Terrorism Watch

Source: NDTV Click to Expand & Play Bhubaneswar:  Security forces in Orissa are clearly on the offensive against Naxals over the last two months. Nine Naxals including four women were gunned down in Naxal-hit Rayagada district in the early hours of Sunday. The hilltop encounter near Sikarpai village came after a tipoff that a 25-member squad was camping here. The Special Operation Group and the CRPF raided the hill and engaged the Maoists in a gunbattle between 2 and 4 am. In the morning, police recovered nine bodies, including that of K Ravi, a dreaded Maoist commander responsible for violence in Rayagada and Gajapati districts. Explosive materials and five guns including an INSAS rifle, two pistols and ammunition were also found in the area. Clearly, the Maoists were poorly armed. And significantly, most of the women from the local militia are not trained in jungle warfare. Thanks to the initiatives ta

Source: Business day CLASHES were reported in the disputed Abyei region of Sudan on Saturday, a day after Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir warned that renewed fighting in the disputed region posed a threat to peace after Southern Sudan’s referendum, which got under way yesterday . Mr al-Bashir warned that one of Abyei’s two main tribes, the Dinka Ngok, may enforce its affiliations with the south and provoke the pro-north Misseriya. Abyei, considered a flashpoint district, sits on Sudan’s ill-defined north-south border. It is seen as a microcosm of all the conflicts that have split Sudan for decades — ethnic tension, ambiguous boundaries, oil and age-old resentments. Northerners and southerners fought hard over it during decades of civil war and have continued to clash there even after the 2005 peace deal that ended the war and set up the referendum. It contains rich pastureland, water and, after a recent redrawing of its boundary, one significant oil field — Defra

Source: All Africa Khartoum — The Federal Alliance of Eastern Sudan (FAES), a splinter group of the former rebel Eastern Front, merged today with the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) reaffirming the need to step up resistance to overthrow Bashir's government. The Eastern Front, a former rebel group in eastern Sudan, signed a peace agreement sponsored by the Eritrean government on 14 October 2007. The deal ended a rebellion started in 1996 with the support of an umbrella of opposition groups called National Democratic Alliance including the SPLM. The FAES rejected the peace accord and claimed it was forged by Eritrean and Sudanese governments to normalize bilateral relations but it does not contribute to end the marginalization of the region or bring economic development. Speaking from a JEM controlled area, FAES leader Abdel Moneim Muhi Al-Deen Ahmed told Sudan Tribune that their decision to merge with the western Sudan rebel group was motivated by their desire to end th

Source: All Africa Nairobi — Weeks after Sudan's election in April, John Chuol Dhol stood before the Government of Southern Sudan's Cabinet which was in the process of discussing the region's food preparedness. "I said, 'Where is the money? Why do we depend on donors and the EU?'" Dhol, the Director-General for Agriculture in the Government of Southern Sudan, recalls: "I was mad." Later that month, as he was sworn-in as the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir made agriculture a Number 1 priority after security for his government. He said he did not expect resources from oil to be spent on building "bureaucratic empires," air-conditioned vehicles or on travel abroad. "They have to be utilised for uplifting the life of the rural populace and raising their capacity to better till the land..." Over the past five years, officials have showcased agriculture as the future of the region. At one point in 20

Source: Anyuakmedia Posted to the web on January 10, 2011   January 8, 2011 (BENTUI/JUBA) – At least six people have been killed and 26 taken hostage in clashes over the weekend in Unity state between rebel militias and southern Sudan’s army – the SPLA – as the military give conflicting details on the attack, which comes days ahead of a referendum on the region’s independence. SPLA spokesperson Philip Aguer, said the southern Sudan army ambushed militia loyal to Galwak Gai. He also claimed in statements to Reuters they were sent by Khartoum to disrupt the south’s referendum. "They were coming from the north to disrupt the referendum. It is a known game. The spoilers are always here. They definitely came from Khartoum," he told Reuters. On Saturday

Source: Global research 1.27 million names of "terrorism suspects" in U.S. government's data bank by Tom Burghardt During his 2008 run for the presidency, Senator Barack Obama promised to reverse the Bush regime's pathological penchant for secrecy and the illegal programs that flourished in darkness like so many poisonous mushrooms. Administration backpedaling on promises to end the more onerous features of the Bush years betray, not so much Obama's duplicity but rather, the naïve and misplaced hope by his supporters that a centrist Democrat beholden to the corporate pirates and militarists who rule the roost, would actually do things any differently. In areas of critical importance to civil libertarians, the Democratic regime continues to beef up Bushist programs and heighten government secrecy while limiting public accountability, particularly where the intelligence and security apparatus is concerned. How else explain Obama's plan, bu

Homeland security news wire Published 31 December 2010 Now a single tip about a terror link will be enough for inclusion in the watch list for U.S. security officials, who have also evolved a quicker system to share the database of potential terrorists among screening agencies; a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official said that officials have now "effectively in a broad stroke lowered the bar for inclusion" in the list; the new criteria have led to only modest growth in the list, which stands at 440,000 people, about 5 percent more than last year; also, instead of sending data once a night to the Terrorist Screening Center's watch list, which can take hours, the new system should be able to update the watch list almost instantly as names are entered An upgraded, more comprehensive system // Source: wired.com Now a single tip about a terror link will be enough for inclusion in the watch list for U.S. security officials, who have also evolved a quicker system