Middle East Aggregator

A year after Hamas Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip, Abu Hafss is waiting impatiently to see a sword remove the hand of a thief or a woman stoned to death for adultery.

"Hamas does not implement the rule of God," the Palestinian ally of al Qaeda said. "We have seen no one have his hand cut off for stealing. We have seen no one stoned as an adulterer."

Yet for all Abu Hafss' disappointment with the approach Hamas has adopted since it routed secular rivals in Gaza a year ago, some analysts believe smaller, more radical groups like Abu Hafss' secretive Jaysh al-Ummah (Army of the Nation) have benefited from the Hamas takeover to expand their membership.

Despite an official Hamas policy of respecting the rights of Gaza's small Christian minority, there has been an increase in attacks on Christians in the past year, apparently by Islamists not content with the extent of Hamas's "Islamisation" of Gaza. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Hamas, Palestine

Iraqi police have arrested 13 suspected members of al Qaeda and seized 58 explosive belts prepared for suicide bombings, a local official said on Sunday.

Hikmat Jubair, mayor of the town of Hit west of Baghdad, said the suspects were arrested on Saturday night in possession of 13 explosive belts and then led police to another 45 hidden in a house.

"Acting on a tip delivered to the police, 13 people from al Qaeda were arrested while they were gathering in a house in western Hit," Jubair said.

Hit is 130 km (80 miles) west of Baghdad in Anbar province, once an al Qaeda base and bastion of Sunni Arab insurgents fighting U.S. and Iraqi troops.

Jubair said the 13 militants were suspected of involvement in a suicide bombing late last month that killed Hit's police chief, eight other policemen and four civilians.

U.S. and Iraqi military officials say al Qaeda is on the run in Iraq and that the group's networks in its last urban stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq have been broken. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

The United States is freezing the assets of three Gulf-based militants on Thursday, saying they provided financial and material support to al Qaeda.
"These three dangerous individuals must be stopped from further facilitating terrorism," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.
"The global community should act swiftly to prohibit them from using the financial system and from traveling internationally," Levey said.
Any assets these men have under U.S. jurisdiction will be frozen, and Americans will be prohibited from doing business with them, the Treasury Department said.
The three include Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy, a citizen of Qatar, described by Treasury as a financier and facilitator who has provided financial support to, and acted on behalf of, al Qaeda senior leadership.
Treasury named the others as Bahrain-born Adil Muhammad Mahmud Abd al-Khaliq, who it says has provided financial, material, and logistical support to al Qaeda and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group; and Bahrain-born 'Abd al-Rahman Muhammad Jaffar 'Ali, a financier who it says facilitated the movement of money to a senior al Qaeda individual in Iran and also provided his personal funds for use by an al Qaeda recruit. (Reuters)

The assets were frozen just one week after British Banker Charles Ridley, was 'detained' in Dubai, allegedly in relation to investment funds in petro-chemical developments in Pakistan, and with no access to lawyers. As of yet, there is no connection between the two incidents. (Referenced: GDN)

Update: Charles Ridley was arrested for funds directed through the Dubai Islamic Bank. We have just gotten confirmation that the ex-VP of the bank, Rifat al-Islam Usmani, was also detained yesterday as part of a bribery Investigation. As of yet, there is no official connection between these incidents, though it seems on first glance that Ridleys arrest may have been part of a dragnet on the Dubai Islamic Bank. The freezing of assets of the alleged militants, as of yet, does not seem to be related. (Referenced: Gulf Times)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Bahrain, Qatar, U.S.

Two alleged plotters in the September 11, 2001 attacks Thursday demanded to be sentenced to death so they could become martyrs as the US military hearing of five men got underway here.

"This is what I want, I'm looking to be a martyr for long time," Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani origin who is the alleged mastermind of the attacks, told the hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, southern Cuba.

He was responding to military judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann who reminded him that he and his four co-defendants face the death penalty if convicted of the charges.

"God is all sufficient for me," Sheikh Mohammed translated into English as he read verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book. He also threw out his appointed military and civilian defense team, saying he would defend himself.

A second defendant, Wallid bin Attash, also then demanded to be given the death penalty as he too refused the help of his legal team. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S.

In a report long delayed by partisan squabbling, the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday accused President Bush and Vice President Cheney of taking the country to war in Iraq by exaggerating evidence of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda in the emotional aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“The president and his advisers undertook a relentless public campaign in the aftermath of the attacks to use the war against Al Qaeda as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein,” Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement accompanying the 171-page report.

