Full container screening 'not best' move: US security chief (AFP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AFP) – Asking ports of departure to perform full screening of containers before they travel to the US was probably not the best decision, US Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

"We believe the so-called 100 percent requirement is probably not the best way to go," Napolitano told reporters at a press briefing in Rotterdam, where she was visiting Europe's largest port and the fourth-largest globally.

Napolitano is on a week-long tour of Britain and Europe to beef up security ties within the global supply chain between the US, Britain and Europe and met her British counterpart Theresa May earlier this week, her office said.

On Thursday she is to meet EU ministers and will participate in a conference of the World Customs Organisation in Brussels, where she said she would deliver a similar message.

Asked about a 2007 US Congress requirement that all containers entering the US should be scanned by their ports of exit by 2012, Napolitano said: "We at this point are not going to insist on that."

Although the 2012 deadline was set by Congress, it did give her department the opportunity to extend it if 100 percent scanning wasn't feasible.

Napolitano has previously expressed doubt about whether the mandate for all containers to be scanned by 2012 would be met.

Napolitano said the Department of Homeland Security preferred a more "layered approach" including better co-operation between countries, better intelligence sharing and analysis, as well as some container scanning to prevent attacks on the United States.

"I think what we have learnt over time is that there are many different ways to achieve a security objective. You have to have multiple layers that operate effectively," she said.

Called the Container Security Initiative (CSI), the project is being run by 50 ports worldwide including Rotterdam.

The scanning initiative requires port customs to pre-scan and evaluate containers considered to be high-risk possibilities of being used in terror attacks before being put on ships bound for US ports.

Napolitano told a Congressional panel in February the US faced "heightened" threats of terror of attacks from extremists, probably the highest since the attacks of September 11, 2001.

View the original article here

Petraeus ponders how far interrogators should go (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, Ap Intelligence Writer – Thu?Jun?23, 4:59?pm?ET

WASHINGTON – Army Gen. David Petraeus is urging lawmakers to determine how far interrogators should be allowed to go when faced with a terror suspect who may have time-sensitive information like the codes to disarm a nuclear weapon set to explode in the U.S.

Testifying at his Senate confirmation hearing Thursday, Petraeus backed interrogation methods set out in the U.S. Army field manual. Those methods reject enhanced interrogation methods used by the CIA during the Bush administration.

Petraeus said lawmakers should consider setting policies that would require authorization from the top, implying that the president would be consulted on whether to use enhanced interrogation techniques and lower-level officials would not be under pressure to make the decision in what Petraeus called a "ticking time bomb" situation.

View the original article here

Judge won't dismiss Minnesota women's terror case (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

MINNEAPOLIS – A federal judge won't dismiss the indictment against two Minnesota women accused of funneling money to the terror group al-Shabab in Somalia.

Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis says in a written opinion that 34-year-old Amina Farah Ali and 64-year-old Hawo Mohamed Hassan are charged with knowingly providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

He says providing material support is conduct — not protected speech.

Attorneys for the women argued their clients were charged under an unconstitutional statute, and asked that the case be dismissed.

Davis says when the case goes to trial, the women may argue they didn't know money they raised was meant for al-Shabab.

The women claim they are innocent and were raising money for the poor in Somalia.

An Oct. 3 trial is scheduled.

View the original article here

Terror suspect detained in Austria (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

BERLIN – Austrian authorities have arrested an alleged Islamic extremist suspected of belonging to a terrorist group, German prosecutors said Saturday.

The 26-year-old, identified only as Yusuf O., was detained in Austria in late May on a German arrest warrant, the Federal Prosecutor's Office said. The arrest had not been made public earlier because extradition procedures are still under way.

The German national of Turkish descent is suspected of involvement with the German Taliban Mujahideen, a fundamentalist group that prosecutors say seeks to carry out attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and found a "religious fundamentalist society" there. Prosecutors declined to elaborate.

German media reported the suspect underwent paramilitary training in a terror camp in Pakistan's lawless border region and appeared in several Islamist propaganda videos.

On Wednesday, Austrian authorities also arrested four other suspected extremists linked to the German Taliban Mujahideen at Vienna airport on suspicion they were heading off to train at terrorism camps in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

But a spokesman for Germany's Federal Prosecutors Office on Saturday dismissed a report alleging that one of the four suspected extremists was plotting to attack the country's parliament in Berlin with a commercial airplane.

"There are no indications of concrete preparations for an attack in Germany," the official said on condition of anonymity in line with department policy.

Austrian daily Kronen Zeitung reported that 25-year-old suspect had undergone flight training and was plotting to target Berlin's emblematic parliament building by hijacking an airplane.

The newspaper gave no source for its report. Prosecutors in Vienna were not immediately reachable for comment.

German prosecutors said there was no "criminally relevant link" between Yusuf O. and the group of four.

However, the prosecution spokesman added that the group is also under investigation in Germany, though not in connection with a concrete plot but on suspicion of "providing financial support to the violent jihad."

Germany has so far escaped a major terror attack, but several terror plots were foiled in their early stages over the past few years.

In April, German police arrested three suspected al-Qaida members in the western city of Duesseldorf allegedly working on making a shrapnel-laden bomb to attack a crowded place. Authorities believe the cell's alleged ringleader trained in a terror camp in Pakistan.

Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, says that about 225 people who are German citizens or have lived in Germany, have undergone paramilitary training in Afghanistan or Pakistan since the 1990s.

