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Showing posts from December 5, 2010

Pak media publish fake anti-India WikiLeaks cables

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Source: IBNLIVE Islamabad: Several leading Pakistani newspapers reproduced an elaborate Internet hoax based on purported diplomatic cables from the US embassy in India that spoke of alleged rifts between top Indian Army generals and a "Bosnia-like genocide" in Jammu and Kashmir. The Nation and The News dailies put the report on their front pages while The Express Tribune , a partner of the International Herald Tribune , carried it on an inside page. The report was also carried by the Urdu newspapers Nawai Waqt and Jang . The report, which quoted purported secret US diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, claimed one cable had described former Indian Army chief Gen. Deepak Kapoor as an "incompetent combat leader" and "rather a geek". It claimed another cable as suggesting that a tug-of-war between Kapoor and current army chief Gen. V K Singh had divided the force into "two groups". The report claimed yet another US cable had sai

WikiLeaks Cable: Hollywood Helps Fight Terrorism

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 Source: mediabistro By Matthew Fleischer on December 9, 2010 1:37 PM Yet another interesting tidbit has come out of the WikiLeaks cables. It seems officials overseas think Hollywood film and television does more to win the hearts and minds of people in the Middle East than all of our propaganda efforts. Which is pretty obvious if you think about it. One 2009 cable reveals that officials think shows like Desperate Housewives , of all things, are preventing the radicalization of Saudi youth. “It’s still all about the war of ideas here, and the American programming on MBC and Rotana is winning over ordinary Saudis in a way that al-Hurra and other US propaganda never could,” the cable says. “Saudis are now very interested in the outside world and everybody wants to study in the US if they can. They are fascinated by US culture in a way they never were before.” No dispatches have yet been dug up on the effects of Jersey Shore on the radicalization of Muslim youth.

Terrorism resurges in Russia with new faces, old targets

Source: Xinhunet MOSCOW, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russia experienced a surge of terrorist attacks in 2010 after a relative lull in recent years, seeing a younger generation of attackers adopt new strategies, but still target state buildings. The resurgence of terrorists erased the government's hopes that it has defeated terrorism after Ramzan Kadyrov, a strong pro-government leader, was appointed to terrorists' main stronghold, the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya. Since the beginning of this year, Russia has witnessed at least 24 major terrorist attacks, all but two in the North Caucasus region. However, one of the two attacks claimed more lives than the total claimed in the rest 23 combined. Nearly all these attacks, including the most bloody one in March, are definitely linked with insurgents in the North Caucasian region. Thus it's time for the Russian government to change its old-style battle against terrorists who have changed their tactics to hide deepe

China and its friends come off as bullies on world stage

 Source: Montreal gazzette By JANET BAGNALL, The Gazette December 10, 2010     This morning, in Oslo city hall's marble auditorium, an empty chair will stand in for a man who could not get there: Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo, this year's Nobel Peace Prize laureate. A glittering ceremony will acknowledge Liu's fight for human rights and democracy in his homeland, but he will learn nothing of it. He will remain locked up in a Chinese prison for another 10 years for "subversion against the state." Even his relatives were prevented from leaving China to attend the ceremony in Oslo. Liu's wife is under house arrest; other family members are under police surveillance. China has managed to distinguish itself even against the standards of Nazi Germany, a feat unmatched since 1936, when Germany prevented journalist Carl von Ossietzky from leaving the country to accept the Peace Prize. The Nazi regime made do with keeping Ossietzky (or anyo

Pak spy agencies admit having Adiala Jail's "missing prisoners" in their custody

Source: Sify The mystery of eleven missing prisoners of Adiala Jail has finally been solved, as Pakistan's top intelligence agencies have confessed before the Supreme Court that the terror accused are in their custody, and are being tried under the Army Act. During the course of the court proceedings, Raja Muhammad Irshad, counsel for the federation, the Pakistan Army, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Intelligence Bureau (IB) the Military Intelligence (MI), told a three-member bench that the missing prisoners had been in their custody after being arrested during a massive operation, the Daily Times reported. They were in safe and secure hands and would be charged under the Army Act, he said, adding that their trial would be held in the General Field Court Martial in accordance with law. Giving details of the incident, he said that the eleven prisoners, soon after their release from the jail, had voluntarily submitted themselves in the custody of people