The committee’s report cited some instances in which public statements by senior administration officials were not supported by the intelligence available at the time, such as suggestions that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda were operating in a kind of partnership, that the Baghdad regime had provided the terrorist network with weapons training, and that one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had met an Iraqi intelligence operative in Prague in 2001. (NY Times)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second-in-command, has called on Palestinians to step up attacks on Israel, according to a new audio clip.

Increased suicide and rocket attacks were the only way to end Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, a voice attributed to the Egyptian-born al-Qaeda deputy said in the message posted online on Wednesday.

The message marked the 41st anniversary of the 1967 Middle East war, which Arabs refer to as the "naksa" or "setback", a banner accompanying the 11-minute audio file read.

Israel occupied the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, Gaza, the Sinai and the Golan Heights during the war.

In the audio clip, the speaker told Palestinians: "Step up your martyrdom-seeking operations, and increase your missiles and ambushes, as there is no solution but this.

"Salvation of the Muslim nation is through the march of its sons on the path of jihad." (Al Jazeera)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Israel

Five alleged terrorists accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks are to appear in public for the first time in years during a military hearing in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay Thursday. Seven years after some 3,000 people were killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, there are lingering doubts that the trial will ever get fully under way.

But Khaled Sheikh Mohammad, considered the brains of the attacks, along with alleged co-conspirators Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, all face the death penalty if convicted by the "military commission."

They are due to appear before the judge, Marine Corps Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, to be arraigned on the charges against them which include conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism.

All were arrested between 2002 and 2003, and transferred to the controversial base in 2006, reportedly after spending years in secret CIA prisons.

The trials have already been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding their arrests and whether so-called confessions published by the US military were exacted under torture. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, U.S.

So al-Qa'ida is "almost defeated", is it? Major gains against al-Qa'ida. Essentially defeated. "On balance, we are doing pretty well," the CIA's boss, Michael Hayden, tells The Washington Post. "Near strategic defeat of al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Near strategic defeat for al-Qa'ida in Saudi Arabia. Significant setbacks for al-Qa'ida globally – and here I'm going to use the word 'ideologically' – as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam." Well, you could have fooled me.

Six thousand dead in Afghanistan, tens of thousands dead in Iraq, a suicide bombing a day in Mesopotamia, the highest level of suicides ever in the US military – the Arab press wisely ran this story head to head with Hayden's boasts – and permanent US bases in Iraq after 31 December. And we've won?

Less than two years ago, we had an equally insane assessment of the war when General Peter Pace, the weird (and now mercifully retired) chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said of the American war in Iraq that "we are not winning but we are not losing". At which point, George Bush's Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, said he agreed with Pace that "we are not winning but we are not losing".

James Baker, who had just produced his own messy report on Iraq then said – reader, please do not laugh or cry – "I don't think you can say we're losing. By the same token, I'm not sure we're winning." Then Bush himself proclaimed, "We're not winning; we're not losing." Pity about the Iraqis. But anyway, now we really, really are winning. Or at least al-Qa'ida is "almost" – note the "almost", folks – defeated. So Mike Hayden tells us. (Independent)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in Iraq, Iraq, U.S.

An al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a mortar attack on a refinery in Yemen, which officials said did not cause any damage, according to an Internet statement.

Three blasts were heard on Friday at the refinery in the southern port city of Aden, officials said.

"Al Qaeda Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula -- Yemen Soldiers Brigades -- carried out the blessed operation with three mortar shells ... on the refinery used by Yemen's despot to supply fuel to the Crusaders (Western states) in their war against Islam," the group said on an Islamist website.

The group, which has vowed to win the freedom of jailed comrades, has claimed responsibility for several such attacks in recent months, including a shelling in March near the U.S. embassy which injured 13 schoolgirls and five Yemeni soldiers. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Yemen

Muslim extremist women are challenging al-Qaida's refusal to include - or at least acknowledge - women in its ranks, in an emotional debate that gives rare insight into the gender conflicts lurking beneath one of the strictest strains of Islam.

In response to a female questioner, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman Al-Zawahri said in April that the terrorist group does not have women. A woman's role, he said on the Internet audio recording, is limited to caring for the homes and children of al-Qaida fighters.

His remarks have since prompted an outcry from fundamentalist women, who are fighting or pleading for the right to be terrorists. The statements have also created some confusion, because in fact suicide bombings by women seem to be on the rise, at least within the Iraq branch of al-Qaida.

A'eeda Dahsheh is a Palestinian mother of four in Lebanon who said she supports al-Zawahri and has chosen to raise children at home as her form of jihad. However, she said, she also supports any woman who chooses instead to take part in terror attacks.

