Terrorism Watch

Source: IANS on Yahoo Washington, Oct 28 (IANS) Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, was planning to use an American national to carry out another major attack in India, the FBI said Tuesday. The man, identified as David Coleman Headley, was arrested early this month by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force at O'Hare International Airport before boarding a flight to Philadelphia, intending to travel on to Pakistan. Headley, 49, along with a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin, have been arrested on charges of plotting a terror attack against the facilities and employees of a Danish newspaper which had published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in 2005, federal law enforcement officials announced Tuesday. The Pakistani-Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 48, also known as Tahawar Rana, was also a resident of Chicago and was arrested by the FBI Oct 18. Rana is the owner of several busin

VOA Source:VOA B y Alan Boswell   Nairobi 22 October 2009 The rise in piracy off the Somali coast has resulted in more global piracy cases in 2009 than in all of 2008, according to a maritime watchdog group. Despite the rise in attacks, the number of successful hijackings has fallen.  The International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce, reports 306 piracy incidents have been reported in the first three quarters of 2009 compared to 293 reported in all of 2008.  The group attributes the jumps in total attacks from last year to Somali pirates. Attacks in the Gulf of Aden have nearly doubled, and attacks east of the Somali coast have increased nearly four-fold.  The piracy appears to be increasing in armed intensity as well. The group reports the number of attacks that involved the use of firearms has doubled from 2008.  International Maritime Bureau Director Pottengal Mukundan sees a silver lining in the grim statistics.  "What is very interesti

Source: VOA B y Douglas Mpuga   Washington, DC 24 October 2009 Uganda and Burundi have condemned threats made by Somalia's Islamist Al Shabaab insurgents to strike Kampala and Bujumbura. The threats come in response to a firefight Thursday between peacekeepers and insurgents in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing at least 30 people.  The violence broke out after Islamists fired on Somali president’s plane as he headed to Kampala for an African Union summit on refugees and internally displaced persons. Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni has warned the Islamist rebels that they will pay a heavy price if they carry out their attacks, and Burundi authorities say they take the threats seriously. Major Bahoku Barigye, the spokesperson for the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, said the two countries do not take the threat from Al Shabaab lightly. But, he said, “the threats on Burundi and Uganda and the threats of terrorism elsewhere in the world have existed for some t

Source:  VOA News   27 October 2009 Pakistan's army pushed deeper into the Taliban territory in the lawless tribal region of South Waziristan Tuesday, claiming to have killed 42 militants. The government offensive into the insurgent stronghold bordering Afghanistan follows a string of attacks blamed on the Pakistani Taliban based in the tribal area. Earlier this month, a senior U.S. diplomat said Washington strongly believes al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden is hiding in the region. In Islamabad Tuesday, gunmen attacked a high-ranking Pakistani army officer in the capital's second shooting targeting a senior officer in less than a week. The army officer escaped unhurt. With Tuesday's death toll, the military says 239 militants and at least 31 troops have been killed since the operation started on October 17. The numbers could not be independently verified because journalists are not allowed in the battle zone. About 30,000 troops moved into South Waziristan from three

Source:  VOA News   28 October 2009 A United Nations spokesman in Afghanistan says militants have killed at least six U.N. workers and wounded nine others during an attack on an international guesthouse in the capital, Kabul.  Many of the victims are believed to be foreigners. Local police said at least three gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed the compound before dawn Wednesday.  They fought pitched battles with security forces for two hours before they either detonated their explosives or were shot dead. A Taliban spokesman later took credit for the attack, calling it a "first step" to disrupt next month's presidential runoff election.  The raid targeted a guest house popular with foreign U.N. workers in an affluent part of the city that includes residential homes, shops and government buildings.  On Tuesday, eight U.S. soldiers and an Afghan civilian working with them were killed in a series of bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan. The deaths made October the d

Source: FP Take it from someone who has spent the last half-decade studying terrorist plots: A homeless al Qaeda is the best guarantee against large-scale attacks. BY JIM ARKEDIS | OCTOBER 23, 2009 As deliberations about the Obama administration's strategic direction in Afghanistan unfold, the White House is weighing whether al Qaeda, in fact, needs an Afghan safe haven -- an expanse of land under the protection of the Taliban -- to reconstitute its capability to attack the United States. Many noted scholars doubt it. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass bluntly stated, "Al Qaeda does not require Afghan real estate to constitute a regional or global threat." He's wrong. Although the group has been significantly weakened since late 2001, the only chance al Qaeda has of rebuilding its capability to conduct a large-scale terrorist operation against the United States is under the Taliban's umbrella of protection.

