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":

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 timed to coincide with the nationwide commemoration of the revolution on Thursday.

Army warned about jihadist threat in '08
By Bill Gertz, Washington Times
Almost two years before the deadly Fort Hood shooting by a radicalized Muslim officer, the U.S. Army was explicitly warned that jihadism — Islamic holy war — was a serious problem and threat to personnel in the U.S., according to participants at a major Army-sponsored conference. The annual Army anti-terrorism conference in Florida in February 2008 included presentations on the threat by counterterrorism specialists Patrick Poole, Army Lt. Col. Joseph Myers and Terri Wonder. The meeting was organized by the Army's provost marshal general and included more than 350 force protection and anti-terrorism professionals who came from major Army installations and commands from around the world, according to participants. Mr. Poole, a counterterrorism specialist and adviser to government and law-enforcement agencies, said his presentation and that of the other two counterterrorism experts "attempted to instruct these anti-terrorism and force protection professionals not just in the indicators of Islamic jihadism, but also the strategic deficiencies in the military comprehension of the overall jihadist threat."

Blasts in Pakistan Kill Shiite Worshipers
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
A huge bomb blast tore apart a bus carrying Shiite Muslims to a religious procession in the southern port city of Karachi on Friday afternoon, and barely two hours later another lethal explosion struck a hospital where many of the wounded had been taken, police and hospital officials said. At least 22 people were killed and 40 more were wounded in the two attacks, which heightened fears of sectarian strife during an annual Shiite religious observation. The sectarian violence comes at a time when Karachi is already gripped by a deepening sense of political crisis. More than three dozen people have been killed recent weeks in what are known here as “targeted killings,” in which workers and supporters of competing political parties are fatally shot in tit-for-tat killings.

Pakistanis protest Terror Mom verdict
A Manhattan federal jury convicted Siddiqui on Wednesday of two counts of attempted murder
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Pakistanis shouted anti-American slogans and burned the Stars and Stripes on Thursday in protest of a New York jury’s conviction of a Pakistani woman accused of trying to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan. The protests drew thousands in at least four cities, demonstrating the widespread distrust, and even hatred, of the U.S. in this country whose cooperation Washington needs to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan. They also showed the fierce passions surrounding the bizarre tale of Aafia Siddiqui, a 37-year-old U.S.-educated scientist who disappeared along with her three children for five years until she was picked up by Afghan police in 2008. The U.S. says Siddiqui shot at American security personnel who came to interrogate her after her arrest in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province. But many Pakistanis believe the U.S. has fabricated the charges. Some suspect the Americans had long held the thin neuroscience specialist in a secret prison — allegations the U.S. denies. A Manhattan federal jury convicted Siddiqui on Wednesday of two counts of attempted murder, though it found the act was not premeditated. Siddiqui was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Pakistan: 3 U.S. soldiers killed in blast
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Three U.S. soldiers traveling with Pakistan security force members were killed Wednesday and one wounded in a roadside bombing in northwest Pakistan that also injured dozens of schoolgirls, officials said. The soldiers were in the region as part of a small, little-publicized U.S. mission to train members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps to better fight al Qaeda and Taliban militants, Pakistan's army said. The U.S. Embassy declined to comment. If the deaths are confirmed by American authorities, they would represent a major victory for militants close to the Afghan border who have been hit hard in recent months by a surge in U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

Bomber hits pilgrims in Baghdad
By Bushra Juhi, Washington Times
A female suicide bomber mingling among Shi'ite pilgrims in Baghdad detonated an explosives belt Monday, killing at least 54 people, officials said. The bombing was the first major strike this year against pilgrims making their way to the southern city of Karbala to mark a Shi'ite holy day. It came as a security official warned of a possible increase in attacks by insurgents using new tactics to bypass bomb-detection methods. The bombing raises fears of an escalation of attacks as hundreds of thousands of Shi'ites head to Karbala to mark on Friday the end of 40 days of mourning following the anniversary of the death Imam Hussein, a revered Shi'ite figure.

Shiite pilgrimage rocked by deadly blast in Baghdad; 46 killed, 122 wounded by female suicide bomber
By Michael Sheridan, New York Daily News
A Shiite pilgrimage became a road to hell on Monday after a female suicide bomber blew herself up, Iraqi police report. According to the Associated Press, 46 people were killed in the blast, another 122 wounded. The explosion took place near the Shiite neighborhood of Shaab. The woman was reportedly disguised as one of the pilgrims, hiding the deadly device beneath an abaya, a dark cloak covering her from head to toe, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's top military spokesman. The female had cleared a security check shortly before detonating her bomb, al-Moussawi said. Thousands of Shiite pilgrims have been making the march to Karbala in Iraq to mark the end of the forty-day mourning period after the anniversary of the seventh century martyrdom of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. Despite an overall decline in violence in Iraq, al-Qaida and other Sunni extremists have routinely targeted pilgrims in an attempt to stoke sectarian strife and weaken the Shiite-dominated government.

Suicide bomber kills 2 at Iraqi restaurant
By Chelsea J. Carter, Washington Times
A suicide bomber detonated an explosives belt Saturday at a restaurant popular with Iraqi security forces in a city that was once a flash point for sectarian slaughter, killing at least two people, authorities said. The attack came the same day an al Qaeda front group in Iraq claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing Tuesday at Baghdad's main crime lab that killed 22 people. The bombings appeared aimed at rattling and embarrassing the U.S.-backed Iraqi leadership before national elections in March. In Saturday's attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a falafel restaurant near a famed Shiite shrine in the Sunni-dominated city of Samarra, 60 miles (95 kilometers) north of Baghdad, a police official said. The bomber appeared to have targeted the restaurant because it is popular with police and members of Sunni Awakening Councils, also known as Sons of Iraq -- ex-fighters who turned against al Qaeda and joined forces with the U.S. Twenty-five people, including 10 policemen and six Sons of Iraq, were wounded, he added. A medical official at the Samarra hospital confirmed the casualties, saying at least five of the wounded were in critical condition. Shiite tradition says the Askariya shrine is near the place where the last of the 12 Shiite imams, Mohammed al-Mahdi, disappeared. Shiites believe he is still alive and will return to restore justice to humanity. In February 2006, a huge explosion destroyed the Askariya shrine's golden dome and ignited fierce fighting between Sunnis and Shiites that killed tens of thousands across Iraq and pushed the country to the brink of civil war. In June 2007, another bombing brought down the twin minarets on the mosque's compound. Saturday's attack came just hours after the al Qaeda claim, which was posted on militant Web sites. It was the second claim this week from the Islamic State of Iraq. The group previously said it carried out suicide car bombings at three Baghdad hotels on Monday that claimed at least 41 lives.

WTF? Global Warming?
Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden blasts U.S. in audiotape spewing hate for... global warming
By Brian Kates, New York Daily News
In a new taped rant, Osama bin Laden blames the U.S. for global warming and calls for the world to boycott American goods in order to "liberate humanity from slavery and dependence." Released Friday, the tape shows bin Laden blaming America and the West for hunger, drought and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming. The fugitive al-Qaida leader called for a boycott of U.S. products as a way to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt. He argued that such steps would also hamper Washington's war efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible," bin Laden said. "I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America."

Osama bin Laden: Climate change is US' fault
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming, according to a new audiotape released Friday. In the tape, broadcast in part on Al-Jazeera television, bin Laden warned of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring "the wheels of the American economy" to a halt. He blamed Western industrialized nations for hunger, desertification and floods across the globe, and called for "drastic solutions" to global warming, and "not solutions that partially reduce the effect of climate change." Bin Laden has mentioned climate change and global warning in past messages, but the latest tape was his first dedicated to the topic. The al Qaeda leader also targeted the U.S. economy in the recording, calling for a boycott of American products and an end to the dollar's domination as a world currency.

Bloomberg: try 9/11 mastermind somewhere else
By TOM TOPOUSIS and DAVID SEIFMAN, New York Post
Responding to growing pressure from downtown residents and business leaders, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said the trial for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his fellow terrorists should be moved out of the city. "It would be great if the federal government could find a site that didn't cost $1 billion, which using downtown will, and it will also impact traffic and commerce and people's lifestyles," Bloomberg said. "And it would be great if we didn't do it." Bloomberg agrees with a resolution from Community Board 1 this week calling on US Attorney General Eric Holder to move the trial out of the city. The board suggested another federal site, possibly West Point, an Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport, the federal prison in upstate Otisville, or White Plains federal court. "The suggestion of a military base is probably a reasonably good one, relatively easy to provide the security," Bloomberg said. "They tend to be outside of cities, so they don't disrupt other people."

Al Qaeda terror leaders have eye on chemical, biological or nuclear attack on U.S. soil: report
By Ethan Sacks, New York Daily News
Al Qaeda planners are lying in wait, plotting another major attack on U.S. soil involving weapons of mass destruction, according to a dire new report. Osama bin Laden's terror network has made several attempts to acquire large-scale biological, chemical or nuclear weapons in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a new report. Former high-ranking CIA official Rolf Mowatt-Larssen reported in a paper for Harvard's Kennedy School that al Qaeda operatives are desperate to launch the most devastating terror attack yet. "We have done things that have made the country safer," Mowatt-Larssen told the News. "But we have to ask ourselves does that mean they can't mount another attack like 9/11 with 19 core, well-trained terrorists? "It doesn't require a giant organization to pull off a spectacular terrorist attack like that. We have to be careful that we don't become complacent." Mowatt-Larssen, who led the U.S.'s probe into whether or not Al Qaeda had aquired WMDs in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, speculates that the lack of another major attack is due in part to luck. "If Osama bin Ladin and his lieutenants had been interested in employing crude chemical, biological and radiological materials in small scale attacks, there is little doubt they could have done so by now," wrote Mowatt-Larssen in his report. The report, released Monday, comes ahead of a congressional meeting to assess the country's preparedness for the type of major attack Mowatt-Larssen is warning about, the Washington Post reported. That commission released a sobering report in December 2008 that predicted a major attack involving WMDS by 2013.

Blast Hits Central Baghdad as Attacks Accelerate
By JOHN LELAND and ANTHONY SHADID, New York Times
A day after bombs rocked three hotels in central Baghdad, another suicide bomber detonated explosives Tuesday outside the forensics department of the Interior Ministry. A source at the ministry said the bomb killed 17 and injured 80. The attack on the forensics department, which is separate from the Interior Ministry’s main offices, was aimed at one of the more exposed government buildings here. A police source said the bomb exploded on a traffic circle near a security checkpoint on Al Taharyiat Square. Many of those feared killed or wounded were police officers. The timing of the attack generated fears that the insurgents were accelerating their salvos against touchstones of Iraq’s political and civic life, undermining faith in the government’s ability to preserve security. The previous attacks were followed by lulls of up to two months, which American generals attributed to diminishing capacity on the part of the insurgents.

3 blasts strike Baghdad hotels; 11 dead
By Chelsea J. Carter, Washington Times
Iraqi police say three blasts have struck near three hotels in downtown Baghdad, killing at least 11 people. The officials say the blasts wounded at least 20 people. The first blast struck at about 3:40 p.m. near the Sheraton Hotel along Abu Nawas Street, just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone. The officials say two others struck near the Babylon Hotel and al-Hamra Hotel, which is popular with Western journalists. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

"We love death more than you love life!"
Queens 'terrorist' spilled his guts: feds
By JANON FISHER, New York Post
The Queens man accused of training with al Qaeda to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan willingly spilled his guts to the FBI after crashing his car on the Whitestone Expressway two weeks ago, according to federal prosecutors. Adis Medunjanin, 24, "made clear to the agents that he desired to cooperate with the government, and provided very detailed information about terrorist-related activities," Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Knox wrote in a letter to Brooklyn federal Judge Raymond Dearie. The prosecutors filed the letter to shoot down defense attorney Robert Gottlieb's plan to ask the judge to throw out any incriminating statements that Medunjanin made without the lawyer present. Medunjanin, who allegedly traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan to train and to kill American service members, is expected to be charged next month with Najibullah Zazi, a former schoolmate who allegedly drove to the city from Colorado with the intent to kill New Yorkers with homemade bombs. The Bosnian national had called 911 and shouted, "We love death more than you love life!" before deliberately crashing his car on Jan. 7, 2010, according to the prosecutor.

Pope shooter free, predicts 'the end'
By SUZAN FRASER, New York Post
The Turk who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released from prison yesterday after more than 29 years behind bars, and proclaimed that he was a messenger of God and that the world will end this century. Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, waved as he left in a convoy of vehicles. Turkish authorities plan to monitor him closely because of long-standing questions about his mental health. Agca shot John Paul on May 13, 1981, as the pope rode in an open car in St. Peter’s Square. Agca was pardoned and released in 2000 at the pope’s request, but was immediately jailed on his return to Turkey for the 1979 murder of a journalist. Following his release yesterday, Agca sat calmly between two plainclothes policemen in the back seat of a sedan that took him to a military hospital. In the statement distributed outside the prison, Agca declared, “I proclaim the end of the world. All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century.” He ended the long, rambling text by signing off as “the Christ eternal,” in keeping with past outbursts and claims that he was the Messiah.

Muslim question persists in Army shooting
By Bill Gertz, Washington Times
Fear of offending Muslims or being insensitive to religion was likely a key factor to why Army supervisors missed signs that the suspect in the deadly Fort Hood shooting rampage was a Muslim extremist, according to national security experts. Senior Pentagon officials last week sought to play down or sidestep questions about why Army supervisors and FBI counterterrorism officials missed warning signs or failed to take action against Army Maj. Nidal Hasan before the Nov. 5 attack, which killed 13 people — all but one them soldiers. Rep. Ike Skelton, Missouri Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a C-SPAN interview Sunday that committee hearings set for Wednesday will examine the two "disconnects" related to Army personnel reports: that Maj. Hasan was promoted despite signs that he had become radicalized, and that intelligence reports indicating the major had terrorism links apparently were ignored.

France eyes ban on all-encompassing Muslim garb
Widely viewed as a gateway to radical Islam
By Elaine Ganley, Washington Times
In a country whose national emblem is Marianne, a bare-chested woman, there is deepening concern over the all-encompassing garb, often black or brown and worn with gloves, attire typical in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states. Here, it is widely viewed as a gateway to radical Islam, an attack on gender equality and other French values, and a gnawing away at the nation's secular foundation. French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened the door to a possible ban in June, telling a parliament session in Versailles that such dress "is not welcome" in France. A parliamentary panel set to work in July on a six-month mission gathering information on the garments. On Tuesday, the head of Mr. Sarkozy's conservative UMP party in parliament's lower house, Jean-Francois Cope, jumped the gun before the panel's report was finished, and filed draft legislation on a ban. "No one may, in spaces open to the public and on public streets, wear a garment or an accessory that has the effect of hiding the face," the draft text reads. The document cites public security concerns, thus includes all face-covering clothes, in a bid to head off challenges from those who might claim such a law would violate constitutional rules on individual rights — a major concern along with how such a law would be enforced. It foresees fines for those who break the law. The initiative, unlikely to go to debate before spring, would be the second time France targets Muslim dress. A 2004 law born in acrimony bans Muslim head scarves and other "ostentatious" religious symbols in the classrooms of French public schools. Mr. Sarkozy's party dominates parliament, and the president reiterated Wednesday his wish for a law on full veils, though it's too early to say whether it will pass.

Al Qaeda Threatens New Strikes
By MARGARET COKER and CHIP CUMMINS, Wall Street Journal
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula issued fresh threats Monday against the U.S. and its Mideast allies, promising to retaliate against a surge of strikes launched in the past month against its leaders and safe havens in Yemen. The terrorist group also denied statements made by Yemeni authorities late last week that six of al Qaeda's senior leaders in the country, including the man identified as the leader of the group's military operations, had been killed in an air strike. "The Yemeni government has been making many false claims ... against the Mujahedeen leaders in the Arabian Peninsula. The latest of these claims is that it killed six of them," the group said, according to a statement posted online on Islamist Web sites. "We assure our Muslim nation that none of the mujahedeen were killed in that unjust and insidious raid; rather, some brothers were slightly wounded." The al Qaeda statement couldn't be independently verified, but Yemeni opposition news outlets also cited local tribal leaders saying they had seen the al Qaeda figures alive after the air strike on Friday.

Pope's failed assassin released from prison
God told him to kill the Pope
By the Associated Press, New York Post
The Turk who shot Pope John Paul II in 1981 was released from prison on Monday after more than 29 years behind bars and proclaimed that he was a messenger of God and that the world will end in this century. Mehmet Ali Agca, 52, waved to journalists as he left the prison in a convoy of several vehicles. Turkish authorities plan to monitor him closely because of long-standing questions about his mental health. Agca's hair was gray and he wore a blue sweatshirt. Agca shot John Paul on May 13, 1981, as the pope rode in an open car in St. Peter's Square. The pontiff was hit in the abdomen, left hand and right arm, but the bullets missed vital organs. John Paul met with Agca in Italy's Rebibbia prison in 1983 and forgave him for the shooting. Following his release, he sat calmly between two plainclothes policemen in the backseat of a sedan that took him to a military hospital. There, doctors concluded that he was unfit for compulsory military service because of "severe anti-social personality disorder," said his lawyer, Yilmaz Abosoglu.

Militants Launch Coordinated Attack on Afghan Capital
By Jyoti Thottam, Time
The heart of Kabul was under siege for several hours Monday as Taliban insurgents launched their biggest assault on the capital in months, with gunmen opening fire outside the presidential palace and at least two suicide bombs being detonated. The attack seemed intended to send a message to Afghan President Hamid Karzai that his government's plan to try to bring Taliban fighters over to its side with an incentive package of jobs and education programs — in addition to the surge of 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers being deployed to the country — will be met with fierce resistance by the militant group.

Judge throws the book at Islamic psychopath
Jewish Federation killer gets life without parole plus 120 years
By LEVI PULKKINEN, Seattle Post Intelligencer
Whether Haq conducted the brazen attack on the Belltown center was not at issue during the trial. Video and Haq's own statements clearly showed he forced his way into the center at gunpoint before opening fire on employees Carol Goldman, Layla Bush, Christina Rexroad, Cheryl Stumbo, Waechter and Klein. Haq's attorneys argued that a lifelong mental illness -- not hatred of Jewish people, as prosecutors alleged -- drove the Tri-Cities man to kill. The argument held sufficient sway in an earlier trial to prevent a jury from reaching a verdict; the second trial, though, resulted in a unanimous conviction on all counts. As they had throughout the trial, Haq's attorneys again argued that he was driven by a "broken mind," not hate. They requested that Haq received exceptionally short sentences on his five attempted murder convictions, as well as his convictions on unlawful imprisonment and malicious harassment; Kallas instead imposed the maximum standard penalty on each count.

Report on Fort Hood Said to Fault Army Officers
Gates to pin the rap on midlevel officers
By the Associated Press, New York Times
As many as eight Army officers could face discipline for failing to do anything when the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood rampage displayed erratic behavior early in his military career, two officials familiar with the case said. Defense Secretary Robert Gates was expected to refer findings on the officers to the Army for further inquiry and possible punishment. The report on what went wrong in the case of Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is accused in the shootings that killed 13 people at the Texas Army base on Nov. 5, is expected to be released Friday. Several midlevel officers overlooked or failed to act on red flags in Hasan's lax work habits and fixation on religion, the officials said Thursday. Hasan was an odd duck and a loner who was passed along from office to office and job to job despite professional failings that included missed or failed exams and physical fitness requirements, the review found.

2 U.S. troops, 4 Afghan soldiers killed
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Two U.S. service members died and four Afghan soldiers were killed in separate explosions Wednesday in eastern Afghanistan, an area of the nation rife with violence, officials said. Nine members of the Afghan National Police were injured Wednesday in other incidents. NATO said the two American troops died in a bomb blast, but disclosed no other information. Their deaths bring to 12 the number of American troops killed in Afghanistan so far this month; 16 other soldiers from the international coalition have died this month.

Intelligence experts warn of increased recidivism rates for former Guantánamo Bay detainees
Saudi transfers from Gitmo on hold
By Susan Crabtree, The Hill
The Obama administration has no plans to transfer Guantánamo Bay detainees to Saudi Arabia in the wake of the Christmas Day bombing attempt and bipartisan criticism about its policy of transferring detainees to countries hosting terrorist activity. No detainees are set to be sent to Saudi Arabia in the “near term,” an administration official told The Hill. The official also defended the administration’s decision to transfer three Guantánamo Bay detainees to Saudi Arabia in June 2009, noting that the trio were under Saudi “judicial review” after their transfer. “There are no Saudis slated for transfer in the near term,” the official said. “The three Saudis that were transferred in 2009 were subject to judicial review in Saudi Arabia following their transfer.” The official did not define the term “judicial review” or say whether the detainees are in prison or have been prosecuted in Saudi courts.

Bomb kills Iran physicist tied to Mousavi
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A nuclear physics professor who publicly backed Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi in the disputed June presidential election was killed Tuesday when a remote-controlled bomb rigged to a motorcycle blew up outside his home. State media identified the victim as Masoud Ali Mohammadi, 50, a professor at Tehran University, which has been at the center of recent protests by student opposition supporters. Before the election, pro-reform Web sites published Mr. Ali Mohammadi's name among a list of 240 Tehran University teachers who supported Mr. Mousavi. The government blamed the bombing on an armed Iranian opposition group that it said operated under the direction of Israel and the United States. Iran often accuses both countries of meddling in its affairs -- both when it comes to postelection unrest and its nuclear program. Israel's Foreign Ministry had no comment. Reflecting the internal tension that grew out of the election, hard-line government supporters called at recent street rallies for the execution of opposition leaders.

Islamic terrorist killing spree...
Six Allied Troops Die in Afghanistan
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
Six Western soldiers, at least three of them Americans, on Monday became the latest fatalities in a steadily escalating toll in Afghanistan. The military said three Americans were killed in a firefight in southern Afghanistan Monday afternoon, but gave no further details in a news release from the International Security and Assistance Force. A second release reported a single coalition service member was also killed in southern Afghanistan. And in eastern Afghanistan, the security force reported that two of its service members died in a different engagement Monday. In both those cases, it did not identify the victims’ nationalities, but the French government confirmed that at least one of the dead belonged to its forces. The French soldier was killed in an attack on a joint patrol of French and Afghan forces northeast of Kabul, President Nicolas Sarkozy announced in Paris. France has some 3,750 troops in Afghanistan and, according to icasualties.org, an independent organization that tracks military casualties, it had lost 36 soldiers killed before the latest fatality.

Reporter, Marine Die in Afghan Blast
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
An embedded British journalist and an American Marine accompanying him were killed in Ghazni province when the vehicle they were traveling in struck a roadside bomb, the British Ministry of Defense announced Sunday. The journalist killed Saturday was Rupert Hamer, a defense correspondent from the British newspaper the Sunday Mirror who was accompanying a U.S. Marine patrol near the village of Nawa. The American soldier was not identified pending notification of next of kin. A photographer traveling with Mr. Hamer, Philip Coburn, was seriously wounded but was in stable condition. Mr. Hamer was the first British journalist killed while covering the Afghanistan conflict in recent years, but the second Western journalist to die in the past two weeks. A Canadian journalist, Michelle Lang, died along with four Canadian soldiers in Kandahar province on Dec. 30. In Saturday’s incident, an Afghan soldier was also killed in the blast, and four U.S. Marines were wounded as well, according to the British ministry statement.

Yemenis Consider Sending al Qaeda to Rehab
By MARGARET COKER and CHARLES LEVINSON, Wall Street Journal
As Yemeni security forces mobilize against al Qaeda, Hamoud Al Hitar, minister of Islamic Endowment, is advocating what he says is a better way of curing the country of its Islamist militants: rehab. Mr. Hitar ran a government-sponsored militant-rehabilitation program from 2002 to 2005, with mixed results. He says he successfully pacified hundreds of militant Islamist detainees by using the Quran to teach the fallacies of extremist ideology. U.S. officials, however, criticized the program's effectiveness after American forces in Iraq started detaining some Yemeni graduates. Nasser al Bahri, a management consultant who was once a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden and spent more than a decade in the ranks of al Qaeda, was a graduate of Mr. Hitar's program. He says a beefed-up program could do good, but the version Mr. Hitar ran was ineffective -- in part because many fellow prisoners pretended to have changed their ways simply to be let out of jail.

3 Malaysian churches attacked in 'Allah' dispute
"Islam is above all...Every citizen must respect that"
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Three churches in Malaysia were attacked with firebombs, causing extensive damage to one, as Muslims pledged Friday to prevent Christians from using the word "Allah," escalating religious tensions in the multiracial country. Many Malay Muslims, who make up 60 percent of the population, are incensed by a recent High Court decision to overturn a ban on Roman Catholics using "Allah" as a translation for God in the Malay-language edition of their main newspaper, the Herald. The government says Allah, an Arabic word that predates Islam, is exclusive to the faith and by extension to Malays. It refuses to make an exception, even though the Herald's Malay edition is read only by Christian indigenous tribes in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak. At Friday prayers at two main mosques in downtown Kuala Lumpur, young worshippers carried banners and gave fiery speeches, vowing to defend Islam. "We will not allow the word Allah to be inscribed in your churches," one speaker shouted into a loudspeaker at the Kampung Bahru mosque. About 50 other people carried posters reading "Heresy arises from words wrongly used" and "Allah is only for us." "Islam is above all. Every citizen must respect that," said Ahmad Johari, who attended prayers at the National Mosque. "I hope the court will understand the feeling of the majority Muslims of Malaysia. We can fight to the death over this issue."

Yemen Says Plane Bomb Suspect Met Radical Cleric
By STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times
A senior official here confirmed on Thursday that the young Nigerian man accused of attempting to bomb an airliner approaching Detroit on Christmas Day had met with Al Qaeda operatives and with Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Internet preacher, in Yemen before setting out on his journey. But the official, Rashad al-Alimi, the deputy prime minister for national security and defense, cited Yemeni investigations and said that the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had acquired the explosives used in the failed attack over Detroit not in Yemen, which he left on Dec. 4, but in Nigeria, where he had spent about four hours in the Lagos airport on Dec. 24 before boarding a flight to Amsterdam and then Detroit.

Bombings Kill at Least 7 in Iraq
By REUTERS, New York Times
Three bombs exploded in a residential area near Ramadi in Iraq's western Anbar province on Thursday, killing seven people including relatives of an Iraqi Army anti-terrorist special forces commander, police said. The bombs were planted overnight at the home of the officer, Waleed al-Hiti, and adjacent homes, police said. Hiti was seriously wounded and his father, mother, two sisters, brother and sister-in-law, as well as the lawyer, were killed, police said. The bombing occurred in the town of Hit, about 130 km (80 miles) west of Baghdad.

"America is a legitimate target"
Former bin Laden bodyguard is among ex-guerrillas in Yemen
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post
When he served in the Afghan mountains as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, Nasser al-Bahri said, he was known as "The Killer." Today, Bahri is a business consultant in Yemen who favors Western-style pinstriped shirts, crisp slacks and black loafers. But his ideas are still radical: Ask him whether jihadists should kill Americans on U.S. soil and he replies without hesitation, "America is a legitimate target." The arc of Bahri's life helps to explain why Yemen was an attractive place for Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who allegedly tried to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, to be indoctrinated into the Islamist world of jihad. Thousands like Bahri, who have returned from wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and other Muslim lands, are disengaged from the fight against the West, yet express sympathy for al-Qaeda's violent core philosophies. As the United States steps up its engagement here, it faces the delicate task of fighting terrorism without alienating Yemen's highly tribal and religiously conservative society. Like Pakistan and Afghanistan, Yemen has abundant weapons and men experienced in guerrilla warfare who resent U.S. policies and have tribal, social and inspirational ties to al-Qaeda. Many fear that such men could become perfect recruits, especially if anti-American sentiments grow or Yemen plunges deeper into chaos.

Al Qaeda’s Pandora
Osama bin Laden's 17-year-old daughter is trying to get out of Iran -- her story could expose ties between the mullahs and her father's terror networks
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
She has spent almost half her life in chadors and hidden away behind closed doors, so we do not know exactly what she looks like. But if the 17-year-old girl who showed up unexpectedly outside the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Tehran last November resembles her father, she is tall and lissome, with angular features that would be hard to mistake. In any case, the Saudis quickly let Iman bint Osama bin Laden into their embassy compound, and she has been there ever since, waiting for a guarantee of safe passage out of the country. That may be a long time coming. Already the story she has told has far-reaching implications. At a minimum, it complicates the on-again-off-again dialogue that Washington has tried to pursue with Tehran. And it could put Tehran right in the middle of the Obama administration's fight to wipe out Al Qaeda’s leadership. Iman's case is only the latest, most dramatic bit of evidence showing just how hard the mullahs' intelligence services have tried to turn Al Qaeda to their will, by carrot or stick. If they have not succeeded—and the jury is out on that question—it's not for want of trying. "This is a real Pandora's box for the Iranians," says an Arab intelligence analyst familiar with details of the case who did not want to be more closely identified because of the many sensitive issues involved.