Another woman signed a more than 2,000-word essay of protest online as Rabeebat al-Silah, Arabic for "Companion of Weapons."

"How many times have I wished I were a man ... When Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri said there are no women in al-Qaida, he saddened and hurt me," wrote "Companion of Weapons," who said she listened to the speech 10 times. "I felt that my heart was about to explode in my chest...I am powerless." (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Womens Rights

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is downplaying the idea of a nuclear attack by terrorists after recent postings on al-Qaida-affiliated Web sites exhorted militants to pursue weapons of mass destruction for use against the U.S.

Chertoff, speaking at Oxford Union on Friday, said that while officials acknowledge al-Qaida's interest in developing such capability, the U.S. was more concerned about terrorists' use of conventional arms.

"The short answer is the intent is there. Its probability, particularly in the short term, is lower than conventional weapons," he said at Oxford's famed debating society.

Chertoff's remarks followed a series of anonymous postings on al-Qaida-affliated Web sites, including a 39-minute video, calling on militants to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

The Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Web traffic, said the video presents the U.S. as vulnerable and suggests that militants could use such weapons as a deterrent to any nuclear attack against an Islamic country. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S.

CIA director Michael Hayden has come under stiff challenge for portraying Al-Qaeda as on the defensive after global setbacks, even in its safe havens along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Jay Rockefeller, said Friday that Hayden's upbeat appraisal was not consistent with intelligence assessments provided to his committee over the past year.

"In fact, I have seen nothing, including classified intelligence reporting, that would lead me to this conclusion," Rockefeller said in a scathing letter to the Central Intelligence Agency director.

Hayden's assessment -- one of the most positive since the September 11, 2001 attacks -- comes less than a year after US intelligence warnings that Al-Qaeda had regrouped in the border area and was plotting attacks against the west.

"On balance, we are doing pretty well," Hayden told the Washington Post in an interview published Friday, while warning that Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S.

Previewing the world for the next U.S. president, a top U.S. intelligence official this week predicted that the Bush administration would make little progress before leaving office on top national security priorities including an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, political reconciliation in Iraq and keeping Iran from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.

A regenerated al-Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said. Pakistan's "inward" political focus and failure to control the tribal territories where al-Qaeda maintains a haven, he said, is "the number one thing we worry about."

Kerr's analysis, in a speech Thursday evening that he posited as a presidential intelligence briefing delivered on Jan. 21, 2009, contrasted with more optimistic administration forecasts of rapprochement among Iraq's political forces and a possible Middle East peace agreement in the next eight months. It also seemed at odds with CIA Director Michael V. Hayden's judgment that al-Qaeda is now on the defensive throughout the world, including along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. (Washington Post)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Jordan's military tribunal on Wednesday commuted to life imprisonment death sentences against eight Al-Qaeda members for plotting a 2004 chemical bomb attack on the intelligence services. The state security court sentenced the group to death in 2006 for plotting the attack on the orders of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Jordanian-born Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike two years ago in Iraq, was himself also condemned in absentia to death along with the eight, three of whom are on the run. The retrial was ordered due to flawed investigation procedures. Zarqawi has already been sentenced to death twice by Jordan's state security court for the October 2002 murder of a US diplomat in Amman and for planning to blow up a border crossing between Jordan and Iraq. Released from jail in 1999 as part of a royal amnesty, Zarqawi also claimed triple suicide bomb attacks on luxury Amman hotels in 2005 that killed 60 people. All charges have been dropped since his death. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Jordan

Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden lashed out at Arab leaders for "sacrificing" the Palestinians in a new message released Sunday and he called on Muslim terrorists in Egypt to help break the blockade of Gaza.

Bin Laden called Arab leaders "agents of the crusaders" and "wolves" in the audio message posted on an Islamic militant Web site where al-Qaida leaders issue their statements. He portrayed the citizens of Arab nations as herds of sheep who have been handed over to the wolves to look after them.

"Every day, the herd wishes the wolves would stop preying on it," he said.

"Those (Arab) kings and leaders sacrificed Palestine and Al-Aqsa to keep their crowns. ... But we will not be relieved of this responsibility," bin Laden said, referring to Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's Old City, one of Islam's holiest sites.

Al-Qaida leaders are increasingly using the Israeli-Arab conflict in their media campaign to rally supporters. Israel has warned of growing al-Qaida activity in Palestinian territories, although the terror network is not believed to have taken a strong role there so far. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Palestine

Jaber Elbaneh, the al-Qaeda operative who had roamed free in Yemen despite a $5 million reward offered by the U.S. government for his capture, was jailed Sunday by a Yemeni judge.