Terrorism’s Supermarket

Source: Newsweek Why Pakistan keeps exporting jihad. Faisal Shahzad, the would-be terrorist of Times Square, seems to have followed a familiar path. Like many earlier recruits to jihad, he was middle-class, educated, seemingly assimilated—and then something happened that radicalized him. We may never be sure what made him want to kill innocent men, women, and children. But his story shares another important detail with many of his predecessors: a connection to Pakistan. The British government has estimated that 70 percent of the terror plots it has uncovered in the past decade can be traced back to Pakistan. Pakistan remains a terrorist hothouse even as jihadism is losing favor elsewhere in the Muslim world. From Egypt to Jordan to Malaysia to Indonesia, radical Islamic groups have been weakened militarily and have lost much of the support they had politically. Why not in Pakistan? The answer is simple: from its founding, the Pakistani government has supported and encouraged jihad

Shocking! China blocked move to ban Lashkar and co : wikileaks

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Source: Rediff China, at the apparent request of Pakistan, put a "technical hold" on an Indian request to the UN Security Council to slap sanctions on three terrorists, says a secret State Department cable of December 2009 signed off by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "On the international stage, Pakistan has sought to block the UNSCR 1267 listings of Pakistan-based or affiliated terrorists by requesting that China place holds on the nominations. China recently placed a technical hold on the designation of three Pakistan-based or affiliated terrorists nominated by India, although China did not prevent the most recent Pakistan-related US designation nomination in June," says the secret State Department cable, which primarily deals with the issue of terrorist financing. The United States, which has charged the Wikileaks of indulging in a criminal act by stealing and releasing these cables, has neither confirmed nor denied the authenticity of t

The LWOT: Wikileaks: Saudi citizens "most significant" terrorism funders

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source: Foreign policy Foreign Policy and the New America Foundation bring you a twice weekly brief on the legal war on terror. You can read it on foreignpolicy.com or get it delivered directly to your inbox -- just sign up here . BY ANDREW LEBOVICH | DECEMBER 7, 2010 Wikileaks reveal role of Saudis in terrorist financing Despite progress in blunting the movement of money destined for terrorist groups, U.S. State Department cables released by the website Wikileaks reveal concern among officials of the continued flow of money to groups like al Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Taliban, and Hamas ( AJE , Bloomberg ). While the cables cover various means terrorist groups use to raise money, from tours of Scandinavia to bank robberies in Yemen, cables from Washington expressed concern about the role of Saudi citizens in funding these groups, especially during the Hajj pilgrimage and the holy month of Ramadan ( CNN ). According to one cable signed

LeT used Haj money to fund 26/11

Source: ET LONDON/WASHINGTON: Cash from Haj pilgrims was used to finance the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack by Lashkar-e-Toiba, a US embassy cable published by WikiLeaks has revealed. According to the cable, LeT’s annual military operations budget is $5.2 million. A Sky News report cited the New York Times as detailing a long list of possible methods terrorists might have been using to fund activities. One memo claims militants often used the annual Haj pilgrimage for laundering money and cash from pilgrims. This, the memo says, was also used to finance the Mumbai terror attack, for which LeT was responsible. Other documents have claimed the US believes donors from Saudi Arabia are “the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” A memo sent by the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December, 2009, referred to the kingdom as a “cash machine” for a

Wikileaks Publishes List of Targets For Terrorism, U.S. Vows to Fight Back

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Source: Dailytech Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has published a set of top targets to undermine U.S. national security.   (Source: The Confluence) Among the targets listed are relatively unsecure dams on the U.S.-Mexican border, such as the Rio Grande's Falcon Dam. It is unclear how the leak constitutes "whistleblowing" or whether Wikileaks has abandoned its guiding principals.   (Source: Yankee Phil) <a target="_blank" href="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh%3Dv8/3a6b/f/2b/%2a/v%3B231156214%3B1-0%3B0%3B52915378%3B4307-300/250%3B39583319/39601106/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://thirdparty.fmpub.net/click/282087?r=http%3a%2f%2fwww-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/leadership/luggage%3Fcmp%3DUSBRB%26cm%3Db%26csr%3Dagus_itlead-20101007%26cr%3Dfederated_media%26ct%3DUSBRB301%26cn%3Dcapleadlug"><img src="http://s0.2mdn.net/2571327/schiphol_300x250.jpg" width="300" height="250" borde

