many of them expressing anger and determination. "Everyone went," Maliq Bedawi, 45, who works at Baghdad International Airport, said as he waved his purple-stained finger. He stood outside the rubble of an apartment building that was struck and destroyed by what the police said was a Katyusha rocket. "They were defiant about what happened. Even people who didn’t want to vote before, they went after this rocket." Iraqis, he went on, "are not afraid of bombs anymore." At the White House, President Obama said Sunday that he mourned the victims of violence but praised “the resilience of the Iraqi people who once again defied threats to advance their democracy.” “I have great respect for the millions of Iraqis who refused to be deterred by acts of violence, and who exercised their right to vote today,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “Their participation demonstrates that the Iraqi people have chosen to shape their future through the political process.”

Tehran's master of clandestine operations, Qassem Suleimani, could hold the key to Iraq's future—if he were not so busy back in Iran
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
The text message was cryptic and sent through an intermediary, but its spookiness has become legendary among the Americans tasked with trying to stabilize Iraq. The moment was May 2008, and once again all hell was breaking loose. Shiite militias had gone to battle against each other. The fighting threatened to spread to Baghdad. Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker were scrambling to find somebody to broker a truce. Then the text message was passed to the American commander. "General Petraeus," it began, "you should know that I, Qassem Suleimani, control the policy for Iran with respect to Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan." Within days it was Suleimani who brokered the truce. What surprised Petraeus and Crocker was not the Iranian's role. They knew that already. It was the blunt confidence with which Suleimani stated it. As the head of the infamous Quds Force, he commands all the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) operations outside Iran's borders—whether covert, overt, or outright terrorist. In the fractious politicking almost certain to follow Iraq’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, this 53-year-old Iranian general could pull the strings that make or break the new government in Baghdad.

Turkey: The Fethullah Gulen movement streghens
By IAC.com
With the last arrests within the army of opponents of AKP’s not-very-well-hidden Islamism, the power of the Fethullah Gulen movement, an Islamist, hard-line movement grows stronger, that, if wins, can destroy Ataturk legacy. And it looks it can actually win. All shots against the military are now fair game, including those below the belt. The force behind this dramatic change is the Fethullah Gulen Movement (FGH), an ultraconservative political faction that backs the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The FGH was founded in the 1970s by Fethullah Gulen, a charismatic preacher who now lives in the United States but remains popular in Turkey. It is a conservative movement aiming to reshape secular Turkey in its own image, by securing the supremacy of Gulen’s version of religion over politics, government, education, media, business, and public and personal life. To some, it might appear that the newfound freedom to criticize the military proves that Turkey is becoming a more liberal democracy. But the truth is that Turkey has replaced one “untouchable” organization for another, more dangerous, one. Criticizing the Gulen movement, which controls the national police and its powerful domestic intelligence branch, and which exerts increasing influence in the judiciary, has become as taboo as assailing the military once was. Today, it is those who criticize the Gulen movement who get burned.

Al Qaeda breeds terror in Sahara
By Lolita C. Baldor, Washington Times
Al Qaeda's terrorism network in North Africa is becoming increasingly active and attracting more recruits, threatening to further destabilize the continent's already vulnerable Sahara region, U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials said. The North African faction, which calls itself al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, is still small and largely isolated, numbering a couple of hundred militants based mostly in the vast desert of northern Mali. But signs of stepped-up activity and the group's advancing potential for growth worry analysts familiar with the region. The rapid rise of the al Qaeda group in Yemen — which spawned the attempted attack on an airliner on Christmas — is seen by U.S. officials and counterterrorism analysts as evidence that the North African militants could just as quickly take on a broader jihadi mission and become a serious threat to the U.S. and European allies. The Mali-based militants have yet to show a capability to launch such foreign attacks, but are widening their involvement in kidnapping and the narcotics trade, reaping profits that could be used to expand terrorism operations, officials and analysts said.

Suicide bomber blows himself up in a ambulance full of wounded people
Triple suicide blasts in Iraqi city kill 30
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A string of three deadly suicide bombings killed 30 people in the former insurgent stronghold of Baqouba on Wednesday, including a blast from a suicide bomber who rode in an ambulance with the wounded before blowing himself up at a hospital, police said. The bombings -- Iraq's deadliest in weeks -- come as Iraq is preparing for March 7 parliamentary elections. The crucial balloting will decide who will oversee the country as U.S. forces go home and help determine whether Iraq can overcome the deep sectarian tensions that have divided the nation since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned repeatedly that insurgents were expected to launch such attacks in an attempt to disrupt the crucial vote. A man purporting to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi -- the leader of an al-Qaida front group in Iraq -- has vowed to violently disrupt the vote. The bombings could also affect the candidacy of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who came to power in 2006 and oversaw a return to relative stability in 2008 and 2009. Al-Maliki has continued to bill himself as the best candidate to assure security in Iraq.