Elbaneh's detention was ordered one day after a Washington Post article on how he was living under the personal protection of Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The Yemeni government has repeatedly refused U.S. requests to extradite Elbaneh to stand trial on terrorism charges, straining diplomatic relations between the two countries.

According to Yemen's official news agency, a judge ordered Elbaneh's arrest after prosecutors filed a request to lock him up. Elbaneh is one of three dozen Yemeni defendants being tried on charges of conspiring to blow up oil installations in 2006.

Until Sunday, prosecutors had allowed Elbaneh to remain free while the trial proceeded in Sanaa, the capital, in spite of recent demands from FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and other U.S. officials that he be imprisoned. (Washington Post)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Yemen

Osama bin Laden will issue a "very strong" statement to Muslims across the world soon, an Islamist website said on Sunday.

"A very strong statement to the Islamic nation by the lion of Islam sheikh Osama bin Laden," read a banner posted on the al Qaeda-linked website.

The website said the statement would be issued "soon", without giving further details. Such messages usually appear within 72 hours.

In his latest message, posted on Friday to mark Israel's 60th anniversary, bin Laden vowed to continue fighting the Jewish state and its allies in the West.

In a message on March 20, he urged Muslims to maintain the struggle against U.S. forces in Iraq as a path toward "liberating Palestine".

Al Qaeda has vowed attacks on Jews both inside and outside Israel and regularly expresses support for the Palestinians.

The Saudi-born militant leader was based in Afghanistan until its Taliban rule was overthrown by U.S.-led forces in 2001 after the September 11 attacks. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda

A US military judge has ruled that the trial for Osama bin Laden's former driver should be delayed by seven weeks.

A supreme court ruling on the right of detainees to challenge their imprisonment in civil courts is expected during this period.

Salim Ahmed Hamdan will be the first person to face trial at the US naval base in Cuba.

Lawyers for Hamdan, whose trial was scheduled to start on June 2, had requested a postponement.

Keith Allred, navy captain, decided to delay the trial till it was clear whether or not the supreme court's highly anticipated ruling, expected by June 30, would affect his arraignment.

The development is the latest in a series of delays for the US government as it tries to prosecute Hamdan, a Yemeni, who acted as bin Laden's personal driver in Afghanistan, and according to evidence "helped him to evade US retribution folliwng the September 11 attacks".

There are no plans to postpone the trial of the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others involved in the planning, because of the Hamdan case ruling, a Pentagon spokesman said on Friday. (Al Jazeera)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Guantanamo, U.S.

Ten suspects were detained on Friday in France, Germany and the Netherlands, accused of funding Islamic extremists in Uzbekistan, officials said. A French source close to the case said eight suspects of Turkish origin were lifted in a suburb of the eastern city of Mulhouse and in the central Rhone region. They were thought to have ties to Al-Qaeda, the source said. The arrests were part of a coordinated swoop with police in Germany and the Netherlands where two other suspects are being held, the source said. Police were searching the suspects' homes on Friday. The source said anti-terrorism units moved in on the group as a "pre-emptive" measure and that none of the suspects had committed attacks. The group "is linked to the Pakistani-Afghan" area, the source added. France's DST domestic intelligence agency had been investigating the ring for close to a year and the arrests were ordered by anti-terrorism judge Thierry Fragnoli. The Dutch state prosecutor's office meanwhile said a 48-year-old Turk was arrested early Friday in the southern town of Tilburg at the request of French legal authorities, a statement said. Prosecutors added that France has formally requested extradition. "The French police and intelligence services have over these past months launched a probe into the funding of a Turkish Islamist group" linked to Metin Kaplan, who was sentenced to life in June 2005 for plotting to overthrow Turkey's secular system. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, European Union

Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader, has condemned Western leaders for taking part in Israel's 60th birthday celebrations.

In an audio tape message posted on an Islamic website on Friday, he says that the fight against Israel and its allies will continue, and that Muslims will not give up "one inch of Palestine".

The authenticity of the tape could not immediately be verified but the voice sounds like Bin Laden's.

"Western leaders' participation with the Jews in this celebration confirms that the West supports this oppressive Jewish occupation of our nation and that they are in the same trench as the Israelis against us," he says.

The release of the tape comes as George Bush, the US president, ends his visit to Israel to celebrate the country's 60th anniversary. (Al Jazeera)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Israel, Palestine

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, leading an offensive against al Qaeda in the north, offered cash and freedom from prosecution on Friday to fighters who give up their weapons within 10 days.