The left's Sarah Palin: Why liberals secretly love WikiLeaks' Assange

Source: Washington post blog What a difference a worldview makes. Take the Bush tax cuts for example. The Democrats see the extensions of the cuts as, in the words of Sen. Claire McGaskill, “big tax bonuses to millionaires and billionaires.” In contrast, the Republicans recognize that taxpayer dollars aren’t the “government’s money” in the first place. Here’s another worldview example. On the issue of building the mosque at Ground Zero, liberals are for it. If the mosque isn’t built, they worry about offending the Muslim community. In contrast, conservatives were more worried about the victims of 9/11, their families, and healing America’s psychological wounds from the worst terrorist attack in our history. These differences in worldview have also caused a change in the language of the terrorism debate itself. The Obama Administration – in an attempt to be sensitive – has banned the phrases, “Islamic extremists” and “jihadists,” from its national security documents. Obama and

WikiLeaks supporters attack MasterCard site

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Source: CNET Activists fighting on behalf of WikiLeaks brought down MasterCard's Web site today, according to the BBC and other sources . The hacking group Anonymous is taking responsibility for a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the credit company's site in retaliation for MasterCard's decision on Monday to block donations and payments to WikiLeaks , which was first reported by CNET. MasterCard's main site was at times either offline or extremely slow to load this morning. Ping requests to the site also timed out, an indication that the site was unreachable. Early this morning, the Anonymous group, which uses the Twitter account Anon_Operation , tweeted the following statement: "WE ARE GLAD TO TELL YOU THAT http://www.mastercard.com/ is DOWN AND IT'S CONFIRMED" MasterCard claimed its site was still functioning but just experiencing heavy traffic on its external corporate site, according to the BBC. The company added that there

Follow the money: Wikileaks

Source: NYTIMES Nine years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, there is still a seemingly limitless stream of cash flowing to terrorist groups from private charities and contributors in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. According to classified State Department cables recently released by WikiLeaks, governments in all three countries — all close American allies — are not doing enough to shut down that flow of money. In a December 2009 cable to American diplomats in the region, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warns that “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide” and says that persuading Saudi leaders to treat this as a priority is “an ongoing challenge.” The cable also said that while the Saudi government has taken important steps to criminalize terror financing and restrict the movement of money overseas, it still looks the other way when it comes to certain favored

WikiLeaks Cable: David Letterman More Effective Against Terrorism Than American Propaganda

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 Source: Huffington post David Letterman and "Desperate Housewives" do more to reduce terrorism than American government propaganda, according to informants whose views were relayed in leaked State Department cables. The cable, titled "David Letterman, Agent of Influence," was among the latest batch of WikiLeaks documents released by the Guardian. In it, two informants to the American embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia told officials that unrestricted satellite transmissions of programs such as Letterman's, along with "Desperate Housewives," "Friends" and other news shows, were very popular: 12. (S) Over coffee in a Jeddah Starbucks, XXXXXXXXXXXX, and XXXXXXXXXXXX elaborated on the changes in the Saudi media environment. "The government is pushing this new openness as a means of countering the extremists," XXXXXXXXXXXX told Riyadh press officer. "It's still all about the War of Ideas here, a

WikiLeaks Cables: Desperate Housewives Vs. Terrorism

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Source: TIME Fighting for the American way! / ABC Last week, we learned via WikiLeaks that the U.S. State Deparment had produced a cable analyzing trends of anti-Americanism in Canadian TV . But it now appears that the U.S. has an offensive as well as defensive posture on televisual warfare—and not just in Canada, which we've been bombing into submission with our sitcoms and dramas for decades now. No, according to a U.S. embassy cable analyzing trends in the media in Saudi Arabia , American entertainment shows have been more effective at tamping down extremist jihadism there than propaganda broadcasts. Since 9/11, as the cable alludes to, the U.S. government has made efforts to win hearts and minds in the Arab world through interviews and other broadcasts offering the American side of world and regional issues. But, according to some unnamed contacts of the cable's writer, what's really helping to disseminate Western values in the k