View the original article here

APNewsBreak: Norway questions NYC subway plotters (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
By BJOERN H. AMLAND and KARL RITTER Bjoern H. Amland And Karl Ritter – Tue?Jun?21, 2:48?pm?ET

OSLO, Norway – Security officials investigating a terror plot in Norway will seek testimony in New York this week from three American al-Qaida recruits turned government witnesses, defense lawyers told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The Norwegians are preparing terror charges in a case that investigators have linked to foiled plots to bomb the New York subway and a shopping mall in Manchester, England.

The defense lawyers told the AP that Norway's Police Security Service will question Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, who have pleaded guilty in the foiled 2009 subway plot. They will also seek testimony from Bryant Neal Vinas, an American al-Qaida recruit who has cooperated with U.S. authorities since his capture in Pakistan.

Trond Hugubakken, a spokesman for Norway's Police Security Service, or PST, confirmed that Norwegian investigators were traveling to New York this week to talk to people in the "Zazi case," but wouldn't give details.

The U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, which prosecuted all three men, declined comment on Tuesday.

Norwegian authorities last year arrested three suspects accused of plotting a terror attack against a Danish newspaper that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad.

Intelligence officials believe the main suspect, Mikael Davud, was in contact with an al-Qaida operative in Pakistan who also communicated with the New York and Manchester plotters. Davud, a Chinese Muslim who came to Norway in 1999, also is believed to have traveled to an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan about two years ago.

Davud's defense lawyer, Carl Konow Rieber-Mohn, told AP he expects Norwegian investigators to try to get testimony from the three Americans that backs up the Pakistan link. While Davud has admitted to some of the terror allegations, he denies having traveled to al-Qaida camps in Pakistan.

Rieber-Mohn said he was already in New York and would be present during the questioning.

"If these interrogations are going to be valid in a Norwegian court, the defendant's lawyers must be present to be able to ask control questions," he said.

Davud was arrested in July last year along with Shawan Sadek Saeed Bujak Bujak, an Iraqi Kurd and Uzbek national David Jakobsen, who has since been released but remains a suspect in the investigation. Norwegian authorities also seized bomb-making material.

Bujak and Davud have confessed to plotting terrorism. Bujak said their planned target was a newspaper that caricatured Muhammad while Davud claims the target was the Chinese Embassy in Oslo. Investigators doubt Davud's version, saying he wasn't able to show them the embassy's location on a city map.

Bujak's lawyer Arvid Sjoedin, who was not traveling to New York, said he believed the testimony would primarily deal with Davud. The trial is expected to start in Oslo in October.

___

Ritter reported from Stockholm. Associated Press writer Tom Hays in New York contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Pakistan, India say they'll keep pushing for peace (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

ISLAMABAD – India's foreign secretary said Friday that her country remains concerned about the threat of terrorism, but is committed to peace talks with Pakistan that have stumbled since the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai.

Nirupama Rao's comments capped two days of meetings in Islamabad between delegations from the nuclear-armed archrivals — the first formal talks between the neighbors on the disputed region of Kashmir since the attacks in the Indian financial hub.

Both nations claim Kashmir in its entirety, and have fought two of their three wars over the region since they gained independence from Britain in 1947.

The siege of Mumbai killed 166 people and has been blamed on Pakistani militants belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group Pakistan's spy agencies are suspected of nurturing as a proxy fighting force in Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any state institutions played a role in the attack on Mumbai.

"We must do away with the shadow of the gun and extremist violence because it's only in the atmosphere free of terror and violence that we can discuss the resolution of such a complex issue" as Kashmir, Rao said during a press conference with her Pakistani counterpart, Salman Bashir.

Pakistan has nudged India to push ahead with talks even as it has struggled to stem the growth of the Taliban and other militants who have proliferated on its soil since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. Bashir said the issue of terrorism "requires objectivity, requires to be addressed in a collaborative approach."

Bashir and Rao's meetings were aimed in part at laying the groundwork for ministerial level meetings in the next few weeks.

A joint statement issued after the sessions Friday said the two countries would keep discussing a range of subjects, including confidence building measures involving their nuclear programs and trade across the border that divides each side's current section of Kashmir.

Last month, Indian and Pakistani officials met in the Indian capital and agreed to continue working to reduce tension on a glacier battlefield in the Himalayas where grueling conditions have killed more troops than hostile fire.

The home secretaries from both sides met in New Delhi in March and agreed to set up a terrorism hotline and to cooperate on the Mumbai attack investigation — a major step in placating India's concerns. The secretaries for commerce also met in April.

___

Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmed contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Gates: Iran supplying arms to Iraqi Shiite groups (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Shiite extremists, not al-Qaida terrorists, are to blame for most of the recent U.S. military deaths in Iraq, and they're "clearly getting some fairly sophisticated and powerful weapons" from Iran.

Gates tells CNN's "State of the Union" that he's worried about the Iranian influence in Iraq and he thinks Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is beginning to take these Shiite groups seriously.

Gates says that the U.S. and Iraq are taking steps to try to limit the threat.

A Shiite militia group has claimed responsibility for an attack that killed five American troops on June 6. It was the single largest loss of life for American troops in two years.

View the original article here

AP sources: Pakistanis tip off militants again (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
By KIMBERLY DOZIER, AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier, Ap Intelligence Writer – Sun?Jun?19, 12:44?pm?ET

WASHINGTON – In another blow to Washington's relationship with Pakistan, U.S. officials say Pakistan failed another test to prove it could be trusted to go after American enemies on its soil by intentionally or inadvertently tipping off militants at two more bomb-building factories in its tribal areas, giving the suspected terrorists time to flee.

The two sites' locations in the tribal areas had been shared with the Pakistani government this past week, the officials said Saturday. The Americans monitored the area with satellite and unmanned drones to see what would happen.