Colombian FARC rebels, al-Qaeda joining forces to smuggle cocaine into Europe, says DEA
By Neil Nagraj, New York Daily News
Al Qaeda thugs and drug-dealing Colombian guerillas have formed “an unholy alliance” to traffic cocaine through Africa into Europe, a Drug Enforcement Administration official said. In an alarming move, the Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia, or FARC, have enlisted the aid of Muslim terrorists - including Al Qaeda – to smuggle cocaine through increasingly unstable West Africa, as European countries have become more adept at intercepting and disrupting smuggling operations through their ports. "In the mid- to late-1990s when the Europeans became better at maritime interdiction, off the coasts of Portugal and Spain for example, traffickers started moving their routes southward. So the next progression was to Western Africa," Jay Bergman, the DEA director for the Andean region of South America, told Reuters. "As suggested by the recent arrest of three alleged Al Qaeda operatives, the expansion of cocaine trafficking through West Africa has provided the venue for an unholy alliance between South American narco-terrorists and Islamic extremists," he said. The three alleged Qaeda henchmen were arrested in December after plotting to smuggle drugs to raise money for jihad. One of the suspects was caught bragging on tape that "without him, [Al Qaeda] could not eat." The three were brought from Africa to New York where they were charged with terrorism-related offenses. In addition to the Colombian cartels using Africa to reach Europe, Mexican drug gangs are using the same routes to ship raw ingredients for producing methamphetamine.

Americans held in Pakistan deny terror plot
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
Five Americans detained in Pakistan are denying they planned to carry out terrorist attacks. The young Muslim men from Washington's Northern Virginia suburbs appeared in court Monday in Sargodha, in eastern Pakistan. Their defense lawyer said the court granted police two weeks to prepare terrorism charges against them. The attorney, Ameer Abdullah Rokri, said the men denied they had ties with al Qaeda or other militant groups. The men, ages 19 to 25, were arrested in Sargodha in early December in a case that has spurred fears that Westerners are traveling to Pakistan to join militant groups.

U.S. Closes Embassy in Yemen Over Qaeda Threats
By STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times
The United States shut its embassy in Yemen’s capital on Sunday, citing unspecified but “ongoing threats by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,” the regional branch responsible for the failed Christmas Day effort to blow up an airliner headed to Detroit. The closure came a day after a quiet visit to Yemen’s President by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American regional commander, who hand-delivered a message from President Obama of support for Yemen’s unity and counterterrorism efforts. In his weekly address on Saturday, Mr. Obama blamed the Al Qaeda branch for the bombing attempt and said that those responsible “will be held to account.” Mr. Obama said he had made it “a priority to strengthen our partnership with the Yemeni government, training and equipping their security forces, sharing intelligence and working with them to strike Al Qaeda terrorists.” In September 2008, Al Qaeda attacked the embassy with a car bomb, and 19 people were killed — including an 18-year-old American woman, Yemeni security forces and six militants. It was after that attack that the United States began to step up its military and security aid to Yemen, with some $70 million spent in 2009, a figure that General Petraeus said would more than double in 2010. Last January, gunmen in a car exchanged fire with police at a checkpoint near the embassy, hours after the embassy received threats of a possible attack by Al Qaeda, according to The Associated Press. No one was injured. And in July, security was upgraded in Sana after intelligence reports warned of attacks planned against the embassy. In December, the Yemen government said that it had attacked Al Qaeda meetings in which the group had been planning an attack on the British Embassy here.

Iran warns West it will make its own nuclear fuel
Defiantly announced it intends to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites
By the Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle
Iran set a one-month deadline Saturday for the West to accept its counterproposal to a U.N.-drafted nuclear plan and warned that otherwise it will produce reactor fuel at a higher level of enrichment on its own. The warning was a show of defiance and a hardening of Iran's stance over its nuclear program, which the West fears masks an effort to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Tehran insists its program is only for peaceful purposes, such as electricity production, and says it has no intention of making a bomb. "We have given them an ultimatum. There is one month left and that is by the end of January," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said, speaking on state television. Even if Tehran started working on the fuel production immediately, it would likely take years before it could master the technology to turn uranium enriched to the level of 20 percent into the fuel rods it needs for a medical research reactor. Still, any threat to enrich uranium to a higher level is likely to rattle the world powers that have been trying to persuade Iran to forgo enrichment altogether. Enrichment is at the center of the West's concerns because at high levels it can be used in making nuclear weapons. At lower levels, enriched uranium is used in the production of fuel for nuclear power plants. Iran currently has one operating enrichment facility that churns out enriched uranium at a level of 3.5 percent. The country needs fuel enriched to 20 percent to power the Tehran medical research reactor. For nuclear weapons, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent or more. The U.N. has demanded Iran suspend all enrichment, a demand Tehran refuses to meet, saying it has a right to develop the technology under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran has also defiantly announced it intends to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites, drawing a forceful rebuke from the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency and warnings of the possibility of new U.N. sanctions.

Danish Cartoonist Calls Home Attack ‘Really Close’
By JOHN F. BURNS, New York Times
A heavily bandaged 28-year-old Somali man was wheeled into a Danish court on a stretcher on Saturday and charged with attempting to kill a Danish artist whose 2005 cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad ignited outrage and riots across the Muslim world. A man who is to be charged with attempted murder of a Danish cartoonist was carried into court on a stretcher in Denmark on Saturday. The suspected assailant was wounded by police gunshots to the knee and hand when he resisted arrest after breaking into the home of the artist, Kurt Westergaard, on Friday night, according to a statement issued immediately after the attack by Jakob Scharf, head of the Danish intelligence service, known as PET. The attack followed years of threats to kill Mr. Westergaard by Islamic militant groups, and appeared to have come perilously close to succeeding. The 74-year-old artist told his employer, the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, that he had taken refuge from the attack in a fortified bathroom built into his home by the intelligence service, and was there with his 5-year-old granddaughter as the assailant, armed with an ax and a knife, tried to break in.

Islamic shakedown on the high seas
2 ships reported hijacked off Somali coast
By Gregory Katz, Washington Times
A cargo ship and a chemical tanker have both been hijacked by pirates in the perilous waters off the coast of Somalia, officials said Saturday. The seizures bring to four the number of ships hijacked in the past week and indicate that piracy remains a serious problem, a year after an international naval armada began deploying off Somalia to protect shipping. The British-flagged Asian Glory was taken late Friday roughly 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Somalia, said Commander John Harbour, a spokesman with the European Union task force charged with combating piracy off Somalia. The same day, the Singaporean-flagged Pramoni, a chemical tanker with a crew of 24, was seized by pirates in the heavily defended Gulf of Aden, one of the world's busiest waterways. Harbour said the Asian Glory's crew of 25 -- from Ukraine, Bulgaria, India and Romania -- appeared to be safe and that the pirates had not yet made contact with the ship's owner, Zodiac Management Agencies. "The standard procedure for the pirates is to get the ship back to their stronghold and then contact the owner," he said. "I don't know yet where the ship is bound." Somali pirates have hijacked more than 80 ships in the past two years, with many of the hijackings earning the pirates multi-million-dollar ransoms. Pirates now hold 14 vessels and close to 300 crew members.

Gloom, fury as Pakistan death toll nears 100
Tribal elders vow to defy Taliban
By the Associated Press, Salon
Tribal elders in a Pakistani village where a suicide car bomber killed nearly 100 people insisted Saturday that residents will keep defying the Taliban, even as the bloodshed laid bare the risks facing the citizens' militias that make up a key piece of Pakistan's arsenal against extremism. The New Year's Day attack on the northwest village of Shah Hasan Khel was one of the deadliest in a surge of bombings that has killed more than 600 across Pakistan since October. Police believe the attacker meant to detonate his 550 pounds (250 kilograms) of explosives at a meeting of tribesmen who supervise an anti-Taliban militia. Instead, the blast went off at a nearby outdoor volleyball court, killing at least 96 people.

Wacky jihad therapy failed to 'cure' plane-bomb plotter
By CHUCK BENNETT, New York Post
A cushy Saudi Arabian "rehab" center where terrorists are encouraged to express themselves through crayon drawings, water sports and video games is under scrutiny after one of its graduates re-emerged as a leader in the al Qaeda branch claiming responsibility for trying to blow up an airliner on Christmas. Said Ali al Shihri -- a former Guantanamo Bay detainee who now heads the terror group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- obviously didn't get to the bottom of his America-hating issues while undergoing the controversial rehab for jihadists. Inmates like Shihri are supposed to while away the days playing ping-pong, PlayStation and soccer in hopes that the peaceful environment will help them cope with their jihadist rages. Bomb-makers and gunmen participate in art therapy to help them explore their feelings non-violently. In between tasty picnic-style meals of rice and lamb and snacks of Snickers along with dips in the pool, participants practice Arabic calligraphy, produce dizzying Jackson Pollack rip-offs and imagine the aftermath of car bombings in crayon. Some 1,500 al Qaeda terrorists have "graduated" from the program, including 108 former Guantanamo Bay detainees, the Washington Post reported. "The Saudis talk about a success rate of 80 to 90 percent, but when you look at what those numbers mean in reality, it all falls down. There is no criteria for evaluation," John Horgan, a Department of Homeland Security consultant, told the New York Post.

Suicide bombing at CIA camp in Afghanistan likely revenge attack by Taliban warlord - a former ally
By James Gordon Meek, New York Daily News
The suicide-bomb slaughter at a tiny CIA Afghanistan border camp was likely vengeance from a local Taliban tribal warlord who was once the agency's ally. Forward Operation Base Chapman in Khowst,

where seven CIA officers died Wednesday, is a few miles from the ruins of Al Qaeda camps obliterated by U.S. missiles in a failed 1998 attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden. "This will be avenged through aggressive counterterror operations," an official said Thursday as drones blew up Al Qaeda goons in warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani's territory across the border in Pakistan. "People at Langley are galvanized." The CIA backed Haqqani in the 1980s war against Afghanistan's Soviet occupiers. Despite aligning with the CIA as a mujahedeen leader to fight the Soviets, Haqqani refused its overtures after 9/11 and sided with his old friend Bin Laden, whom he has sheltered on both sides of the Afganistan-Pakistan border.

U.S.-born cleric linked to airline bombing plot
FBI and intelligence officials say Anwar al Awlaki, a cleric in Yemen with a popular jihadist website and ties to Sept. 11 hijackers, may have had a role in the attempted bombing
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times
U.S. counter-terrorism agencies are investigating whether an American-born Islamic cleric who has risen to become a key figure in the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen played a role in the attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing over Detroit, intelligence and law enforcement officials said Wednesday. Intercepts and other information point to connections between terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and Anwar al Awlaki -- who also communicated with the accused U.S. Army gunman in last month's attack on Ft. Hood, Texas, that left 13 people dead. Some of the information about Awlaki comes from Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian charged with attempting to detonate a hidden packet of PETN explosive aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day, the officials said.

Iran in ‘Serious Crisis’
By REUTERS, New York Times
The anti-government protests, which have flared repeatedly since the election, have plunged Iran into the most serious internal crisis in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history. Iranian opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi supporters have defied government warnings against holding "illegal rallies," using Muslim festivals and official days of commemoration as a cover for street gatherings. Opposition leaders say the presidential vote was rigged to secure Ahmadinejad's re-election. The country's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it was the healthiest in three decades. Hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami criticized Mousavi's statement, saying "he is repeating his past mistakes," state radio reported. The political turmoil has entered a new phase since Sunday, marked by bloody confrontations, arrests and hardline demands for stronger suppression of opponents of the government.

Pakistan: Bomb kills 32 at volleyball site
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A suicide bomber set off an explosives-laden vehicle on a field during a volleyball tournament Friday in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 32 people and wounding more than 70, police said. The blast occurred near Pakistan's tribal belt, and was the latest bloodshed to rattle the country since the army launched a military offensive against Taliban fighters in the South Waziristan tribal region. The operation has scattered insurgents but provoked apparent reprisal attacks that have killed more than 500 people since October. Police said Friday's bombing in Lakki Marwat city, not far from South Waziristan, was possible retaliation for local residents' efforts to keep militants out of the area. "The locality has been a hub of militants. Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion," local police chief Ayub Khan told reporters. He said the bomber drove onto the field, which lies in a congested neighborhood, during the volleyball contest. Some nearby houses collapsed, and "we fear that some 10 or so people might have been trapped in the rubble," Khan said.

Somalis in Yemen: Dangerously Intertwined Basket Cases
By Abigail Hauslohner, Time
There is little doubt that the steady push of refugees from the Horn of Africa into Yemen is proving taxing for a country on the brink of becoming the world's next failed state. Yemen simply doesn't have the resources to deal with multiple insurgencies, a water crisis, development woes, unemployment, widespread poverty and a refugee issue all at once. The country's foreign minister, Abubaker Abdullah al-Qirbi, told TIME in an interview in his office in early December: "The challenge is enormous . . . [The refugees] pose a lot of problems, both [security-related] and also pressure on our education and health services."

U.S. Probes Cleric's Tie to Jetliner Bomb Plot
By EVAN PEREZ, MARGARET COKER, SIOBHAN GORMAN, Wall Street Journal
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born Yemeni cleric who has surfaced in multiple terror probes, is emerging as a central part of the Christmas Day airline bomber investigation, as authorities focus attention on a network of extremists in Yemen who may have helped radicalize the young Nigerian accused in the failed plot. U.S. investigators have uncovered intelligence "chatter" indicating contacts between Mr. Awlaki, who has been under U.S. intelligence scrutiny for years, and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a wealthy Nigerian who is accused of trying to down Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with explosives hidden in his underwear. While Mr. Awlaki had been suspected of having contacts with Mr. Abdulmutallab, the evidence firms up those links. The type and extent of the contacts detected between the two couldn't be learned. It isn't clear what direct role, if any, Mr. Awlaki played in the plot. Al Qaeda's branch in Yemen, with which Mr. Awlaki is associated, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Abdulmutallab's teachers, classmates at Yemen school say he became more religious
"Islam is the only true way, if you want to go to heaven, you should accept it"
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post
The young Nigerian man had visited Yemen once before, in 2005. But by the time Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab returned this past August, again to study Arabic, he appeared to have become a very different person, more deeply religious, more of a loner, and forsaking Western clothing in favor of a long, white traditional Islamic tunic. Abdulmutallab also expressed an inner confidence and a certainty of purpose, according to former teachers, classmates and housemates. The 23-year-old seemed to be on a mission, spending long hours in a mosque, often missing classes, and even ordering a classmate to stop smoking in front of him. In more than a dozen interviews on Wednesday, those who know him shared impressions of the man who joined them for language school in Yemen this summer only to vanish in October and emerge on Christmas Day on a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam with chemical explosives allegedly sewn into his underwear. At a dinner in September, Abdulmutallab demanded that classmate Sigurd Sorensen walk behind him as he said his evening prayers. "What faith are you?" Abdulmutallab demanded. "Christian," Sorensen replied. "Islam is the only true way," Abdulmutallab then declared, according to Sorensen. "If you want to go to heaven, you should accept it."

Suicide bomber attacks CIA base in Afghanistan, killing at least 8 Americans
By Joby Warrick, Washington Post
A suicide bomber infiltrated a CIA base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing at least eight Americans in what is believed to be the deadliest single attack on U.S. intelligence personnel in the eight-year-long war and one of the deadliest in the agency's history, U.S. officials said. The attack represented an audacious blow to intelligence operatives at the vanguard of U.S. counterterrorism operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing officials whose job involves plotting strikes against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups that are active on the frontier between the two nations. The facility that was targeted -- Forward Operating Base Chapman -- is in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, which borders North Waziristan, the Pakistani tribal area that is believed to be al-Qaeda's home base.

Provincial Governor Survives Iraq Bombings
By JOHN LELAND and MARK McDONALD, New York Times
Attacks by two suicide bombers on Wednesday in the city of Ramadi killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 30, a police commander said. Initial reports said the governor of Anbar Province, Qasim Abed al-Fahadawi, had been killed but hospital officials said he had been wounded but survived. Anbar Province, the embattled region west of Baghdad, has been a bellwether for Iraq’s fortunes. In 2004, the killing of four American contractors in Falluja signaled the hardening of the insurgency. In 2006, when tribal leaders in Anbar turned against the insurgency in the Sunni Awakening Council, their efforts brought the first turn toward peace in the country.

Worried Yemeni minister warns of more Qaeda attacks
Two freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners had helped hatch the plot
By CHUCK BENNETT, New York Post
There are hundreds of al Qaeda-trained operatives in Yemen plotting more attacks on US airliners, the foreign minister of the embattled Gulf state warned yesterday. "Of course there are a number of al Qaeda operatives in Yemen and some of their leaders. We realize this danger," Abu Bakr al-Qirbi said. "They may actually plan attacks like the one we have just had in Detroit. There are maybe hundreds of them -- 200, 300," he told the BBC. Al-Qirbi said he briefed the FBI on the threat from his country -- home to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing. Meanwhile, one day after it was revealed that two freed Guantanamo Bay prisoners had helped hatch the plot, the name of a third former Gitmo detainee has emerged as a key figure in AQAP.

Airliner suicide mission blessed by imam
By Victor Morton, Washington Times
The Nigerian accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner had his suicide mission personally blessed in Yemen by Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim imam suspected of radicalizing the Fort Hood shooting suspect, a U.S. intelligence source has told The Washington Times. The intelligence official, who is familiar with the FBI's interrogation of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, said the bombing suspect has boasted of his jihad training to the FBI and has said it included final exhortations by Mr. al-Awlaki. "It was Awlaki who indoctrinated him," the official said. "He was told, 'You are going to be the tip of the spear of the Muslim nation.' "

Somali arrested at airport with chemicals, syringe
By the Associated Press, Washington Times
A man tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told the Associated Press on Wednesday. The Somali man -- whose name has not yet been released -- was arrested by African Union peacekeeping troops before the Nov. 13 Daallo Airlines flight took off. It had been scheduled to travel from Mogadishu to the northern Somali city of Hargeisa, then to Djibouti and Dubai. A Somali police spokesman, Abdulahi Hassan Barise, said the suspect is in Somali custody. "We don't know whether he's linked with al Qaeda or other foreign organizations, but his actions were the acts of a terrorist. We caught him red-handed," Barise said.

Al Qaeda Takes Credit for Plot
By PETER SPIEGEL, JAY SOLOMON and MARGARET COKER, Wall Street Journal
Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack on Northwest Flight 253, and U.S. officials said the claim appears valid -- the clearest indication yet that the attempted takedown wasn't just the work of a lone radical inspired by Islamist rhetoric, as some investigators initially believed. Al Qaeda claims credit for an attempted plane bombing, more aggressive help for housing again and more in the News Hub. The development came as evidence mounted that the U.S. didn't pursue potential leads that might have brought alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the attention of authorities, according to Congressional investigators and U.S. officials. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano backtracked Monday from comments she made in televised interviews over the weekend, in which she said the U.S.'s security systems had worked. President Barack Obama, in his first public comments about the incident, promised the government would do everything it can to keep travelers secure. "We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable," Mr. Obama said in remarks broadcast on television from Hawaii, where he is on vacation. A statement attributed to the group "al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula" claimed it was retaliating for what it says was the U.S.'s role in a recent Yemeni military offensive on al Qaeda, according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute. The statement, accompanied by a photo of the suspect, said the "high-tech device" Mr. Abdulmutallab carried had had a "technical" problem. "The claim at this point appears valid," said one U.S. counterterrorism official. However, the depth of the relationship between the terror group and Mr. Abdulmutallab is still unclear.

Explosive in Detroit terror case could have blown hole in airplane, sources say
By Carrie Johnson, Washington Post
A dangerous explosive concealed by Nigerian student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in his underwear could have blown a hole in the side of his Detroit-bound aircraft if it had been detonated, according to two federal sources briefed on the investigation. Authorities said they are still analyzing a badly damaged syringe that Abdulmutallab allegedly employed as a detonating device on Christmas Day. But preliminary conclusions indicate that he allegedly used 80 grams of PETN -- almost twice as much of the highly explosive material as used by convicted shoe bomber Richard C. Reid. A day after Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said there was "no indication" the incident was connected to a larger plot, there were increasing signs that the failed bombing may have represented one of the most serious terrorist threats in the United States since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. President Obama interrupted his vacation in Hawaii to declare that authorities "will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable." He also said he had ordered a review of the nation's terrorist watch-list system. In a statement, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, a group based in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, asserted responsibility for the attempt to destroy the Northwest Airlines jet, saying it was a response to U.S.-backed airstrikes against the group in Yemen. Meanwhile, Yemen's government confirmed that Abdulmutallab was in the country from early August to early December after obtaining a visa to study Arabic at a language institute, and said that he had previously studied at the school.

Death Toll Climbs in Attack on Pakistani Shiites
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
The death toll from a suicide bomber’s attack on a Shiite religious procession in Karachi was reported to have risen to 40 on Tuesday, as the city reeled from rioting overnight amid fears that extremist groups already waging a multifront war against the government were now trying to foment sectarian violence against the country’s minority Shiite Muslims. A suicide bomber attacked a Shiite Muslim procession in Karachi on Monday. The GEO television network, citing hospital sources, said at least 40 people had been killed and more than 100 had been injured in the attack, which struck the procession as it made its way along Muhammad Ali Jinnah Road on Monday afternoon. The attack, the third against Shiites in three days, appeared to deeply unsettle the Pakistani government, which ordered the director general of the Rangers, a paramilitary force under the control of the Interior Ministry, to take control of Karachi. The interior minister, Rehman Malik, also asked Shiite clerics to postpone religious processions , especially in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, to avoid “providing soft targets to militants,” according to the state-run news agency. Government leaders urged people not to take the law into their own hands.

Somali pirates seize two more vessels
By Reuters, Washington Post
Somali pirates seized a chemical tanker and a cargo vessel on Monday, underlining the continued risk to shipping in some of the world's busiest maritime trade routes. Somalia has been mired in chaos with no effective central government since 1991 and pirate gangs operating from coastal havens in the failed Horn of Africa nation have flourished over the past few years. The gangs have made tens of millions of dollars from seizing ships for ransom in the Gulf of Aden linking Europe to Asia and are also hunting far into the Indian Ocean to evade foreign navies sent to protect commercial shipping. On Monday, pirates seized the British-flagged chemical tanker St James Park in the Gulf of Aden and the Panama-flagged bulk cargo ship Navios Apollon, taking the number of vessels they hold to more than 10, maritime officials said. On the same day, pirates released the Singaporean-flagged container ship Kota Wajar, saying they received a $4 million ransom for the vessel seized in October way into the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles archipelago.

Bomb Hits Procession in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Police say a bomb blast at a major Shiite Muslim procession has killed three people and wounded several more in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi. Live television footage showed an explosion striking the procession on a main road, and ambulances rushing to and from the scene. Shiites are marking Monday the holy day of Ashura. Police officer Maqsood Ahmad said the bomb killed three people and wounded several more. Another police offcer, Raja Umer Khatab, said some in the crowd began firing shots into the air in protest. Security has been tightened across Pakistan for Ashura, which is the 10th day of the holy month of Muharram, a month of mourning often marred by bombings and fighting between Pakistan's Sunni Muslim majority and its Shiite minority.

Terrorist was listed in terror database after father alerted U.S. officials
Abdulmutallab was granted a two-year tourist visa by the U.S. Embassy in London
By Dan Eggen, Karen DeYoung and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post
A Nigerian man charged Saturday with attempting to blow up a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day was listed in a U.S. terrorism database last month after his father told State Department officials that he was worried about his son's radical beliefs and extremist connections, officials said. The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was added to a catch-all terrorism-related database when his father, a Nigerian banker, reported concerns about his son's "radicalization and associations" to the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria, a senior administration official said. Abdulmutallab was not placed on any watch list for flights into the United States, however, because there was "insufficient derogatory information available" to include him, another administration official said. Abdulmutallab was granted a two-year tourist visa by the U.S. Embassy in London in June 2008. He used the visa to travel previously to the United States at least twice, officials said.

Bomber was on U.S. watch list
Authorities have known for months that the al Qaeda-linked Nigerian had terrorist ties
By ANGELA MONTEFINISE, New York Post
US authorities have known for months that the al Qaeda-linked Nigerian who tried to blow up a passenger jet before it landed in Detroit had terrorist ties -- and his own father even alerted them to his extremist behavior, it was revealed yesterday. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, who was charged in federal court with attempting to destroy Northwest Flight 253 on Christmas Day, remained hospitalized with burns suffered in the failed attempt. He was read the charges at a hearing, where he appeared smiling in a medical gown and a wheelchair. Abdulmutallab was added to the 550,000 suspects on a watch list kept by the US National Counterterrorism Center in November and had been on government radar for months. Yet there wasn't enough negative information about him to put him on the no-fly list. Red-faced authorities were attempting to figure out how Abdulmutallab managed to get a visa and elude security in two countries despite the fact that British officials just last May denied him a student visa after he brazenly applied using a fake college name.

Terrorist led life of luxury in London before attack
He quickly acquired a reputation as a devoted Muslim
By Rich Schapiro, New York Daily news
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived a life of extraordinary privilege before he turned to terror. The son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, Abdulmutallab was educated at top schools in Africa and Britain - and dwelled in homes worth millions. The baby-faced extremist's last known address was a $4 million flat in one of London's poshest neighborhoods. Police in London scoured the swanky apartment Saturday in search of clues as to what - or who - might have led Abdulmutallab, 23, to try to blow up a packed jet over Detroit. The flat, in London's West End, is surrounded by several of the city's best-known tourist haunts, including Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. Historic theaters, expensive hotels and exclusive retail stores are all within walking distance of Abdulmutallab's former pad. As a teen, Abdulmutallab attended the British International School in Lome, Togo, a Nigerian paper reported. There, he quickly acquired a reputation as a devoted Muslim.

Search for answers, tighter security after attack
By LARRY MARGASAK and COREY WILLIAMS, Chicago Tribune
The U.S. government tightened airline security as it searches for answers to how a 23-year-old Nigerian man eluded extensive systems intended to prevent attacks like his botched Christmas Day effort to blow up a Northwest flight from overseas. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who claimed ties to al-Qaida, was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner, just a month after his father warned U.S. officials of concerns about his son's religious beliefs. Airports worldwide tightened security a day after the passenger tried to detonate a device that contained a high explosive on a flight into Detroit. After that attack, passengers have had to contend with extra pat-downs before boarding, staying in their seats without blankets or pillows for the last hour of the flight and more bomb-sniffing dogs. Aides to President Barack Obama are pondering how terror watch-lists are used after the botched attack, according to officials who described the discussions Saturday on the condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt possible official announcements.

At Least 4 Dead as Iranians Fight Police in Streets
By ROBERT F. WORTH, New York Times
Iranian police opened fire on protesters in Tehran on Sunday, killing at least four people, including a nephew of the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi, as vast crowds of demonstrators flooded the streets of cities across Iran and fiercely fought security forces, according to witnesses and opposition Web sites. The protests, taking place on the holiday marking the death of Shiite Islam’s holiest martyr, were the bloodiest — and among the largest — since the uprisings that followed Iran’s disputed presidential election last June, with hundreds of thousands of people thronging Tehran alone, witnesses said. There were reports of hundreds of injured people and numerous arrests. In Tehran, thick crowds marched down a central avenue in mid-morning, defying official warnings of a harsh crackdown on protests as they chanted, “Death to the dictator!”

Bomber Kills Five in Kashmir
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
A police official says a suicide bomber has detonated his explosives outside a Shiite Muslim gathering in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, killing five people. Police officer Tahir Qayum says 60 others were wounded in the attack Sunday in Muzaffarabad, the capital of the region. Mr. Qayum says the attacker blew himself up as police tried to search him at a checkpoint set up outside the gathering, which is part of the annual monthlong mourning of the seventh century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson. Mr. Qayum says two police were among the dead, and most of the wounded were Shiites attending the event. Minority Shiites in Pakistan have often been targeted by radical Sunnis during such commemorations in the Islamic holy month of Muharram.

Islamic terrorist tries to blow up airliner bound for Detroit
Nigerian arrested in failed plane attack claims links to al-Qaeda
By Michael Leahy and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post
A Nigerian man, claiming to be linked to al-Qaeda, tried to set off an incendiary device aboard a transatlantic airplane Friday as it descended toward Detroit's airport in what the White House called an attempted act of terrorism. The man was quickly subdued after another passenger leapt on top of him, others on the plane said, and Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam landed safely around 1 p.m. Friday. The suspect was being treated at a hospital for burns he suffered while igniting the device, the Transportation Security Administration said. The suspect is Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, a federal official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing. ABC News and NBC News reported that Abdulmutallab, 23, attends University College London, where he studies engineering. Although not on the TSA's "no-fly" list, Abdulmutallab's name appears to be included in the government's records of terrorism suspects, according to a preliminary review, authorities said.

