Terrorism Watch

Source: The Hindu Area near Army, Air Force hq. bombed COLOMBO: At least two persons were believed dead and 40 others injured as two light wing aircraft of the LTTE dropped a bomb in the heart of the national capital on Friday night. Power was switched off in the city after the radar system detected two aircraft heading towards the capital around 9 p.m. Sounds of explosions and continuous firing could be heard. The Sri Lanka Air Force (SLAF) confirmed that the two LTTE aircraft were seen above Colombo around 9.15 p.m. After the radar detected the intrusion, the air defence system was activated and the aircraft “aborted their mission.” The SLAF claimed that one LTTE aircraft was destroyed and the body of its pilot found near the Katunayake airbase. However, there was no independent confir

Source: TIMES OF INDIA NEW DELHI: Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) ringleaders had ambitions well beyond Mumbai and had placed India's financial hub in a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, Britain’s daily Guardian said in a report published on Thursday. According to the report, western intelligence agencies that accessed the computer and email account of the Lashkar’s communications chief Zarar Shah found a list of possible targets, only 20 of which were in India. Two of the November 2008 attack's key planners - Shah and Lashkar's operations chief Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi - are now in police custody in Pakistan. Analysts say the computer list is more of a statement of intent because Lashkar would need time to set up terrorist cells in so many places. Islamabad's decision to bring criminal charges against nine men accused of involvement in the Mumbai attack has partly placated Indian officials but the government in New Delhi has sai

Source: AFP 54 minutes ago PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A suicide bomber attacked a funeral procession for an assassinated local Shiite Muslim leader in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing 30 people and putting furious mobs on the rampage. The explosion took place near a Shiite mosque in Dera Ismail Khan, a town on the edge of Pakistan's restive tribal areas with a history of sectarian violence, which has been on the rise in the Sunni-majority country. "Thirty people have died and 65 are injured," Saadullah Khan, a police official in the town, told AFP by telephone. Hospital and police officials earlier put the death toll at 20, with dozens of others wounded. Police said the attack was carried out by a suicide bomber. Soldiers were ordered to deploy and a curfew enforced after intense volleys of gunfire from panicked mourners at the funeral for the late Sher Zaman degenerated into angry riots. The attack came two weeks after 35 people died in a suspected suicide bombing a

Whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents say they're victims of 'prejudice' Johann Hari Source: The Independent The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid. Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism – giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds – are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect" religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the side of the religious censors. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Today, the Chinese dictatorshi

Source: Outlookindia Why was the arrest and release on bail of The Statesman editor and publisher largely ignored by media? The governments may have electoral compulsions, but has the media totally given up the battle for free speech? ...... Rajinder Puri Early February, The Statesman in Kolkata reproduced an article titled "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?" by Johann Hari reproduced from London's The Independent. The article described how the hypersensitivity of religious fundamentalists was gradually curtailing free speech and rational discourse to make a mockery of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted 60 years ago. In the article there were sceptical allusions to matters of faith ignoring scientific evidence that prevailed in many religions – Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. Some Muslims in Kolkata objected to certain references to Islam in that article. They agitated outside the newspaper office for several days. The newspaper

Source: Indiatoday As the liberals inside Pakistan and the Western governments felt that the Zardari-Gilani government has fallen into the deadly Taliban trap by signing the deal with the militants to allow Sharia law to be imposed in the Swat Valley, the two leaders clarified that it (the deal) should not be seen as a 'sign of weakness'. The newspapers on Wednesday splashed the meeting between President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to review the Swat peace deal and hoped it would pave the way for permanent peace in the whole country. The Dawn, Daily Times among others said that the two leaders were of the view that the deal signed with Tehrik Nifaz Shriat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) should not be construed as a 'weakness' as it was inked to restore peace for benefit of local people. Daily Times quoting President Asif Ali Zardari said the implementation of the Nizam-e-Adl Regulations 2009 in Malakand division will not affect the government's policy on the war against t

By MARK DUBOWITZ and ROBERTA BONAZZI | From today's Wall Street Journal Europe. Their propaganda notwithstanding, Hamas and, two years ago, Hezbollah suffered devastating military defeats that may diminish their ability to attack Israel with rocket fire. But these Iranian-backed terrorist organizations are deploying another dangerous weapon in their war against Western democracies -- terrorist television stations. AP Watching terror programs at your home in Duisburg. Thanks to Arab satellite companies, Hezbollah's al-Manar and Hamas's al-Aqsa TV stations can still beam their incitement and hatred into European living rooms, radicalizing Muslim immigrants throughout the Continent. Al-Manar, however, is not a mere propaganda tool. Founded in 1991 by Hezbollah guerillas, it is an operational weapon in the hands of a deadly terrorist organization. Following a 2006 letter to then-President George W. Bush signed by a majority of the U.S. Senate, including Barack Obama and H