In each case, within a day or so after sharing the information, they watched the militants depart, taking any weapons or bomb-making materials with them, just as militants had done the first two times. Only then, did they watch the Pakistani military visit each site, when the terror suspects and their wares were long gone, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

The Americans suspect that either lower-level Pakistani officials are directly tipping the militants off to the imminent raids, or the tips are coming through the local tribal elders that Pakistan insists on informing of the raids. U.S. officials have pushed for Pakistan to keep the location of such targets secret prior to the operations, but the Pakistanis say their troops cannot enter the lawless regions without giving the locals notice.

The latest incidents bring to a total of four bomb-making sites that the U.S. has shared with Pakistan only to have the terrorist suspects flee before the Pakistani military arrive. Both sides are attempting to mend relations and rebuild trust after the U.S. raid on May 2 that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, a Pakistani army town only 35 miles from the capital Islamabad.

The Pakistanis believe the Americans violated their sovereignty by keeping them in the dark about the raid. American officials believe bin Laden's location proves that some elements of the Pakistani army or Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, helped hide the al-Qaida mastermind.

"They are playing this very dangerous game ... by having elements of the ISI sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaida," said House Intelligence committee chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., speaking on CBS' "Face the Nation."

Rogers said Pakistan's failure to apprehend the militants running the bomb-making factories "sends the wrong message" at a time Congress is considering reducing some $1.5 billion in annual aid to Pakistan in retaliation after the recent series of such disagreements.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., agreed with the notion of benchmarks. "After all, the United States is investing billions and billions of dollars in Pakistan," McCain said on "This Week" on ABC. "Taxpayers have a right to have a return on that."

In response, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas neither confirmed nor denied the new report that militants were tipped off, but he criticized U.S. officials for making such allegations anonymously.

"Why are these faceless U.S. officials speaking through the media?" Abbas said. "Why don't they come out in the open so that we can respond to them with clarity?"

Abbas said that these "so-called officials" should remember that roadside bombs manufactured by the militants have killed and wounded many Pakistani soldiers.

"Does it make sense to allow this `killer machine' to continue targeting our troops who are deployed all over the place?" he said.

Last week, Pakistan's army disputed earlier reports that its security forces had tipped off insurgents at bomb-making, calling the assertions of collusion with militants "totally false and malicious."

Pakistani army officials claimed Friday they had successfully raided two more sites, after finding nothing at the first two, but a Pakistani official reached Friday offered no details of what they found.

The official admitted that in each raid, however, the Pakistani security services notified the local elders who hold sway in the tribal regions. Speaking anonymously to discuss intelligence matters, the official said they would investigate U.S. charges that the militants had been tipped off.

Two U.S. officials said they were asking the Pakistanis to withhold such sensitive information from the elders, and even their lower ranks, to carry out their raids in secret, to prove they could be trusted to go after U.S. enemies.

At least two of the sites were run by the Haqqani network, which is part of the Taliban, closely allied with al-Qaida, and blamed for some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops and civilians in neighboring Afghanistan. Pakistan has long resisted attacking the Haqqani network, saying the group has never attacked the state of Pakistan.

The intelligence sharing was intended as a precursor to building a new joint intelligence team of CIA officers together with Pakistani intelligence agents. But U.S. officials say Pakistan has failed to quickly approve the visas needed, despite agreeing to form the team in May.

U.S. officials have also accused Pakistan of holding up to five Pakistani nationals accused of helping the CIA spy on the Abbottabad compound in advance of the bin Laden raid.

Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani, confirmed Sunday that Pakistan had rounded up more than 30 people as part of the investigation. He said they were being questioned for information, not punished, but did not say what would happen to them if charged and found guilty of spying.

Speaking on ABC, Haqqani said if any among them were informants who worked for the CIA, "we will deal with them as we would deal with an offending intelligence service and we will resolve this to the satisfaction of our friends, as well as to our own laws."

The Pakistani government, according to the official reached earlier, views any citizen who worked with the U.S. to spy on the compound as having betrayed his or her country by failing to tip off the government that someone the Americans wanted was hiding there. The government's position, the official said, is that such a tip could have saved the Pakistani government the embarrassment of being surprised by the bin Laden raid.

___

Associated Press writer Sebastian Abbot in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Blast wounds 5 in Philippine bar amid terror fears (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

TACURONG, Philippines – Police say an explosion wounded five women and slightly damaged a karaoke bar in a southern Philippine city amid fresh concerns about possible terrorist attacks in the country.

Police Superintendent Gilberto Tuzon says investigators are determining whether the blast late Saturday in Tacurong city in Sultan Kudarat province arose from a local feud or was an act of terrorism.

Tuzon said Sunday that the victims included customers and waitresses.

Military officials reported that an 81 mm mortar was used in the blast but Tuzon says the damage was not extensive enough for such an explosive.

The U.S. State Department renewed its travel warning for the Philippines on Tuesday, saying terrorist attacks could occur in the restive south or in the capital, Manila.

View the original article here

New Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri: Do his flaws diminish group's threat? (The Christian Science Monitor)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

Washington – An irritable micro-manager disliked by even the organization’s most loyal foot soldiers – it’s not the sort of description you’d expect to hear of the mastermind of a global terrorist network.

But that is precisely the description that intelligence analysts tend to give of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new head of Al Qaeda.

Not only is he widely believed to be a less-than-effective manager, US officials say, Mr. Zawahiri does not have the sort of “peculiar charisma” that Osama bin Laden did, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told reporters last week.

RELATED: The top 5 Al Qaeda members still hiding in Pakistan

And that’s not all: Mr. bin Laden “was much more operationally engaged than we have the sense Zawahiri has been,” Mr. Gates noted.