Israelis kill 3 Fatah activists on West Bank
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Israeli soldiers today shot dead three Palestinians who the military says were involved in a roadside ambush that killed an Israeli settler earlier in the week. The operation in the West Bank city of Nablus targeted three activists of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement. Palestinian witnesses said troops, many of them masked, opened fire while storming the homes of the men. The West Bank has been relatively calm in recent months. Roadside ambushes and army raids targeting Fatah gunmen, common just a few years ago, are now rare. This week's sudden spike in violence could undercut the security coordination forged by Abbas and Israel's military as they try to clamp down on a shared foe, the Islamic militant group Hamas. The three men killed today were identified as members of Fatah's violent Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group that carried out many shootings during the second Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 2000. The deputy governor of Nablus, Anan Attireh, said one of the men -- Anan Subeh -- had been accepted in Israel's amnesty program for Fatah gunmen, while two others, Ghassan Abu Sharah and Raed Suragji, were still on Israel's wanted list.

Twin Bombings Kill 10 South of Baghdad
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
Two bombs exploded within minutes of each other near a bus station south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 10 people and wounding 110 others, according to the Iraqi authorities, adding to the rise in violence around the nation this month. The bombings occurred in Hilla, the capital of Babil Province, about 65 miles from Baghdad. The first bomb had been attached to a minibus near the entrance of Hilla’s main bus terminal and exploded about 2 p.m., said Fadhil Radad al-Sultani, the chief of the provincial police. As officers rushed to the scene, a car bomb was detonated just outside the bus station, the police said. The bus terminal is in one of the busiest sections of Hilla, near a public market and government offices. About the same time as the explosions, Neima al-Bakri, a member of the Babil provincial council, was fatally shot by a police officer in Hilla at a checkpoint about a mile from the bus station, the police said.

Bombings in Iraq Kill 13 Ahead of Shiite Rite
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Staggered explosions apparently targeting Shiite Muslim pilgrims killed at least 13 people and injured 74 on Thursday, authorities said, raising fears of further sectarian attacks at the approach of Shiite Islam's most solemn holiday. The deaths come three days before the climax of Ashoura. The holiday's observers have frequently been attacked in the past. Police Maj. Muthana Khalid said a first bomb exploded around 2 p.m. Thursday in Hillah, the capital of Babil province, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of Baghdad. He said the second explosion came as police rushed to the scene 15 minutes later. The bombs apparently targeted Shiite pilgrims observing Ashoura who had gathered near a bus station in downtown Hillah. A wrecked car lay at the attack site, and a pair of blood-covered slippers could be seen near damaged storefronts.

Iran warns that it will deal 'fiercely' with protesters
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post
Iran's national police commander said demonstrators will face a fierce crackdown if their "illegal" activities continue, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Wednesday, following several days of anti-government protests and officials calling for the arrest of the political leaders of the opposition. Eyewitnesses reported protests and clashes Wednesday in Qom, Isfahan and Najafabad, where supporters of dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who died Sunday, battled police and plainclothes paramilitary forces. "Sometimes you have to approach people with physical action, for others non-physical action is necessary," Hojjatoleslam Mojtaba Zolnour said while meeting with members of the paramilitary Basij organization Tuesday night in Bushehr. "If we throw all three heads of the green sedition into prison, nothing will happen at all," Zolnour said, warning the Basij forces not to act independently toward the two leaders, whose movement uses the color green. "But if we take any physical action against them, it is possible that the flames of these issues will spread." State authorities have long been contemplating the arrest of the opposition leaders, but some officials have publicly said they fear such a move would only cause more protests. The funeral Sunday for Montazeri, which attracted tens of thousands and possibly more anti-government demonstrators, again showed the opposition is able to rally large groups of people. More anti-government protests are expected in the coming days. The protests and clashes in the provincial towns of Isfahan, Qom, and Najafabad have been the fiercest outside of Tehran since the unrest that followed Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory in June.

Suicide bomber in Pakistan kills 3 in attack on Peshawar Press Club
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
A suicide bomber detonated his explosives outside a press club in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Tuesday, leaving three people dead in an attack that comes at a time of growing violence and political turmoil in Pakistan. A policeman tried to search the attacker as he approached the press club's gate, but the man resisted and was able to trigger his explosives, killing the officer and an accountant who worked for the organization, said Peshawar's police chief, Liaquat Ali Khan. A woman who was at the site of the attack died of a heart attack caused by the shock of the bombing, said Sahib Gul, a doctor at a hospital in Peshawar where the three bodies were brought. Adil Khan, a local photographer who was inside the press club when the attack occurred, said he heard the police officer at the gate, Muhammad Riaz, trying to force the bomber to submit to a search. "Suddenly a big explosion occurred and smoke made me unable to see immediately what happened," said Khan. "After a while, I saw Riaz and accountant Mian Iqbal lying dead in a pool of blood and there were some scattered body parts."

Long Firefight With Militants Immobilizes Afghan City
By ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times
A provincial government official said that Afghan security forces and American troops killed five heavily armed men who attacked a police headquarters in the center of Gardez, the capital of the southeastern province of Paktia Province. The firefight immobilized the city for about four hours, said the official, Rahullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor’s office. But he said that only two of the attacker’s bodies had been recovered, raising the possibility that several had in fact escaped. Four police officers and three civilians were wounded, Mr. Samon said. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that five suicide bombers entered the Gardez police headquarters around 9 a.m. and attacked a class of police recruits while foreign mentors were taking daily attendance.

Radical Islam meets a buffer in West Africa
Signs of conservative Islam, such as schoolgirls wearing burqas, are common
By Karin Brulliard, Washington Post
The Saharan sands stretching north from this fabled outpost have long been a trade route and cultural crossroads, and this past year has brought worrying signs that the desert might also help bring a violent brand of Islam to moderate parts of West Africa. An increase in attacks has included the killing of an American teacher and a suicide bombing in Mauritania, the kidnapping of two Canadian diplomats in Niger, and the executions of a British tourist and a Malian colonel in Mali. All were attributed to an al-Qaeda branch made up mostly of Algerians that has ranged southward to hit in urban Mauritania and establish a rear base in the Malian desert. Mali remains proudly moderate, and most people here dismiss extremist ideology as too foreign and brutal to be accepted. But Mali in some sense has become a test case as its government has accepted tens of millions of dollars in American aid intended to stave off what U.S. officials say could be a growing threat of radicalism in parts of Africa where Muslims make up the majority.

Israel’s deadly mistakes
Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
In 1983, Israeli authorities arrested Ahmed Yassin, a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza. He was convicted of unlawfully stockpiling weapons and establishing paramilitary jihadist organizations, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. Just two years later, however, he was set free in the now-infamous “Jibril deal’’ - the release of 1,150 security prisoners held by Israel in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist group headed by Ahmed Jibril. Yassin soon launched Hamas, a murderous organization committed to Israel’s liquidation. Over the years, Hamas terrorists have killed hundreds of Israelis, and maimed or wounded thousands more. Few Israeli policies have been as counterproductive or morally questionable as the lopsided prisoner exchanges it has entered into with terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. Time and again, Israel has paid for the freedom of a few POWs - sometimes just the remains of a few POWs - by releasing hundreds of violent detainees, many of them complicit in the deaths of civilians. And time and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off.

Deadly Bomb Blast Near Mosque in Pakistan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Times
A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives near a mosque inside a police compound in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 10 people in the latest attack by suspected Taliban militants waging war against the government. It was the third such strike in North Waziristan in the past 24 hours. Most of the 10 people killed in the attack in the Lower Dir region were police leaving the mosque after Friday prayers, said the area's police chief, Feroze Khan. The blast wounded another 28 people, also mostly police, said a local hospital official, Ghulam Mohammed.

Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats
By JANE PERLEZ and ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times
Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment when the Obama administration is demanding more help to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The campaign includes the refusal to extend or approve visas for more than 100 American officials and the frequent searches of American diplomatic vehicles in major cities, said an American official briefed on the cases. The problems affected military attachés, C.I.A. officers, development experts, junior level diplomats and others, a senior American diplomat said. As a result, some American aid programs to Pakistan, which President Obama has called a critical ally, are “grinding to a halt,” the diplomat said.

Homeland Security rescinds Nation of Islam intelligence analysis
By Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times
The Department of Homeland Security issued but recalled a 2007 intelligence analysis about the Nation of Islam after deciding the document dealing with the black Muslim group broke rules on intelligence activity in the United States, officials said Wednesday. The U.S. government long has been interested in leaders of the religious movement that melds black nationalism with the Islamic faith, said Zaheer Ali, a Columbia University researcher who focuses on the Nation of Islam. He said Wednesday's revelation recalled FBI probes in the 1960s and '70s. "As a historian, it's not surprising that the federal agencies under a new name -- in this case Homeland Security -- would be so interested," Ali said. Though no investigation has produced evidence suggesting the Nation of Islam poses a threat, such concerns linger, he said. "In the minds of many, Islam poses a threat. Black people pose a threat. And the combination of black people and Islam pose a threat in the imagination of people," Ali said. "I don't think our intelligence community is immune to these kinds of perceptions."

Iran Test Fires Long-Range Missile
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Iran said Wednesday it successfully test-fired an upgraded version of its longest-range missile, which it said is now faster and harder to shoot down. The test of the missile -- which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe -- is Iran's latest show of military strength at a time when it is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program. Tehran has been intent on demonstrating it can retaliate against any military strike on its nuclear facilities by the U.S. or Israel. Wednesday's test was for the latest version of Iran's most advanced missile, the Sajjil-2, with a range of about 1,200 miles. That range places Israel, Iran's sworn enemy, well within reach, as well as U.S. bases in the Gulf region and parts of southeastern Europe. The two-stage Sajjil-2 is powered entirely by solid fuel while the older, long-range Shahab-3 missile uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel in its most advanced form. State television broke the news in a one-sentence report accompanied by a brief clip of the test, showing the missile rising from the launch pad in a cloud of smoke.

Iranian Dealings Lead to a Fine for Credit Suisse
By CLAUDIO GATTI and JOHN ELIGON, New York Times
Credit Suisse is expected to pay a fine of $536 million to settle accusations by the United States government and New York State authorities that it violated sanctions by helping Iran and other countries secretly funnel hundreds of millions of dollars through American banks, people involved in the negotiations said Tuesday. Investigators found that the bank, the second-largest in Switzerland, removed information from American-bound wire transfers that would have signaled that the money originated in Iranian banks, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the case. Two of the organizations that Credit Suisse facilitated transactions for, the official said, were the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and the Aerospace Industries Organization, both of which are designated as proliferators of weapons of mass destruction by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control. Both are barred from doing business with the United States.

Iranian bombshell
Chilling report documents work on nuke trigger
By the New York Daily News
Just when you thought Iran couldn't get any scarier, get a load of this stunning discovery. According to The Times of London, Iran is working on a neutron initiator - the part of a nuclear bomb that triggers an explosion. This technology has no civilian use and no military use aside from detonating a nuclear weapon. The revelation was gleaned from what appear to be Iranian intelligence documents obtained by the newspaper, dated early 2007. We must caution: It's always possible that such documents could prove inauthentic. But all who have scrutinized the papers so far believe them to be legitimate. The evidence has since been seen by several Western intelligence agencies and has been turned over to the UN's nuclear watchdog. Iran will deny, distract and do whatever possible to change the subject. Because that's how Iran's leaders conduct business.

Programmed to kill
By Richard Cohen, Washington Post
At the World Economic Forum some years ago, I attended a panel discussion on robots. One of the experts -- everyone's an expert at Davos -- predicted that robots would take over the world. Another said this was nonsense. A robot couldn't even scratch its own back. Now we see the second expert was wrong. Robots killed more than 160 people in Mumbai. It's hard not to call the 10 young men who did the killing (nine of them died) anything other than robots. They did not know the people they killed. They did not care about the people they killed. They took orders over the phone from a controller in Pakistan. When he told them to kill, they killed. When he told them to die, they died. "Be brave, brother. Don't panic," the controller said to one gunman, called Brother Fahadullah. "For your mission to end successfully, you must be killed. God is waiting for you in heaven." Fahadullah died soon afterward.

Somalia stoning horror
By CATHY BURKE, New York Post
In a scene straight out of the Dark Ages, a Somali man accused of adultery was stoned to death by Islamic thugs while horrified villagers were forced to watch. Mohamed Abukar Ibrahim, 48, was buried in a hole up to his chest and then pelted with rocks by fighters from the rebel group Hizbul Islam on Saturday in Afgoye, about 20 miles from the capital, Mogadishu. A rebel judge announced that Ibrahim, along with a man who had been accused of murder, had both confessed to their crimes. The alleged murderer got a more merciful punishment -- he was shot to death. "The lady who had been with the second man was only given 100 lashes because she said she had never married." The executions marked the first time that Hizbul Islam guerrillas had dealt out the type of punishments usually associated with the more hard-line al Shabaab rebel group in Somalia. The United States says al Shabaab is al Qaeda's proxy in the failed African state.

Al-Qaida No. 2 blasts Obama, honors 9/11 suspect
By SALAH NASRAWI, San Francisco Chronicle
Al-Qaida's deputy leader said Barack Obama has deceived Arabs about his efforts to restart Mideast peace talks, and claimed in a message posted Monday that the American president has done nothing for the region so far. Ayman Al-Zawahri also vowed the terror network will not forget militants held in American prisons — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's mastermind of the September 11 bombings. Mohammed and four others, held for years at the military base in Guantanamo Bay, are due to stand trial on charges they plotted the September 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Last month's announcement of the trial, which will be held just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers were destroyed, has sparked concerns about the security risks involved.

31 Inmates Freed as Militants Attack Philippine Jail
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Scores of suspected Islamic militants burst through a concrete wall then barged into a jail in the volatile southern Philippines on Sunday, freeing 31 inmates in a nighttime attack that sparked a gunbattle in which two people were killed. Vice Governor Al Rasheed Sakalahul of Basilan island said 70 heavily armed men cut through padlocks with boltcutters after using a sledgehammer to destroy the wall at the provincial jail in Isabela city to free several detained Muslim guerrillas. Other inmates also dashed to freedom, he said. The daring assault sparked a brief clash that killed one attacker and a jail guard. The attackers and prisoners fled in several vehicles toward Basilan's jungle-covered mountainous heartland, Sakalahul said.

Al Qaeda looking to Yemen as next base
Officials say move already underway
By Bryan Bender, Boston Globe
As the United States steps up the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, some of the terrorist network’s veteran operatives are leaving the region and flocking to Yemen, where an escalating civil war is turning the nearly lawless Arab nation into an attractive alternative as a base of operations, according to US and foreign government officials. Citing intelligence reports and intercepted communications, officials said they believe dozens of battle-hardened followers of Osama bin Laden have recently traveled to Saudi Arabia’s poor southern neighbor, joining other Al Qaeda sympathizers there who are attempting to make the remote mountainous province of Ma’rib, west of the capital of Sana, a new sanctuary. A senior defense official said US military and intelligence officials, who have armed drones and special operations forces based in nearby Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, are devising new ways to combat the threat, but declined to provide details. “There is, indeed, concern about the establishment of Al Qaeda elements in Yemen,’’ said the official, who is directly involved in counterterrorism operations in the Middle East.

N.Va. men allegedly tried to join jihadists
By Jerry Markon and Shaiq Hussain, Washington Post
Five men from Northern Virginia who were arrested Tuesday in Pakistan traveled abroad hoping to work with jihadist groups and battle U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said Thursday. The men contacted extremist organizations, including two with links to al-Qaeda, and proudly told their Pakistani interrogators, "We are here for jihad," said Usman Anwar, the local Pakistani police chief whose officers interrogated the men, all Muslims from the Alexandria area. Anwar said police recovered jihadist literature, laptop computers and maps of parts of Pakistan when the men were arrested near Lahore. The maps included areas where the Taliban train. The men first made contact with the two extremist organizations by e-mail in August, officials said, but the groups apparently rejected their overtures because they couldn't find people to vouch for them.

Five U.S. Muslims detained in Pakistan tried to join Taliban, officials say
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Five young American Muslims detained in Pakistan wanted to join militants in the country's Taliban-ruled tribal region, battle U.S. troops in neighboring Afghanistan and die as martyrs, police officials said Thursday. The men initially tried to contact jihadist groups in Pakistan via YouTube and other Web sites, then traveled to Pakistan to attempt personal meetings, said the police chief in this eastern Pakistani city, Usman Anwar. One of their fathers was also detained when police raided two locations this week in Sargodha, a city on the main road to the Afghan border region that is home to a major air force base and is known as a hotbed of militant activity.

Gunmen abduct 75 in Philippine village raid
Many of those kidnapped are children
By Al Jacinto and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Gunmen raided a remote village before dawn today and abducted at least 75 people -- most of them children -- in a restive southern province, a Philippine army spokesman said. The incident was the second recent mass abduction in the Philippines. Last month, 57 people, including 30 journalists, traveling in an election convoy were massacred in southern Maguindanao province. The mass killings, believed to involve battling warlords, led to the imposition of martial law in the province. Today, police and army forces converged on the town of Prosperidad, in the southern province of Agusan del Sur, after reports of attackers swarming the village, said Maj. Michelle Anayron, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division. At least 15 armed mountain tribesmen stormed the village and rounded up two forest rangers, teachers and several parents who were present during the 6 a.m. attack, authorities said. Police said the attackers initially abducted 125 people, but 50 hostages were able to escape.

Coordinated Bombings Kill at Least 101 in Baghdad
By STEVEN LEE MYERS, New York Times
In what appeared to be a coordinated assault, a series of car bombings across Baghdad on Tuesday killed at least 101 people and wounded scores more, according to preliminary accounts by police and hospital officials. Smoke from the bombings billows in the Baghdad sky on Tuesday. Five bombs, including at least one suicide attack, struck near a university, a court, a mosque a market and in a neighborhood near the Interior Ministry. The blasts began shortly after 10 A.M. and reverberated through the city for the next 50 minutes, sending enormous plumes of black smoke into the air. American helicopters, drones and airplanes circled the city in the immediate aftermath, while sporadic gunfire could be heard at one of the sites, near the main courthouse for western Baghdad and Zawra Park, which includes the city’s zoo and amusement areas.

Coordinated car bombings at government facilities in Iraq kill scores
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
A series of coordinated attacks struck Baghdad Tuesday, including three car bombs that blew up near government sites. At least 94 were killed and 120 wounded in the worst wave of violence in the capital in more than a month, authorities said. A total of four attacks, which also included a suicide car bomb on a police patrol, showed the ability of insurgents to strike high-profile targets in the heart of Baghdad. It was another embarrassment to Iraqi forces in their expanding role as front-line security as U.S. forces plan their withdrawal. The blasts came as Iraqi officials prepared to announced the date for next year's parliamentary elections — a move the security forces worry could bring an escalation in attacks seeking to discredit the pro-Western government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The core of the attacks hit central Baghdad with three bomb-rigged cars exploding in the span of a few minutes. The targets were the latest assaults directed at Iraqi authorities: the Labor Ministry building, a court complex near the Iraqi-protected Green Zone and the new site of the Finance Ministry after its previous building was destroyed in major attacks in August.

Local man cited in India attack
Prosecutors say terror suspect scoped out targeted Mumbai sites months before '08 raid
By Jeff Coen and Josh Meyer, Chicago Tribune
Months before a team of terrorists killed 170 people in coordinated attacks in Mumbai, a Chicago man was conducting surveillance of the hotels and other locations that would come under assault, prosecutors here said Monday. David Coleman Headley, a shadowy figure who changed his name from Daood Gilani in 2006 in an effort to ease his travel, was charged by federal authorities with conducting key surveillance that helped plan the November 2008 attacks in the Indian city. Headley, a Pakistani American, allegedly made a number of trips over two years to visit locations including the Taj Mahal Hotel, which was stormed by terrorist gunmen. The criminal complaint said Headley concealed his missions by purporting to represent a business owned by another Chicagoan. He allegedly took his pictures and videotapes to Pakistan, where he met with leaders of the terrorist organization blamed for the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Suicide bombers kill 40 at Pakistan mosque
Taliban blamed for bombings that have killed hundreds of people
By Augustine Anthony, Washington Post
Three suicide bombers fired on worshipers then blew themselves up at a mosque near Pakistan's military headquarters after Friday prayers, killing 40 people, including many army officials, police said. The mosque is frequented by military officials in the town of Rawalpindi, home to Pakistan's military establishment and only a 30-minute drive from the capital Islamabad. The brazen attack in what should be one of the most secure areas of Pakistan was the latest challenge by militants against the writ of the state. A local television station said people were executed in cold blood. Pakistan is fighting Taliban fighters blamed for bombings that have killed hundreds of people since an offensive was launched on their stronghold South Waziristan in October. The nuclear-armed country faces mounting U.S. pressure to root out Islamist militants operating along forbidding border areas to help in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. "They were three. They first opened fire and then blew themselves up," Rao Iqbal, Rawalpindi police chief, told Reuters. Witnesses said earlier that attackers hurled grenades then opened fire on the mosque. A policeman said the militants arrived in a grey Toyota car. The cleric had just finished his sermon with the phrase "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) when an explosion shook worshippers in the Parade Lane mosque.

Mosque Hit by Attackers; 30 Killed, 40 Wounded
Attackers threw grenades into the women’s section of the mosque
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
Attackers lobbed grenades and opened fire at worshippers, mostly serving retired military officials, at a mosque in the garrison city of Rawalpindi during Friday prayers. At least 30 people were reported to have been killed and more than 40 wounded, according to the interior minister, Rehman Malik. A witness, Nasir Ali, said the attackers also threw grenades into the women’s section of the mosque. “I could only hear the shouting of the people. We couldn’t help each other at all,” Mr. Ali told Dawn television, describing how he hid from the attackers. “It was a hopeless situation. About 30 or 35 people were lying dead in front of me.” Rescue officials said the death toll could be around 40, with 45 wounded in an attack that sent shock waves across a land battered by bombings, even as its army seeks to move against militant hideouts in the lawless tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.

Suicide Bombing Kills Somali Ministers, Students
At Least 22 Die in Attack Showing al Qaeda's Growing Influence
By ABDINASIR MOHAMED and SARAH CHILDRESS, Wall street Journal
A suicide blast at a university graduation in Mogadishu killed several Somali government ministers and an estimated 19 students, a sign of al Qaeda's efforts to establish the troubled east African country as a base from which to attack Western targets. The bombing -- at an event representing the country's efforts to rebuild -- was a blow to the government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, whom the U.S. has hailed as the best hope for stability in Somalia after 15 years of chaos. The chief suspect in the attack was al Shabaab, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that U.S. and Somali officials say has been receiving training from al Qaeda. A recent influx of foreign fighters with al Qaeda connections has intensified fears of Somalia becoming a haven for global terrorism. The largely lawless country is already a haven for pirates, who have increased attacks on ships in a widening area off the East African coast.

Islamist blast Kills 3 Somali Cabinet Ministers
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and MOHAMED IBRAHIM, New York Times
In a devastating blow to Somalia’s fragile transitional government, a suicide bomber disguised as a veiled woman struck at a graduation ceremony on Thursday, killing at least 10 people, including 3 government ministers, Somali officials said. The bomber struck in a part of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, that was thought be relatively safe, though many Somalis fear hard-line insurgents have infiltrated the government’s security forces. According to witnesses and government officials, dozens of medical students gathered on Thursday morning for a graduation ceremony at the Shamo Hotel, which was often where the few Westerners who visit Mogadishu would stay. About five high-ranking government officials, including the ministers of health and higher education and another cabinet member, were attending the ceremony, and witnesses said three ministers were killed along with several Somali journalists and at least two surgeons in a country desperately short of doctors. The attack, said Mohammed Aden, a Somali diplomat in Nairobi, “is very, very serious, really.” Somalia is embroiled in civil war between a weak but internationally-backed transitional government and an extremist Islamist insurgency with ties to Al Qaeda. The country has been lawless and violent since 1991, when the central government collapsed.

Iranian Crackdown Goes Global
By FARNAZ FASSIHI, Wall Street Journal
His first impulse was to dismiss the ominous email as a prank, says a young Iranian-American named Koosha. It warned the 29-year-old engineering student that his relatives in Tehran would be harmed if he didn't stop criticizing Iran on Facebook.
Green in Berlin Rapper Jay-Z and U2 brightened Berlin's Brandenburg Gate with green lighting during a performance of "Sunday, Bloody Sunday," a U2 song inspired by a 1972 altercation between British troops and protesters in Northern Ireland. During the performance, Jay-Z rapped in support of the Iranian protesters. Two days later, his mom called. Security agents had arrested his father in his home in Tehran and threatened him by saying his son could no longer safely return to Iran. "When they arrested my father, I realized the email was no joke," said Koosha, who asked that his full name not be used. Tehran's leadership faces its biggest crisis since it first came to power in 1979, as Iranians at home and abroad attack its legitimacy in the wake of June's allegedly rigged presidential vote. An opposition effort, the "Green Movement," is gaining a global following of regular Iranians who say they never previously considered themselves activists. The regime has been cracking down hard at home. And now, a Wall Street Journal investigation shows, it is extending that crackdown to Iranians abroad as well.

Suicide Bomber Kills Naval Official in Pakistan
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
A suicide bomber on foot detonated his explosives while trying to enter the headquarters of the Pakistan Navy in Islamabad Wednesday, killing one naval official and injuring two, officials said. “The bomber was a very young boy, sixteen to seventeen years of age,” said Fazeel Asghar, the chief commissioner of Islamabad. The bomber got out of a car and tried to enter the headquarters through one of the main gates , officials and witnesses said. “Three officials of Pakistan Navy stopped him and asked to remove his coat. While removing his coat, the bomb detonated. As a result, one official was martyred while two others were wounded. They have been taken to a naval hospital”, Mr. Asghar said. The heavily barricaded headquarters is on a busy intersection known as Zafar Chowk. Haseeb Asif, 22, a witness, said he was waiting at a traffic signal when he saw the bomber getting out of a car. “The driver of the car that brought the bomber got nervous and drove his car in the wrong direction and hit my car, badly damaging it,” Mr. Asif said. The attack caused panic in nearby commercial and residential neighborhoods.

Swiss Ban on Minaret Building Meets Widespread Criticism
Ministers were forced to admit they had failed to quell popular anxieties about the impact of “creeping Islamization”
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE, New York Times
Switzerland’s political leaders faced a chorus of criticism at home and abroad on Monday over a ban on the construction of minarets that passed overwhelmingly by referendum on Sunday. The ban has propelled the country to the forefront of a European debate on how far countries should go to assimilate Muslim immigrants and Islamic culture. Government ministers trying to contain the fallout voiced shock and disappointment with the result, which the Swiss establishment newspaper Le Temps called a “brutal sign of hostility” to Muslims that was “inspired by fear, fantasy and ignorance.” The country’s justice minister, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, said that the vote was not a rejection of the Muslim community, religion or culture, but that it reflected fears among the population. With support for the ban from 57.5 percent of voters, however, ministers were forced to admit they had failed to quell popular anxieties about the impact of what right-wing parties have portrayed as “creeping Islamization.” Ms. Widmer-Schlumpf acknowledged that the vote was “undeniably a reflection of the fears and uncertainties that exist among the population — concerns that Islamic fundamentalist ideas could lead to the establishment of parallel societies.”

Iranian official says decision to expand nuclear program is response to IAEA rebuke
10 uranium-enrichment sites announced after international rebuke
By Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post
A top Iranian nuclear official said Monday that the country's decision to build 10 more uranium-enrichment sites is a direct response to last week's censure by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The facilities will be built inside mountains, the official added, to secure them from military attack. "We had no intention of building many facilities like the Natanz site," Ali Akbar Salehi told state radio, referring to an enrichment plant that was launched in the 1990s but is still not fully operational. "But apparently the West doesn't want to understand Iran's peaceful message." The head of Iran's parliament, former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, accused Western nations of "haggling," "lying" and "cheating" during talks over Iran's nuclear program. Larijani also questioned the usefulness of the IAEA, the U.N. international watchdog agency, and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which calls for curbing the spread of nuclear weapons but encourages member countries to share peaceful nuclear technology.

Swiss Ban Building of Minarets on Mosques
Vote displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam
By NICK CUMMING-BRUCE and STEVEN ERLANGER, New York Times
In a vote that displayed a widespread anxiety about Islam, the Swiss on Sunday overwhelmingly imposed a national ban on the construction of minarets, the prayer towers of mosques, a referendum opposed by the government. The referendum passed with a clear majority of 57.5 percent of the voters and in 22 of Switzerland’s 26 cantons. Because the ban gained a majority of votes and passed in a majority of the cantons, it will be added to the Constitution. The Swiss Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but the rightist Swiss People’s Party, or S.V.P., and a small religious party had proposed inserting a single sentence banning the construction of minarets, leading to the referendum. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, the justice minister, said the result “reflects fears among the population of Islamic fundamentalist tendencies.” The Swiss vote reflected a growing anxiety about Islam, especially its more fundamentalist forms, in many countries of Western Europe. France, for example, has been talking about banning the full Islamic veil as a way to stop the influence of the more fundamentalist Salafist forms of Islam, popular among some of the young and also converts. In a recent televised debate, Ulrich Schlüer, a member of Parliament said minarets were a symbol of “the political will to take power” and establish Shariah, or religious law.