2/17/2009 2:01 PM ET ( RTTNews ) - 8 people, including two terrorists, have been killed and 16 others wounded in a car bomb explosion outside the home of a government official in Pakistan's volatile North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Tuesday. Reports quoting the police said the terrorists were apparently targeting the mayor of Bazidkhel near the city of Peshawar, who was campaigning against the Taliban. He survived the attack unhurt. The terrorists, who tried to escape after detonating the bomb hidden in a car parked outside Mayor Fahim-ur-Rehman&#

Phares sees "two stages in...a decline but not yet the end of Al-Qaeda." September 17, 2008 The U.S. change of command in Iraq this week comes with violence levels at four-year lows and a slight reduction planned in U.S. troop figures. Although large-scale attacks remain a concern, many observers regard a weakening of Al-Qaeda in Iraq as a major reason for the reduction of bloodshed. Walid Phares, a visiting fellow at the European Foundation for Democracy in Brussels and senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, talks to RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel about Al-Qaeda's setbacks in Iraq and the future of its ideology. He says young Muslim minds must be offered "a model of pluralism and democracy" as an alternative to a "fighting caliphate." RFE/RL: After many battles between Al-Qaeda and its former Sunni insurgent alli

Poland has joined the ranks of countries accusing Pakistan of inaction, if not outright complicity in terrorist activity, following the beheading last week of a Polish national by the Pakistani Taliban. In a furious response that has stunned the international diplomatic community, Polish justice minister Andrzej Czuma on Monday blamed Pakistan's ''apathy'' in tackling terrorism for the killing of a Polish geologist who was kidnapped by the Pakistani Taliban from Attock town in Punjab. "The structure of the Pakistani government is behind this apathy. The Pakistani authorities encourage these bandits," Czuma told a Polish news agency, even as the horrific killing recalled the similar beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The minister’s outburst stunned his own colleagues in the diplomatic circuit who are a little more circumspect in public about Pakistan’s reputation as a haven of terrorism. ''It was unnecessary h

Source: Radio free europe As long as Pakistan's youth have little choice but conservative religious education, they will be trapped in the same cycle of poverty and extremism. February 13, 2009 By M. D. Nalapat Muslims across the world have a right to be angry. Despite being blessed with natural riches and an expanding population, 60 percent of them are illiterate, a figure that rises to more than 70 percent in the case of women. More than half the world's Muslims live under authoritarian rule and are denied the right to vote and other benefits of democracy. Access to travel and modern education is reserved for the elite, as is the ownership of assets. In short, the long-established elites in many Muslim-majority countries have so monopolized power and its benefits that the rest of the population continues to suffer discrimination and lack of opportunity Take the example of Pakistan, a coun

Source: Timesofindia 15 Feb 2009, 0036 hrs IST, Shobhan Saxena , TNN When you are locked in a war of nerves with an old adversary, you can't wait for him to blink. But that's what seems to have happened. All of a Who's winning? sudden, Pakistan looks like a changed entity — not plotting and scheming against India, but cooperating in the war on terror by hunting down the perpetrators of the Mumbai attacks. Pakistan's generals are unusually quiet; the politicians are saying the right things and there is not even a murmur of media protest about "giving in to pressure from India". Islamabad's tough knees would appear to have buckled under India-led international pressure. The world community, led by the US, is patting Pakistan on the back for this "positive development". So far, so good. But security experts and international analysts are asking a further pertinent question: Is there really a change of heart in Islamabad?

Source: Gaurdian The mountainous borderlands where Afghanistan meets Pakistan have been described as a Grand Central Station for Islamic terrorists, a place where militants come and go and the Taliban trains its fighters. Now Barack Obama has made solving the 'Af-Pak' question a top priority. But could the battle to tame the Pashtun heartland become his Vietnam? ? Jason Burke in London, Yama Omid in Kabul, Paul Harris in Washington, Saeed Shah in Islamabad and Gethin Chamberlain in Delhi The Observer, Sunday 15 February 2009 Article history Relaxing one evening last week at the Cuckoo's Cafe, a rooftop restaurant in the heart of the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, Barack Obama's special envoy to Pak

Source: Peoplesdily online The collision between a Russian satellite and a U.S. satellite highlights the growing importance of making international laws to monitor human activities in space,a Russian military expert told Xinhua in an interview on Friday. The root cause of the Russia-U.S. satellite collision is the lack of international rules on space activities, said Leonid Ivashov, the president of Russia's Academy on Geopolitical Affairs. No matter whether Tuesday's collision is intentional or not, it would further strain the tensions in the space situation, and even lead to the use of force, whose consequences will be very grave, Ivashov said. He expressed concern over new challenges faced by the international security system as a result of the first-ever crash of two intact spacecrafts in orbit. In fact, such challenges have long existed, Ivashov said, noting that a spy satellite destroyed by the United States last year might have been carrying radioactive substances. In hi