Such comments seem to give the impression that US defense officials were privately high-fiving each other after hearing of Zawahiri’s ascension last week to Al Qaeda’s helm.

So, just how much does the Pentagon have to worry about the former Egyptian physician, now the de facto number one arch-nemesis of the US military? Pentagon officials have made it clear they still take the threat of Zawahiri seriously.

“I think we should be mindful that this announcement by Al Qaeda reminds us that despite having suffered a huge loss with the killing of bin Laden and a number of others,” Gates said, “Al Qaeda seeks to perpetuate itself, seeks to find replacements for those who have been killed, and remains committed to the agenda that bin Laden put before them.”

The Pentagon has also emphasized that the new leader of Al Qaeda, believed (for what ita€?s worth, considering where bin Laden was found) to be hiding in the ungoverned tribal areas of Pakistan, should expect to be the target of a robust and ongoing manhunt.

“I’m not sure it’s a position anybody should aspire to, under the circumstances,” Gates said.

The conventional wisdom, however, is that ita€?s a position that the ambitious Zawahiri has long coveted.

“He has been sort of a climber, not only within Al Qaeda but in the larger jihadist movement,” says Brian Fishman, terrorism research fellow at the New American Foundation. “He’s attached himself to a rising star within the organization – bin Laden – and that’s how he’s seen, as somebody who isn’t always piously committed, but brings with him a sense of personal aggrandizement.”

That kind of mercenary approach, however, can have practical advantages, Mr. Fishman says. In the internal debate about whether Al Qaeda should maintain a strict ideological litmus test for members, or “get as many people into the tent as possible,” Zawahiri is a member of the latter camp, Fishman says, which could translate into more Al Qaeda followers.

“He’s still very ideologically rigid – I don’t want to give the impression that he’s some out-of-the-box thinker,” Fishman says, “but he’s always been most concerned about creating political effect on the ground.”

Yet Zawahiri’s desire to create these political effects could also cause a rift with the Taliban, analysts say. The interim commander of Al Qaeda, Saif al Adel – who, like Zawahiri, is Egyptian – was viewed as having close ties to the Afghan Taliban. Zawahiri, on the other hand, has been interested in having Al Qaeda “step to the forefront and seize political power,” Fishman says, and this could involve bypassing the Taliban.

One quality that has made Al Qaeda particularly resilient in the past, however, has been its willingness to cede political authority to the groups on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan “that have a much more organic social base,” Fishman says.

The widely heralded defeat that the US military handed Al Qaeda in Iraq’s Anbar Province came about when the terrorist group “overreached” and got too ideological, he adds. Zawahiri for his part had argued that for political reasons, Al Qaeda would have been better off not enforcing its strict ideology and making accommodations with locals in the name of political harmony.

Any savvy leader will not want to make a similar mistake in Afghanistan. “My gut says that Zawahiri wouldn’t really be stupid enough to challenge the Afghan Taliban directly in a place like Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Fishman says.

But tensions between the two US enemies remain. The Afghan Taliban has long held that it is valid to fight the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan, “but they didn’t approve of 9/11, and they don’t want to take steps that might cause a political reaction in the United States” that might inspire US leaders to push to extend its presence in Afghanistan longer than it already plans to, Fishman says.

The Taliban’s publicity shop, for its part, has downplayed any tensions, says Jeffrey Dressler, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War. “If you’re going to be seen as an authentic Islamic extremist organization, you can’t break with a group like Al Qaeda,” he adds.

Other defense analysts agree. “Everybody is quick to comment on how Zawahiri’s a polarizing figure, uncharismatic, disagreeable – people can’t stand him,” Mr. Dressler says. “If all of that was going to be an obstacle, however, he never would have been approved. He’s a very skilled military tactician and planner,” he adds. Al Qaeda leaders “discussed this – and appointed him anyway.”

RELATED: The top 5 Al Qaeda members still hiding in Pakistan

View the original article here

Terror suspect extradited to Germany (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

BERLIN – An alleged German terrorist arrested last month in Vienna has been extradited to Germany, where authorities accuse him of belonging to the extremist German Taliban Mujahideen movement.

German federal prosecutors said the 26-year-old, identified only as Yusuf O., was arrested in Vienna on May 31 on a German warrant. He was taken to Germany on Monday and brought before a judge, who ordered that he remain in custody pending further investigation.

The suspect allegedly traveled to the Afghan-Pakistan border region in 2009 and joined the German Taliban Mujahideen by that September, prosecutors say.

"He is believed to have been trained in explosives and guns and have participated in the violent jihad of the German Taliban Mujahideen," they said in a statement that also alleged he "appeared in propaganda videos of the organization."

Upon his return to Europe in 2011, O. began recruiting supporters and members for the movement, including another suspect identified as 21-year-old Austrian Maqsood L., who was arrested on May 16 in Berlin.

Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Rudolf Gollia also said Monday that Yusuf O. was in contact with another Austrian suspect, 25-year-old Thomas al-J., who was arrested in Vienna last week.

Austrian officials say they are investigating al-J. for planning plotting attacks in Germany, including vague plans to target the seat of Germany's parliament, the Reichstag in Berlin.

Germany's Interior Ministry said it had knowledge of plans for any such attack.

View the original article here

Accused Seattle attackers wanted media attention (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

SEATTLE – Two ex-convicts planned an attack on a Seattle military recruiting station hoping that it would get attention from the media, authorities say, and even imagined the headlines: "Three Muslim Males Walk Into MEPS Building, Seattle, Washington, And Gun Down Everybody."