Traumatized Russians View Their Dead After Luxury Train Bombing
Authorities focusing on Muslim extremists
By ELLEN BARRY and CLIFFORD J. LEVY, New York Times
All day on Sunday, families from Moscow and St. Petersburg arrived at the salmon-colored morgue here where their dead had been laid out. They clutched one another’s hands on the way in, and on the way out they looked different, whether from relief or dread, it was not always clear. Valentina G. Dybina went to identify her 41-year-old cousin, one of 25 people killed in the bombing of a luxury train on Friday night, but she was so flustered by the bodies and body fragments shown to her that she walked out, planning to return later in the day when the number of corpses would be smaller. As he left the building, Renat Urusov, 24, said his brother-in-law’s body was intact — but somehow, after the violence of the train wreck, his face was gone. “He took the train because he was afraid of flying,” said Mr. Urusov, who had driven some 500 miles trying to locate his brother-in-law in rural hospitals. “The man who was sitting next to him stood up and walked away on his own.” A day after the authorities determined that the crash was caused by a homemade bomb on the tracks, relatives had identified the bodies of nearly all the victims at the morgue in Tver, a regional capital midway between Moscow and the crash site. Across the country on Sunday, in churches, sports stadiums and other public places, Russians prayed and held moments of silence for the victims. There were reports of people canceling travel plans over fears of more attacks, but in a sermon in Moscow, Patriarch Kirill I, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, urged the public not to be intimidated by terrorists. “Russia is a peaceful country,” he said, “but when the hand of the enemy is raised up against our way of life, we will ably protect our fellow citizens.”

A Defiant Iran Vows to Build Nuclear Plants
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM F. BROAD, New York Times
Iran angrily refused Sunday to comply with a demand by the United Nations nuclear agency to cease work on a once-secret nuclear fuel enrichment plant, and escalated the confrontation by declaring it would construct 10 more such plants. The response to the demand came as Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said his cabinet would also order a study of what it would take for Iran to further enrich its existing stockpile of nuclear fuel. On Monday, Russia, a co-sponsor of the nuclear agency’s resolution, said it was “seriously concerned by the latest statements from the Iranian leadership,” according to news reports. France, which also supported the resolution by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last week, said Iran should be given a “last chance” to discuss the future of its nuclear program, Reuters reported. But, referring to the agency by its initials, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Monday, “The fact that Iran persists in ignoring the demands of a big independent agency like the I.A.E.A., that’s very dangerous.” It is unclear how long it would take Iran to enrich the fuel to the levels needed for the medical reactor, or whether it has the technology to fabricate that fuel into a form that could be put into the reactor. But the declaration appeared intended to convince the West that Iran was prepared to move closer to bomb-grade quality. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Iran’s declaration: “If true, this would be yet another serious violation of Iran’s clear obligations under multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions, and another example of Iran choosing to isolate itself.”

Saddam Hussein is alive and kicking - on TV!
Mysterious 'Saddam Channel' hits Iraqi television
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Turning on their TVs during the long holiday weekend, Iraqis were greeted by a familiar if unexpected face from their brutal past: Saddam Hussein. The late Iraqi dictator is lauded on a mysterious satellite channel that began broadcasting on the Islamic calendar's anniversary of his 2006 execution. No one seems to know who is bankrolling the so-called Saddam Channel, although the Iraqi government suspects it's Baathists whose political party Saddam once led. The Associated Press tracked down a man in Damascus, Syria named Mohammed Jarboua, who claimed to be its chairman. The Saddam channel, he said, "didn't receive a penny from the Baathists" and is for Iraqis and other Arabs who "long for his rule." Jarboua has clearly made considerable efforts to hide where it's aired from and refuses to say who is funding it besides "people who love us." Iraqis surprised to find Saddam on their TVs responded with the kind of divided emotions that marked his reign. "Iraqis don't need such a satellite channel because it has hostile intentions," said Hassan Subhi, a 28-year-old Shiite who owns an Internet cafe in eastern Baghdad. Others said they felt a nostalgic sorrow at the sight of their late leader, a Sunni Arab. "All my family felt sad," said Samar Majid, a Sunni high school teacher in western Baghdad, mentioning images shown from Saddam's execution, and pictures of his two sons and grandson.

Iran Earmarks $20 Million to Support Militants
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
Iran's parliament passed a law on Sunday earmarking $20 million to support militant groups opposing the West and investigate alleged U.S. and British plots against the Islamic Republic. The legislation is widely seen as a response to Western criticism of Iran's violent crackdown against protesters following the disputed June presidential election. Lawmakers started debating the outline of the bill in August when Iran's hardline leaders were fending off allegations that security forces had tortured opposition activists detained during the demonstrations. The text of the legislation says the money is to "support progressive currents that resist illegal activities by the governments of the U.S. and Britain." Iranian officials often use such terms to describe militant groups. It wasn't immediately clear which groups would receive funding from Iran, but Tehran already backs the Islamic militants Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The bill also taps funds to "confront plots and unjust restrictions" by Washington and London against Tehran and to disclose "human rights abuses by the two countries."

Bomb Causes Derailment of Russian Train, Killing 25
Muslim separatists from Chechnya in the North Caucasus region made passenger trains and subways a target
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY and ELLEN BARRY, New York Times
A luxury express train carrying hundreds of passengers from Moscow to St. Petersburg derailed on Friday night after a bomb detonated on the tracks in a rural area, killing more than 25 people and injuring more than 100 others, officials said. The force of the crash crumpled parts of the train, propelling several of its 14 cars well off the rails, trapping passengers in smashed compartments and scattering luggage into the nearby woods. People on the train, called the Nevsky Express, perhaps the most illustrious in Russia, reported a scene of panic and devastation. The investigative wing of the prosecutor general’s office said on Saturday that it had discovered remnants of a bomb at the site that left a crater five feet deep. Vladimir Yakunin, head of the Russian railway system, said, “The basic version that it is being investigated by the lead investigators is that it was an unknown device, by unknown persons. Simply put, a terrorist act.” The explosion was the worst terrorist attack in Russia in years, outside the volatile North Caucasus region.

Afghan governor survives assassination attempt
The province is considered a key battleground as the Obama administration prepares to announce the deployment of more troops
By Laura King, Los Angeles Times
The governor of the violent southern province of Kandahar escaped an assassination attempt today, even as President Hamid Karzai renewed his calls to insurgents to lay down their weapons. A remote-controlled roadside bomb exploded beneath a convoy carrying the governor, Turyalai Wesa, as he was on his way to prayers on the first day of Eid al-Adha, the holiest Muslim holiday of the year. Wesa was unharmed, but a policeman helping guard him was injured, the governor's office said. Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the hub of the country's south, is considered a key battleground as the Obama administration prepares to announce the deployment of tens of thousands more American troops.

Soul-Searching in Turkey After a Gay Man Is Killed
Dozens of neighbors watched the killing from their windows, but refused to come forward
By DAN BILEFSKY, New York Times
For Ahmet Yildiz, a stocky and affable 26-year-old, the choice to live openly as a gay man proved deadly. Prosecutors say his own father hunted him down, traveling more than 600 miles from his hometown to shoot his son in an old neighborhood of Istanbul. Mr. Yildiz was killed 16 months ago, the victim of what sociologists say is the first gay honor killing in Turkey to surface publicly. He was shot five times as he left his apartment to buy ice cream. A witness said dozens of neighbors watched the killing from their windows, but refused to come forward. His body remained unclaimed by his family, a grievous fate under Muslim custom. His father, Yahya Yildiz, whose trial in absentia began in September, is on the run and believed to be hiding in northern Iraq.

Toll Rising in Philippines Massacre
The southern Philippines has been plagued for years by Islamists
By CARLOS H. CONDE, New York Times
The death toll in Monday’s election violence rose to 57 on Wednesday, the Philippine authorities said, as 11 more bodies were recovered. The regional police commander in Maguindanao Province, Josefino Cataluna, said the bodies were dug out from a shallow pit near a grassy hilltop where police officers and troops had found 46 others after Monday’s attack, The Associated Press reported. He said the victims included the family of a gubernatorial candidate and 18 Filipino journalists who accompanied his relatives in filing his election papers. President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo on Tuesday declared a state of emergency in the contiguous provinces of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat and in the city of Cotabato on the southern island of Mindanao. The measure gives the police and army the authority to apprehend and detain those who carried out the slaughter.

Terrorism probe casts scrutiny on Minneapolis' Somali immigrant enclave
By Bob Drogin, Los Angeles Times
Barely a block from the Mississippi River sits a neighborhood Mark Twain could not have imagined. Men with henna-streaked beards and women in full-body hijabs streamed Tuesday past the Maashaa Allah Restaurant, the Alle Aamin Coffee Shop, the Kaah Express Money Wiring stall, the storefront Al-Qaaniteen Mosque and other similar structures. For the FBI, Little Mogadishu has become the center of an intense investigation into a recruiting network that sent young men to fight in Somalia for a radical Islamist group known as Shabab, or "the Youth." Investigators say the poverty, grim gang wars and overpacked public housing towers produced one of the largest militant operations in the United States since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Federal officials announced terrorism charges Monday against eight local men, seven of whom remain at large. That brought the total to 14 Minneapolis men who have been indicted or pleaded guilty this year for allegedly indoctrinating, recruiting or training local youths to join a Muslim militia waging war in Somalia against the U.S.-backed government.

"We are waging war on the enemies of Islam"
A Year After Mumbai Attack, Militants Thrive
By MATTHEW ROSENBERG, Wall Street Journal
The Islamist militant group behind the deadly attack in Mumbai one year ago remains a potent force determined to strike India and the West, and a source of acrimony between South Asia's nuclear-armed rivals, say officials and members of the militant faction. Indian officials and experts say at least six new plots against Mumbai by the Pakistan-based group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, have been disrupted in the 12 months since 10 gunmen wrought three days of havoc on India's financial capital, killing 166 people. Lashkar's infiltration of India's part of Kashmir is again on the upswing, the officials say; and a U.S. citizen with alleged ties to Lashkar was recently arrested in Chicago, evidence of the group's reach, U.S. officials say. "Our aims are the same today as they were 10 years ago," said a man who identified himself as a former Lashkar militant now working with its charity arm. "We are waging war on the enemies of Islam." U.S. officials and experts say hitting India remains the primary focus for Lashkar, which was nurtured in the 1990s by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency for use as a proxy against Indian forces in the divided Himalayan region of Kashmir. Pakistan banned the group in 2002 and officials here say they cut ties with it at the time.

Fort Hood probe brings mosque unwanted attention
Investigators look into shooter's place of worship
By Philip Rucker, Washington Post
FBI agents in blue gloves recently converged on a single-story brick mosque on the rural outskirts of town here and pillaged through the giant green trash bin outside in search of evidence. Texas Rangers and news reporters have been an almost constant neighborhood presence, questioning the Muslim families who live on streets with names such as Hamza Circle and Omar Drive. The Fort Hood shootings have brought unwelcome attention to the band of a few dozen Muslim worshipers, many with military connections, who prayed alongside the suspect, Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, at the only mosque in this central Texas Army town. With the law enforcement and media scrutiny, some regulars at the Islamic Center of Greater Killeen have not been seen, including an 18-year-old who dined frequently with Hasan and promoted jihadist views on the Internet. As the inquiry continues into the Nov. 5 massacre on the nation's largest military installation, in which 13 people were killed and at least 38 others injured, the FBI's quest for clues has led to this mosque where Hasan prayed regularly in the four months since his July transfer from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

U.S. youths recruited to fight in Somali militia, authorities say
Young Somali Americans, many in Minneapolis, were lured to fight with an Al Qaeda-affiliated group
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times
Federal authorities unsealed criminal charges Monday against eight suspects alleged to be part of a U.S. recruiting network that sent young men to fight in Somalia -- one of the largest militant operations uncovered in this country since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The court documents disclosed how some older members of the Somali American community in Minneapolis are believed to have lured younger ones to fight in Somalia -- some as suicide bombers -- with an Al Qaeda-affiliated group known as Al Shabab, or "The Youth." The charges include providing financial support to fighters who traveled to Somalia, attending Al Shabab training camps and fighting with the group against the U.S.-backed transitional government there, as well as against Ethiopian government forces and African Union troops. The recruitment of young people from Minneapolis and other U.S. communities "has been the focus of intense investigation for many months," said David Kris, the assistant attorney general for national security. The new charges bring the number of men accused in connection with the case in Minnesota to 14. Several of the newly disclosed defendants are believed to be outside the United States.

Germans weasel in on 9/11 trial
By ADAM NICHOLS, New York Post
Fearing for the lives of the 9/11 fiends, the German government will send a team of observers to the New York terror trials to make sure evidence by its agents doesn't lead to the death penalty. Germany, which bans the death penalty, will have a team at the trial of admitted atrocity mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (right) and four of his al Qaeda henchmen. The evidence gathered by German investigators could lead to death sentences. In fact, it's unlikely US prosecutors have any chance of convicting the 9/11 monsters without the Germans' proof, an attorney for one of the suspects said yesterday. A conviction "would scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany," the lawyer, who represents Ramzi Binalshibh, told the German broadcast network Deutsche Welle. The network did not identify the lawyer. Three of the four pilots who carried out the 9/11 attacks had formed a cell while living in Hamburg, Germany. German investigators handed over evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence -- which the US government has said it intends to seek if the five are found guilty. President Obama last week said that he expects Mohammed will be put to death.

Islam in the Philippines
30 kidnapped, slain in apparent political violence; More than a dozen women are among the victims
By Al Jacinto and John M. Glionna, Los Angeles Times
Authorities discovered the bodies of at least 30 people kidnapped early today in the southern Philippines and called the incident a politically motivated slaughter. The victims -- including at least 13 women -- reportedly included a dozen journalists as well as lawyers and a woman who had planned to file her husband's nomination for elections next year. Many victims had been beheaded and buried, authorities said. "This is a gruesome massacre of civilians unequalled in recent history," said Jesus Dureza, a Mindanao province official. "There must be a total stop to this senseless violence and carnage." The convoy of political activists was hijacked by an estimated 100 gunmen as they rode in several vans near the town of Ampatuan, said Army Col. Jonathan Ponce, a spokesman for the 6th Infantry Division. The bodies were later found about three miles away. Philippine military troops were still searching for at least a dozen more victims who had also been among the group.

2 bomb blasts leave 7 dead, 52 wounded in India
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Suspected Islamic militants set off two bombs outside a police station in India's restive northeast on Sunday, killing seven people and wounding more than 50, police said. Five people died instantly after two blasts went off within minutes of each other outside the station in Nalbari town near the Assam state capital, Gauhati, a local police official said. Two people died later in a hospital, he said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to the media, said what officials had earlier reported was a third bomb in a market a few miles (kilometers) away, turned out to be a firecracker. At least 52 people were wounded in the two blasts, said Bhaskar Mahanta, Assam's inspector general of police. India's northeast is beset by scores of conflicts. More than 10,000 people have died in separatist violence over the past decade. The region is home to dozens of separatist groups that accuse the government of exploiting the area's natural resources while doing little for the indigenous people. Mahanta said authorities suspect the militant separatist group United Liberation Front of Asom is behind the blasts. No group claimed responsibility.

Muslim pirates hijack Greek-owned bulk carrier off Yemen
By Reuters, Washington Post
Pirates hijacked a Greek-owned bulk carrier on Thursday in the Gulf of Aden near Yemen, a Kenyan maritime official said on Sunday, but Greek officials said the attack may have been unsuccessful. The vessel was taken 36 nautical miles off the Yemeni port of Balhaf and news of the seizure only emerged on Saturday, said Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the Kenya-based East African Seafarers' Assistance Programme. "Red Sea Spirit was taken by gunmen off the Yemeni coast last Thursday. She is flying the Panama flag," Mwangura said. "She is a Greek-owned bulk carrier." Somali pirates have continued to defy foreign navies patrolling the waters off the Horn of Africa and are holding at least 13 vessels and more than 200 crew. There was a pause in hijackings during monsoon rains, but the sea gangs have stepped up attacks in the past two months, extending their range to as far as the Seychelles, to evade the naval vessels. Piracy attacks around the world numbered 324 during the year to October 20, according to figures from the ICC International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Center. Attacks by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden and the east coast of Somalia, numbered 174, with 35 vessels hijacked and 587 crew taken hostage. Nearly 20,000 ships pass through the Gulf of Aden each year, heading to and from the Suez Canal.

Hasan had intensified contact with cleric
Fort Hood suspect raised prospect of financial transfers
By Carrie Johnson, Spencer S. Hsu and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post
In the months before the deadly shootings at Fort Hood, Army Maj. Nidal M. Hasan intensified his communications with a radical Yemeni American cleric and began to discuss surreptitious financial transfers and other steps that could translate his thoughts into action, according to two sources briefed on a collection of secret e-mails between the two. The e-mails were obtained by an FBI-led task force in San Diego between late last year and June but were not forwarded to the military, according to government and congressional sources. Some were sent to the FBI's Washington field office, triggering an assessment into whether they raised national security concerns, but those intercepted later were not, the sources said. Hasan's contacts with extremist imam Anwar al-Aulaqi began as religious queries but took on a more specific and concrete tone before he moved to Texas, where he unleashed the Nov. 5 attack that killed 13 people and wounded nearly three dozen, said the sources who were briefed on the e-mails, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the case is sensitive and unfolding. One of those sources said the two discussed in "cryptic and coded exchanges" the transfer of money overseas in ways that would not attract law enforcement attention.

Rocket Targets Luxury Hotel in Kabul
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
A rocket hit outside the luxury Serena Hotel in Afghanistan's capital late Saturday, wounding two people, the Interior Ministry said. The heavily guarded Serena regularly houses visiting diplomats, officials and international workers. It has been the target of attacks before, most recently in late October when a rocket slammed into a courtyard. In Saturday's attack, a rocket hit low on the outside of a compound wall that rings the hotel, just behind a guardhouse, according to an Associated Press reporter who saw the impact spot. Rubble surrounded the area, but there was no large crater. Dozens of police and army officers worked to secure the site as ambulance sirens wailed. The rocket wounded two people, Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said. He did not say how serious their injuries were.

Islamists Murder Russian Priest in Church
"Father Daniil periodically received e-mails stating that if he didn’t stop his theological polemics with Islam, then he will be dealt with like an infidel”
By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY, New York Times
The Rev. Daniil Sysoyev, a priest in the Russian Orthodox Church who was known for promoting missionary work among Muslims, was shot and killed in his parish church late Thursday night, the RIA Novosti news agency reported. Father Sysoyev, 35, died at a Moscow hospital of gunshot wounds to the head and chest, RIA Novosti said. The Web site of the Moscow patriarchate confirmed his death. The parish’s choir director was wounded in the shootings at the Church of St. Thomas by the unidentified assailant. A Moscow Patriarchate official called Father Sysoyev a “talented missionary” whose work among Muslims, including Tatars, might have been the motive for the shooting. “I don’t exclude that the murder is connected to the fact that he preached among and baptized those who belong to Muslim culture,” the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk with the news media, said in a telephone interview. Father Sysoyev had spoken out in opposition to Islam and had warned Russian women against marrying Muslim men. Anatoly Bagmet, an official of the prosecutor’s office, said there was reason to believe that the shooting took place “on religious grounds,” the news agency reported. “Over the course of two, three years Father Daniil, who was famous for his active missionary work, periodically received e-mails stating that if he didn’t stop his theological polemics with Islam, then he will be dealt with like an infidel,” Mr. Frolov told the Interfax news agency.

Suicide bomber kills 16 in Afghanistan
Two children are among the dead
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A suicide bomber riding a motorcycle killed 16 people, including two children and a policeman, and wounded at least 23 others Friday in a busy city square in western Afghanistan, officials said. Afghan police shouted "Stop! Stop!" at the motorcyclist before he detonated the explosives, provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Faqir Askar said. It was unclear what the bomber was targeting. Amin said the 16 killed included two children. Dr. Shir Agh Asas at the hospital in Farah city said several children also were among the wounded. A police officer also died. The violence comes a day after Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in his second inaugural address, said he has placed national reconciliation with insurgents at the top of his peace-building agenda. "We invite dissatisfied compatriots, who are not directly linked to international terrorism, to return to their homeland," he said.

Born in U.S., a Radical Cleric Inspires Terror
By SCOTT SHANE, New York Times
In nearly a dozen recent terrorism cases in the United States, Britain and Canada, investigators discovered the suspects had something in common: a devotion to the message of Anwar al-Awlaki, an eloquent Muslim cleric who has turned the Web into a tool for extremist indoctrination. Mr. Awlaki, 38, the son of a former agriculture minister and university president in Yemen, has never been accused of planting explosives himself. But experts on terrorism believe his persuasive endorsement of violence as a religious duty, in colloquial, American-accented English, has helped push a series of Western Muslims into terrorism. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., on Nov. 5, is only the latest suspect accused of perpetrating or plotting violence to be linked to the cleric.

Islamo Pirates attack U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama - for 2nd time this year
By the Associated Press, New York Daily news
Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama for the second time in seven months on Wednesday, but guards on board the U.S.-flagged cargo ship repelled the takeover attempt, the EU's naval force said. Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack. Somali pirates attacked the ship with automatic weapons early Wednesday about 350 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, but guards on board the craft fired back and thwarted the attempted hijacking. Cmdr. John Harbour, a spokesman for the EU Naval Force, called it "pure chance" that the Maersk Alabama had been targeted a second time. "It's not the first vessel to have been attacked twice, and it's a chance that every single ship takes as it passes through the area," Harbour said. "At least this time they had a vessel protection detachment on board who were able to repel the attack."

Crew packing heat when pirates attack
By the Associated Press, New York Post
Islamic pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama for the second time in seven months this morning, but guards on board the U.S.-flagged cargo ship repelled the takeover attempt, the EU's naval force said. Pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama last April and took ship captain Richard Phillips hostage, holding him at gunpoint in a lifeboat for five days. Navy SEAL sharpshooters freed Phillips while killing three pirates in a daring nighttime attack. Somali pirates attacked the ship with automatic weapons early Wednesday about 350 nautical miles east of the Somali coast, but guards on board the craft fired back and thwarted the attempted hijacking. Pirates have greatly increased their attacks in recent weeks after seasonal rains subsided. On Monday, a self-proclaimed pirate said that Somali hijackers had been paid $3.3 million for the release of 36 crew members from a Spanish vessel held for more than six weeks — a clear demonstration of how lucrative the trade can be for impoverished Somalis.

Inspectors Fear Iran Is Hiding Nuclear Plants
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD, New York Times
International inspectors who gained access to Iran’s newly revealed underground nuclear enrichment plant voiced strong suspicions in a report on Monday that the country was concealing other atomic facilities. The report was the first independent account of what was contained in the once secret plant, tunneled into the side of a mountain, and came as the Obama administration was expressing growing impatience with Iran’s slow response in nuclear negotiations. In unusually tough language, the International Atomic Energy Agency appeared highly skeptical that Iran would have built the enrichment plant without also constructing a variety of other facilities that would give it an alternative way to produce nuclear fuel if its main centers were bombed. So far, Iran has denied that it built other hidden sites in addition to the one deep underground on a military base about 12 miles north of the holy city of Qum. The inspectors were given access to the plant late last month and reported that they had found it in “an advanced state” of construction, but that no centrifuges — the fast-spinning machines needed to make nuclear fuel — had yet been installed.

Pirates Sieze North Korean Ship
By ANDRÉS CALA and ALAN COWELL, New York Times
Somali pirates released 36 crew members of a Spanish fishing vessel Tuesday after the government paid a ransom of nearly $3.5 million as a European Union naval force patrolling off Somalia said that a chemical tanker with 28 North Korean crew members had been commandeered off the Seychelles Islands. Juan Vieites, a Spaniard who heads Eurotuna, the European umbrella group representing the tuna industry, confirmed a group of about 60 pirates left the Alakrana, captured Oct. 2 while in international waters with a crew including 16 Spaniards. The pirates threatened to kill the Spanish crew members unless Spain agreed to release two pirates captured by the Spanish Navy a day after the 100-meter Alakrana was seized. A Spanish court on Monday indicted the two pirates for kidnapping and armed assault, charges which could allow Spain to deport them.

Afghan Official: Attack Underscores Taliban Threat
By the Associated Press, New York Times
The deaths of 14 civilians in a rocket attack presumably aimed at military officials and local leaders underscores the inability of NATO to successfully defeat the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan, an official said Tuesday. Monday's attack in Tagab missed the meeting but the rockets hit in the crowded market area, killing 14 Afghan civilians and wounding dozens more, said Afghan Gen. Paikan Zamaray. His tally adds two more deaths than previously reported. About 15 people were so seriously injured that they were evacuated to NATO hospitals for treatment, provincial Police Chief Matiullah Safi said. French Brig. Gen. Marcel Druart the meeting, known as a shura, continued despite the attack to show that the Taliban cannot disrupt NATO's plans in a tense valley where both sides are competing for influence. ''I think it was a kind of desperate course of action because they are not in the situation where they can fight against us and they can't prevent us from freedom of movement along the Tagab valley,'' Druart told reporters in Kabul.

U.S. troops battle both Taliban and their own rules
By Sara A. Carter, Washington Times
Army Capt. Casey Thoreen wiped the last bit of sleep from his eyes before the sun rose over his isolated combat outpost. His soldiers did the same as they checked and double-checked their weapons and communications equipment. Ahead was a dangerous foot patrol into the heart of Taliban territory. "Has anyone seen the [Afghan National Army] guys?" asked Capt. Thoreen, 30, the commander of Blackwatch Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment with the 5th Stryker Brigade. "Are they not showing up?" A soldier, who looked ghostly in the reddish light of a headlamp, shook his head. "We can't do anything if we don't have the ANA or [the Afghan National Police]," said a frustrated Capt. Thoreen. "We have to follow the Karzai 12 rules. But the Taliban has no rules," he said. "Our soldiers have to juggle all these rules and regulations and they do it without hesitation despite everything. It's not easy for anyone out here." "Karzai 12" refers to Afghanistan's newly re-elected president, Hamid Karzai, and a dozen rules set down by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, to try to keep Afghan civilian casualties to a minimum. "It's a framework to ensure cultural sensitivity in planning and executing operations," said Capt. Thoreen. "It's a set of rules and could be characterized as part of the ROE," he said, referring to the rules of engagement. Dozens of U.S. soldiers who spoke to The Washington Times during a recent visit to southern Afghanistan said these rules sometimes make a perilous mission even more difficult and dangerous.

Could take decades to execute Fort Hood massacre suspect Nidal Hasan
By Thomas M. Defrank, New York Daily News
The slaughter took just seven minutes, but the wheels of justice will grind on for years or even decades if Maj. Nidal Hasan is sentenced to die. No matter how heinous his crimes, the Army psychiatrist is entitled to two separate appeals to the Supreme Court. Under the rules of military justice, his execution would require the personal approval of the commander in chief. "He's got an array of protections which in some respects exceed those he'd get from a civilian court," said Yale Law School Prof. Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice. The cost to taxpayers of his incarceration and legal appeals might reach $30 million, various legal analyses show.

Cleric says he was confidant to Hasan
By Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post
In his first interview with a journalist since the Fort Hood rampage, Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said that he neither ordered nor pressured Maj. Nidal M. Hasan to harm Americans, but that he considered himself a confidant of the Army psychiatrist who was given a glimpse via e-mail into Nadal's growing discomfort with the U.S. military. The cleric said he thought he played a role in transforming Hasan into a devout Muslim eight years ago, when Hasan listened to his lectures at the Dar al-Hijra mosque in Northern Virginia. Aulaqi said that Hasan "trusted" him and that the two developed an e-mail correspondence over the past year. The portrait of the alleged Fort Hood shooter offered by Aulaqi provides some hints as to Hasan's mind-set and motivations in the months leading up to the Nov. 5 rampage, in which 13 were killed. Aulaqi's comments also add to questions over whether U.S. authorities, who were aware of at least some of Hasan's e-mails to Aulaqi, should have sensed a potential threat. U.S. intelligence agencies intercepted e-mails from Hasan, but the FBI concluded that they posed no serious danger and that an investigation was unnecessary, said federal law enforcement officials.

