Eight Al Qaeda-linked militants were handed life sentences on Wednesday, three in absentia, for plotting a 2004 chemical attack on the U.S. Embassy and other sites in the kingdom. The men alleged associates of slain Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had been sentenced to death in a previous trial in 2006. But an appeals court overturned those sentences because the prosecutor was apparently one of the plot's targets. The men were arrested in 2004, weeks ahead of what prosecutors called a sophisticated plot to set off a cloud of toxic chemicals that could have killed tens of thousands of people. At that point the plan was in an "advanced stage," with chemicals, weapons and vehicles already in place, according to an indictment. Al-Zarqawi had given the men more than $118,000 to finance the plot, it said. If carried out, it would have been one of the first known chemical attacks by Al Qaeda-linked militants. The targets included the U.S. Embassy in the capital Amman, the prime minister's office and the intelligence service's headquarters. (Source: AP)

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A U.S. citizen died in an explosion aboard a minibus taxi in Addis Ababa that Ethiopian police are blaming on extremists, the State Department said on Wednesday. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed Tuesday's death but declined to provide the name of the victim or details because the person's family was still being notified. Asked whether foul play was suspected, McCormack said: "It sounds like there is something more than just a faulty gas line." Police in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said a device had been planted by "suspected terrorists" on the minibus as it was traveling between the Hilton hotel and the foreign ministry. (Source: Reuters)

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A senior Somali Islamist opposition leader vowed in an interview published on Thursday to force Ethiopian troops from his country and warned that UN-sponsored peace talks would fail. "We are going to liberate Somalia from Ethiopia," Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys was quoted as saying in the British newspaper The Guardian. UN-sponsored peace talks that opened last week in Djibouti are doomed to fail unless Ethiopia first withdraws all its forces, he added. (Source: AFP)

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Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said on Wednesday he would keep troops in neighbouring Somalia until "jihadists" were defeated, in remarks likely to harm the chances of U.N.-brokered peace talks. In a move supported by the United States but providing a target for militants, Meles moved thousands of troops into Somalia in late 2006 to help the nation's struggling government topple an Islamist movement that controlled most of the south. Since then, allied Ethiopian-Somali troops have faced near-daily attacks in an insurgency drawing comparisons with Iraq and undermining stability across east Africa. (Source: Reuters)

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Officials at a Swedish nuclear plant shut down one of its three reactors for inspections after a man tried to enter the power station with traces of a highly explosive substance, a spokesman said Thursday. Reactor O1 at the Oskarshamn plant was stopped late Wednesday as a security precaution, because it could not be ruled out that two maintenance workers arrested on suspicion of plotting sabotage had accessed areas near the reactor. The two contractors were arrested Wednesday after security guards found traces of explosives on the handle of a plastic bag that one of the men was carrying.

Police said the substance was believed to be triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive used in the 2005 London transit bombings. (Source: AP)

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Iraq

Iraq's Prime Minister met with the country's most influential Shiite spiritual leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, on Thursday as he seeks support for his government in the wake of recent offensives against Sunni and Shiite extremists. In the southern city of Najaf, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, himself a Shiite, visited the Imam Ali mosque, one of the holiest Shiite shrines, then met with al-Sistani. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information, said the prime minister also planned to meet with provincial council members in Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad. A government adviser said the Prime Minister planned to brief al-Sistani on the government crackdowns that have made inroads against violence. The U.S. military said 11 Shiite gunmen were killed in fighting Wednesday with Shiite militia fighters. It said the slain men "were positively identified as either committing a violent act or posed a threat to commit a violent act before each engagement." However Iraqi police officials said Thursday that three civilians, including Auda, were killed in clashes that broke out later Wednesday, raising the day's total death toll to 14. (Source: AP)

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United States

In response to the announcement of indirect peace talks between Syria and Israel, Secretary of State Rice said Wednesday: "We knew about these discussions from their inception and we have been kept informed. As we noted at the time of Annapolis, we would welcome any steps that might lead to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East....Now, obviously, there is not going to be a comprehensive peace if there continues to be support for terror. There's not going to be a comprehensive peace if there continue to be rejectionist groups that are not willing to accept the principles on which peace might - must be built, two states living side by side, an end to armed conflict which brings death to innocent people....Until that kind of behavior stops, it's going to be very difficult to get to a comprehensive peace." (Source: State Department)

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Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, President Bush's nominee to lead U.S. forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, supports continued U.S. engagement with international and regional partners to find the right mix of diplomatic, economic and military leverage to address the challenges posed by Iran. In written answers to questions posed by the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he will testify today, Petraeus said the possibility of military action against Iran should be retained as a "last resort." But he said the United States "should make every effort to engage by use of the whole of government, developing further leverage rather than simply targeting discrete threats." (Source: Washington Post)