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, 33, of Seattle, was arrested Wednesday when he and another man showed up at a warehouse garage to pick up machine guns they planned to use in the attack, authorities said Thursday. The weapons had been rendered inoperable by federal agents and posed no risk to the public.

Authorities learned of the plot this month when a third person recruited to participate alerted Seattle police, according to court documents. Agents then set up the sting through the confidential informant, who had known Abdul-Latif for years.

Abdul-Latif had little knowledge of weapons, but served briefly in the Navy in the mid-1990s and was familiar with recruiting stations like the one they targeted, a criminal complaint said. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle said he and his alleged accomplice, Walli Mujahidh, planned to attack Joint Base Lewis-McChord but later changed targets.

"If we can get control of the building and we can hold it for a while, then we'll get the local news down there, the media down there, you know what I'm saying," Abdul-Latif was quoted in a court document as saying. "It's a confined space, not a lot of people carrying weapons, and we'd have an advantage."

Mujahidh pictured the headline — "Three Muslim Males Walk Into MEPS Building, Seattle, Washington, And Gun Down Everybody" — according to the court document. Authorities said the two planned to use machine guns and grenades in the attack. In audio and video recordings, they discussed the plot, including strategies to time their attack on military recruits, such as by tossing grenades in the cafeteria, the complaint said.

The attack would not target "anybody innocent — that means old people, women out of uniform, any children," Abdul-Latif allegedly said. "Just people who wear the green for the kaffir army, that's who we're going after."

Abdul-Latif was recorded in conversations with the informant where he spoke admiringly of the 2009 massacre at Fort Hood, Texas, that claimed 13 lives. He referred to war crimes charges against five soldiers accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport last year, saying "he was not comfortable with letting the legal system deal with these matters," according to an FBI agent's affidavit filed in U.S. District Court.

Mujahidh confessed after the arrest, saying the attack was aimed at preventing the U.S. military "from going to Islamic lands and killing Muslims," court documents said. He is also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., 32, of Los Angeles.

Court-appointed lawyers for the men declined to comment.

The arrests and news of the plot come after a May 31 assessment from the Homeland Security Department that said coordinated terrorist attacks against military recruiting and National Guard facilities were unlikely. But it warned that lone offenders or groups would try to launch attacks against those facilities.

Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh face federal charges of conspiracy to murder officers and employees of the United States, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, and possession of firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence. Abdul-Latif was also charged with two counts of illegal possession of firearms.

"The complaint alleges these men intended to carry out a deadly attack against our military where they should be most safe, here at home," U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan, of Seattle, said in a statement. "This is a sobering reminder of our need to be vigilant."

Abdul-Latif was previously convicted for robbing a Bremerton, Wash., convenience store and for custodial assault, as well as for obstructing a law enforcement officer, assault and theft. When he faced the robbery charge in 2002, he was found to have some "issues" during a psychological evaluation but allowed to stand trial, FBI Special Agent Albert C. Kelly III wrote in the complaint.

A copy of the evaluation showed that Abdul-Latif believed he suffered from depression and abandonment issues, because his father served time in prison in California and he had not seen his mother in a long time. He also said he "huffed" gasoline and smoked marijuana to get high, and that he tried to kill himself in 2001 by deliberately overdosing on seizure medication.

He served prison time on the robbery charge from January 2002 until July 2004. State Corrections Department spokesman Chad Lewis said "nothing in Davis' records that indicates that he converted to Islam while he was in prison."

A sign on the door of Abdul-Latif's apartment read in part: "In the Name of Allah we enter, in the name of Allah we leave, and upon our Lord we depend."

It wasn't immediately clear how the suspects became acquainted, though Mujahidh formerly lived in Seattle. He was convicted in municipal court of violating a domestic violence protection order stemming from a 2007 incident.

Abdul-Latif filed for bankruptcy last month, reporting that his monthly income from his janitorial business was nullified by its operating expenses. Steve Dashiak, his bankruptcy attorney, told The Associated Press he was stunned by the charges.

"I sensed no ill will from him whatsoever," Dashiak said. "He seemed like a guy just trying to make it, having a rough time because business wasn't going very well. To say that I didn't see this coming would be an understatement."

___

Associated Press counterterrorism reporter Eileen Sullivan contributed from Washington, D.C., writer Mike Baker contributed from Olympia, Wash., and writer Manuel Valdes contributed from Seattle.

___

Johnson can be reached at http://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

Baker can be reached at http://twitter.com/MikeBakerAP

Valdes can be reached at http://twitter.com/manevaldes

View the original article here

Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan to 'combat terrorism' (AFP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

TEHRAN (AFP) – The presidents of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan agreed on Saturday to join forces in combating militancy as they attended a counterterrorism summit in Tehran under the cloud of an Afghan hospital bombing that killed 60 people.

The joint statement by the three neighbours also came hot on the heels of an announcement by US President Barack Obama that Washington will withdraw 33,000 of its 99,000 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next summer.

"All sides stressed their commitment to efforts aimed at eliminating extremism, militancy, terrorism, as well as rejecting foreign interference, which is in blatant opposition to the spirit of Islam, the peaceful cultural traditions of the region and its peoples' interests," the statement said.

"All sides agreed to continue meeting at foreign, interior, security and economy ministers' level to prepare a roadmap for the next summit due to be held in Islamabad before the end of 2011," added the statement carried by Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Iranian and Pakistani counterparts Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Asif Ali Zardari held three-way talks on Friday ahead of a six-nation counterterrorism conference on Saturday.

The three leaders discussed "ways of battling terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking," IRNA said.

In his speech at the opening session of the two-day summit, Karzai said that despite his government's efforts, militancy was on the rise both in his country and in the region.