A diatribe defense
Pros say Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will act as his own lawyer in WTC terror case
By Alison Gendar and Rich Schapiro, New York Daily News
Now that the venue is finally set, a sinister question looms over the case of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed: Will he use the court as a platform to spew his sickening diatribes? Experts say the terror thug will likely resist legal representation, opting instead to turn Manhattan Federal Court into his bully pulpit. "The chances are excellent that he represents himself," said Ron Kuby, a defense lawyer known for taking on controversial clients. "[Mohammed's] goal in the legal system is not to beat the rap. His goal is to use the legal system as a forum for his own ideas and to embrace martyrdom through that system." As Mohammed and his underlings languished in Guantanamo Bay, a fleet of lawyers have worked to protect their rights.

Texas congressman: Fort Hood shooter had Pakistan 'connection'
By Michael O'Brien, The Hill
The suspected shooter at last week's Ft. Hood massacre had a "connection" to Pakistan, a Texas lawmaker said Friday. Rep. Mike McCaul (R) suggested a financial relationship between Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and Pakistan, a country long plagued by terror groups, including al-Qaeda. "There appears to have been a Pakistan connection," McCaul said in a statement provided to The Hill. "It raises more red flags about this case and demonstrates why it’s important for Congress to exercise its oversight authority.” In an earlier statement to the Dallas Morning News, McCaul described "communications and wire transfers" between Hasan and Pakistani sources. McCaul's revelation comes as Hasan's actions have been characterized as terrorism by some lawmakers and as President Barack Obama has ordered a review of intelligence about Hasan existing before his rampage last Thursday on the Army base. Hasan, a devout Muslim, had been under investigation by federal authorities for having allegedly tried to contact representatives of terrorist groups.

Militants Hit Pakistan Spy Agency in Escalation
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
Militants stepped up their fight against the Pakistani government on Friday, ramming a truck bomb into a regional office of the country’s main intelligence agency. The early-morning blast in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed at least nine people and wounded more than 50, authorities said, in what has become a grimly familiar cycle of violence. An attack on a police station in a different area left as many as six dead. There was no doubt about the target or the motive of the bombing on Friday: Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, is a prominent symbol of military power, and militants have struck at it in different cities in Pakistan. The military is conducting a campaign against insurgents in the western mountains of Waziristan, an offensive that has led to a sharp increase in reprisals by militants.

One of two missing U.S. soldiers found dead in Afghan river
By Reuters, Los Angeles Times
A military diving team has found the body of an American soldier, one of two who went missing last week, in a river in western Afghanistan, NATO-led forces and the U.S. military said today. Afghan and international forces were still searching for the other missing soldier, the U.S. military said in a statement. The disappearance of the two paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division during a resupply mission last Wednesday triggered a search by NATO and Afghan forces in Badghis province, near the border with Turkmenistan.

Bomb Kills at Least 15 in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
A bomb near a crowded market in northwest Pakistan has killed 15 people, a police officer said. The bombing was the third attack in as many days in or close to Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Police officer Riaz Khan said Tuesday's bombing in Charsadda city also wounded at least 25 people. The city is some 25 north of Peshawar. Local TV footage showed a destroyed car and several badly damaged stalls and shops. Ambulances ferried the dead and injured to the hospital along roads littered with debris.

Police: Suicide bomb in Pakistan market kills 12
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
A suicide bomber apparently targeting an anti-Taliban mayor struck a crowded market Sunday in northwest Pakistan, killing the mayor and 11 other people and injuring dozens, police said. The morning attack took place in the town of Adazai, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the main northwest city of Peshawar. The market was crowded with shoppers and goats being sold to celebrate the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid. The mayor, Abdul Malik, who was initially reported to have survived, died in the attack, said Sahibzada Anis, the top official in Peshawar. Malik, who had once been a Taliban supporter, had later switched sides and formed a local militia to help fight the militants.

The enemy within shakes military
Victims from Fort Hood shooting arrive at Dover Air Force Base
By Matthew Lysiak and Corky Siemaszko, New York Daily News
The 13 victims of the Fort Hood massacre were flown Friday night to Dover Air Force Base, the transit point for generations of soldiers slain by foreign enemies. Only these were victims of an enemy from within. As the coffins bearing 12 soldiers and a civilian base worker were loaded on an Air Force aircraft for the long flight to Delaware, the feds were trying to fathom why a U.S. Army shrink opened fire on his fellow soldiers. There were reports that Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan - a Muslim opposed to the war in Iraq who once posted a comment sympathetic to suicide bombers on the Internet - hollered "Allahu Akbar!" before firing Thursday. Hasan, 39, told relatives he'd been harassed by other soldiers for his faith. Last month, soldier John Van de Walker, 30, was arrested for scratching Hasan's Honda with a key, police said. The manager of the Killeen, Tex., apartment complex where Hasan lived said the vandal had returned from Iraq and targeted Hasan because he of a Muslim bumper sticker. "No one should have to deal with that kind of hate. Maybe he snapped," said Alice Thompson, 53. Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, said investigators haven't pinned down the motive for the massacre, only that it caught them completely by surprise.

Islamo-Dad held in 'honor killing' try
Outraged because his daughter had become too "Westernized"
By the Associated Press, New York Post
An Iraqi immigrant has been arrested on charges of running down his daughter because she was becoming "too Westernized." Police in the Phoenix suburb of Peoria released few details, but said 48-year-old Faleh Almaleki was arrested in Georgia and is in custody. They would not say where he is being held. Noor Faleh Almaleki, 20, was hospitalized and is in serious condition. Police said that Faleh Almaleki, who immigrated in the mid-'90s, was outraged because his daughter had become too "Westernized" and was straying from Islamic tradition. He allegedly aimed his car at her Oct. 20 in a Peoria parking lot.

Feds: Leader of radical Islam group killed in raid in Michigan
It was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Federal authorities on Wednesday arrested several members of a radical Sunni Islam group in the U.S., killing one of its leaders at a shootout in a Michigan warehouse, the U.S. attorney's office said. Agents were trying to arrest Luqman Ameen Abdullah, 53, at a Dearborn warehouse on charges that included conspiracy to sell stolen goods and illegal possession and sale of firearms. Authorities also conducted raids elsewhere to try to round up 10 followers named in a federal complaint. Abdullah was "advocating and encouraging his followers to commit violent acts against the United States," FBI agent Gary Leone said in an affidavit filed with the 43-page criminal complaint unsealed Wednesday. FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said Abdullah refused to surrender, fired a weapon and was killed by gunfire from agents. In the complaint, the FBI said Abdullah, also known as Christopher Thomas, was an imam of a Black Muslim radical group named Ummah whose primary mission is to establish an Islamic state within the United States. He told them it was their "duty to oppose the FBI and the government and it does not matter if they die," Leone said.

Bomb kills 105 in Pakistan market
By the Associated Press, New York Post
A car bomb struck a busy market in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing 105 people -- mostly women and children. More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in this city -- the deadliest in a surge of attacks by terrorists this month. The government blamed terrorists seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against al Qaeda and the Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border. The bombing was the deadliest since explosions hit homecoming festivities for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in October 2007, killing about 150 people. Bhutto was later slain in a separate attack. Yesterday's bomb destroyed much of the Mina Bazaar in Peshawar's old town, a warren of narrow alleys clogged with stalls and shops selling dresses, toys and cheap jewelry that drew many female shoppers and children in the conservative city. The blast collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set scores of shops ablaze. The wounded sat amid burning debris and body parts as a huge plume of gray smoke rose above the city.

Clinton Arrival in Pakistan Met by Fatal Attacks
By MARK LANDLER and ISMAIL KHAN, New York Times
Militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan punctuated Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s arrival here with deadly attacks on Wednesday, underscoring their ability to cause chaos even in the face of offensives on both sides of the border. In Pakistan, a devastating car bomb tore through a congested market in the northwest city of Peshawar, killing as many as 101 people, many of them women and children. Pakistani authorities said the attack was the country’s most serious in two years, and the deadliest ever in Peshawar, which has become a front line for Taliban efforts to destabilize the government through violence. In the Afghan capital, Kabul, Taliban militants stormed a guesthouse, killing five United Nations employees and three other people in a furious two-hour siege. The attack was meant to scare Afghans away from voting in a runoff election on Nov. 7 between President Hamid Karzai and his challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, a Taliban spokesman said. The violence cast a shadow over the visit of Mrs. Clinton, who was meeting with government ministers in Islamabad, 90 miles southwest of Peshawar, when news of the Peshawar explosion came over television screens. Mrs. Clinton immediately condemned the bombing, which in killing women and children in Peshawar seemed aimed at the very constituencies she has championed in her travels to other developing countries.

Car Bomb Kills Scores in Pakistan
By ISMAIL KHAN, New York Times
A huge car bomb tore through a congested market of narrow alleys and crowded stalls in Peshawar’s old town on Wednesday, killing more than 80 people, many of them women, while 160 more were injured, many of them seriously, local authorities said. The explosion came about three hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, a 90 minute drive away, underscoring the challenges facing American policy in a nation that has become skeptical of Washington’s long-term commitment. Mrs. Clinton was in closed-door meetings with senior government officials in Islamabad at the time of the explosion in Peshawar. “These attacks on innocent people are cowardly; they are not courageous; they are cowardly,” she declared later.

6 U.N. employees killed in assault on Kabul guesthouse
By Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times
Militants armed with automatic rifles, grenades and suicide vests attacked a guesthouse in central Kabul at dawn today, killing six U.N employees, including an American, U.N. and U.S. Embassy officials said. Three Afghans and the three attackers were also killed, said Sayed Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada, the Kabul criminal investigation police chief. Later, two rockets slammed into the grounds of the Serena Hotel, said Interior Ministry spokesman Zamarai Bashari. Only one of the rockets detonated, and it did not cause any casualties. The Taliban insurgency claimed responsibility for the attack on the Bakhtar guesthouse, which is used by foreigners working for U.N. agencies in the capital.

Extremism Spreads Across Indonesian Penal Code
By NORIMITSU ONISHI, New York Times
Under Islamic law, or Shariah, the religious police have administered public canings for such things as gambling, prostitution and illicit affairs. But under a new Islamic criminal code that goes into effect this month, the Shariah police will be wielding a new and more potent threat: death by stoning for adulterers. Most of Indonesia still lives up to its reputation for a moderate, easygoing brand of Islam, and Islamist parties suffered heavy losses in this year’s national elections. But how Aceh went from basic Islamic law to endorsing stoning in a few short years shows how a small, radical minority has successfully pushed its agenda, locally and nationally, by cowing political and religious moderates. Though extreme, Aceh is not an isolated case. In recent years, as part of a decentralization of power away from the capital, Jakarta, at least 50 local governments have used their new authority to pass Shariah-based regulations regarding conduct and dress, though none have gone as far as Aceh to deal with criminal matters.

Al Qaeda-linked group claims responsibility for Baghdad attacks that killed at least 155 people
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Al Qaeda's umbrella group in Iraq has claimed responsibility for the twin suicide bombings in Baghdad that killed at least 155 people this week. The group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, says in a statement posted on the Internet that its "martyrs ... targeted the dens of infidelity." The authenticity of the statement, posted late Monday on a Web site commonly used for militant messaging, could not be independently confirmed. The same group also claimed responsibility for August bombings of two government ministries in Baghdad, when more than 100 people were killed. Three major government buildings were destroyed or severely damaged in Sunday's blasts. The dead included two dozen children trapped in a bus leaving a day care center.

Saudi king waives 60 lashes for woman involved with sex talk TV show
By the Associated Press, New York Post
The Saudi king has waived a 60 lashes punishment for a female journalist charged with involvement in a TV show in which a Saudi man publicly talked about sex, a government official said Monday. King Abdullah’s decision followed intense media attention sparked by Saturday’s sentencing of journalist Rozanna al-Yami, who was ordered flogged by a judge in the western city of Jiddah. Al-Yami had been charged with involvement in the preparation of a sex talk show and advertising the segment on the Internet. Public talk about sex is taboo in this ultraconservative country, where the sexes are segregated. Al-Yami — believed to be the first Saudi woman journalist to get a flogging punishment — said Saturday that although the charges against her were dropped, the judge sentenced her “as a deterrence.” On Monday, Information Ministry spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza told The Associated Press that the king waived the sentence and ordered al-Yami’s case and that of another journalist — a pregnant woman also accused of involvement in the program — be referred to an Information Ministry committee. The same judge at the Jiddah court also sentenced Abdul-Jawad earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes. Three other men who appeared on the show were also convicted of discussing sex publicly and sentenced to two years imprisonment and 300 lashes each.

Bombings rock Iraq's political landscape
By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post
Twin car bombs that devastated three government buildings Sunday and killed more than 150 people illustrate a new strategy in Iraq's contest for power ahead of January elections: spectacular blows aimed at destroying faith in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's ability to secure the country as the United States withdraws, officials and residents said. Sunday's attack, cutting through snarled traffic during the morning rush hour, was the worst in Baghdad since 2007. With an attack Aug. 19 that killed about 100 people, insurgents have now wrecked an array of pillars of the state's authority: the Foreign, Finance, Justice, and Municipalities and Public Works ministries, along with the Baghdad provincial headquarters, which are all gathered in a fortified swath of downtown. Unlike the carnage unleashed by attacks in crowded mosques, restaurants and markets, aimed at igniting sectarian strife, these blasts appeared to rely on a distinctly political logic.

Iraq Ministries Targeted in Car Bombings; Over 130 Dead
By ROD NORDLAND, New York Times
A pair of suicide car bombs exploded almost simultaneously in downtown Baghdad on Sunday, targeting two government buildings and killing at least 136 people and wounding 520, according to the Ministry of the Interior. The official said the toll may rise even more. The blasts came just over two months after suicide truck bombs exploded outside the Finance and Foreign Ministries in Baghdad, killing 122 people, many of them ministry employees. The high death tolls then were blamed at least in part on the removal of blast-proof walls from outside the ministries. “This is another terrorist message added to what we have gotten before from the Bloody Wednesday explosion,” Kamel al-Zaidi, chairman of the Provincial Council, told al-Iraqiya state television, referring to the Aug. 19th attacks on the two ministries.

106 killed as two car bombs rock Baghdad
The blasts, which leave more than 600 wounded
By Ned Parker and Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times
Car bombs exploded in Baghdad this morning by two key government buildings, killing at least 106 people, as political leaders were set to meet to try to resolve a fierce dispute that could delay national elections, ranked as pivotal to Iraq's long-term stability. The car bombs, at least one of them a suicide bombing, according to police, blew up by the justice ministry and the Baghdad provincial council, two sites separated by one broad city block. The attacks -- which wounded 625 -- shattered windows, sent debris flying, tore down parts of buildings and hit at the very nerve center of Baghdad's national and local governments. The attackers struck as politicians milled around inside the Green Zone, home of the main Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies, just hours before political blocs were set to try to compromise on an election law delayed in the parliament that would regulate national elections planned for January.

Karzai rules out sharing power
Fraud fears linger over disputed election
By Joshua Partlow and Pamela Constable, Washington Post
President Hamid Karzai's team shifted aggressively into campaign mode Saturday and ruled out any possibility of a power-sharing deal with challenger Abdullah Abdullah ahead of a runoff election in two weeks. "In our view there is no alternative to a second round. This is the only constitutional way to establish a new government" and "put an end to the current crisis," said Karzai's campaign spokesman, Wahid Omar, at a news conference. "All our energy is now focused on preparations for the second round." Abdullah, however, has renewed concerns about the credibility of the Independent Election Commission and wants its leadership replaced before the Nov. 7 vote, according to officials in his campaign. He does not want a repeat of the rampant electoral fraud found in the August first round -- much of it favoring Karzai. Abdullah fears nothing will change unless officials he considers loyal to Karzai are removed, the sources said.

Iranian site prompts U.S. to rethink assessment
Tehran set to open Qom nuclear facility to inspectors amid concerns over its role
By Joby Warrick, Washington Post
Early Sunday, if all goes as planned, U.N. nuclear inspectors will travel to a military base near Qom, Iran, for a first look at one of the country's most closely guarded nuclear secrets. Inside bunkers dug into the side of a mountain, the visitors will be escorted through a nearly completed uranium plant that Iran's president has termed "very ordinary." But less than a month after its existence was publicly revealed, many U.S. and European intelligence officials say they are increasingly convinced that the site was intended explicitly for making highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. The Qom site has undermined one of the U.S. intelligence community's key assessments of Iran's nuclear program: the assumption that Tehran had abandoned plans to enrich uranium in secret, according to two former senior U.S. officials involved in high-level discussions about Iran. A landmark U.S. intelligence assessment in 2007 concluded that any secret uranium-processing activities "probably were halted" in 2003 and had not been restarted. Other key judgments of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, including the view that Iran has suspended research on nuclear-warhead design, are also being reevaluated in light of new evidence, the two former officials said. "Qom changed a lot of people's thinking, especially about the possibility of secret military enrichment" of uranium, said one of the former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the assessments remain classified.

Iran Guard Commanders Are Killed in Bombings
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, New York Times
At least five commanders of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps were killed and dozens of others left dead and injured in two terrorist bombings in the restive region of the nation’s southeastern frontier with Pakistan, according to multiple Iranian state news agencies. The coordinated attacks appeared to mark an escalation in hostilities between Iran’s leadership and one of the nation’s many disgruntled ethnic and religious minorities, in this case the Baluchis. The southeast region, Sistan-Baluchistan, has been the scene of terrorist attacks in the past, and in April the government put the elite Guards Corps in control of security there to try to stop the escalating violence. Iranian officials have accused foreign enemies of supporting the terrorist insurgents and repeated that charge Sunday. By midday, official news reports from Iran said that 31 people were killed and at least 28 injured.

Militants Killed in Saudi Shootout Were Local
By the Associated Press, New York Times
The two al-Qaida militants killed in a recent shootout sneaked into Saudi Arabia from Yemen and were planning to carry out a massive attack, the Interior Ministry spokesman said Sunday. Four explosive belts -- three of them ready to use -- were found in the car used by the militants in Tuesday's shootout which suggests that at least four people were going to take part in the attack, ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Mansour al-Turki told The Associated Press. He said six Yemeni accomplices who were coordinating with the two militants -- Youssef al-Shihri and Raed al-Harbi -- were also arrested. ''The whole group was planning one terror attack and each of them had a specific role to play,'' said al-Turki. ''The presence of the extra belts indicates they were working with people inside the kingdom,'' he added. Al-Shihri and al-Harbi were disguised as women as they drove across the border Tuesday with a third militant, who was later arrested.

Pakistan claims 60 militants killed in offensive
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Pakistan's army claimed today to have killed 60 militants on the first day of an operation against an Al Qaeda and Taliban sanctuary close to the Afghan border that residents said was meeting stiff resistance from insurgents. The army said six soldiers had also been killed in the opening salvos of the push into South Waziristan. It was not possible to independently verify those figures because reporters have been stopped from getting close to the battlefield. The operation in South Waziristan follows repeated requests from the U.S. to take on the jihadists behind soaring terrorist attacks in the nuclear-armed nation, as well as Al Qaeda and other extremists believed to be plotting strikes in the West. It involves mostly poorly equipped Pakistani soldiers trained to fight conventional wars, not counterinsurgency operations, who have failed in three other campaigns in the mountainous region since 2004. Much of the region is under total Taliban control. Accounts from residents and those fleeing today suggested that the 30,000 troops were in for a bloodier time than in the Swat Valley, another northwestern region that the army successfully wrested away from insurgents this year.

Karzai May Reject Recount Results
By ANAND GOPAL, Wall Street Journal
Afghan President Hamid Karzai may not accept the results of a recount of the summer's general election votes, adding a further twist to the already fraught post-poll political environment, and his supporters began mass demonstrations against "foreign interference" in the elections. As they await the results of a recount to adjust for widespread fraud, officials from the Karzai campaign began to cast aspersion on the process and centered their criticisms on the United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which is re-tallying the numbers. If Mr. Karzai is found to have less than 50% of the vote, it could force a run-off with his top challenger Abdullah Abdullah. Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said the recount process is being "politically manipulated" by outsiders and that the results may not be acceptable. "The ECC is pretty much controlled by foreigners, and its foreign commissioners intervene in the process," added Maeen Mirstyal, a lawmaker and chief advisor to the Karzai campaign. The commission denies the charge.

Pakistan hits Taliban, Al Qaeda strongholds
Government has widespread support within the Pakistani population
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
Pakistani troops launched a long-awaited ground offensive into the Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan today, beginning what experts say will be the country's most challenging chapter yet in the ongoing war on terror. For months, the military has been getting ready for an upcoming offensive by hitting Taliban hideouts, training camps and weapons caches with air strikes from fighter jets and helicopter gunships, and by blocking the militant group's supply and escape routes. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the recent wave of attacks across Pakistan, and has warned the violence would be ramped up if the government went ahead with the offensive in Waziristan. Previous offensives waged by the Pakistani military against Waziristan's militants sputtered. Operations in 2003 and 2004 were followed by cease-fires that merely allowed Taliban militants to regroup and consolidate their authority in the region. Analysts say the government currently has widespread support within the Pakistani population to launch the offensive.

Islam's "Death to America" policy claims 3 more lives...
Bombs kill 3 U.S. troops in Afghanistan
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
The NATO-led coalition says bomb attacks have killed three American troops in Afghanistan. The international force says two U.S. troops were killed Friday in an explosion in the nation's east. Another U.S. service member was killed the same day in a bombing in the south. The coalition announced the deaths today in a statement. No further details were released. The deaths bring to 28 the number of American service members killed in Afghanistan this month, according to an Associated Press count.

Pakistan Attacks Show Tightening of Militant Links
By JANE PERLEZ, New York Times
A wave of attacks against top security installations over the last several days demonstrated that the Taliban, Al Qaeda and militant groups once nurtured by the government are tightening an alliance aimed at bringing down the Pakistani state, government officials and analysts said. More than 30 people were killed Thursday in Lahore, the second largest city in Pakistan, as three teams of militants assaulted two police training centers and a federal investigations building. The dead included 19 police officers and at least 11 militants, police officials said. Nine others were killed in two attacks at a police station in Kohat, in the northwest, and a residential complex in Peshawar, capital of North-West Frontier Province.

Suicide car bomb strikes mosque, blasts police station in Peshawar, Pakistan; 11 dead
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Three suicide attackers, including a woman, attacked a police station in northwestern Pakistan, killing 11 people Friday. The bombing in Peshawar city was the latest in a surge of terrorist attacks over the last 11 days that has killed more than 150 people and underscored the power of the Taliban, who have warned the army against launching any operation in their base close to the Afghan border. One attacker drove a car filled with explosives to the main gate of the police station, as a motorcycle carrying a man and a woman pulled up behind it, Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said. The woman jumped off and ran toward a nearby housing complex where army officers live, while the man smashed the motorcycle into the car, which exploded into a huge fireball, he said. Police shot at the woman, who detonated explosives she was wearing.

Car bomb kills 41 in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A suicide car bombing targeting Pakistani troops killed 41 people today, the fourth grisly militant attack in just over a week, as the Taliban pledged to mobilize fighters across the country for more strikes. The Taliban also claimed responsibility for the 22-hour weekend attack on the nation's heavily fortified army headquarters, saying a cell from Pakistan's most populous province carried out the raid. A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives near an army vehicle in a market in the northwest Shangla district, provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said. The attack killed 41, including six security officers, and wounded 45 other people, he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Tehran Plans to Execute 3 Protesters of Election
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, New York Times
Iranian officials have sentenced to death three protesters who participated in demonstrations following the nation’s disputed presidential election in June, according to ISNA, Iran’s semiofficial news agency. The news service quoted an unnamed spokesman for the Tehran prosecutor’s office saying that the three were sentenced to be hanged and that they had been part of what Iran considered terrorist organizations. The death sentences are the first to be made public in cases involving the hundreds charged in the vast protests that followed the government’s declaration of a landslide victory for the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in the June 12 presidential election.

Iran Seeks Deal for Reactor
U.S. Sees Diplomatic Benefit in Helping Medical Treatment
By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post
Iran four months ago discreetly contacted the United Nations-affiliated agency for nuclear energy to outline a worrisome situation: A research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes that detect and treat the diseases of about 10,000 patients a week will run out of fuel by the end of 2010. Iran also had a request: Can you help us find a country that will sell us new fuel? On the face of it, Iran's query was a plaintive plea from a country under deep suspicion over its nuclear ambitions. But it also carried an unstated threat: If no country was willing to sell a stash of medium-enriched uranium to Iran, Tehran could say it had no choice but to produce the nuclear fuel itself -- in effect putting it one step closer to obtaining weapons-grade fuel. The research reactor uses uranium enriched to 19.75 percent -- a huge boost from the 3.5 percent enriched uranium created by Iran.

Militants Attack Pakistan’s Army Headquarters
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
At least four gunmen tried to storm Pakistan’s army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on Saturday, engaging in a heavy battle with security forces as they attempted to break the outer security cordon, officials and local news media said. It was the third attack by militants in Pakistan this week, raising concern that Taliban fighters were preparing a new wave of attacks as the government planned to launch a military offensive in the frontier region of South Waziristan. The chief spokesman for the military, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that four gunmen were killed in Saturday’s battle. “The situation is under control,” he said. General Abbas told a television station that four Pakistani soldiers had been killed, The Associated Press reported. Pakistani military commandos immediately sealed off the area as they fought the militants, who were reported to be young men armed with heavy weapons. There were reports that the attackers lobbed several hand grenades.

Car bomb in Peshawar market kills 49
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
A suicide car bomb attack tore through a bustling market in the northwest city of Peshawar today, killing 49 people in a blast that demonstrated militants' ability to strike virtually at will in the country's major cities. The explosion occurred at the Khyber Bazaar in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's violence-wracked Northwest Frontier Province. Authorities said more than 100 people were wounded, at least 15 of them critically. The market was jammed with people at the time of the explosion. The assailant was driving his car through the bazaar when the blast occurred, said Shafqat Malik, a police bomb squad specialist. About 110 pounds of explosives was used in the attack, Malik said. The explosion ripped through market stalls and nearby buildings, and overturned a minibus filled with passengers. Pools of blood and shards from destroyed vehicles were scattered throughout the area.

Truck Bomb Kills 9 in Western Iraq
Explosion was so powerful that corpses were hurled onto the roofs of neighboring buildings
By Anthony Shadid, Washington Post
A pickup truck piled with explosives blew up in front of a restaurant frequented by Iraqi police near Fallujah on Tuesday, killing nine people and wounding dozens more in the second attack in as many days in western Iraq. After the bombing, a curfew was imposed on Amiriyah, about 10 miles south of Fallujah, a town once synonymous with Iraq's insurgency that has largely quieted in past years. Residents and police, though, have warned that violence seems to be worsening lately in Fallujah and other towns along the Euphrates River that stretch west of Baghdad. "Security forces are still looking for victims under the rubble," said Shaker al-Issawi, who serves as the head of the municipal council in Amiriyah, adding that at least 31 people were wounded. Witnesses said the explosion was so powerful that corpses were hurled onto the roofs of neighboring buildings. The victims appeared to be civilians, police and members of Sons of Iraq, a U.S.-backed militia that fought the insurgency in 2007 and 2008.

Pakistan Braces for Taliban Attacks as It Prepares Offensive
By SALMAN MASOOD, New York Times
The Pakistani interior minister said Tuesday that the government was expecting more attacks by the Taliban as the military prepared to launch a major offensive in South Waziristan, the rugged northwestern tribal region considered a stronghold of Taliban. The minister, Rehman Malik, also accused the Taliban of orchestrating the suicide bombing of the headquarters of the World Food Program in Islamabad on Monday. The blast killed five people — four Pakistanis and an Iraqi — and led the United Nations to shutter its offices in Pakistan. A Taliban spokesman, Azam Tariq, confirmed his group was behind the bombing in a phone conversation with The Associated Press. “We proudly claim the responsibility for the suicide attack at the U.N. office in Islamabad,” he told The A.P. “We will send more bombers for such attacks,” he said, adding that the Taliban would not attack Muslim relief groups.

Deadly Attack By Taliban Tests New Strategy
8 U.S. Troops Killed in Siege of Outpost
By Joshua Partlow and Greg Jaffe, Washington Post
U.S. commanders had been planning since late last year to abandon the small combat outpost in mountainous eastern Afghanistan where eight U.S. soldiers died Saturday in a fierce insurgent assault. The pullout, part of a strategy of withdrawing from sparsely populated areas where the United States lacks the troops to expel Taliban forces and to support the local Afghan government, has been repeatedly delayed by a shortage of cargo helicopters, Afghan politics and military bureaucracy, U.S. military officials said. The attack began in the early morning hours. Taliban-linked militiamen struck from the high ground using rifles, grenades and rockets against the outpost, a cluster of stone buildings set in a small Hindu Kush valley that has been manned by 140 U.S. and Afghan forces. By the end of a day-long siege, eight Americans and two Afghan security officers were dead, marking the highest toll for U.S. forces in over a year.