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The military's elite Special Operations Command has quietly stepped back from a controversial plan that gave it the authority to carry out secret counterterrorism missions on its own around the world. The decision culminates four years of misgivings within the military that the command, with its expertise in commando missions and unconventional war, would use its broader mandate too aggressively, by carrying out operations that had not been reviewed or approved by regional commanders. A new Special Operations commander, Admiral Eric Olson of the Navy Seals, has now said publicly that he intends to play a different role, and will instead continue the command's new mission as coordinator of the military's counterterrorism efforts around the world. The shift reverses what Donald Rumsfeld put in place as defense secretary in 2004, when he said he wanted the Special Operations Command, based in Tampa, Florida, to operate unilaterally; he believed that it would be more aggressive in hunting down terrorists than the regional commanders, who are tied most closely to conventional forces. (Source: IHT)

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Career FBI agent Bassem Youssef told a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee Wednesday, "The FBI counter-terrorism division is ill-equipped to handle the terrorist threat we are facing." Youssef said that counter-terrorism agents and managers at FBI headquarters often lack basic knowledge about Middle Eastern culture, language and terrorists' ideology. The result is that agents are wasting resources chasing leads that more sophisticated observers would quickly dispense with. The time and energy expended on marginal cases has diverted resources from investigating more substantial threats, he said. The son of immigrant Christian Egyptians and a decorated counter-terrorism agent, Youssef has long been the highest-ranking Arab American agent in the FBI and one of its few native Arabic speakers. He was passed over for promotions after the September 11 attacks, and filed a lawsuit in 2003 claiming the bureau discriminated against him based on his ancestry. (Source: Los Angeles Times)

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More than one out of every three positions in an elite FBI division that tracks Al Qaeda terrorists is vacant, according to an internal bureau document. Efforts are under way at the FBI to canvass for "volunteers" to fill what the agency said is a "critical" need in its counterterrorism efforts. A senior bureau official said yesterday that because of significant staffing shortages and a lack of experienced managers, the FBI cannot properly defend the United States against "another catastrophic and direct attack by Middle Eastern terrorists." Bassem Youssef, chief of the communications analysis unit of the FBI's counterterrorism division, said the bureau's International Terrorism Operations Sections (ITOS), which include those that track Al Qaeda terrorists, are "inexcusably understaffed." (Source: Washington Times)

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Five years ago, as troubling reports emerged about the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a career lawyer at the Justice Department began a long and relatively lonely campaign to alert top Bush administration officials to a strategy he considered "wrongheaded." Bruce C. Swartz, a criminal division deputy in charge of international issues, repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of harsh interrogation tactics at White House meetings of a special group formed to decide detainee matters, with representatives present from the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA. Swartz warned that the abuse of Guantanamo inmates would do "grave damage" to the country's reputation and to its law enforcement record, according to an investigative audit released earlier this week by the Justice Department's inspector general. Swartz was joined by a handful of other top Justice and FBI officials who said the abuse would almost certainly taint any legal proceedings against the detainees. (Source: Washington Post)

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Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., has asked Google to remove videos produced by Islamist terrorists from YouTube. "A great majority of these videos document horrific attacks on American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan," he said. Other videos "provide weapons training, speeches by Al Qaeda leadership, and general material intended to radicalize potential recruits." Lieberman asks Google to apply its own community guidelines, which forbid graphic violence, and videos that show "someone getting hurt, attacked, or humiliated." In response, 80 videos were removed from YouTube by Google. But while Lieberman considers this a good start, he says it is not enough. (Source: ABC News)

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World oil prices broke yet more records on Thursday, catapulting above 135 dollars a barrel for the first time on runaway fears about rampant demand exceeding supply, analysts said. Brent North Sea oil struck a historic height of 135.14 dollars a barrel and benchmark New York light sweet crude hit an all-time peak of 135.09 dollars. (Source: AFP)

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Africa

South African President Thabo Mbeki approved troop deployments to help stop attacks on migrants that have claimed two dozen lives, his office said Wednesday.Red Cross officials in South Africa said about 13,000 people have been displaced since the violence began last week, CNN reported. Many of the victims are Zimbabweans and others from neighboring countries who have fled to South Africa for political or economic reasons.