Lenin Statue Damaged in Bomb Blast Near St. Petersburg

Source: Bloomberg news A bronze statue of Vladimir Lenin was damaged when a bomb exploded in the suburb of St. Petersburg late yesterday, state television said. Nobody was injured in the explosion, which occurred at about 11 p.m. in Pushkin, about 24 kilometers (15 miles) south of St. Petersburg, the channel said, citing police. The blast tilted the statue and broke several windows in the neighborhood. A similar explosion last year blew a hole in a Lenin statue near the train station in St. Petersburg where the Soviet leader marked his return from exile in 1917 to lead the Communist Revolution. St. Petersburg was renamed Leningrad to honor the founder of the Soviet Union after his death in 1924. To contact the editor responsible for this story: James M. Gomez in Prague jagomez@bloomberg.net

Varanasi blast: IM hacked WiFi to send email

Source: Oneindia Mumbai, Dec 9: Tracing the email, which was received after the Varanasi bomb blast, Mumbai police has found that it was sent by Indian Mujahideen terrorists after hacking a Wi-Fi connection registered in Navi Mumbai. Police officials said that hacked Wi-Fi connection was registered in the name of Akhil Talreja, a DJ by profession. Earlier, police officials grilled Talreja in suspicion of the attack, but found that his Wi-Fi connection was used after hacking. Police officials traced the email, which claimed that Varanasi bomb blast was planned by Indian Mujahideen in response to the Babri Masjid demolition, using its internet protocol (IP) number. The email was sent from the id, alfateh0005@gmail.com, using Talreja's Wi-Fi connection. Meanwhile, a team of investigators from Mumbai police off to Varanasi to visit the blast site. Special investigators looking into the Delhi Jama Masjid attack were also involved in the team.

varanasi temple blast victims

Pakistan Blast victims

Fight with terrorists is also a mind game

Source:  DNA Another demented terror attack, another demented justification. The Indian Mujahideen (IM), which has claimed authorship of the latest bomb blast at Varanasi’s Dashashwamedh Ghat on the banks of the Ganga, chooses its targets well. Defenceless people are the preferred targets of this cowardly group, which has mentioned its usual litany of gripes — Babri Masjid, post-Godhra anti-Muslim riots — for indulging in this sick enterprise. Though ostensibly targeted at the majority community, the email that coincided with the blast does more damage to Islam, since it quotes profusely from the holy book to justify its dastardly acts. It is not necessary to analyse the motives and ideology behind the terror attacks by the IM or other terror groups. What we need to do is to focus on gathering better intelligence and preventing such highly motivated groups from striking at will. This means seeking the cooperation of the minority community and conducting investigations t

15 killed in Tirah market suicide blast

Source: International news KOHAT: Atleast fifteen people have been killed while scores of others injured when a suicide bomb ripped through a market in Tirah valley on Wednesday morning. According to Media Reports, explosion took place at the busy bus terminal in main Tirah bazaar. The blast was suicidal and the death toll is likely to rise. Local police said the bomber approached the door of a bus carrying passengers and detonated his explosives. The DPO Kohat Dilawar Bangish said the blast in Teerah Bazar area of Kohat was suicide and police have recovered body parts of the bomber from the site of incident. Earlier it appeared the bomb was planted in a vehicle parked at the main bus stand, but Banghash said that "now we have found the head and legs of the suicide bomber". Police and security forces have cordoned off the area following the bomb blast. The injured were shifted to the Liaquat Memorial Hospital where the sources said some of the injured

After the Mosque: Jihad on the Home Front

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Source: Frontpage Editor’s note: Below is a distinguished panel discussing the Jihad in the United States at David Horowitz’s Restoration Weekend held recently (Nov 18-21) at Palm Beach. Moderator: I’m Frank Gaffney.  I run the Center for Security Policy.  And this is — thank you.  This is actually the high point of my year, getting to be here at Restoration Weekend, as I’m sure it is for most of you.  Partly because of the caliber of the people up here and partly because of the caliber of the people out there, and the opportunity to interact and actually, literally, to restore each other, it is just so important.  And I appreciate beyond words those of you who are making that possible. I’m going to say a few words about the topic and then introduce our presenters.  And then we’re going to move quickly , I hope, through their remarks, so that we have at least a little bit of time for Q&A.  My other protest is there isn’t nearly enough