Maliki made the amnesty offer in the northern city of Mosul, where he has been supervising a U.S.-backed campaign aimed at delivering a fatal blow to Sunni Islamist al Qaeda in the city and surrounding Nineveh province.

Many al Qaeda gunmen have regrouped in Nineveh after being pushed out of Baghdad and other areas. The U.S. military says Mosul is al Qaeda's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

"We have decided to grant amnesty to those who joined the armed groups on condition they hand over heavy and medium weapons to the security forces," Maliki said in a statement.

He did not elaborate, but this would mean weapons such as rocket-propelled grenade launchers and mortars. Iraqi law allows each household to have an AK-47 assault rifle.

Those who turned in arms would be paid a cash reward, Maliki said, without saying how much. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

Government troops began house-to-house searches for al-Qaida in Iraq militants in Mosul on Thursday, part of a major security operation to cleanse Iraq's third largest city from cells of the terror network.

Described by the U.S. military as the last major urban base of al-Qaida in Iraq, Mosul has become the site of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's third security drive in two months as he attempts to defeat Shiite militants and Sunni extremists.

Al-Maliki flew to Mosul on Wednesday to take charge of the operation by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces. On Thursday, he sought to enlist the support of former Saddam Hussein-era army officers and local tribal leaders in two separate meetings in Mosul.

Mosul has traditionally supplied the army with a large number of its officers and al-Maliki called on authorities to help bring back those who wish to return to duty, according to a statement issued by his office.

The prime minister, who has been vigorously courting tribal leaders in recent months, also appealed to dignitaries from local tribes to stand behind his security forces in the fight against militants.

"We came to restore the dignity of the law and the state in the city," al-Maliki told the tribesmen, adding that the campaign's goals were to rid the city of al-Qaida, improve services and reconcile its religiously and ethnically diverse population. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

A court in Paris has handed down jail sentences to seven men convicted of running a network that recruited young men in the French capital to fight in the Iraq war.

Five French nationals, one Algerian and one Moroccan were given jail terms of between 18 months and seven years.

The men, all aged between 24 and 40, were arrested in 2005.

They were convicted of going to Iraq to take part in combat or of recruiting youth in Paris' northeast region, to send as fighters.

The leaders of the plan, Farid Benyettou, 27, and Boubakeur El Hakim, 24, received sentences of six and seven years respectively.

The tribunal correctionnel de Paris found Benyettou guilty of sending youths "to fight in Iraq, possibly by carrying out suicide attacks, after joining the troops of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi". (Al Jazeera)

Labels: Al Qaeda, France, Iraq

A young girl carrying explosives that killed her, an Iraqi captain and injured four soldiers was blown up by remote control, officials said today.

The incident happened as she approached an Iraqi command post in Youssifiyah, south Baghdad, earlier this morning.

Iraqi army Lieutenant Ahmed Ali confirmed that the girl, who had hidden explosives strapped to her, was the cause of the blast.

Local authorities immediately imposed a curfew in the area while US troops began searching for those responsible, he said.

"The bomber was detonated by remote control, killing Captain Wassem al-Maamouri and injuring four soldiers," Ali added.

Major John Hall from the US army said: "I can confirm that a female suicide bomber attacked an Iraqi army position."

No further details were released.

Senior US commanders have said that a recent increase in attacks has shown that al-Qaida remains a threat in western Iraq.(Guardian)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki flew to the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday to oversee a big offensive against al Qaeda in what the U.S. military says is the group's last major urban stronghold in Iraq.

Iraqi military officials hope the operation will deliver a knockout blow to Sunni Islamist al Qaeda militants in northern Iraq. The campaign, which is being led by Iraqi security forces, commenced on Saturday.

"This operation will purge Mosul of criminal and terrorist gangs and end the suffering they have brought to people," Maliki said in a statement.

Iraqi military officials said some 500 suspected insurgents had been detained in raids in Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province so far. Vehicle curfews have been imposed.

Al Qaeda militants have regrouped in Nineveh after being pushed out of Baghdad and their former stronghold of western Anbar province by U.S. and Iraqi forces in the past year. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

A U.S. military spokesman said a man detained Thursday in northern Iraq is not wanted terrorist Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, the leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq.

"It's not him," the military spokesman said.

Iraqi police announced early Friday that Muhajer had been found sleeping during a midnight raid of a house in the northern city of Mosul and had confessed his identity in an interrogation -- a development that would have been a significant coup for Iraqi security forces.

The U.S. military spokesman, however, said there was apparently confusion because the man who was captured has a similar name.