"Unfortunately, despite all the achievements in the fields of education, infrastructure and reconstruction, not only has Afghanistan not yet achieved peace and security, but terrorism is expanding and threatening more than ever Afghanistan and the region," the Afghan leader said.

The Pakistani president said: "Terrorists violate both human and divine values by inflicting death and destruction on fellow human beings. They have no religion."

He said attacks had resulted in the deaths of 35,000 people in Pakistan, 5,000 of them law enforcement personnel, and material damage totalling $67 billion.

In his speech to the opening session, Ahmadinejad again accused Iran's archfoe, the United States, of using the September 11, 2001 attacks as a "pretext" for sending troops to the region.

"In light of the way it was approached and exploited, September 11 is very much like the Holocaust," the Iranian leader charged.

"The American government used the attacks as a pretext to occupy two countries, and kill, injure and displace people in the region," he added.

"If the black box of the Holocaust and September 11 is opened, many of the realities will come to light. But unfortunately despite worldwide demand, the American government has not allowed it."

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly courted controversy by questioning the accepted version of both the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, and the Holocaust.

He has dubbed 9/11 a "big lie" and a "suspect affair" similar to the Nazi Holocaust, which he dismissed as a "myth" shortly after coming to power in 2005, triggering an international outcry.

In his message to the counterterrorism conference, which was also attended by the leaders of Iraq, Sudan and Tajikistan, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also spoke out against what he charged was Western abuse of the terrorist threat.

"The diabolical calculation of the dominating powers is to exploit terrorism as a tool to gain their illegitimate aims and they have used it in their plans," he said in the message which was read out to the conference.

"In their view, terrorism is whatever threatens their interests. They consider those who are fighting for their legitimate right against occupiers as terrorists but do not consider their mercenaries and malicious groups who harm innocent people as terrorists."

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said the next conference of the six nations would be held in Baghdad next year, and a permanent secretariat would be opened in Tehran.

View the original article here

2 congressmen call for Honolulu TSA probe (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER, Associated Press Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, Associated Press – Tue?Jun?21, 5:46?pm?ET

HONOLULU – Two congressmen called Tuesday for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to investigate lapses at Honolulu International Airport that prompted a move to fire dozens of baggage screeners.

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, U.S. Reps. John L. Mica, R-Fla., and Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, urged a probe into why Transportation Security Administration screeners "dramatically failed" in their responsibilities.

The TSA wants to fire 36 workers, including two top officials, and has suspended 12 others after a six-month investigation found they did not properly screen baggage during one shift at the airport.

The workers facing termination are on paid leave while the TSA goes through the firing process, which employees can appeal. The 12 others are to return to their jobs after unpaid suspensions of up to 30 days.

It was the single largest personnel action for misconduct in the agency's 10-year history.

The proposed firings "highlight the conflict that exists when the TSA acts as both the operator and regulator of the aviation screening programs," the letter to Homeland Security Acting Inspector General Charles K. Edwards said.

The letter demanded a number of items, including an analysis of the failure of TSA's oversight and supervision of screening in Honolulu; past evaluations of the airport's security officers and all performance disciplinary actions; and the titles, positions and current wage level of those involved.

Mica chairs the Transportation and Infrastructure committee and Chaffetz chairs the National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations subcommittee. Both have been critical of the TSA.

"It is essential that we have a full investigation of this massive TSA lapse and ensure the nation has the most effective security system possible," Mica said in a statement. "TSA can function more effectively as a security agency if it gets out of the business of managing a bloated bureaucracy of nearly 63,000."

Mica has long urged airports to use private, contracted screeners that are supervised by the TSA, said his spokesman Justin Harclerode.

"That's a better security model than when TSA performs all roles in the security structure," he said. Mica "thinks they have a much more appropriate role as regulator, standard-setter and auditor."

Chaffetz hopes an investigation will bring change.

The investigation request came as TSA workers conclude voting to select the union to represent what would be a bargaining unit of about 43,000 people. Some of the Honolulu employees under fire have sought help from the two unions vying to represent them: American Federation of Government Employees and the National Treasury Employees Union.

View the original article here

Another top terror suspect on trial in Indonesia (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

JAKARTA, Indonesia – One of Indonesia's top terrorism suspects went on trial Monday on charges of helping set up a terrorist training camp for a group that plotted attacks on foreigners and assassinations of the country's moderate Muslim leaders.

The trial of Abu Tholut began days after a hard-line cleric was sentenced to 15 years in prison for supporting the same jihadist camp.

Tholut, 50, is accused of procuring M16 assault rifles and other weapons for the camp, which was raided early last year in westernmost Aceh province, prosecutor Bambang Suharyadi told the West Jakarta District Court. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Arrested in December, Tholut is one of more than 120 alleged members of the "Tanzim Al Qaeda in Aceh" group to have been captured or killed since the camp was uncovered. More than 50 of those men have been sentenced to prison.

Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, co-founder of the al-Qaida-linked Islamist movement Jemaah Islamiyah, was last week sentenced to 15 years for supporting the camp.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was thrust onto the front lines of the battle against terrorism in 2002, when Jemaah Islamiyah militants bombed two crowded nightclubs on the resort island of Bali, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists. There have been several attacks since then, but all have been far less deadly.

Police have said the Aceh group was plotting Mumbai-style gun attacks on foreigners at luxury hotels in the capital of Jakarta and assassinations, including of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to punish the government for supporting the U.S.-led anti-terrorism fight.

Tholut, also known as Mustofa, became one of Indonesia's most wanted fugitives after master bomb-makers Noordin M. Top and Dulmatin were gunned down early last year in police raids.