Farrakhan speaks to faithful, warns America
By the Chicago Tribune
Calling this weekend's earthquake in Chile a divine precursor to his planned speech, controversial Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan predicted on Sunday that America will face its own imminent disaster and must prepare. Delivering a message titled "The Time and What Must Be Done," Farrakhan addressed thousands at Chicago's United Center as part of an annual celebration of Saviours' Day, marking the birth of W. Fard Muhammad, who founded the faith 80 years ago. "It's not an accident that a great earthquake took place in Chile," Farrakhan, 76, said an hour into his three-hour address. "It was a precipitate of what I have to tell you today of what's coming to America. You will not escape." "I will speak to the kings and rulers of the world. I will speak to the pope and the religious leaders because you have to know that your time has come," he said. "I desire to guide you and warn you of things that are coming that you must try to prepare yourselves for because we are absolutely living in the change of worlds." Though some of Farrakhan's past remarks have been labeled anti-Semitic and racist, his supporters say he has been misunderstood and misrepresented by the media. In his speech on Sunday, he recounted events in the 1980s where he was barred from hotels and other destinations after declaring support for Libya, implicated at the time in acts of state-sponsored terrorism. On Sunday, he blamed the international cold shoulder on the "reach of the Zionists."

Karadzic blames Islamic militants for war
By Arthur Max, Washington Times
Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, charged with the worst genocide in Europe since the Holocaust, testified Monday that his people were simply defending themselves against Islamic fundamentalists who he claimed were seeking to take over Bosnia. In his opening defense statement at the U.N. war crimes tribunal, Mr. Karadzic denied any intention to expel non-Serbs from their homes and said the Serb objective was to protect their own lives and property during the violent 1990s breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The Serb "cause is just and holy," Mr. Karadzic said as he began his two-day statement, relying only on sparse notes. "We have a good case. We have good evidence and proof." Mr. Karadzic, 64, faces two counts of genocide and nine other counts of murder, extermination, persecution, forced deportation and the seizure of 200 U.N. hostages. He faces possible life imprisonment if convicted.

Muslims “had blood up to their shoulders” and “their conduct gave rise to our conduct.”
In Trial, Karadzic Calls His Cause ‘Just and Holy’
By ALAN COWELL, New York Times
Calling his cause “just and holy,” Radovan Karadzic, the former Bosnian Serb leader, began to testify in his own defense on Monday against charges of war crimes and genocide as his trial resumed in The Hague, ending a long delay in the proceedings. The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic speaking at his trial at the Hague on Monday Mr. Karadzic, 64, has rejected efforts by the United Nations war crimes tribunal to impose a lawyer and is conducting his own defense. “What I’m going to present here is the marble truth,” Mr. Karadzic said in an opening statement, according to Reuters, saying that conflicts in the 1990 following the break-up of the former Yugoslavia resulted from Serbs, Croats and Muslims fighting for land. “Everything that Serbs did is being treated as a crime,” Mr. Karadzic said, Reuters reported. He appeared before the tribunal in a dark suit and often referred to himself in the third person as “Karadzic.”

Village Attack Leaves 11 Dead in Philippines
Children murdered by the militant group Abu Sayyaf
By CARLOS H. CONDE, New York Times
Eleven people, at least three of them children, were killed in an attack believed to have been carried out by the militant group Abu Sayyaf in retaliation for the recent arrests and deaths of several of its members, officials said Sunday. About 70 members of Abu Sayyaf strafed several houses early Saturday in the southern village of Tubigan, on Basilan, an island province in Mindanao where the group got its start, the police said. The 11 dead included a year-old child, and 17 others, including four children, were seriously wounded. The attackers also burned down several houses. The attack was among the worst against civilians in nearly a decade, officials said. Abu Sayyaf, also known as al-Harakat al-Islamiyya, is one of several military Islamist separatist groups based in and around the southern Philippines. For almost 30 years various Muslim groups have been engaged in an insurgency. The name of the group is derived from the Arabic abu ("father of") and sayyaf ("Swordsmith').