Muhajer -- whom the Iraqis also reported had been killed in May, 2007 -- is believed to be an Egyptian, about 40 years old and an associate of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is believed to have taken over the leadership of al-Qaeda in Iraq after the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a U.S. airstrike in June 2006.

Since Zarqawi's death, the organization has continued a campaign of killing while pushing its strict interpretation of Islam. (Washington Post)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman Zawahiri, announced in an audiotape broadcast Apr. 21 that Islamic groups would play a pivotal role in the war against Jews, and encouraged militants to expel invading 'Crusaders' masquerading as peacekeepers, referring to UNIFIL troops deployed in South Lebanon.
"There have been three attacks on UN troops in the south since the deployment in 2006," says Andrea Tenenti from the press office of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
In June 2007, six peacekeepers from the Spanish contingent were killed in a car bombing in South Lebanon, an attack that was celebrated by Zawahiri. An assault on Tanzanian soldiers came along the Litani river in July of the same year, and a roadside bomb exploded near a UN vehicle before a Lebanese army checkpoint at the entrance of the ancient Phoenician city of Sidon, wounding two peacekeepers in January 2008.
Although no specific group has been formally accused of the crimes, the attacks have been attributed to Islamic fundamentalists, various movements of which have been around in Lebanon since the 1980s.
According to a report by the Saban Centre at the Washington-based Brookings Institution, Islamist militancy in Lebanon merged with Salafism -- a movement built on the belief that Islam's purest form was practised during the time of the prophet Muhammad -- when local and foreign Salafist jihadist leaders penetrated the generally non-violent Lebanese Islamic community. (IPS)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Lebanon, U.N.

Insurgents attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in Diyala province north of Baghdad on Monday, killing 10 soldiers, the US military said.

It blamed Al-Qaeda "terrorists" for the attack, in which another 13 soldiers were wounded.

An Iraqi security official said the victims had their heads cut off after the shooting.

"After killing the soldiers, the gunmen beheaded them," the official from Baquba in Diyala province said on condition of anonymity. He said the attack took place at around 7:00 pm (1600 GMT).

Diyala is one of the most dangerous regions of Iraq where US and Iraqi forces are battling Al-Qaeda in Iraq militants. (AFP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

Two government employees have been arrested in Afghanistan in connection with an attempt last week to assassinate Hamid Karzai, the country's president.

He was unharmed in the attack on a military parade, which killed three other people, including a parliamentarian.

One of those arrested used to work in the defence ministry reparing weapons, Amrullah Saleh, the country's intelligence chief, said.

The other worked in the interior ministry as a police nurse. Both are accused of having contact with a member of al-Qaeda who allegedly led the plot.

Saleh said: "The angle that al-Qaeda had a role in [the attack] is very clear."
However, the Taliban has said it was responsible for the attack on April 27. (Al Jazeera)

Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Taliban

Almost eight years after al-Qaeda nearly sank the USS Cole with an explosives-stuffed motorboat, killing 17 sailors, all the defendants convicted in the attack have escaped from prison or been freed by Yemeni officials.

Jamal al-Badawi, a Yemeni who helped organize the plot to bomb the Cole as it refueled in this Yemeni port on Oct. 12, 2000, has broken out of prison twice. He was recaptured both times, but then secretly released by the government last fall. Yemeni authorities jailed him again after receiving complaints from Washington. But U.S. officials have so little faith that he's still in his cell that they have demanded the right to perform random inspections.

Two suspects, described as the key organizers, were captured outside Yemen and are being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. Many details of their alleged involvement remain classified. It is unclear when -- or if -- they will be tried by the military.

The collapse of the Cole investigation offers a revealing case study of the U.S. government's failure to bring al-Qaeda operatives and their leaders to justice for some of the most devastating attacks on American targets over the past decade. (Washington Post)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S., Yemen

The U.S. military on Friday blamed al-Qaida in Iraq for a double suicide bombing that killed at least 36 people during a wedding procession through a crowd of people cheering the bride and groom in a town northeast of Baghdad.

The attack Thursday evening came amid heightened worries that al-Qaida militants are regrouping, despite recent security gains by U.S.-led forces. The terror network announced April 19 that it was launching a one-month offensive against U.S. troops and U.S.-allied Sunnis.

"Al-Qaida in Iraq continues their malicious tactics against the people of Iraq and their way of life," the military said in a statement. "They seek violence and chaos in Iraq."

Thursday's blasts occurred in Balad Ruz, a predominantly Shiite Muslim town 45 miles northeast of Baghdad. An Iraqi female suicide bomber imitating pregnancy detonated the first bomb, the military said. A male bomber also blew himself up.