Oil, Ideology Keep China From Joining Push Against Iran
By John Pomfret, Washington Post
In its effort to muster support for sterner action against Iran, the Obama administration will have to overcome China's reluctance to punish a country that is one of its top oil suppliers and a major beneficiary of its energy-related investments. The administration's frustration with Beijing is growing. U.S. officials have noted that China has appeared even more reluctant than Russia to take action against Iran after disclosures about its nuclear program. U.S. officials said they are particularly concerned that China has blocked their efforts to target freight-forwarding companies based in Hong Kong that reship goods, including prohibited weaponry, to Iran. The Chinese "have not displayed a sense of urgency" on Iran, said a senior administration official. Instead, the official said, China has attempted to "have it both ways," preserving its relationship with Iran while also working with the United States and other countries involved in the effort to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. Why is China protecting Iran? Two reasons, analysts say: oil and ideology.

87 die when soldiers open fire on democracy rally in Guinea
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Doctors treated hundreds of injured civilians today as the death toll from soldiers firing at Monday's democracy rally in Guinea's capital rose to 87, local Red Cross officials said. New York-based Human Rights Watch said eyewitnesses told them that security forces in the West African country had stripped female protesters Monday and raped them in the streets. Other eyewitnesses said soldiers had stabbed protesters with knives and bayonets. Tensions have risen in Guinea amid rumors that military leader Capt. Moussa "Dadis" Camara may run in presidential elections set for Jan. 31. Camara, who rose to power in a December coup, said that the shootings by members of his presidential guard were beyond his control. "Those people who committed those atrocities were uncontrollable elements in the military," he told Radio France International on Monday night. "Even I, as head of state in this very tense situation, cannot claim to be able to control those elements in the military."

30 Killed in Southern Afghan Bus Explosion
By the Associated Press, New York Times
An intercity bus crowded with passengers struck a roadside bomb in the contested southern province of Kandahar on Tuesday and exploded, killing 30 civilians and wounding 39 others, the Interior Ministry said. The bus was traveling on the main road from Herat, a large city to the west, to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, the ministry said in a statement. Packed with travelers, it was crossing an area of rich farmland at 10:30 a.m. in Kandahar’s western Maiwand district when it exploded. Ten children, 7 women and 13 men were killed, the ministry said. Taliban militants frequently set roadside bombs in the area, which is a well-traveled route for NATO and Afghan government military convoys. But civilian vehicles are often hit as well.

U.S. Says Taliban Has A New Haven in Pakistan
By Pamela Constable, Washington Post
As American troops move deeper into southern Afghanistan to fight Taliban insurgents, U.S. officials are expressing new concerns about the role of fugitive Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and his council of lieutenants, who reportedly plan and launch cross-border strikes from safe havens around the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta. But U.S. officials acknowledge they know relatively little about the remote and arid Pakistani border region, have no capacity to strike there, and have few windows into the turbulent mix of Pashtun tribal and religious politics that has turned the area into a sanctuary for the Taliban leaders, who are known collectively as the Quetta Shura. Pakistani officials, in turn, have been accused of allowing the Taliban movement to regroup in the Quetta area, viewing it as a strategic asset rather than a domestic threat, while the army has been heavily focused on curbing violent Islamist extremists in the northwest border region hundreds of miles away.

2 US soldiers killed in Philippines blast
By JIM GOMEZ, Washington Post
Two U.S. Navy construction troops and a Philippines marine were killed Tuesday in a roadside blast in the southern Philippines that officials said was likely an attack by suspected al-Qaida-linked militants. It was believed to be just the second time U.S. soldiers have been killed in the southern Philippines in violence blamed on the Abu Sayyaf group since American counterterrorism troops were deployed to the region in 2002, and the first fatalities in seven years. One Philippine marine also was killed and two others were wounded in the blast on Jolo island, a poor, predominantly Muslim region where the Americans have been providing combat training and weapons to Filipino troops battling the Abu Sayyaf. Philippine officials described the blast as being caused by a land mine, a description normally used for military-grade weapons. The U.S. Embassy said it was an improvised explosive device.

Iran conducts a third round of missile tests
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Iran said it successfully test-fired the longest-range missiles in its arsenal today, weapons capable of carrying a warhead and striking Israel, U.S. military bases in the Middle East, and parts of Europe. State television said the powerful Revolutionary Guard, which controls Iran's missile program, successfully tested the medium-range Shahab-3 and Sajjil missiles, which can fly up to 1,200 miles. It was the third round of missile tests in two days of drills by the Guard. The Sajjil-2 missile is Iran's most advanced two-stage surface-to-surface missile and is powered entirely by solid-fuel while the older Shahab-3 uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel in its most advanced form.

Iran test fires short-range missiles
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Iran said it successfully test-fired short-range missiles during military drills today by the elite Revolutionary Guard, a show of force days after the U.S. warned Tehran over a newly revealed underground nuclear facility it was secretly constructing. Gen. Hossein Salami, head of the Revolutionary Guard Air Force, said Iran also tested a multiple missile launcher for the first time. The official English-language Press TV showed pictures of at least two missiles being fired simultaneously and said they were from today's drill in a central Iran desert. In the clip, men could be heard shouting "Allahu Akbar" as the missiles were launched. "The message of the war game for some arrogant countries which intend to intimidate is that we are able to give a proper, strong answer to their hostility quickly," state television quoted Salami as saying. He said the missiles successfully hit their targets. The powerful Revolutionary Guard controls Iran's missile program.

Suicide car bombs kill 16 in Pakistan
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
Two suicide car bombs killed 16 people and wounded about 150 others in separate attacks in northwestern Pakistan today, just days after the Taliban warned suicide strikes were coming if the military pressed forward with an offensive. A third bomb in the region injured four. Pakistan's mountainous, lawless northwest region along the Afghan border -- where the government holds little control -- is a favored area for insurgents to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, as well as on Pakistani security forces and government workers. A suicide bomb was detonated outside a bank affiliated with the army in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, police said. Ten people were killed and 79 wounded, said Sahibzada Mohammed Anis, a senior government official. An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw vehicles overturned by the blast, buildings gutted and glass scattered everywhere. Most of the casualties were customers in the bank or people loitering outside.

Taliban Widen Afghan Attacks From Base in Pakistan
By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI, New York Times
Senior Taliban leaders, showing a surprising level of sophistication and organization, are using their sanctuary in Pakistan to stoke a widening campaign of violence in northern and western Afghanistan, senior American military and intelligence officials say. The Taliban’s expansion into parts of Afghanistan that it once had little influence over comes as the Obama administration is struggling to settle on a new military strategy for Afghanistan, and as the White House renews its efforts to get Pakistan’s government to be more aggressive about killing or capturing Taliban leaders inside Pakistan. American military and intelligence officials, who insisted on anonymity because they were discussing classified information, said the Taliban’s leadership council, led by Mullah Muhammad Omar and operating around the southern Pakistani city of Quetta, was directly responsible for a wave of violence in once relatively placid parts of northern and western Afghanistan. A recent string of attacks killed troops from Italy and Germany, pivotal American allies that are facing strong opposition to the Afghan war at home.

Gaddafi Praises Obama at U.N.
Libyan leader offered only warm words, calling him "our son" and "our Obama"
By Keith B. Richburg, Washington Post
President Obama at the United Nations won praise from an unlikely and probably unwelcome source Wednesday: Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, who was making his first appearance before the world body. Speaking after Obama, Gaddafi had mostly harsh words for the United Nations, as he theatrically tossed aside a copy of the U.N. charter and referred to the Security Council as a "Terror Council" because of its veto power. But when it came to America's 44th president, Gaddafi offered only warm words, calling him "our son" and "our Obama," and saying, "The election of Obama is the beginning of change." "We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as the president," Gaddafi said during a rambling, 95-minute speech during which he read from notes, exhausted at least one of his interpreters, threw the U.N. schedule into disarray, and put much of his audience to sleep.

Qadhafi endorses Obama 'forever'
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Politico.com
President Barack Obama urged world leaders on Wednesday to tackle climate change, nonproliferation and other urgent problems, while casting aside the U.N.’s reputation for endless debate and stalemate fueled by historical political grievances. Then, as if on cue, Libyan President Muammar Qadhafi seemed to illustrate Obama’s point by delivering a rambling one-hour, 36-minute address in which he compared the U.N. Security Council with Al Qaeda terrorists, speculated that a drug company or the military may have created the swine flu virus and called for a U.N. investigation into a variety of assassinations, including John F. Kennedy’s. “We Africans are happy, proud, that a son of Africans governs the United States of America,” the Libyan leader said. “This is a historic event. ... This is a great thing.” “Obama is a glimpse in the darkness after four or eight years,” said Qadhafi, who referred to Obama as “my son.” “We are content and happy if Obama can stay forever as president of the United States.”

U.S. al Qaeda Cell Suspected
Officials Suggest Group Is First Uncovered Here Since 9/11
By CAM SIMPSON and EVAN PEREZ, Wall Street Journal
The terror probe that burst into the spotlight in New York last week may have led authorities to the first active al Qaeda cell uncovered inside the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to officials familiar with the matter. Current and former U.S. officials say the allegations in the case embody their worst fears -- that a legal U.S. resident could quietly leave the country, receive explosives training from al Qaeda in a lawless region of Pakistan, then return to U.S. soil. Thus far, a 24-year-old Afghan immigrant and two others have been charged only with lying to federal agents in a terrorism investigation. Assessing the conclusions reached by federal authorities, who say they don't know what the group was planning, is difficult. A fuller accounting won't be possible until the men go to trial and possibly not even then. Hundreds of terrorism-related prosecutions, many for far more serious charges than lying to investigators, have been filed by U.S. authorities since the 9/11 attacks. On numerous occasions, U.S. officials have made startling allegations about terrorism suspects, only to later significantly dial back their rhetoric.

Trilateral talks head on path to nowhere
By AARON DAVID MILLER, Politico.com
In fall 2001, assigned as a State Department adviser to Middle East envoy Tony Zinni, I asked the general why he wanted to ruin a brilliant career by taking on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Smiling, he replied that he liked hopeless causes. In that case, I said, he’d come to the right place. Tuesday’s three-way meeting in New York among President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas strongly suggests that after six months of hard labor, another great American — George Mitchell — is being ground up in the maw of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The problem isn’t the man: Mitchell is a talented, tough-minded negotiator. The problem is the mandate. To all but the interminably obtuse, the prospects of a conflict-ending solution between this Israeli government and this Palestinian Authority are slim to none.

With Scuffles, French Police Evict Migrants
By NADIM AUDI and CAROLINE BROTHERS, New York Times
French authorities dismantled and bulldozed a camp for undocumented migrants outside this English Channel port on Tuesday, rounding up almost 300 Afghans, Pakistanis and others who gathered there for years in the hope of making clandestine journeys across the 22 miles of water to Britain. Starting at daybreak, hundreds of paramilitary officers scuffled with migrants and campaigners from a group called No Borders as the authorities closed down the camp, known as “the jungle” by migrants and Calais residents alike for its location among the thorn bushes and sand dunes of Calais. Hours later, yellow earth movers began flattening the makeshift shelters used by hundreds of migrants seeking to sneak — or be smuggled by organized gangs of traffickers — across the channel to Britain, which is itself seeking to tighten border controls against unwanted migrants. Workers with chain saws moved in to cut down the brush that had hidden the area from view.

Terror probe widens in U.S.
As many as a dozen people are suspected to have ties to what authorities say is an Al Qaeda-linked plot
By Josh Meyer and Tina Susman, Los Angeles Times
Federal authorities have tied as many as a dozen people to a suspected Al Qaeda-linked bomb plot on U.S. soil as they continue to gather evidence to indict on terrorism charges the young Afghan immigrant at the center of the case, law enforcement officials said Monday. Authorities said that they did not know the exact number of potential suspects or many of their identities, but that they had been connected through electronic intercepts, surveillance, seized evidence and interviews. A federal law enforcement official and others, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the high level of secrecy surrounding the investigation, said the suspects appeared concentrated in the New York area, with possibly others in the suspect's home state of Colorado and elsewhere.

Father, son arrested in terrorism investigation
Plot to detonate improvised explosive devices in the U.S.
By Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times
Federal authorities arrested a Denver-area airport shuttle driver, his father and another man late Saturday in connection with a suspected plot to launch a terrorist attack within the United States, the Justice Department said early today. Najibullah Zazi, 24, and his father, Wali Mohammed Zazi, 53, were taken into custody at their home in Aurora, Colo., and charged with "knowingly and willfully making false statements to the FBI in a matter involving international and domestic terrorism" during several days of questioning, according to a federal complaint. FBI agents in New York arrested Ahmad Wais Afzali, 37, of Flushing, N.Y., on similar charges. Authorities say Afzali is a New York Police Department informant who may have tried to warn the younger Zazi about the FBI's interest in him. In court filings, FBI agents said authorities are investigating Zazi, Afzali and others "in the United States, Pakistan and elsewhere, relating to a plot to detonate improvised explosive devices" in the U.S.

Suicide Blast Kills 30 in Pakistan
By Reuters, New York Times
At least 35 people were killed Friday in a suicide car bomb attack in a Shiite village in northwest Pakistan, a top provincial official said. The village is in Kohat District, the site of past sectarian killings. The explosion was followed within hours by the shooting of three people at a funeral for one of the people who died in the bomb blast and the killing of an influential district mayor in nearby Hangu, a center of sectarian strife, according to the provincial official, Mian Iftkhar Hussain. The initial blast, a powerful explosion that shook the village of Ustarzai near the garrison town of Kohat, flattened a two-story hotel and a number of shops at a nearby bazaar. Rescue teams worked through the afternoon to pull victims from the rubble.

Suicide car bomb kills 16, wounds dozens in Afghan capital
Many of the casualties are civilians
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
A powerful car bomb hit an Italian military convoy here today, killing at least 6 soldiers and 10 Afghan civilians and wounding at least 52 people, according to Italian and Afghan government officials. The attack, which occurred on the main road to the airport, near the U.S. Embassy, took place as the military vehicles became mired in traffic. The blast was the latest incident in a wave of violence to hit the troubled country in recent months as the Taliban insurgency has stepped up attacks on foreign forces around the Aug. 20 election. This was at least the fourth blast in and around Kabul since the election, which remains undecided as authorities try and sort out multiple fraud and vote-rigging allegations. Preliminary results have incumbent President Hamid Karzai ahead with 54.6% of the vote against his main rival, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who holds 27.8%.

3 U.S. troops killed by roadside bomb in Afghanistan
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A spokesman for U.S. and NATO forces said today that three American service members died when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan. Col. Wayne Shanks said the deaths occurred Tuesday. He did not release any other details. Violence has risen across Afghanistan in the last three years as the resurgent Taliban have regained control of large swaths of countryside. Fighting has been particularly harsh this summer in the south, where thousands of U.S. troops have been deployed to bolster the Canadian and British-led operations in the Taliban heartland. This year has been the deadliest for U.S. and NATO troops since the 2001 invasion.

U.S. Kills Top Qaeda Leader in Southern Somalia
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN and ERIC SCHMITT, New York Times
American commandos killed one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa in a daylight raid in southern Somalia on Monday, according to American and Somali officials, an indication of the Obama administration’s willingness to use combat troops strategically against Al Qaeda’s growing influence in the region. Western intelligence agents have described the militant, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, as the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya responsible for the bombing of an Israeli hotel on the Kenyan coast in 2002. Mr. Nabhan may have also played a role in the attacks on two American embassies in East Africa in 1998. American military forces have been hunting him for years, and on Monday, around 1 p.m., villagers near the town of Baraawe said four military helicopters suddenly materialized over the horizon and shot at two trucks rumbling through the desert.

More of the same from the ROP...

Bin Laden calls Obama 'powerless' in Afghan war
By the Associated Press, Washington Post
Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden described President Barack Obama as "powerless" to stop the war in Afghanistan and threatened to step up guerrilla warfare there in a new audiotape released to mark the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. In the 11-minute tape, addressed to the American people, bin Laden said Obama is only following the warlike policies of his predecessor George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and he urged Americans to "liberate" themselves from the influence of "neo-conservatives and the Israeli lobby." The tape was posted on Islamic militant Web sites two days after the eighth anniversary of the 2001 suicide plane hijackings. The terror leader usually addresses Americans in a message timed around the date of the attacks, which sparked the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan the same year, and then in Iraq two years later. Bin Laden said Americans had failed to understand that al-Qaida carried out the attacks in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel. If America reconsiders its alliance with the Jewish state, al-Qaida will respond on "sound and just bases." The Saudi construction magnate's son-turned "holy warrior" and his deputies have frequently sought to wrap al-Qaida in the Palestinian cause, seeking to draw support in the Arab world, where the issue is one of the public's top concerns.

5 U.S. troops, dozens of Afghans killed in wave of attacks
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
A wave of violence swept across Afghanistan on Saturday, leaving five American troops and dozens of Afghans dead and underscoring the Taliban's growing reach. The bloodshed comes as Western allies try to shore up stability amid an election process increasingly marred by fraud allegations. Militant attacks had long been concentrated in the southern and eastern parts of the troubled nation, but in recent weeks have spread to the normally quieter northern and western regions, with Saturday a case in point. Two American troops on patrol died in eastern Afghanistan when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, according to a NATO statement. Three more Americans were killed in an attack in western Afghanistan, a military spokesman said. In the deadliest attacks, a roadside bomb in the southern province of Oruzgan hit two vehicles, killing 14 civilians, the Interior Ministry said. In the northern province of Kunduz, seven policemen died in an attack on their post, with two more missing and feared captured by militants. On other fronts, six civilians died in a roadside bombing in the southern province of Kandahar; a guard and a child were killed when two suicide bombers attacked a detention center; and four policemen were killed in an attack on a patrol in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Six guards with a security firm were killed when fighters attacked their office in nearby Kunar province. Seven Afghan soldiers in the western province of Farah were killed after a lengthy battle with Taliban militants, and three civilians died when a rocket struck their home, according to news reports.

U.S. Says Iran Could Expedite Nuclear Bomb
By DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times
American intelligence agencies have concluded in recent months that Iran has created enough nuclear fuel to make a rapid, if risky, sprint for a nuclear weapon. But new intelligence reports delivered to the White House say that the country has deliberately stopped short of the critical last steps to make a bomb. In the first public acknowledgment of the intelligence findings, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency declared on Wednesday that Iran now had what he called a “possible breakout capacity” if it decided to enrich its stockpile of uranium, converting it to bomb-grade material. The statement by the ambassador, Glyn Davies, was intended to put pressure on American allies to move toward far more severe sanctions against Iran this month, perhaps including a cutoff of gasoline to the country, if it failed to take up President Obama’s invitation for serious negotiations.

Blast Near Mosul Kills at Least 25
By MARC SANTORA, New York Times
A truck laden with explosives blew up in a small Kurdish village shortly after midnight on Thursday, killing at least 25 people and threatening to further inflame ethnic tensions in the volatile northern region. The blast, in Wardak, outside the restive city of Mosul, was so powerful that it flattened a dozen houses. Residents worked through the night to pull victims from the rubble, and local officials said the death toll was likely to rise. Mosul remains a stronghold for Sunni insurgents in Iraq, and security officials have publicly expressed concern that the continuing violence there could reignite bloodshed in other parts of the country.

Iranian Opposition Offices Are Raided
By NAZILA FATHI, New York Times
The Iranian authorities on Monday and Tuesday raided offices connected to two senior opposition leaders in Tehran, arresting their top aides and seizing documents, Iranian news agencies and the leaders’ Web sites reported. The two opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hussein Moussavi, ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12 election, which they say was rigged by the government. Mr. Karroubi, a former speaker of Parliament, has further charged that men and women detained in the crackdown after the election were tortured and raped while in custody. Late Tuesday night, security forces arrested Alireza Hosseini-Beheshti, Mr. Moussavi’s top aide, according to mowjcamp.com, a Web site linked to Mr. Moussavi. Earlier on Tuesday, as Mr. Karroubi watched, the authorities sealed his office, which had led the effort to document the prison abuses, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported. Mohammad Davari, the editor of Mr. Karroubi’s Web site, was arrested during the raid, the BBC’s Persian-language Web site reported, and another aide, Morteza Alviri, was arrested at his home. Also on Tuesday, security forces emptied and sealed the office of the Association for the Defense of Prisoners’ Rights, opposition Web sites reported. The office was founded by a reformist journalist, Emadedin Baghi. On Monday, the authorities raided an office run by a Moussavi aide that recently said it had confirmed the deaths of 72 protesters. The government has maintained that only 30 people were killed, while some human rights organizations say hundreds may have died.

Another big win for Islam and terrorism...

Yale criticized for nixing Muslim cartoons in book
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Yale University has removed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad from an upcoming book about how they caused outrage across the Muslim world, drawing criticism from prominent alumni and a national group of university professors. Yale cited fears of violence. Yale University Press, which the university owns, removed the 12 caricatures from the book "The Cartoons That Shook the World" by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen. The book is scheduled to be released next week. A Danish newspaper originally published the cartoons — including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban — in 2005. Other Western publications reprinted them. The following year, the cartoons triggered massive protests from Morocco to Indonesia. Rioters torched Danish and other Western diplomatic missions. Some Muslim countries boycotted Danish products.

Britain Convicts Three in Plot to Blow Up Airliners
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Three British Muslims were convicted Monday of conspiring to kill thousands of civilians by blowing up trans-Atlantic flights in mid-air with liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks. A jury at a London courthouse found Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Assad Sarwar, 29, and Tanvir Hussain, 28, guilty of conspiracy to murder by detonating explosives on aircraft. The trial started in February. The jury found that they were the ringleaders of a conspiracy to carry out the biggest terrorist attack since 9/11. The men's arrests in August 2006 led to huge travel chaos, as hundreds of flights were grounded and thousands of people had their trips disrupted. They also triggered changes to airport security -- including restrictions on carrying liquids on planes -- that persist to this day. Prosecutor Peter Wright said the men planned to smuggle the bomb ingredients aboard jets bound from Britain to North America disguised as ''soft-drinks bottles, batteries and other innocuous items'' carried in hand luggage. ''They were to be detonated in-flight by suicide bombers,'' including several of the accused, he said. Wright said the plot would have caused ''a civilian death toll from terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale.''

Nuclear Agency Said to Be in ‘Stalemate’ With Iran
By ROBERT F. WORTH, New York Times
The head of the United Nations nuclear oversight agency said Monday that his organization was in a “stalemate” with Iran over its suspected nuclear program, just after the Iranian president affirmed once again that his country would not stop uranium enrichment or negotiate over its nuclear rights. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the group’s 35-nation board that Iran had not stopped enriching uranium or answered lingering questions about its nuclear program. He urged Iran to “substantively re-engage” with the nuclear agency. President Obama and his European allies have given Iran until the end of September to respond to an offer of nuclear talks with the “five plus one” group of permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany. If Iran refuses, it could face harsher sanctions. In a news conference in Tehran on Monday, the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said he was ready to hold “fair and logical” talks to “solve global challenges” with the six-nation group.

A Fine but No Lash for Sudan Woman Who Wore Pants
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN, New York Times
A Sudanese court on Monday decided not to lash a woman for wearing trousers in public but convicted her of violating the country’s decency laws and fined her the equivalent of $200. The woman, Lubna Hussein, an outspoken journalist who recently worked for the United Nations, was facing 40 lashes in a case that generated widespread interest inside and outside Sudan. Mrs. Hussein, 34, will appeal the sentence, her lawyers said Monday, and she still insists that she has a right to wear pants in public. Reached by telephone after the verdict, Reuters reported, she said she would not pay the fine. “I will not pay the money, and I will go to prison,” she was quoted as saying. Sudan is partly governed by Islamic law, which calls for women to dress modestly. But on Monday, dozens of women — many wearing pants — gathered in front of the courthouse in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, where Mrs. Hussein’s case was being heard, to express their solidarity. Many Sudanese women have said the law is vague and discriminates against women.

Brits caved to Libya before
Relatives of British victims of the IRA outraged
By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, New York Post
Britain made no compensation demands for British citizens killed by Libyan explosives supplied to Irish terrorists, for fear of jeopardizing its ties to Tripoli, documents released yesterday revealed. The news drew immediate accusations that Britain acted to protect energy deals and that commercial interests similarly impacted last month's decision to release terminally ill Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Relatives of British victims of the IRA were outraged to learn that Prime Minister Gordon Brown did not bring up compensation with Libya, especially since American victims had struck a deal with Tripoli. Brown wrote in two letters released by his office that his government was motivated not by oil interests but by the need to cooperate "in the fight against terrorism." "The UK government does not consider it appropriate to enter into a bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter," he wrote in letters, dated last Sept. 11 and Oct. 7, to Jason McCue, a lawyer for some British victims. The letters were released after being cited in a Sunday Times of London story. The letters address Libya's supplying of weapons and explosives to terrorists worldwide, including tons of Semtex plastic explosives to the IRA, which used them in the 1980s and '90s. Relatives of British IRA victims, meanwhile, still believe Brown's motivation was trade-related. Colin Parry, whose 12-year-old son was killed by an IRA bomb, said it defied belief that the US government secured a settlement and that the British government had not even tried. "It does make Britain look very, very weak and insignificant," Parry told the BBC.

At Least 22 Dead in Pakistan Bombing
By ISMAIL KHAN and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH, New York Times
A suicide attacker pretending to offer food to a group of tribal police officers detonated his explosives among them on Thursday, killing at least 22 people as they gathered to break the Ramadan fast on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, officials and witnesses said. The attack in Torkham, a post on the main route for moving supplies to NATO and American forces in Afghanistan, took place just before dusk, as the men prepared to eat on the lawn outside their barracks. Because the attacker offered food, he was welcomed to join the gathering in accordance with local tradition during Ramadan, said Sajid Khan, a policeman who witnessed the attack. A militant group affiliated with the Taliban later claimed responsibility for the attack, and a spokesman for the group called a local reporter to warn of further strikes against security forces if Pakistan did not stop NATO supplies from passing through its territory. Medical workers described a chaotic scene at the local hospital and the blast site.

Accused of Drug Ties, Afghan Official Worries U.S.
Drug lords running Afghanistan?
By JAMES RISEN and MARK LANDLER, New York Times
It was a heated debate during the Bush administration: What to do about evidence that Afghanistan’s powerful defense minister was involved in drug trafficking? Officials from the time say they needed him to help run the troubled country. So the answer, in the end: look the other way. Today that debate will be even more fraught for a new administration, for the former defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, stands a strong chance of becoming the next vice president of Afghanistan. In his bid for re-election, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has surrounded himself with checkered figures who could bring him votes: warlords suspected of war crimes, corruption and trafficking in the country’s lucrative poppy crop. But none is as influential as Marshal Fahim, his running mate, whose trajectory in and out of power, and American favor, says much about the struggle the United States has had in dealing with corruption in Afghanistan. As evidence of the tensions, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly told Mr. Karzai that running with Marshal Fahim would damage his standing with the United States and other countries, according to one senior administration official. Now, the problem of how to grapple with Marshal Fahim adds to the complexity of managing an uneasy relationship with Mr. Karzai. Partial election results show Mr. Karzai leading other contenders, but allegations of fraud threaten to add to the credibility problems facing a second Karzai-led government.

'Iraq Will Be A Colony of Iran'
Not surprisingly, the new alliance has committed itself to upholding the primacy of the Shiite religious leaders
By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation
Iraq's Shiite religious parties, most with ties to Iran, have reestablished a political bloc called the Iraqi National Alliance. Among its founders are Ahmad Chalabi, the revered darling of US neoconservatives such as Richard Perle and Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute; Muqtada al-Sadr, the brooding, mercurial mullah who has mysteriously retreated to Qom, Iran's religious capital, for quick-study lessons on how to become an ayatollah; and, of course, Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, one of the founders of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which has changed its name but not its spots. SCIRI, the anchor of the new coalition, is now called the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), but it still acts as an arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which founded it in 1982, and its paramilitary Badr Brigade -- also a part of the new Iraqi alliance -- is a terrorist unit that operates pro-Iran death squads in Iraq. Needless to say, it's way, way too late for President Obama to do anything about this, though he ought to keep his promise to involve the international community in a last-ditch effort to rebalance Iraqi politics away from dominance by the Shiite religious parties. Still, as I've been writing for years, Iran has the upper hand in Iraq.

Bomb kills 4 U.S. troops in Afghanistan
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A bomb blast killed four U.S. troops today in southern Afghanistan, said a military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker. No other information was released pending the notification of family members. The deaths brought to 41 the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this month, the second-deadliest month in the country since the 2001 U.S. invasion. Last month, a record 44 U.S. troops died. This year has been the deadliest of the war for U.S. troops. Including the latest deaths, at least 172 American forces have died in the Afghan war this year, according to an Associated Press count. Last year 151 U.S. troops died. The number of overall NATO deaths this year is a record as well: at least 292. Last year 286 died, according to the AP count. The U.S. has more than 60,000 troops in the country, many of whom helped secure last week's nationwide election.