He was convicted for involvement in a 2001 bomb blast at a shopping plaza in central Jakarta that wounded six, and he served five years of an eight-year sentence after getting remission for good behavior. Like dozens of other convicted Indonesian extremists, he returned to his terror network after he was released.

Nasir Abas — a former militant who has helped police track down and arrest several members of his network — said Tholut had been a combatant in Afghanistan and an "excellent instructor" who helped train Islamist militants in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao.

Judges adjourned the trial until next week, when Tholut's lawyers are due to respond to the charges.

View the original article here

Weak Al-Qaeda could splinter: Gates (AFP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday that Al-Qaeda had been seriously degraded and could split into a set of regional terror groups now that Osama bin Laden was gone.

"First of all, they have been significantly weakened. There's just no two ways about it," Gates told CNN's "State of the Union" program, explaining that bin Laden was not the only Al-Qaeda figure to have been killed recently.

"We have taken a real toll on them over the last, particularly the last two years," he said.

Al-Qaeda on Thursday named long-time number two Ayman al-Zawahiri as its new leader after bin Laden was killed by US commandos in the dead of night in a May 2 raid on his hideout in Pakistan.

Zawahiri has been portrayed by US officials as a pale imitation of bin Laden, someone, they say, who lacks his predecessor's charisma and leadership skills and is also a divisive figure who could fracture Al-Qaeda.

"The question is whether Zawahiri, the new leader taking bin Laden's place, can hold these groups together in some kind of a cohesive movement, or whether it begins to splinter, and they become essentially regional terrorist groups that are more focused on regional targets. And we just don't know that yet," Gates said.

Like his slain Saudi-born co-conspirator, Zawahiri, a 59-year-old Egyptian, has been in hiding since the United States declared its war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks and is widely believed to be in Pakistan.

Gates, 67, leaves his post at the end of the month. His designated replacement is the current CIA director, Leon Panetta, who will soon turn 73.

View the original article here

Death count in Sept. 11 attacks increases by 1 (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
By DAVID B. CARUSO, Associated Press David B. Caruso, Associated Press – Fri?Jun?17, 8:16?pm?ET

NEW YORK – A man who died last year of lung disease was added Friday to the official list of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

New York City's medical examiner ruled that 63-year-old Jerry Borg, of Manhattan, who died in December, was killed by complications caused by a lung condition he got from inhaling dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Borg suffered from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a disease in which inflamed cells can make someone's lungs stiff and interfere with normal breathing.

The death brings the official count of World Trade Center attack victims to 2,753.

The ruling is a rarity. Thousands of people have blamed health problems on trade center dust, but Borg is only the third victim to be added to the medical examiner's list of victims of Sept. 11, 2001.

Borg was working downtown on the day of the attacks and became caught in the dense cloud of pulverized concrete and glass that billowed over lower Manhattan when the twin towers fell.

Borg's nephew, Joseph Borg, of New York City, said Friday that his uncle worked as an accountant and was doing an audit at a building at ground zero on Sept. 11. He said his uncle witnessed "the whole thing." He recalled that his uncle had some health problems before his death.

"He said something about having a lung problem before he passed away. And that he was waiting for a lung transplant," Joseph Borg said. "It might have been due to the fumes from the 9/11 accident."

He said his uncle was not married and had no children. "He lived an ordinary life. He went to work and came home. That's it," Joseph Borg said.

The other two people who were added to the medical examiner's list also were working downtown on Sept. 11.

Felicia Dunn Jones, a 42-year-old civil rights lawyer, fell ill immediately after the attacks, was diagnosed with sarcoidosis and was dead within five months. Her death wasn't ruled as officially caused by the terrorist attacks until 2007.

Leon Heyward, 45, died in 2008 of lymphoma, an illness that hasn't been conclusively linked to trade center dust, but Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch ruled in early 2009 that his cancer was complicated by sarcoidosis.

All victims of the terrorist attacks have been classified as homicide victims.

A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office, Ellen Borakove, declined to release additional information about the circumstances of Borg's illness or personal biography, citing privacy rules.

Congress late last year created a $2.78 billion fund to compensate people who might have been sickened by exposure to trade center dust and ash, and set aside $1.5 billion to fund health programs for rescue and cleanup workers.

Medical studies have found elevated asthma rates among people who were caught in the dust cloud or spent extended periods in the trade center ruins. Fire Department medical experts have documented diminished lung power among an unusual number of firefighters who were at the site.

Hard evidence linking other ailments like cancer to the dust, however, has been elusive or inconclusive, leading Hirsch to resist immense political pressure add more people to the death count.

He famously declined to add a retired police detective, James Zadroga, to the list after concluding that the lawman's fatal lung condition was caused by prescription drug abuse, not by trade center particles trapped in his lungs.

That decision remains controversial, and the sponsors of the health bill that passed in December named it after Zadroga.

__

Associated Press Writer Cristian Salazar contributed to this report.

View the original article here

3 Indonesian militants get prison for terror plot (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Three Indonesians radicalized by the teachings of a firebrand Muslim cleric were sentenced Tuesday to six years in prison for involvement in a terror plot.

A Jakarta court found Muhammad Iqbal, Helmi Wardani and Kurnia Widodo guilty of violating anti-terrorism laws by making bombs and exploding them in trial runs for a terrorist attack. It said they gleaned their bomb-making knowledge from the Internet.

Presiding Judge Mustofa said the men were influenced by the preaching of Aman Abdurrahman, a radical cleric who was sentenced to nine years in prison in December for involvement in a militant training camp in westernmost Aceh province.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has battled militants with links to al-Qaida since 2002, when extremists bombed a nightclub district on Bali island, killing 202 people, most of them foreigners. A security crackdown since then has seen hundreds of militants killed or captured and convicted.