The woman bomber blew herself up as people were dancing and clapping while members of the passing wedding party played music. The male bomber attacked minutes later as police and ambulances arrived at the scene, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim al-Rubaie, head of the Diyala provincial operations center that oversees Balad Ruz. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

The weekend plot to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai was masterminded by militants with links to al-Qaida members who reside in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, an Afghan intelligence official said Thursday.

Saeed Ansari, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, said that one of those killed during a raid on a militant hideout in Kabul on Wednesday was also linked to a deadly suicide attack on the city's luxurious Serena Hotel in January. Ansart identified him as Humayun.

After the Serena attack, in which eight people died, intelligence officials said Humayun had links to a network led by a militant leader Siraj Haqqani.

Haqqani's network is believed to have links with al-Qaida members who operate from Pakistan's tribal areas, where Afghan officials say Haqqani is also based. The U.S. military has a $200,000 bounty out on him.

Intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh has said those killed in the raid Wednesday and three other gunmen who tried to assassinate Karzai on Sunday, were in contact with militants inside Pakistan's tribal regions.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas called the allegation "baseless." (AP)

Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda

Although the man has been dead for almost two years, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's negative impact in Iraq continues to be a serious problem for al-Qaeda. Indeed, of all the dangers encountered by al-Qaeda since September 11, 2001, Zarqawi, the former head of the group in Iraq, was the only strategic threat to the organization's continuing viability.
Zarqawi's efforts to create a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war in Iraq, which would have been blamed on al-Qaeda, threatened al-Qaeda's ability to keep Sunni Islamists focused on the United States - the "far enemy" - and to an extent would have rehabilitated the reputation of the Arab tyrannies opposed by al-Qaeda and its allies because those states would have quickly provided cash and military materiel to the Sunni side of such a conflict.
For al-Qaeda, Zarqawi today is an annoying memory - though one celebrated for his knightly heroics - but the impact of his actions still bedevil al-Qaeda's goal of helping to establish a Sunni organization that can govern after the withdrawal of the US-led coalition.
In recent weeks, Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaeda's chief in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Mujahir, have thrice taken up the issue of splits among Iraq's Sunni fighters and pressed for a setting aside of differences and a move toward unification under the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). (Asia Times)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

Al-Qaeda is still the greatest terrorist threat to the US and its allies, according to a report from the US state department.

The department's annual Country Reports on Terrorism also names Iran as the biggest state sponsor of terrorism.

There were 14,499 attacks in 2007, the report says, down from 14,570 in 2006.

Attacks in Iraq were also down, from 6,628 to 6,212, although in Afghanistan the number of incidents rose from 969 in 2006 to 1,127 in 2007.

Although overall attacks were down slightly, the number of terror-related deaths rose by 8% to 22,000 in 2007.

"The ability of [Iraqi] attackers to penetrate large concentrations of people and then detonate their explosives may account for the increase in lethality of bombings in 2007," said the report. (BBC)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S.

Mauritanian security forces recaptured five suspected al Qaeda militants on Wednesday including a fugitive accused of killing four French tourists, officials said.

The December 24 killing of the French tourists and a shooting attack against the Israeli embassy in Mauritania's capital Nouakchott in February raised fears of a rise in Islamic militant violence in the traditionally sleepy Saharan state.

Those arrested in Wednesday's operation included Sidi Ould Sidna, a suspect in the slaying of the French tourists, whose escape from police custody outside a courtroom this month led to a nationwide manhunt and a series of raids on suspected militant hideouts.

Chief prosecutor Mohamed Abadllahi Ould Tiyib said Sidna was detained along with another suspect, Khadim Ould Semane, who is accused of masterminding the Israeli embassy attack.

"The two most important suspects have been arrested. I have seen them. They are in detention at the gendarmerie," he said.

A security source said three others were also detained. (Reuters)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Mauritania

The top White House terrorism expert thinks some gains are being made in the worldwide public relations battle against al-Qaeda, as the administration and its overseas allies press efforts to show that Osama bin Laden's network is killing Muslim civilians rather than defending its interests.

"More and more Muslim and Arab populations -- [including] clerics and scholars -- are questioning the value of al-Qaeda's program," Juan Carlos Zarate, deputy assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism, said Wednesday at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The efforts he described are in line with plans that Michael E. Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, discussed in February before the same organization. Leiter, who is responsible for strategic communications planning in the fight against terrorism, said the goal is "to prevent the next generation of terrorists from emerging."

One approach, he said, is "to show that it is al-Qaeda, not the West, that is truly at war with Islam."