Al Qaeda Claims Iraq Bombings killing more than 100 people
Statement said Al Qaeda sought to kill Iraqi government officials
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Al-Qaida's umbrella group in Iraq on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the bombings of government ministries in Baghdad last week that killed more than 100 people and left hundreds wounded. The group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq, said in a statement posted on the Internet that ''with God's grace,'' their ''sons launched a new blessed attack at the heart of wounded Baghdad.'' The attack, it said, meant to ''wreck the bastions of infidelity'' of what it describes as the pro-Iranian government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The statement listed targets al-Qaida claimed to have hit, including the finance, foreign and defense ministries in central Baghdad. The statement, posted on a Web site commonly used by terror groups, could not be independently verified. The wave of explosions that ripped through Baghdad last Wednesday -- with nearly simultaneous truck bombs hitting Iraq's Foreign and Finance ministries -- killed at least 101 people and left more than 400 wounded. It was the deadliest day of coordinated bombings since Feb. 1, 2008, when two suicide bombers killed 109 people at pet markets in Baghdad. The U.S. military said the attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida, which is known for its high-profile vehicle bombs and simultaneous suicide attacks. The al-Qaida statement Tuesday said it sought to kill Iraqi government officials. It said the explosions ''shook the earth under their feet and tore apart their hearts of fear and horror, proving to everyone the weakness of their government.''

U.S. pols question Brits' dealings with Khadafy in relation to Lockerbie bomber's release
Several major British energy companies, including BP and Shell, have invested heavily in oil and gas exploration in Libya

By HELEN KENNEDY, New York Daily News
The uproar over the Lockerbie bomber's release grew Sunday as U.S. politicians demanded to know if Britain and Libya had a secret deal to trade the terrorist's freedom for oil. Sen. Joseph Lieberman called suggestions of a deal "shocking" and urged an investigation. "I don't want to believe that they are true, but they are hanging so heavily in the air that I hope that our friends in Britain will convene an independent investigation," Lieberman (I-Conn.) told CNN. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was under blistering fire at home for what critics called his "astonishing" refusal to speak publicly about the matter. "When the going gets tough, Gordon Brown disappears," sniped Conservative Party pol Liam Fox. Both Brown and his secretary of state for business, Lord Mandelson, had separate private meetings with Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy and his son in the weeks before the release of the only man convicted of blowing up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. They acknowledged discussing the prisoner, but denied any quid pro quo. Khadafy's son, Saif al-Islam, said that "in all commercial contracts for oil and gas with Britain, Megrahi was always on the negotiating table." Several major British energy companies, including BP and Shell, have invested heavily in oil and gas exploration in Libya. Lord Trefgarne, chairman of the Libyan-British Business Council, said U.K. firms would see "benefits" from Megrahi's release. Khadafy added to the embarrassment by thanking Scotland and "my friend Brown." According to a letter believed likely leaked by Scottish authorities to deflect anger, Brown's Foreign Office had encouraged Scotland's justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, to consider granting Megrahi a prisoner transfer. The Sunday Times of London reported the letter came Aug. 3, after Libya threatened to cut diplomatic ties and disrupt trade if Megrahi wasn't sent home. It was MacAskill who ordered Megrahi freed Thursday. Megrahi returned to Libya to a hero's welcome, infuriating many families of the 270 Lockerbie victims.

Malaysia: Woman set to be caned for drinking beer
The law provides for a three-year prison term and caning for Muslims caught drinking
B

y the ASSOCIATED PRESS, Jerusalem Post
Islamic officials took custody Monday of a Muslim model scheduled to be caned this week for drinking beer, the first woman in Malaysia to be given the punishment for violating religious laws. Two female and one male official came to the house of Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno in northern Malaysia and took her away in a van on a four-hour road journey to a prison near Kuala Lumpur, the country's main city. Officials have said she will be caned sometime during the week but no specific date has been set. Kartika, 32, is to become the first Malaysian woman to be caned in Malaysia. She was arrested in a raid for drinking beer at a hotel lounge last year for breaching the Muslim-majority country's Shariah law, which forbids Muslims to consume alcohol. She was sentenced by a Shariah court in July in what was considered a warning to other Muslims to abide by religious laws. Kartika did not appeal and says she is willing to be caned. Dressed in a full-length cream-and-red satin gown and a head scarf, Kartika emerged from her house and walked past a group of about 50 local Muslims who said prayers for her. After a last kiss with her 5-year-old daughter, she got into the silver van along with her sister and the Islamic officials. She did not speak to the horde of media assembled outside the house in the countryside, about 5 miles (7 kilometers) from Karai town in the northern Perak state. The law provides for a three-year prison term and caning for Muslims caught drinking.

Afghan Vote Threatened by Fraud Allegations
By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, MATTHEW ROSENBERG and ANAND GOPAL, Wall Street Journal
Reports of fraud and intimidation from election-monitoring groups are mounting, undermining the legitimacy of Afghanistan's presidential vote and posing a challenge for the U.S. and its Western allies, who initially declared the vote a success. A linchpin of the international community's strategy here, Thursday's election was supposed to shore up the credibility of the Western-backed Afghan government threatened by a spreading Taliban insurgency. Rolling back Taliban advances and reinvigorating Afghanistan's development are the key goals of President Barack Obama's administration, which has poured tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops into the country in recent months. But now, as rivals of President Hamid Karzai allege widespread ballot-stuffing in his favor, the poll may have produced some unintended consequences. Allegations of fraud could end up eroding Afghanistan's stability, fracturing the part of the Afghan society that is opposed to the Taliban -- and making it even more difficult to contain the insurgency, say those tracking the election. "The Obama administration's policy hinges on whether a legitimate leader emerges from this election," says Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington-based think tank, who observed the Afghan vote. "Without a legitimate civilian leadership here you'll have a shaky foundation for the whole policy."

Somali Insurgents Reject Cease-Fire
By REUTERS, New York Times
Somali insurgents on Sunday rejected a government call for a cease-fire during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, accusing the president of trying to use religion as a cover for rearming his troops. President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former Islamist rebel, had called for an end to fighting during Ramadan. “We will not accept that cease-fire call,” Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of Hizbul Islam, told a news conference. “This holy month will be a triumphant time for mujahedeen, and we will fight the enemy.” Many analysts see Sheik Sharif’s government, backed by the United Nations, as the country’s best hope for a return to stability after 18 years of conflict, but it holds just pockets of the capital and parts of the south. Insurgent groups including Al Shabab, which Washington says is Al Qaeda’s proxy, have controlled most of the south for months.

Scottish First Minister tries to defend nation's feckless act
Freed killer gets heroes welcome by terrorist countrymen

By the Associated Press, New York Post
The head of Scotland's government said Sunday that FBI director Robert Mueller was wrong to criticize the decision to free the Pan Am Flight 103 bomber -- insisting there was public support for the release on compassionate grounds. Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, a Libyan convicted of killing 270 people in the 1988 airline bombing, was released Thursday because he is terminally ill with prostate cancer. He has returned to his native Libya to die. The release was met with outrage by families of the U.S. victims of the bombing and criticized by U.S. President Barack Obama as "highly objectionable." In a letter to Scotland's government, Mueller said that al-Megrahi's release would give comfort to terrorists all over the world. "Your action," he wrote, "makes a mockery of the grief of the families who lost their own on December 21, 1988." Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond told BBC Radio that Mueller was wrong in assuming that all those affected by the bombing were opposed to al-Megrahi's release. "I understand the huge and strongly held views of the American families, but that's not all the families who were affected by Lockerbie," Salmond said. "As you're well aware, a number of the families, particularly in the U.K., take a different view and think that we made the right decision." The explosion of a bomb hidden in the cargo hold of a Pan Am flight over Lockerbie, Scotland, killed all 259 people on the plane and 11 on the ground in Britain's worst terrorist attack.

Ahmadinejad Nominee Is Wanted in ’94 Bombing
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN, New York Times
The man nominated to serve as Iran’s defense minister is wanted by Interpol in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires, confronting Iran with yet another challenge to its international reputation after an electoral dispute undermined its legitimacy at home and abroad. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nominated Ahmad Vahidi on Wednesday to serve as defense minister when he submitted his list of 21 nominees to Parliament. Mr. Vahidi was the head of the secret Quds Force, an arm of the Revolutionary Guards that carries out operations overseas. He was one of five Iranian officials sought by Interpol on Argentine charges of “conceiving, planning, financing and executing” the 1994 attack, which killed 85 people and wounded hundreds, said a statement issued by the Anti-Defamation League condemning the nomination.

Suicide Bombers Kill 4 Police Officers in Chechnya
A recalcitrant, predominantly Muslim region
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, New York Times
Suicide bombers on bicycles killed at least four police officers in separate attacks in Chechnya’s capital on Friday, officials said, capping off a week of violence in Russia’s North Caucasus region that has left dozens of people dead, most of them law enforcement officials. At least two bombers approached police officials in different parts of Grozny, the capital, and detonated their charges in what appeared to be coordinated attacks, the investigative wing of the Prosecutor General’s Office said in a statement. Friday’s attacks come just days after a massive suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Ingushetia, a neighboring North Caucasus republic. The blast killed at least 25 people and injured around 280, according to the most recent government figures, the Interfax news agency reported. In Ingushetia on Friday, a police officer was shot to death in his car. Violence is frequent in the North Caucasus, particularly in Chechnya, where federal forces fought two bloody wars to subdue a potent separatist movement. But the bloodshed has spiked over the summer with almost daily attacks on police and government officials.

The Taliban says it didn't care about the election—until the Marines decided to safeguard it
By Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau, Newsweek
"We didn't take the election seriously until the Americans started arriving in larger numbers with more and better equipment than ever before," says Khan. "Once we realized how important it was for the Americans to secure the election for their puppet Karzai and his corrupt government, it became equally important for us to try and stop it." Since then, they have done their best to undermine the election's legitimacy by keeping voter turnout to a bare minimum. The Taliban high command warned people to stay away from the polls and, according to Khan, villagers are so "angry, fearful, and sad" by the surge of 4,000 Marines in Helmand that they will stay home on Thursday. "Everywhere there is the smell of blood," he confidently tells a NEWSWEEK reporter in a meeting on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, "so who will dare to go vote?"

At Least 75 Killed in Series of Attacks in Baghdad
By SAM DAGHER, New York Times
At least 75 people were killed in a series of truck bombings and other attacks on Wednesday that rocked areas around official buildings in central Baghdad, wounding 300 people, the Interior Ministry said. Smoke rose from the scene of a car bombing near the foreign ministry in Baghdad on Wednesday. Taken together, the attacks were among the most devastating in Baghdad since the withdrawal of American forces from street patrols at the end of June. The explosions, at least one of them close to the heavily fortified Green Zone security area, sent plumes of dark smoke billowing over the capital, ripped a gaping hole in a compound wall and set cars ablaze, trapping their drivers inside. The blasts were so intense that parts of a main highway near the Finance Ministry collapsed, the officials said, speaking in return for anonymity under ministry rules. At roughly the same time, three roadside bombs exploded in other parts of the city, wounding 10 people, they said. In response to the chaos, the police and the Iraqi Army closed two main bridges over the Tigris River.

20 Die in Suicide Bombing in Russia
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ, New York Times
At least 20 people were killed, and dozens were wounded in a suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Russia’s tumultuous North Caucasus region on Monday, according to government officials, the latest episode in a spate of violence to hit the area in recent weeks. The blast hit the police headquarters in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, at around 9 a.m. local time on Monday as many police officials were arriving at work. The blast hit the police headquarters in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, around 9 a.m. local time as many police officials were arriving at work. The attack seemed to further undermine the authority of Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, Ingushetia’s populist president who came to power last October vowing a softer approach in dealing with rebel violence than Ramzan Kadyrov, the president of neighboring Chechnya. It was the bloodiest single attack to hit Ingushetia in some time, though violence against police and government officials in this and other North Caucasus republics occurs almost daily. Mr. Yevkurov himself announced last week that he would soon return to work after he was seriously wounded in a suicide attack on his convoy in June. Ingushetia’s construction minister, Ruslan Amirkhanov, was assassinated in his office last week. The blast occurred in a heavily populated area, not far from several banks and government buildings. A six-storey residential building nearby was also heavily damaged. Some 60 people were injured, the prosecutor general’s office said. Mr. Akhilgov said 10 of the injured were children.

Double Suicide Bombing Kills at Least 21 in Northern Iraq
By Ernesto Londoño and Dlovan Brwari, Washington Post
Two suicide bombers killed at least 21 people in a cafe in northern Iraq on Thursday, Iraqi officials said, in the latest attack targeting ethnic or religious minorities in disputed territories. The double bombing occurred about 5 p.m. in the Ayoub coffeehouse in Sinjar, a town about 240 miles northwest of Baghdad. Most of the victims were Yazidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority. At least 30 people were wounded. The attack, like other recent bombings, appeared intended to exacerbate tensions along a 300-mile stretch of disputed territory near the Kurdish north, pitting the Kurdish autonomous government against Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration in Baghdad.

Georgia man convicted of aiding terrorism groups
An Atlanta jury finds Ehsanul Sadequee, 23, guilty in a trial that explored an Internet network of global militant plotting
By Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times
An Atlanta jury on Wednesday found a 23-year-old man guilty of aiding terrorist groups after a trial that explored a subculture of youthful extremists who used the Internet to plot attacks and form a loose network connecting North America, Europe and South Asia. Ehsanul Sadequee, the U.S.-born son of Bangladeshi immigrants, faces up to 60 years in prison after being convicted of conspiracy to materially support terrorists. The jury found that he had discussed attacks with accused militants in Toronto and Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Along with another Georgia man convicted in June, Sadequee drove to Washington in 2005 to film the Pentagon and other potential targets, then e-mailed the scouting videos to British citizens who since have been convicted of terrorism charges. "It's a good example of how these Islamic extremists across the world connect up and start to organize using the Internet," David Nahmias, the U.S. attorney in Atlanta, said in a telephone interview. "The Internet is very hard to control, and it is exploited by the bad guys."

Iraq's Bombs of August: A Return to the Bad Old Days?
By Ben Lando, Time
Early Monday morning, simultaneous truck bombs killed more than 30 people, injured more than 130 and demolished dozens of homes in a village near Mosul where the residents belong to the Shabak religious minority; 44 were killed on Aug. 7 in a suicide truck bombing outside a Shi'ite Turkoman village in the same area. The attacks are in Kurdish-controlled areas of Mosul and appear to be aimed at straining the already tenuous peace between Kurdish and Arab Iraqis (the Shabak, for example, have a strong affinity for the Kurds). The northern city remains a strong base for al-Qaeda and other insurgent groups, with the insurgents demanding protection money from companies and construction firms doing business in the city.

There they go again...

Bombings targeting Shiites across Iraq kill at least 45
By Brian Kates, New York Daily News
At least 45 people were killed and 200 wounded in bombings in Iraq Monday as insurgents ramped up attacks against Shiites in an attempt to trigger secatarian violence. The deadliest of the attacks was in Khazna, a village east of Mosel, where two explosives-laden trucks went off nearly simultaneously less than 500 yards apart, killing at least 28 people and wounding 138, authorities said. The massive blasts levelled 35 houses and gouged deep craters into the ground of the prosperous village of 3,000, home to members of the Shabak community, a small Kurdish Shiite sect with its own language and religious belief system.

Sanctions Unlikely to Stop Iran's Nuclear Quest
By Tony Karon, Time Magazine
Unless Iran responds positively to President Obama's offer of talks on its nuclear program by next month, it could face what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calls "crippling sanctions." That was the message from Administration officials touring the Middle East in recent weeks. And it's backed by congressional moves to pass legislation aimed at choking off the gasoline imports on which Iran relies for almost a third of its consumption, by punishing third-country suppliers. It sounds impressive and, for an undiversified economy like Iran's, potentially calamitous. But a number of Iran analysts are skeptical that new sanctions will break the stalemate.

U.S. and Britain Again Target Afghan Poppies
Incentives Offered to Farmers Not to Grow Crop
By Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
The U.S. and British governments plan to spend millions of dollars over the next two months to try to persuade Afghan farmers not to plant opium poppy, by far the country's most profitable cash crop and a major source of Taliban funding and official corruption. By selling wheat seeds and fruit saplings to farmers at token prices, offering cheap credit, and paying poppy-farm laborers to work on roads and irrigation ditches, U.S. and British officials hope to provide alternatives before the planting season begins in early October. Many poppy farmers survive Afghanistan's harsh winters on loans advanced by drug traffickers and their associates, repaid with the spring harvest. "We need a way to get money in [farmers'] hands right away," said a senior U.S. military official in Afghanistan. Officials maintain that the new Afghan plan differs from unsuccessful "alternative" plans because it is an integral part of a military-development strategy that includes tens of thousands of U.S. troops to keep the Taliban and traffickers at bay while Afghan security forces are being trained. Plans call for hundreds of U.S. and international aid experts to work directly with farmers and local officials until the Afghan government has matured.

Qaeda Figure Is Reported Dead in Indonesia
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Noordin Mohammad Top, an aspiring regional commander for al-Qaida who evaded capture for years until he was reportedly shot dead in a raid Saturday, has been linked to a series of bombings in Indonesia that killed 250 people. The manhunt for Southeast's Asia's most wanted militant escalated last month when twin suicide blasts killed seven at the Ritz-Carlton and J.W. Marriott hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta -- ending a four-year lull in terrorism. Noordin has most notably has been linked to the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, which together killed 222 people, the majority of them foreigners vacationing on the resort island. He emerged as a regional terrorist leader with extensive bomb-making skills after the first Bali bombing and is accused of masterminding at least three major strikes in Indonesia. If confirmed, his death would mark a major setback for terrorists operating in the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation. Counterterrorism operations in recent years netted hundreds of suspected militants, including a number of Noordin's closest associates. But Noordin's time on the run seems to have ended in an hours-long shootout at a remote village in central Java where he had been holed up. The U.S. State Department had classified Noordin as a terrorism financier since the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, but he managed to plot several other strikes while avoiding near capture half a dozen times.

Iran Resumes Mass Trial of Activists and Protesters
By the Associated Press, New York Times
A young French academic and local employees of the British and French embassies appeared before an Iranian judge Saturday along with dozens of opposition figures accused of involvement in the country's postelection unrest. The extraordinary mass trial in Tehran's Revolutionary Court demonstrates the government's resolve to discredit Iran's pro-reform movement as a tool of foreign countries -- particularly Britain and the United States -- trying to spark a revolution to topple Iran's Islamic system. The appearance of the British Embassy employee appeared to catch Britain off guard, and the Foreign Office in London promised a response to what it called ''this latest outrage.'' The defendants stand accused of crimes including rioting, spying and plotting a ''soft overthrow'' of the regime after the disputed June 12 presidential election. Iran's opposition and the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets after the election denounced official results that declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. The government has been eager to show that the outpouring was not the result of internal unrest but foreign interference. During the session, a prosecutor read out an indictment saying the U.S. and Britain had plans to foment the unrest with the aim of toppling Iran's Islamic rulers through a ''soft overthrow,'' the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency reported. The vague indictment also accused the two powers of providing financial assistance to Iran's reformists to undermine hard-line clerics within the ruling system.

Roadside Bomb Kills 21 Afghans
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA, New York Times
In another sign of growing violence in the last two weeks before national elections, at least 21 civilians, mainly women and children traveling to a wedding party, were killed by a roadside bomb on Wednesday in the southern province of Helmand, Afghan police officials said Thursday. Assadullah Shirzad, the provincial police chief , said a group of men, women and children were riding along a dirt road in the Garmsir district in a trailer pulled by a tractor when the bomb exploded. “Some 21 people, among them children and women, were killed, and five were wounded,” Mr. Shirzad said. “It was tragic, as the victims were mostly the women and children.”

Iraq Censorship Laws Move Ahead
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
The doors of the communications revolution were thrown open in Iraq after the American-led invasion in 2003: In rushed a wave of music videos featuring scantily clad Turkish singers, Web sites recruiting suicide bombers, racy Egyptian soap operas, pornography, romance novels, and American and Israeli news and entertainment sites that had long been blocked under Saddam Hussein’s rule. Now those doors may be shut again, at least partially, as the Iraqi government moves to ban sites deemed harmful to the public, to require Internet cafes to register with the authorities and to press publishers to censor books. The government, which has been proceeding quietly on the new censorship laws, said prohibitions were necessary because material currently available in the country had had the effect of encouraging sectarian violence in the fragile democracy and of warping the minds of the young.

Australia Launches Major Anti-Terror Operation
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Police in Australia foiled a plot for commando-style suicide attacks on at least one army base, arresting four men Tuesday with suspected links to a Somali Islamist group, senior officers said. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the plot was a ''sober reminder'' that Australia is still under threat from extremist groups enraged that the country sent troops to join the U.S.-led military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some 400 officers from state and national security services took part in 19 pre-dawn raids on properties in Melbourne, Australia's second largest city, police said. Four men, all Australian citizens of Somali or Lebanese descent and aged between 22 and 26, were arrested, and several others were being questioned Tuesday, police said.

Hate Engulfs Christians in Pakistan
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, New York Times
The blistered black walls of the Hameed family’s bedroom tell of an unspeakable crime. Seven family members died here on Saturday, six of them burned to death by a mob that had broken into their house and shot the grandfather dead, just because they were Christian. he family had huddled in the bedroom, talking in whispers with their backs pressed against the door, as the mob taunted them. “They said, ‘If you come out, we’ll kill you,’ ” said Ikhlaq Hameed, 22, who escaped. Among the dead were two children, Musa, 6, and Umaya, 13. The attack in this shabby town in central Pakistan — the culmination of several days of rioting over a claim that a Koran had been defiled — shows how precarious life is for the tiny Christian minority in Pakistan. More than 100 Christian houses were burned and looted on Saturday in a rampage that lasted about eight hours by a crowd the authorities estimate was as large as 20,000 strong. In addition to the seven members of the Hameed family who were killed, about 20 people were wounded.

Nigerian Official Says 700 Dead in Recent Violence
By the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal
A Nigerian military official said Saturday that about 700 people were killed in the northern city of Maiduguri during recent fighting between police and a radical Islamist sect. The toll was previously thought to be around 300. Col. Ben Ahanotu said Saturday that mass burials have begun because bodies were decomposing in the heat. The Islamist compound destroyed this week by government troops is one of the burial sites, he said. "They've got almost 700 bodies," Mr. Ahanotu, who is in charge of security in Maiduguri, said of officials gathering bodies. "Right there, they had to do a mass burial there because there are a lot of bodies inside," he said, pointing to what used to be the Boko Haram sect leader's compound. It is now smoldering rubble with digging equipment around it. The fighting affected other northern cities, too. The total death toll is unknown.

Iran's Khatami condemns 'show trial' confessions
Mass trial for those allegedly behind weeks of post-election unrest could further divide the people from the regime
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
Iran's former President Mohammad Khatami vehemently condemned a series of confessions extracted from his political allies and broadcast on state television as part of what he described as a "show trial." In comments published today on his website, Khatami, one-time leader of the nation's reformist movement, warned that the confessions aired during Saturday's mass trial for those charged with crimes stemming from weeks of post-election demonstrations would backfire by further dividing the people from the government. "Such confessions expressed under special circumstances lack any legal standing," he said in a meeting late Saturday, according to baran.org.ir, the website of a charity he oversees. "The regime and nation were insulted and what we heard in the show trial were repetitions of what we had already heard from special tribunes in violation of legal and religious norms." The trial opening aired on television as the nation braces for another possible outbreak of violence during events this week marking the launch of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's second term. Many prominent political figures, including Khatami, plan to boycott the ceremonies.

Car bomb at Iraq market kills 5
The blast, which leaves 34 wounded, is the latest in a series of attacks
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A police officer said the explosives-laden car was parked near sidewalk vendors at an outdoor market in Haditha, a city on the Euphrates 140 miles from Baghdad. The officer gave the casualty toll on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information. Sunday's blast is the latest in a series of attacks that have raised concerns about the abilities of Iraqi forces to protect the people as U.S. troops prepare to withdraw by the end of 2011. Haditha is in Anbar province, one of the most dangerous areas in Iraq until Sunni tribal leaders joined forces with the U.S. military to fight Al Qaeda. Sunday's attack follows a series of blasts in the capital over the past few days.

28 killed in bombings at Baghdad mosques
Simultaneous explosions shook five Shiite mosques around Baghdad as Friday prayers were ending
By Liz Sly and Caesar Ahmed, Los Angeles Times
A series of near simultaneous explosions shook five Shiite mosques around Baghdad today as Friday prayers were ending, killing at least 28 people and wounding dozens more. The bombings shattered a period of relative calm and represented the worst violence in the capital since US forces withdrew from Iraq's cities on June 30. In the bloodiest attack, 24 people were killed and 28 injured when a parked car exploded outside a mosque in northeastern Baghdad's Shaab district at around 1 pm, just as worshippers were leaving prayers. Within the next ten minutes, four other explosive devices detonated at four other mosques in southern and eastern Baghdad, killing four and injuring 35. The timing suggested a high degree of coordination by the attackers.

'Gaza man killed daughter for owning phone'
By the Associated Press, Jerusalem Post
A Gaza man is being held on suspicion he bludgeoned his daughter with an iron chain, cracking her skull in a particularly brutal family "honor killing," two human rights groups said Wednesday, citing police and forensics reports. The groups' reports said that the assault was triggered by Jawdat Najjar's discovery that his daughter Fadia - a 27-year-old divorced mother of five - owned a cell phone. He suspected she used it to speak to a man outside the family, according to the groups' reports. Dr. Mohammed Sultan, who examined the victim, told The Associated Press that her head and face were bloodied, her body covered by bruises and that she suffered internal bleeding. On Wednesday, a northern Gaza police officer confirmed that Najjar turned himself in a day after the July 23 killing but did not give details. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media. Three of the woman's brothers were also detained on suspicion that they acted as accomplices, said the rights groups Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), citing police and forensics reports. The groups did not say how they obtained the reports. Fadia Najjar was the 10th victim of a so-called "honor killing" this year in the Palestinian territories and among Arab communities in Israel, according to rights groups.

Seven North Carolina Muslim men charged with plotting 'violent jihad'
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
A father, his two sons and four other North Carolina men are accused of military-style training at home and plotting "violent jihad" through a series of terror attacks abroad, federal authorities said Monday. Officials said the group was led by Daniel Patrick Boyd, a married 39-year-old who lived in an unassuming lakeside home in a rural area south of Raleigh, where he and his family walked their dog and operated a drywall business. An indictment released Monday does not detail any specific terrorist plans or targets overseas, although it claims some of the defendants traveled to Israel in 2007 with the intent of waging "violent jihad" and returned home without success. "These charges hammer home the point that terrorists and their supporters are not confined to the remote regions of some far away land but can grow and fester right here at home," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said. He would not give details of the alleged plots beyond what was in a news release and indictment. The seven men made their first court appearances in Raleigh on Monday, charged with providing material support to terrorism. If convicted, they could face life in prison. Court documents charged that Boyd, also known as "Saifullah," encouraged others to engage in jihad. It's unclear how authorities learned of the activities, although court documents indicate that prosecutors will introduce evidence gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Scores Die as Sect Fights Nigeria Police
Islamic sect: “We do not believe in Western education...it corrupts our ideas and beliefs"
By ADAM NOSSITER and SHARON OTTERMAN, New York Times

news services reported. The violence, which began Sunday and which news reports said had killed at least 80 people, has roiled a predominantly Muslim region of Nigeria that has had regular and often bloody outbreaks of sectarian unrest. Police blamed an obscure group, popularly known as Boko Haram, which opposes Western education and demands the adoption of Islamic law in all of Nigeria, for the latest violence. A senior member of the group, Abdulmuni Ibrahim Mohammed, told Reuters after his arrest in Kano State on Monday: “We do not believe in Western education. It corrupts our ideas and beliefs. That is why we are standing up to defend our religion.” The Nigerian police said the group’s fighters attacked police stations in at least two states on Sunday and Monday. In one state, Bauchi, at least 39 militants were killed, a local police spokesman said; in another, Yobe, fighters used fuel-laden motorcycles to bomb a police station, and then, armed with bows and poison arrows, they attacked officers, another police spokesman said.

Five Killed in Baghdad Attack
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Five people were killed Sunday in a daylight attack at a popular money exchange office, a reflection of the increasing crime in Iraq even as violence is on the decline. The gunmen broke into the al-Nibal money exchange office in downtown Baghdad shortly before noon, killing three employees and two customers, said two Iraqi police officials. They said 12 others, including eight employees, were wounded in the attack in Baghdad's commercial Karradah district. A witness described a chaotic scene inside the office. Mohammed Abbas, the owner of a next-door stationery store, said he saw three vehicles pull up to the exchange office, including one that blocked the street. He said five gunmen jumped out of the vehicles. They began firing as soon as they walked into the office, he said.