Source: PTTInews By Lewis Lehe / Columnist published: Sun, 18 Oct, 2009 In May, Afghan authorities locked up Khanzir. The public was scared he might give somebody the H1N1 virus. It was unlikely that Khanzir was a threat, though. Who would give him the virus in the first place? After all, ever since his domestic partner died two years ago, Khanzir has lived a lonely existence as the only pig in Afghanistan — a country equal in size to Texas minus Massachusetts and Vermont. He lives in the Kabul zoo. Khanzir is the only pig in Afghanistan because the strict interpretation of Islamic law in most of Afghanistan prohibits the sale of pigs. This is how powerful sharia is in Afghanistan, even eight years after our invasion. On the other side of the Earth, President Barack Obama is considering what to do about more serious threats than H1N1. In the rural areas beyond Khanzir’s zoo, the Taliban is winning. Unfortunately, the proposed 40,000-soldier surge will not work, because the goals of the

Source: BBC News Thousands of militants have surrendered under an amnesty Nigeria's main armed group in the oil-rich Delta region has announced a new, indefinite ceasefire. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) said it had been encouraged by the government's "readiness to engage" in serious talks. Earlier this month a Mend splinter group lifted a ceasefire and threatened to resume a campaign of violence. But Mend said on Sunday a new ceasefire had been ordered to "encourage the process of dialogue". Militant groups have flourished in the delta amid a lack of governance and rule of law. They claim to be fighting to help local people benefit from the region's oil wealth, but they fund their activities with oil theft, extortion and kidnapping. Attacks on oil installations and their employees have cut Nigeria's output by a third in the past three years and helped raise oil prices

Source: BBC NEWS By Mary Harper BBC News Militia groups are accused of trying to brainwash the young Hundreds of people in Somalia have been forced to watch Islamist militants executing two people accused of spying. People in Merca said al-Shabaab militia patrolled the town with loudspeakers, demanding they attend the executions. The militants also ordered schools to close for the day as they were keen for children to watch the two men being shot dead by a firing squad. Most of those at the execution, on a patch of open ground, are reported to have been women and children. It is becoming something of a pattern for al-Shabaab to encourage young people to engage in violence. It recently organised a quiz for young men in the southern town of Kismayo. The prizes included AK-4

Source: DNA Hua Hin: Concerned that the surge of terrorism in Pakistan might spill over across its borders, India and China have struck common cause. Beijing will despatch its Communist Party politburo member in charge of security, Zhou Yongkang, to New Delhi next month to discuss how the two countries can cooperate to contain jehadi elements from Pakistan. Zhou, likely to be in the capital on November 16 (though the visit has not yet been officially announced), will meet national security advisor MK Narayanan and home minister P Chidambaram. China is concerned that the resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan will lead to jehadi influence in the Muslim-dominated Xinjiang area, which has of late seen major clashes between Uighurs and Han Chinese. Pakistan-Afghanistan will also be on the agenda of prime minister Manmohan Singh and his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao when they meet on Saturday on the sidelines of the Asean summit in Thailand. Earlier this week, Singh

Source: times online (Sabah Arar/AFP/Getty Images) Two blasts rocked central Baghdad, including this one near the Justice Ministry Twin car bombings in central Baghdad killed at least 136 people today in what looks like the start to a blood-drenched election campaign. The attacks - the deadliest in two years - occurred along a road thronged with traffic and destroyed three government buildings, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Public Works and the Baghdad governor's office, where ten members of parliament were attending a meeting. The bombs exploded within two minutes of each other at around 10:30 in the morning, First came a smaller bomb outside the Baghdad governorate, driving pedestrians north along Haifa street towards a ministerial complex 500 metres away, where the second and larger bomb went off. Hospitals overflowed with more than 600 wounded and columns of brown smoke hung over the city for hours. Haifa Street, which runs north from the

Source: Kathmandu Post NEW DELHI, OCT 25 - Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram has said that Indian Maoists might be acquiring weapons through Nepal. “There is no evidence of any money flowing in from abroad to the Maoists. But there is certainly evidence of weapons being smuggled from abroad through Myanmar or Bangladesh, which reaches the Maoists,” Chidambaram told PTI in New Delhi. “We know now that the weapons are coming through Bangladesh and Myanmar and possibly Nepal. The Indo-Nepal border is very porous.” He said police have not found any weapons with Pakistani marking. Asked whether some weapons are coming through Nepal, he said, “it is possible”. “In terms of the threat to security from internal sources, Naxalism remains the biggest threat.” Asked whether there is any Pakistan angle, Chidambaram said they were not sure where the weapons are originating from. “Even after this statement, if people romanticise the Naxalites, all I can say is that only God can help them.” Aske