Al-Qaida growing in strength and numbers in Africa
By LOLITA C. BALDOR, Miami Herald
Al-Qaida's terror network in North Africa is growing more active and attracting new recruits, threatening to further destabilize the continent's already vulnerable Sahara region, according to U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials. The North African faction, which calls itself Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is still small and largely isolated, numbering a couple hundred militants based mostly in the vast desert of northern Mali. But signs of stepped-up activity and the group's advancing potential for growth worry analysts familiar with the region. The rapid recent rise of the al-Qaida group in Yemen - which spawned the Christmas airliner attack - is seen by U.S. officials and counterterrorism analysts as evidence that the North African militants could just as quickly take on a broader jihadi mission and become a serious threat to the U.S. and European allies. The Mali-based militants have yet to show a capability to launch such foreign attacks, but are widening their involvement in kidnapping and the narcotics trade, reaping profits that could be used to expand terror operations, officials and analysts said. Several senior U.S. defense and counterterrorism officials spoke about AQIM on condition of anonymity to discuss internal analysis. Those advances have set off alarms within the counterterrorism community, which watched as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula quickly transformed over the past year from militants preoccupied with internal Yemeni strife to a potent group recruiting and training insurgents for terror missions inside the U.S.

Marjah Marines move in on thugs
By the Associated Press, New York Post
US Marines and Afghan soldiers advanced through poppy fields near Marjah yesterday under withering gunfire from Taliban terrorists shooting from mud-brick homes and compounds where families huddled in terror. President Hamid Karzai urged NATO to do more to protect civilians during combat operations to secure Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold and scene of the biggest allied ground assault of the eight-year war. NATO forces have repeatedly said they want to prevent civilian casualties but acknowledge that it is not always possible. Yesterday, the alliance said its troops killed another civilian in the Marjah area, bringing the civilian death toll to at least 16.

Just weeks before elections, specter of sectarian violence resurfaces in Iraq
By Leila Fadel, Washington Post
It was only one killing, but it unleashed the demons of a bitter and perhaps unfinished past. The victim was a Sunni man in the mostly Shiite neighborhood of Hurriyah, in northwest Baghdad. The death and the aftermath were reminiscent of the prelude to the sectarian war, which began in late 2005 with a smattering of killings and threats and culminated with 100 bodies a day being dumped in the streets of the capital. With the imminent departure of American forces and fierce competition for power ahead of general elections on March 7, many here say sectarian strife is reigniting. But this time, there will be no outsider acting as a buffer between the warring sects. U.S. military officials acknowledge that as Iraq regains sovereignty, their influence is waning. A senior U.S. military official who has spent years in Iraq said he fears that as the drawdown begins, American forces are leaving behind many of the same conditions that preceded the sectarian war. "All we're doing is setting the clock back to 2005," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a stark assessment. "The militias are fully armed, and al-Qaeda in Iraq is trying to move back from the west. These are the conditions now, and we're sitting back looking at PowerPoint slides and whitewashing." The violence goes both ways: Last month, as Shiites commemorated one of their holiest days, bombings killed scores of pilgrims. And Sunni extremists have been blamed for audacious attacks on targets associated with the Shiite-dominated government, including key ministries. Such violence widens the sectarian rift, and Sunni civilians fear that Shiites may once again turn to militias for protection when Iraqi security forces fail.

Afghan Suicide Attacks Seen as Less Effective
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
The Taliban’s suicide bombers have been selling their lives cheaply of late. A suicide car bombing in Kandahar, Afghanistan, on Feb. 4 was aimed at a coalition convoy, but killed three civilians instead. From Jan. 24 to Feb. 14, a total of 17 suicide bombers took aim at one coalition member after another but failed to kill any of them, according to a compilation of reports from Afghan police and military officials, and from the American-led International Security Assistance Force. The latest failures were three suicide bombers who attacked an Afghan headquarters outside Marja on Sunday; local people reported them to the authorities, who shot them before they could set off their explosives, according to a spokesman for the Helmand Province governor. ISAF officials credit better training of Afghan forces, and disruption of the bomb-makers’ networks by NATO-led raids. Analysts say the Taliban no longer have foreign expertise in preparing suicide bombers, and have a hard time finding competent recruits in a society that until recent years had little history of suicide attacks. According to a New York Times tally, at least 480 people were killed in 129 suicide bombings in Afghanistan in 2007, not counting the bombers themselves. That death toll dropped to 275 in 2009, even though the number of bombings had increased. A spokesman for ISAF, Maj. Steve Cole, said bombings in recent months have averaged 15 or 16 a month. In three episodes during the last three weeks, the bombers killed innocent bystanders instead of their coalition targets. Six of the last 17 suicide bombers did not wound anyone beyond themselves. In all, those 17 bombers wounded 23 members of NATO or Afghan security forces, while killing 6 civilians and wounding 27 others.