Heavy Fire Erupts in Afghan City
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Taliban fighters wearing suicide vests and armed with AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the main police station Saturday in the southeast city of Khost, triggering hours-long gunbattles that left seven terrorists dead and four people wounded, officials said. The attack in Khost began in the afternoon when at least six Taliban fighters wearing explosive stormed the area around the main police station and a nearby government-run bank. All were all shot and killed before they could detonate their explosive vests, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. A seventh attacker detonated a car rigged with the explosives near a police rapid reaction force, wounding two policemen, the ministry said. Two civilians -- a woman and a child -- were wounded in the attack on the bank, the ministry added.

Bombing Suspects Spent Two Days at Hotel
Guests Built Explosives in Room at JW Marriott, Police Say, to Strike Heart of Indonesia's Resurgent Investment Community
By TOM WRIGHT, Wall Street Journal
The suspects in the two deadly bombings here Friday checked into one of the targeted hotels two days earlier and assembled explosives in their room, evading the kind of tight security that has helped convince foreigners it is again safe to do business in Indonesia. Suicide bombers at the JW Marriott and nearby Ritz-Carlton hotels killed eight people and injured 53, striking at the heart of corporate Indonesia. The Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott are seen as symbols of the country's new economic strength and growing appeal to foreign investors. They have marble floors and gold-plated columns, and Indonesia's rich and famous dine at their restaurants and hammer out business deals in their lounges, adorned with spacious armchairs and grand pianos. Nearby are some of the city's most expensive restaurants, which often have Ferraris parked outside.

Suicide Bombers Blamed for Deadly Jakarta Blasts
By TOM WRIGHT, Wall Street Journal
Suicide bombers set off explosions at two hotels here Friday morning that killed eight people and wounded 53, police said, in Indonesia's worst terrorist attack in four years. National Police Chief Gen. Bambang Hendarso Danuri said the bodies of two suicide bombers were found near the J.W. Marriott and Ritz-Carlton in the city's central business district. At least one of the eight killed was a foreigner, but he said four bodies have yet to be identified. Eighteen of the people injured were foreigners, he said. A U.S. official said at least eight Americans were wounded in the blasts, the Associated Press reported.

3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Southern Iraq
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
Three American soldiers were killed after insurgents fired mortar rounds into a United States military base in southern Iraq, an area of the country that has been largely free of the violence that continues to plague the northern part of the country. The incident occurred Thursday evening, but the American military did not report it until Friday. The identities of the soldiers have not yet been released. Though American combat forces withdrew from Iraq’s cities on June 30, thousands of troops remain stationed at bases outside urban areas. The base struck by mortar rounds on Thursday, Contingency Operating Base Basra, is about 20 miles outside Basra, Iraq’s second-largest city.

Explosion Kills 9 in Afghanistan
By TAIMOOR SHAH, New York Times
Nine civilians, including five children, were killed Friday when a roadside bomb struck their vehicle on the way to a religious shrine in southern Afghanistan, officials said. The explosion occurred in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar Province, as members of a family drove to visit the shrine in the remote Wanaka area. Separately, the British Defense Ministry in London said on Friday that a British soldier was killed Thursday in the southern province of Helmand — the latest British death as a debate in Britain intensifies about the quality of equipment available to British troops as they face roadside bombs and other attacks by the Taliban. Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, 185 British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, 16 of them this month.

Car bomb kills 4 in northern Iraq
Three Baghdad attacks leave six people dead, including a Cabinet official, and 11 injured
By the Associated Press, Los Angeles Times
A car bomb exploded in an alley Saturday in a village in northern Iraq, killing at least four people, wounding others and destroying eight homes, police said. Six more died in bombings in Baghdad. Thirty-eight people were injured and several shops and cars were also damaged in the 3 p.m. explosion in the northern village of Kugjeli, said a police officer in Nineveh province, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Most of the victims were in their homes when the bomb exploded near the main street of the predominantly Shiite village, about three miles east of the city of Mosul.

Suicide bombings paralyze Peshawar
Markets and parks are silent, and workers refuse night shifts
By Alex Rodriguez, Los Angeles Times
The markets of this chaotic city are usually cacophonous places, alive with the din of motorcycle rickshaws and legions of Pakistanis sizing up the pyramids of mangoes in one stall, office furniture in the next. But on a recent dusky evening at Sadar market, shopkeepers sipped tea and looked out into an empty street. No one, they fretted, wants to risk being there the next time a suicide bomber strikes. "Almost every shop here is empty," said Nisar Ahmed, 35, manager of a small clothing store in the bazaar. "No customers come. There are days when we just close early and go to sleep. We can't sustain this." Pakistan's bid to subdue the Taliban has unleashed a wave of retaliatory suicide bombings in several major cities, from Islamabad, the capital, to the country's cultural center, Lahore. No city, however, has been hit as hard as Peshawar, a metropolis of nearly 3 million just outside the Taliban-infested northwestern tribal areas.

Somali Islamist Insurgents Behead 7 People
Terrorist group with links to al-Qaida
By the Associated Press, New York Times
Somali Islamist fighters on Friday beheaded seven prisoners accused of abandoning the Muslim faith and spying for the government in the largest mass execution since the Islamists were pushed from power two and a half years ago. The public killings in the southwestern town of Baidoa followed weeks of fierce fighting as the Islamists try to seize Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, amid mounting concerns about the influx of hundreds of foreign fighters to the failed state. The beheadings may be linked to the Islamists' failure to take Mogadishu after a 2-month-old offensive, said a senior analyst at global intelligence company Stratfor. ''Al-Shabab is reacting to a setback,'' said Mark Schroeder. The U.S. considers al-Shabab a terrorist group with links to al-Qaida, which al-Shabab denies. The group controls much of Somalia and its fighters operate openly in the capital.

Kurds Defy Baghdad, Laying Claim to Land and Oil
By SAM DAGHER, New York Times
With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity. The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States. The disputed areas, in northern Iraq, are already volatile: There have been several tense confrontations between Kurdish and federal security forces, as well as frequent attacks aimed at inflaming sectarian and ethnic passions there.

Violent clashes erupt between Iranian protesters and security forces
Baton-wielding officers chase, beat demonstrators
By Ramin Mostaghim and Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
Clashes between hundreds of determined young men and women chanting, "Death to the dictator" and "God is great" and security forces wielding truncheons erupted in downtown Tehran today. The screams of a woman being beaten could be heard from nearby buildings. Business owners could be seen hustling protesters into their buildings to shield them from anti-riot police and plainclothes enforcers. Many of the demonstrators wore surgical masks to protect their identities from cameras stationed at adjacent buildings. They could be seen escaping into side streets and regrouping as shops quickly were shuttered. Uniformed security forces on motorcycles wearing black helmets and plainclothes officers had blocked off streets around Revolution Square, near the Tehran University epicenter of the protest. Police vans to haul away protesters could be seen parked along the roadways.

Bomb Attacks in Iraq Kill at Least 41
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and TIMOTHY WILLIAMS, New York Times
Attacks in Baghdad and a city in northern Iraq killed at least 41 people and wounded dozens more on Thursday, the worst violence since Iraq celebrated the withdrawal of American troops from cities and towns last month. In the deadliest attack, two suicide bombers, working in tandem, detonated explosives in Tal Afar, a city in Nineveh Province. Tal Afar is about 40 miles west of Mosul, the provincial capital where violence has raged almost without interruption despite improved security. The first bomber, wearing a vest of explosives, attacked two security officials outside the court that handles terrorism cases. The explosion occurred early Thursday morning in the city’s center, and as crowds gathered afterward, the second bomber struck. At least 34 people were killed in those two blasts and 64 were wounded, according to preliminary reports from security officials in the region. In Baghdad, two separate improvised bombs exploded near a market in Sadr City, the Shiite district that has been a regular target. Those bombings killed at least 7 people and wounded 20 others, security officials reported. The twin suicide bombings in Tal Afar bore the signature the Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella organization of groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. The city’s population is predominantly Turkmen Sunnis, although there is also a Shiite minority.

Tensions erupt in China: Riots claim 140 lives, 828 injured
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Violent street battles killed at least 140 people and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit China's volatile western Xinjiang region in decades, and officials said Monday the death toll was expected to rise. Security forces have clamped down on the city of Urumqi and set up checkpoints to catch any fleeing rioters, state media reported, after tensions between ethnic Muslim Uighur people and China's Han majority erupted into riots. Rioters on Sunday overturned barricades, attacking vehicles and houses, and clashed violently with police, according to media and witness accounts. State television aired footage showing protesters attacking and kicking people on the ground.

Ethnic Clashes in Western China Are Said to Kill Scores
By EDWARD WONG, New York Times
The Chinese state news agency reported Monday that at least 140 people were killed and 816 injured when rioters clashed with the police in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese. The rioting broke out Sunday afternoon in a large market area of Urumqi, the capital of the vast, restive desert region of Xinjiang, and lasted for several hours before riot police officers and paramilitary or military troops locked down the Uighur quarter of the city, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot. At least 1,000 rioters took to the streets, throwing stones at the police and setting vehicles on fire. Plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, while police officers used fire hoses and batons to beat back rioters and detained Uighurs who appeared to be leading the protest, witnesses said. Many Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim group, resent rule by the Han Chinese, and Chinese security forces have tried to keep oil-rich Xinjiang under tight control since the 1990s, when cities there were struck by waves of protests, riots and bombings. Last summer, attacks on security forces took place in several cities in Xinjiang; the Chinese government blamed separatist groups.

Two American soldiers killed in Taliban strike in Afghanistan
By Elizabeth Hays, New York Daily News
Two American soldiers were killed in a vicious attack on a U.S. base in Afghanistan - and dozens of Taliban perished in retaliatory air strikes. Taliban insurgents fired mortars and rockets at the base near Zerok in the southeastern Paktika Province, where an American soldier was captured last week. A suicide bomber also tried to drive a truck filled with explosives and gravel through the compound's gates. He was shot before he reached it, but the bombs still exploded.

Marines push deeper into Taliban territory
Resistance said light as troops seize villages
By Jason Straziuso, Washington Times
U.S. Marines pushed deeper into Taliban areas of southern Afghanistan on Friday, seeking to cut insurgent supply lines and win over local elders on the second day of the biggest U.S. military operation here since the American-led invasion of 2001. On the other side of the border, U.S. missiles struck a Pakistani Taliban militant training center and communications center, killing 17 people and wounding nearly 30, Pakistani intelligence officials said. Both U.S. operations were aimed at what President Obama considers the biggest danger in the region: a resurgent Taliban-led insurgency allied with al Qaeda that threatens both nuclear-armed Pakistan and the U.S.-backed government in Afghanistan.

Iranian cleric says British Embassy employees will be tried
By Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times
A senior Iranian cleric said today that several employees of the British Embassy in Tehran arrested in recent days would be put on trial for unspecified charges of acting against Iran's national security, potentially escalating a confrontation with the West over last month's disputed presidential election. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the conservative Guardian Council, said in a Friday prayer sermon that the employees, all of them Iranian nationals, "will definitely be tried" for taking part or promoting weeks of unrest surrounding the June 12 election, which was marred by opposition allegations of massive vote-rigging. "The enemy made an effort to poison the people," Jannati, who is politically close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told worshipers gathered in Tehran. "They had planned a velvet revolution before the election . . . A number of people at the British Embassy were arrested for involvement in the unrests and they will definitely be tried."

U.S. Marines Try to Retake Afghan Valley From Taliban
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr., New York Times
Almost 4,000 United States Marines, backed by helicopter gunships, pushed into the volatile Helmand River valley in southwestern Afghanistan Thursday morning to try to take back the region from Taliban fighters whose control of poppy harvests and opium smuggling in Helmand provides major financing for the Afghan insurgency. Pakistan, meanwhile, said it deployed troops to a stretch of its largely porous and mountainous 1,600-mile border with Afghanistan to seal off a potential escape route for insurgents fleeing the American advance, The Associated Press reported. Both Pakistani and American officials had expressed worries that the American offensive could push militants into Pakistan, which is already confronting Taliban insurgents in several areas.

Why Big Oil Declined Iraq's Riches
By Vivienne Walt, Times
Any notion that the invasion of Iraq was simply an oil grab took another hit on Tuesday when Baghdad opened the bidding on the rights to develop its massive energy reserves. In a day-long auction of eight huge oil fields — some of the world's biggest — virtually all the 41 foreign companies invited to bid by the Iraqi government balked at the Baghdad terms. The only contract signed was a 20-year deal for a consortium led by BP and China's National Petroleum Corporation to develop the giant Rumaila field in southern Iraq. "Frankly I did not think it would be such a fiasco and embarrassment for the government," says Rochdi Younsi, Director of Middle East and Africa for the Eurasia Group in Washington. "It shows the level of disconnect between the Ministry of Oil and the oil companies."

European Criticism May Hinder Talks, Iran Says
By ALAN COWELL and STEPHEN CASTLE, New York Times
In a first sign that the dispute over the Iranian election could further jeopardize the stalled nuclear negotiations with Tehran, a high-ranking Iranian military official was quoted Wednesday as saying European nations were not qualified to discuss the nuclear issue because of alleged interference in post-election unrest and must apologize. The statement seemed to add one more layer of complexity to Western assessments of how to deal with Iran, which insists its nuclear enrichment program is for civilian purposes while many in the United States and elsewhere suspect that the government is working toward acquiring nuclear weapons.

Iran's Hard Line Fuels Iraq Attacks
By GINA CHON, Wall Street Journal
Some of the Iraqi Shiite extremist groups that the U.S. claims are backed by Iran say they are ratcheting up attacks in Iraq in tandem with Tehran's post-election crackdown on protesters. Shiite militia leaders say a toughening resolve among hard-liners in Iran is translating into direct orders from Iran-based leaders to increase attacks, as well as inspiring militants next door in Iraq to demonstrate their influence.

Taliban militants pull out of peace deal with Pakistan governement
By the Associated Press, New York Daily News
Taliban militants in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan say they have pulled out of a peace deal with the government, raising the prospect of wider unrest as the Pakistani army extends its efforts to eliminate insurgents. The militants in North Waziristan blamed continuing U.S. missile strikes and army offensives against the Taliban for their decision, which was announced in the wake of a Taliban ambush that killed 16 soldiers. Government leaders and Taliban representatives reached the deal in February 2008, but few details have been released about it.

Iran Extends Deadline for Election Inquiry
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and ALAN COWELL, New York Times
As officials began a limited recount of Iran’s disputed presidential ballot on Monday, authorities in Tehran said they had extended by five days their deadline to investigate opposition claims of electoral fraud. The move could postpone the final certification of the ballot, which Iranian leaders insist was fair. The developments came after protesters returned on Sunday to Tehran’s streets, with the police beating and firing tear gas at several thousand demonstrators who joined a demonstration at a mosque in support of the defeated presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi. Iran also said Monday it had freed five of nine Iranian employees of the British Embassy in Tehran, detained during the weekend and accused of fomenting unrest after the June 12 vote, in which Mr. Moussavi placed second to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In London, a Foreign Office spokeswoman, speaking in return for customary anonymity, said “several” employees, had now been released, but declined to comment on reports from Tehran suggesting that Iran was seeking to ease a diplomatic dispute with Britain that has broadened to jeopardize Iran’s relationship with the entire European Union.

Tehran Hard-Liners Seek to Show Their Dominance
By CHIP CUMMINS and MARGARET COKER, Wall Street Journal
Hard-liners in Iran consolidated their advantage over protesters and opposition leaders Friday, calling for tough punishment and seeking to demonstrate their authority in security and economic and diplomatic affairs. Security-services commanders have reinforced their already heavy presence in Tehran, a week after the beginning of a brutal crackdown that has reined in unrest following contested June 12 presidential elections. Authorities were reported to be continuing to detain, question and prepare legal proceedings against opposition supporters and those alleged to have participated in recent protests. And the country's hard-line clerics have rallied behind Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declared landslide poll victory. Leading Friday prayers at Tehran University, Ayatollah Ahmed Khatami called on the country's judiciary to "firmly deal" with protest leaders and "set an example for everyone."

Stoking Fears, Baghdad Bombs Kill About a Dozen
By SAM DAGHER and ALISSA J. RUBIN, New York Times
A bomb placed in a motorbike exploded at an outdoor market in Baghdad on Friday, killing about a dozen people and wounding scores. It marked the third straight day of violence in the capital before the Tuesday deadline for American combat troops to withdraw from Iraqi cities. After another similar bombing outside a billiard hall in Baghdad later on Friday that killed two people and wounded seven, the authorities ordered all motorbikes off the streets indefinitely. Nearly 200 people were killed and hundreds were wounded in attacks over the past week in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country, with the deadliest attacks aimed at Shiites. The violence has raised fears of a new bout of sectarian warfare of the sort that ripped Iraq apart in 2005, and that could lead Iraqis once again to seek the protection of militias and armed groups instead of government forces.

Authorities Rule Iran Election ‘Healthy’
Mr. Ahmadinejad demanded an apology from President Obama
By NAZILA FATHI and ALAN COWELL, New York Times
As Iran’s leaders push back threats to their authority after the disputed presidential election, crushing street protests and pressing challengers to withdraw or to limit their objections, the country’s main electoral oversight group ruled Friday that the ballot had been the “healthiest” since the Islamic revolution in 1979. The statement by the 12-member Guardian Council, which is charged with overseeing and vetting elections, fell short of formal certification of the ballot. But it offered further evidence that, despite mass demonstrations and violent confrontation with those who call the election a fraud, the authorities are intent on enforcing their writ and denying their adversaries a voice.

The Ministry of Love-Hate
A new form of totalitarianism is being born in Iran. Why—and what—Big Brother is watching
By Christopher Dickey, Newsweek
Dictators all over the world have been watching Iran for lessons learned. Will the crackdown crush the opposition? Will the streets win out? Is there, perhaps, a Green or Orange or Velvet Revolution of some sort waiting to challenge them, too? They know that somewhere buried in their young and restive populations are the seeds of such a thing. And they also know just how tenuous their power will become if they have to face massive, measured, relentless demonstrations of the kind that changed the face of Iran last week. The Arab regimes in the neighborhood, which are almost all presidential dynasties or monarchies, appear especially confused by the spectacle of vast passive resistance. It's the one kind of challenge they've never had to face. There's no history of, nor particular respect for the ways of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King in a culture where honor is vital and violence is considered the best way to uphold it. The new Iranian revolution, if by some chance it wins out, could change all that.

Rebel Threat Pressures Somalia's Neighbors
By Alex Perry, Time
If there was any doubt as to the character of the state that threatens to emerge in Somalia should Islamist rebels overthrow its embattled government, it was dispelled Monday when a militia court sentenced four men accused of stealing three mobile phones and two AK-47s to the amputation of their right hand and left leg. The sentence, whose execution was postponed after the al Shabaab court decided the hot weather might cause the four men to bleed to death, were condemned as "cruel, inhuman and degrading" by Amnesty International. The incident highlighted both the kind of neighbor Kenya and Ethiopia might soon face, and the question of whether either country should intervene to prevent such a calamity. Pressure to do just that increased Monday when Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed declared a state of emergency and African Union President Jean Ping backed calls for armed intervention, saying the Somali government "has the right to seek support from A.U. members states and the larger international community."

The Next Explosion in Iran
By Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation
Gunfire, tear gas, and water cannons used by baton-wielding security forces in Iran have forced an uneasy calm on Tehran and other cities, but Mir Hossein Mousavi isn't backing down. And the next explosion could come when the Guardian Council, the twelve-member clerical body assigned the task of reviewing the results of the June 12 election releases its report. By all accounts, the Council -- half of whose members are appointed by, and loyal to, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the other half is nominated by Iran's Parliament and approved by Khamenei -- will ratify President Ahmadinejad's reelection.

Horrific footage of young woman shot to death
By TOM LIDDY, New York Post
A disturbing video of a young woman purportedly shot to death on the streets of Tehran during post-election protests is becoming a touchstone for the opposition. The horrific footage, posted on YouTube, shows the victim who was watching the protests with her father, collapsing after what sounds like a spray of gunfire is heard in the background. The gunman, who was "hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house, aimed straight [at] her heart," said the video's poster, a doctor who made a desperate bid to help. "I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her," he said of the victim, known on the internet as "Neda," which means "voice" in Farsi. A pair of onlookers scramble to help her in the video, grimly entitled "Basij shots to death a young woman," as she falls to the pavement. Her eyes roll back in her head and blood starts to pour from her mouth and nose as shrieks rise from the crowd. Onlookers try desperately to put pressure on her neck, but it was too late as the woman succumbed.

Tehran Girds for More Protests
Officials Say More Than A Dozen Died Saturday
By the Wall Street Journal
Iranian officials girded for further protests Sunday, a day after the bloodiest clashes in a week of demonstrations following contested June 12 elections. Authorities, quoted in state media, said they had restored calm across the capital after Saturday's explosion of violence. Iranian state television reported 13 people were killed in clashes between police and what they called "terrorist groups," according to the Associated Press. The report didn't specify how the deaths occurred, but state television reported earlier that several people were killed Saturday when "rioters" attacked a mosque in western Tehran. Iranian officials, quoted in state media, blamed the violence on organizers, who they said coerced large numbers of demonstrators onto the streets.

Mousavi vows to keep up the fight
By LUKAS I. ALPERT, New York Post
Iran's reformist opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi vowed yesterday to keep up the fight over his nation's disputed election, saying he was "ready for martyrdom" as police attacked thousands of his supporters with tear gas, water cannons and batons. Coming a day after Iran's "supreme leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned of bloodshed if massive protests didn't cease, more than 3,000 regime opponents took to the streets near Tehran's Revolution Square, clashing with police and shouting "Death to dictatorship." The bloody confrontation left at least seven people dead and 50-60 people injured, witnesses said. In one stunning instance, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, killing two and injuring eight, state media reported. Officials blamed Mousavi's supporters for the bombing -- but the opposition said it could have been staged by the regime to stir up anger against them. President Obama slammed the repressive government yesterday, his strongest words since the country descended into chaos following last week's disputed election.

67 men face whipping in Saudi Arabia for dressing as women
By the New York Daily News
Sixty-seven men in Saudi Arabia face jail and lashes after being arrested at a party in drag, officials said Saturday. "They had alcohol and some were dressed up like women," Philippines embassy Vice Consul Roussel Reyes said. Both drinking and cross-dressing are forbidden under Saudi Arabia's conservative Islam-based sharia laws, and both could bring up to six months in prison and lashes. None were charged with homosexual acts, a much more serious charge under Saudi law, Reyes said. The men have all been released to their employers while formal charges are drawn up, he added.

Rockets Kill 2 Troops at Bagram Base
By the Associated Press, New York Times
A rare rocket attack on the main U.S. base in Afghanistan early Sunday killed two U.S. troops and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians, officials said. Bagram Air Base, which lies 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Kabul, is surrounded by high mountains and long stretches of desert from which militants could fire rockets. But such attacks, particularly lethal ones, are relatively rare. Two U.S. troops died and six Americans were wounded, including four military personnel and two civilians, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman. The top government official in Bagram, Kabir Ahmad, said several rockets were fired at the base early Sunday. A spokesman with NATO's International Security Assistance Force said that three rounds landed inside Bagram and one landed outside. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't the office's top spokesman.

Tehran dispatch: Supreme Leader speaks
Khamanei gives a green light for a crackdown
Salon Editor's note: For reasons of personal safety, the author chooses to remain anonymous,
The event looks more like the old Red Square May Day parades. All of Iran, watching in person, or on television, takes careful note of who is there, and who is not. Supreme Leader Khamanei is there, as is President Ahmadinejad as are Larajani and Haddad Adel. So is Mohsen Rezai, former commander of the Revolutionary Guard and one-time electoral foe of Ahmadinejad, sitting in the back of the VIP section. Karroubi, Mousavi, Rafsanjani and Khatami are not. Supreme Leader Khamanei starts speaking. He emphasizes that difference in opinion, difference in program between candidates is normal, natural. But beware, he says, for months the enemy had been laying the groundwork to label these elections a fraud. "The enemies of Iran are targeting the Islamic establishment's legitimacy by questioning the election. ... After street protests, some foreign powers started to interfere." With the exception of the vote for the Islamic Republic in spring of 1979, Supreme Leader insists, this election was without rival. Iran represents a third way, between dictatorships and the false democracies of the rest of the world. When Khamanei speaks of the violence, it is clear that the regime is laying the groundwork for a crackdown. Chaos has to be stopped. The way of the law, rahe qanun, must prevail. There are laws and we cannot allow the killing or violence to continue, either by basijis or opposition. But it is clear whom he holds responsible. "The result of the election comes out of the ballot box, not from the street," he says. "If there is any bloodshed, leaders of the protests will be held directly responsible."

Bomb Kills at Least 25 in Iraq
By the ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Times
A truck bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq following prayers, killing at least 30 people and wounding dozens, police said. The blast came hours after Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called the withdrawal of U.S. troops from cities by the end of this month a ''great victory'' and promised it would go ahead as scheduled. Officials have warned that insurgents are likely to stage more attacks in the wake of the withdrawal to try to undermine confidence in the government's ability to protect its people. Worshippers were leaving the mosque in Taza, 10 miles (20 kilometers) south of Kirkuk, following noon prayers when the truck exploded, according to police Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qader, who gave the casualty toll. He said the mosque and at least eight nearby houses were demolished and residents were working with rescue teams to search for people buried under the rubble. Women begged police to let them near the site so they could search for loved ones while ambulances rushed victims to the overwhelmed hospital in Kirkuk. Three babies cried as they were placed on a single hospital bed to be treated.

Analysis: Twitter won't bring down Ahmadinejad
The real action in Iran is in the streets...Social media is documenting the revolution -- not leading it
By Mike Madden, Salon
You've tinted your Twitter picture green. You've tweaked the settings on your social networking accounts so it looks for all the world like you're in Tehran. You carefully edit out any Persian-sounding screen names from all the news bulletins out of Iran that you pass along to your own network. Maybe you've even launched futuristic-seeming attacks from your laptop that you're sure will help fight back against the Supreme Leader and his e-cronies. But before you -- or the media -- get too carried away with all the Iranian cyber-activism, take a step back. Yes, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and other social media sites are helping the world outside Iran learn about what's happened there since last Friday's apparently phony elections, especially since the regime has barred foreign journalists from doing their job. And the eruption of solidarity in the U.S. and around the world is clearly important symbolically. Still, so far there isn't much evidence that the Internet is driving events in Tehran -- the protesters don't seem to be using it to plan, and the government's hackers don't seem to be doing as much of the malicious tracking as people here think they are. The revolution, to borrow the Gil Scott-Heron-inspired phrase that's been thrown around a lot in the last week, may not actually be Twittered, after all.

Ruling Cleric Warns Iranian Protesters
By NAZILA FATHI and ALAN COWELL, New York Times
In his first public response to six days of unrest, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, sternly warned opposition supporters on Friday to stay off the streets and denied their accusations that last week’s presidential election was rigged, praising the officially declared landslide for the incumbent as an “epic moment that became a historic moment.” In a somber and lengthy sermon at Friday prayers at Tehran University, Mr. Khamenei seemed to raise the stakes of the confrontation, according to Iranian and regional analysts, by evoking the possibility of bloodshed if the defiant days of vast protests continued. Opposition leaders, he said, would be “responsible for chaos” if they did not call off the demonstrators. “Street challenge is not acceptable,” Ayatollah Khamenei said, according to a translation by the BBC. “This questions the principles of election and democracy.” His remarks seemed to deepen the confrontation between Iran’s rulers and supporters of the main opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, who have accused the authorities of rigging the vote and called for or encouraged the huge silent marches of recent days.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard warns of crackdown on online media in face of continued demonstrations
By the ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Daily News
Iran's opposition announced a third day of street demonstrations Wednesday as the country's most powerful military force warned of a crackdown against online media in its first pronouncement on the deepening election crisis. Blogs and Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been vital conduits for Iranians to inform the world about protests over Friday's disputed election. Pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his supporters accuse the government of rigging the election to declare hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner. The Web became more essential after the government barred foreign media Tuesday from leaving their offices to report on demonstrations on the streets of Tehran.

In Iran, an Iron Cleric, Now Blinking
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR, New York Times
For two decades, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has remained a shadowy presence at the pinnacle of power in Iran, sparing in his public appearances and comments. Through his control of the military, the judiciary and all public broadcasts, the supreme leader controlled the levers he needed to maintain an iron if discreet grip on the Islamic republic. But in a rare break from a long history of cautious moves, he rushed to bless President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for winning the election, calling on Iranians to line up behind the incumbent even before the standard three days required to certify the results had passed. Few suggest yet that Ayatollah Khamenei’s hold on power is at risk. But, analysts say, he has opened a serious fissure in the face of Islamic rule and one that may prove impossible to patch over, particularly given the fierce dispute over the election that has erupted amid the elite veterans of the 1979 revolution. Even his strong links to the powerful Revolutionary Guards — long his insur