Mustofa said the three men, all in their thirties, were highly educated with no history of militancy until becoming radicalized through their participation in Islamic study at a mosque in West Java that was a base for Abdurrahman.

He said they planned to target police and local officials whom they considered their main enemy because of the government's support for the U.S.-led fight against terrorism.

View the original article here

Iran supreme leader accuses US of terrorism (AP)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's supreme leader on Saturday accused the United States of supporting terrorism, pointing to American drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan that allegedly have killed scores of civilians.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said a country whose military forces are responsible for such deaths can't lecture the world about fighting terror.

Strong anti-U.S. salvos are heard regularly from Iran's leadership. But Saturday's statement by Khamenei also reverberated the depth of rift between Iran and the U.S. on who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter.

"The U.S. and European governments that follow it describe Palestinian combatant groups who fight for liberation of their land as terrorists," Khamenei said in a written message to an international conference on combating terrorism that opened Saturday in Tehran.

However, Khamenei said Israeli military strikes against civilian targets or assassination of Palestinians by Israeli security agents are not condemned by the West as acts of terrorism.

Iranian leaders say Palestinian groups and the Lebanese Hezbollah are fighting to liberate their occupied lands. Iran openly praises groups such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas, which have claimed responsibility for suicide bombings and other attacks.

Khamenei said Iran was a victim of U.S. "terrorism" for the 1988 downing of an Iranian passenger plane by the warship USS Vincennes, killing all 290 people aboard. The U.S. Defense Department said at the time that the crew mistook the plane for a hostile aircraft, which Iran rejects.

View the original article here

Seattle arrests show how domestic terror fight is evolving (The Christian Science Monitor)

在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。
在 ServiceModel 客户端配置部分中，找不到引用协定“TranslatorService.LanguageService”的默认终结点元素。这可能是因为未找到应用程序的配置文件，或者是因为客户端元素中找不到与此协定匹配的终结点元素。

The arrest of terror suspects in Seattle this week presents a good example of what US law-enforcement agencies are facing today:

? One or two potential attackers not affiliated with any broader group.

? Emotional, psychological, and perhaps personal economic difficulties driving a plot to attack Americans.

? “Soft targets” picked for maximum damage to innocent victims.

a€￠ The importance of paid informants and sting operations.

“Our review of attempted attacks during the past two years suggests that lone offenders currently present the greatest threat,” according to a recent assessment by federal agencies, marked “for official use only” and obtained by The Associated Press. “Unlike hardened facilities such as active duty military bases and installations, soft targets such as recruiting stations are more likely to be deemed a feasible target due to their easy, open access to the public.”

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

That appears to describe the episode in Seattle this week.

Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, of Seattle, and Walli Mujahidh, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., of Los Angeles, were arrested Wednesday night when they arrived at a warehouse to pick up machine guns they intended to use in an alleged terror plot.

The alleged plotters – both US citizens who had converted to Islam – had sought firearms through an acquaintance of Mr. Abdul-Latif’s. That man, a convicted felon, alerted the Seattle Police Department, which put him in touch with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to conversations recorded by the paid informant, Abdul-Latif and Mr. Mujahidh were inspired by the Fort Hood shootings, which killed 13 people in 2009. In that case, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a US Army psychiatrist, apparently acted alone using his personal military weapons.

"If one person [at Fort Hood] could kill so many people, three attackers could kill many more," the informant told authorities, according to the criminal complaint.

Over the next three weeks, the informant secretly recorded conversations in which Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh allegedly spoke of wanting to attack service personnel at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, an Army and Air Force base south of Tacoma. Several US Army soldiers based there are being prosecuted for allegedly killing civilians for sport in Afghanistan.

Yet the alleged plot was switched to a location thought to be a softer target – the Military Entrance Processing Station just south of Seattle. Some 900 military personnel and civilians are employed there, many of them working for the US Army Corps of Engineers or processing new military recruits. The campus includes a child-care facility.

"It's a confined space, not a lot of people carrying weapons, and we'd have an advantage," Abdul-Latif allegedly said in a recording.

The suspects were arrested in a Seattle warehouse where they expected to buy the firearms (which had been rendered inoperable) from the informant.

According to the AP, this case marks the eighth time in the past two years that attacks have been planned or carried out against military installations in the US.

The number of Muslim-American terrorism suspects and perpetrators has averaged about 16 per year since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, according to the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security in Durham, N.C.

While most attacks failed on their own or were disrupted, 11 attacks since 9/11 have resulted in 33 deaths – including the 13 at Fort Hood.

In the years since 9/11, sting operations and the use of informants have become among the most important weapons in the fight against domestic terrorism – in about 30 cases over the past five years or so, according to Mark Pitcavage, director of investigative research at the Anti-Defamation League.

Recently, that has included Antonio Martinez (a Muslim convert who had changed his name to Muhammad Hussain), who allegedly attempted to detonate a car bomb at a US Army recruitment center in Maryland, and Somalia-born Mohamed Osman Mohamud, arrested in December for allegedly plotting to explode a bomb at the Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Ore., where thousands of families had gathered for the traditional Christmas tree lighting.

In another case last year, Pakistani-born US citizen Farooque Ahmed of Ashburn, Va., was charged with plotting to carry out a coordinated bombing attack on Metrorail stations in suburban Virginia near Washington, D.C.

Abdul-Latif and Mujahidh, the suspects in this week’s alleged plot in Seattle, are charged with conspiracy to murder officers and employees of the United States, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (grenades), and possession of firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence. They could face life sentences.

IN PICTURES: American Jihadis

View the original article here