Last week, Zarate echoed that theme. He said al-Qaeda "should be revealed as themselves being at war with Muslims, especially those who do not believe as they do or subscribe to the al-Qaeda agenda." (Washington Post)

Labels: Al Qaeda, U.S.

Osama bin Laden's chief deputy in an audiotape Tuesday accused Shiite Iran of trying to discredit the Sunni al-Qaida terror network by spreading the conspiracy theory that Israel was behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

The comments reflected al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri's increasing criticism of Iran. Al-Zawahri has accused Iran in recent messages of seeking to extend its power in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and through its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon.

The authenticity of the two-hour audio recording posted on an Islamic Web site could not be independently confirmed. But the voice sounded like past audiotapes from the terror leader, and the posting where it was found bore the logo of Al-Sahab, al-Qaida's official media arm. (AP)

Al Qaeda still has plans to target Western countries involved in the Iraq war, Osama bin Laden's chief deputy warns in an audiotape released Tuesday to answer questions posed by followers. (CNN)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iran, U.S.

A man claiming to be the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq vowed in an audiotape released Saturday to launch a monthlong offensive against U.S. troops.

There was no independent confirmation that the voice belonged to Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, but it sounded exactly like the one heard on previous audiotapes.

Al-Muhajir has been the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq since his predecessor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad in 2006.

"We call on our beloved ones ... that each unit should present the head of an American as a gift to the charlatan Bush ... in addition to one of the apostate servants and slaves of the awakening (councils) during a one-month period," he said in the tape, posted on an Internet site known for its militant contents.

He made clear that the 30-day period begins from the day of the audiotape's release. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Congress plans to press the Bush administration aggressively to justify its policy in Afghanistan following a nonpartisan report that concludes that the administration "lacks a comprehensive plan" to take on al Qaeda in its stronghold.

Bush will be asked to explain why there is no clear plan to wipe out al Qaeda.

"I want to shine light on this," Rep. Howard Berman, the California Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC News today. "I want the American people to know what is not happening, and I believe that pressure from that public scrutiny will force this administration and certainly the next administration to make a 180-degree change."

Berman has scheduled a hearing for May 7 to grill administration officials.

His concern follows a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that concludes, "No comprehensive plan for meeting U.S. national security goals ... has been developed" in Pakistan's lawless tribal region along the Afghan border. (ABC)

Labels: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, U.S.

"God is Great," screamed a man seconds before he blew himself up, killing 10 people in a restaurant in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province in western Iraq. A series of suicide bombings have shown over the past week that al-Qa'ida in Iraq, though battered by defections over the past year, is striking back remorselessly at Sunni Arab leaders who ally themselves to the US.

In another attack in the village of Albu Mohammed, south of Kirkuk, an elderly man thought by guards to be too old to be a bomber, walked unsearched into a tent filled with mourners attending the funeral of two Sunni tribesmen who had been killed after they joined al-Sahwa, the Awakening Council, as the pro-US Sunni group is called. The man detonated the explosives hidden under his long Arab robes, killing at least 50 people.

A vicious civil war is now being fought within Iraq's Sunni Arab community between al-Qa'ida in Iraq and al-Sahwa while other groups continue to attack American forces. In Baghdad on a single day the head of al-Sahwa in the southern district of Dora was killed in his car by gunmen and seven others died by bombs and bullets in al-Adhamiya district. (Independent)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq, U.S.

Al-Qaida's No. 2 said in an audiotape released Friday that the United States will lose whether it stays in Iraq or withdraws, and he sneered that President Bush just wants to pass the problem on to his successor.

The message from Ayman al-Zawahri released early Friday on a militant Web site appeared to be one of the most quickly prepared tapes produced by al-Qaida - referring to Congressional testimony only last week by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, in which he recommended a halt to further U.S. troop withdrawals until after July.

Bush said last week he would give Petraeus all the time needed to reassess U.S. troop strength in Iraq after the current drawdown of U.S. troops ends in July.

"The truth is that if Bush keeps all his forces in Iraq until doomsday and until they enter hell, they will only see crisis and defeat by the will of God," said al-Zawahri, the deputy of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.

"If the American forces leave, they will lose everything. And if they stay, they will bleed to death," he said. (AP)

Labels: Al Qaeda, Iraq

The letter to insurgent leader Abu Ayyub al-Masri read almost like a corporate strategy memo. Apparently written by one of al-Misri's lieutenants, the missive captured by U.S. forces argues that al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) must work to sow disunity among the thousands of Sunni fighters who've turned against the insurgency and now work with the Americans. Iraq's economy must be hobbled and its oil and gas fields and electrical infrastructure attacked, urges the insurge