Taliban Fighters Said to Flee Under Coalition Pressure
By ROD NORDLAND and C. J. CHIVERS, New York Times
A large number of Taliban fighters have fled the city of Marja, their former stronghold in Helmand Province, under pressure from United States and Afghan forces and may have crossed the border into Pakistan, the Afghan interior minister said on Monday. At a news conference held by senior Afghan officials and Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the United States commander in Afghanistan, the officials said some Taliban fighters remained in Marja, largely in the southern part of the city. “We are not facing any threat now except in South Marja, where there is a slight resistance, not enough to be an obstacle to our forces, “ Gen. Sher Mohammed Zazai, the Afghan National Army commander in Helmand, said in the televised press conference. A bazaar in the south of Marja had previously been a stronghold of the Taliban within the city.

Turning the Taliban
Pacifying insurgents with jobs and money is central to our strategy in Afghanistan...It's also misguided
By Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, Newsweek
Huddled in the unheated, mud-walled room that serves as the dormitory of their madrassa, not far from the Pakistani city of Quetta, four religious students are talking about the war across the border. They've heard about U.S. plans for luring away thousands of Taliban with offers of jobs and money and persuading the rest to make peace. But the young men say it won't work. "I've lost one of my brothers and 10 other close relatives in the jihad," says Mohammad Salim Akhund, a 21-year-old fighter from Kandahar province. "Any thought of surrendering for money, or entering into any negotiations with our enemies, would dishonor these sacrifices." His young schoolmate Jama-luddin speaks up: "If you're committed to jihad, you won't leave for a mountain of money." At 18, he's the only one of the four who hasn't already fought in Afghanistan, but he expects to go in about two months, as soon as his religious studies are completed. "I want to die in the jihad," he says. "Not as a sick old man under a blanket at home."

Afghan and Allied Forces Begin to Secure Taliban Stronghold
By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS And MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Wall Street Journal
U.S., Afghan and British troops were in the early stages of securing the town of Marjah Saturday, with thousands of infrantrymen moving in on foot after helicopter-born soldiers seized two central shopping bazaars. The airborne troops landed before dawn, opening the first major military push in the latest surge of U.S. and allied forces into Afghanistan. So far, the troops have encountered only hit-and-run resistance from Taliban fighters, who have been taking potshots from compounds before moving out as the allied troops returned fire. Afghan officials said five Taliban had been killed; there was no word on coalition casualties. The ground troops took several hours to breach the town limits, with an exercise that included constructing two tank-mounted bridges to cross a canal and sweeping for improvised explosive devices, or IEDS, the major threat to allied troop. Commanders believe the town is wired with booby traps and mines. "The operation went without a single hitch," British Maj. Gen Nick Carter, the top North Atlantic Treaty Organization commander in southern Afghanistan, told reporters hours after the assault began. A new offensive against the Taliban in Marjah could be a turning point in the war in Afghanistan. But WSJ's Paul Beckett says the military push is also a big test for Afghan President Hamid Karzai and fraught with peril for U.S. and Afghan troops. "We've caught the insurgents on the hoof, and they're completely dislocated," he said in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province, where Marjah is located.

Ahmadinejad says Iran is now a 'nuclear state'
By the New York Post
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed Thursday that Iran has produced its first batch of uranium enriched to a higher level, saying his country will not be bullied by the West into curtailing its nuclear program a day after the U.S. imposed new sanctions. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated to hundreds of thousands of cheering Iranians on the anniversary of the 1979 foundation of the Islamic republic that the country was now a "nuclear state." It was not clear how much enriched material had actually been produced just two days after the process was announced to have started. The United States and some of its allies accuse Tehran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to build nuclear weapons but Tehran denies the charge, saying the program is just geared toward generating electricity. "I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first package of 20 percent fuel was produced and provided to the scientists," he said.

Ayatollah: Iran's military will 'punch' West
By Eli Lake, Washington Times
The Iranian government on Monday stepped up military threats in advance of an anniversary celebration as major powers continued talks on a new round of sanctions. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in Tehran that his country would stun the Western world on Thursday, the 31st anniversary of Iran's Islamic revolution. Iran's defense minister announced on Monday that its forces had conducted successful tests on new armed unmanned aircraft and advanced air defenses. "The Iranian nation, with its unity and God's grace, will punch the arrogance [Western powers] on the 22nd of Bahman [Feb. 11] in a way that will leave them stunned," Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse. The anniversary is expected to produce a new round of anti-government demonstrations as Iranian opposition groups continue to protest the June 12 presidential election that resulted in acts of civil disobedience. Former prime minister and opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has called for anti-government demonstrations ti