The violence began in Johannesburg's Alexandra Township, police said, and has spread. Reports indicate mobs shoot, beat and burned some victims. (Source: UPI)

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Government officials say 27 people are dead following an insurgent attack on an army base in northern Mali. The Defense Ministry says armed insurgents battled soldiers in the far northern desert town of Abeibara for about eight hours Wednesday before being pushed back. The ministry says 27 people killed, 10 of them soldiers. Ethnic Tuareg rebels active in the area have claimed responsibility for the attack. But they say only one of their fighters died in the skirmish. Rebels also say they've taken some 60 soldiers hostages. (Source: AP)

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Dozens of Nigerian troops were killed with a petrol tanker slammed into a military convoy that was taking them back to their base in the country's north, the army said Thursday. Army spokesman Brigadier General Emeka Onwuamaegbu said one officer and 44 soldiers died in the accident overnight as the troops headed backed to the base in Borno State. Other injured troops of the 245th Battalion were receiving treatment, he said without providing more details. Accidents are common on Nigeria's poorly maintained roads. Even main cities are linked by pitted, two-lane roads crammed with passenger buses, trucks laden with goods and rickety private vehicles. (Source: AP)

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Americas

Denmark's foreign minister has made a plea for peace among Arctic nations, including Canada, on the eve of an international summit in Greenland aimed at easing territorial tensions in a region experiencing unprecedented melting and thought to contain a quarter of the world's remaining oil reserves. (Source: Canada.com)

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Two Mexican policemen were shot and their bodies dumped in a car on a busy Mexico City-bound highway, police said on Wednesday, the latest in a spurt of brutal drug gang murders near the capital. The bodies, which showed torture marks, were left with death threats directed at anyone backing powerful drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man. They were found late on Tuesday in the trunk of a car abandoned on the Cuernavaca-Mexico City highway, a route used by commuters between the capital and the small colonial city where many have weekend homes. (Source: Reuters)

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Police in Colombia overpowered a man armed with a grenade and freed the two dozen people he was holding, bringing a tense hostage drama to an end, authorities said Wednesday. The man had held police at bay at a downtown Bogota office building, demanding that media be brought to the scene, and asking to meet with Mexico's ambassador to Colombia, so that he could make a request for asylum. (Source: AFP)

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the United States on Wednesday of using anti-drug flights for spying, and said that fighter jets are ready to defend Venezuela's sovereignty. Chavez said a U.S. Navy plane that flew into Venezuelan airspace during a purported anti-drug mission was actually involved in reconnaissance. The U.S. Navy plane was detected by Venezuelan authorities Saturday near the Caribbean island of La Orchila, and its crew was questioned over the radio by Caracas' airport control tower. Chavez said that pilots who fly Venezuela's SU-30 Sukhoi combat jets, newly bought from Russia, were "starting their engines" shortly after the U.S. Navy plane was detected. (Source: AP)

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Asia

A Japanese farmer who committed suicide by drinking pesticide vomited the poison at a hospital before he died, releasing toxic fumes that sickened more than 50 people, the hospital said Thursday. Doctors were trying to pump the 34-year-old man's stomach when he threw up, spraying his rescuers with chloropicrin, causing 54 doctors, nurses and patients to develop breathing problems and eye sores. Ten of them were hospitalized themselves, and 90 hospital personnel had to be called in to help with the emergency Wednesday night, said Tomoko Nagao, spokeswoman for the Red Cross Kumamoto Hospital in southern Japan. (Source: AP)

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U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew into Myanmar's disaster zone Thursday as he pressed the country's leaders to open the doors to critical international aid for some 2.5 million cyclone survivors. In a meeting with Prime Minister Thein Sein, Ban stressed that foreign aid experts needed to be rushed in because the crisis had exceeded Myanmar's national capacity, according to a U.N. official at the talks. Ban was then flown by helicopter to the cyclone-ravaged Irrawaddy delta, the country's rice bowl, where most of the 78,000 deaths from Cyclone Nargis occurred. Another 56,000 are officially listed as missing. (Source: AP)

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Europe

Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek announced Wednesday that the Czech government had approved the main accord on the deployment of a U.S. anti-missile radar in the country, the CTK news agency reported. The agreement must now be approved by parliament along with an accord covering the conditions for US forces to be based in the Czech Republic, CTK cited Topolanek as saying after a cabinet meeting in the northwestern town of Teplice. (Source: AP)

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The long military standoff in Abkhazia, where a separatist dispute has risked escalating this year to a renewed war, has entered a phase of quiet diplomacy aimed at easing tensions and urging negotiations, according to officials on both sides of the conflict. No agreement to negotiate has been reached, and the differences between the Abkhaz and Georgian governments remain vast. Both sides caution that an act of significant violence or other provocation could lead swiftly to war. But this month, after Russia sent paratroopers and artillery across its borders to reinforce its peacekeeping contingent in the enclave, and as unmanned Georgian aerial drones flew reconnaissance missions overhead, an American and a Georgian delegation traveled separately here to Sukhumi, the capital of the breakaway region, to discuss the possibility of talks. The dialogue appeared to reduce for the moment the risk of a resumption of large-scale fighting and to create a chance to discuss confidence-building measures - even as military incidents continued along the contested zone. On Wednesday, for example, as parliamentary elections were being held in Georgia, a firefight in the village of Kurcha destroyed two buses and wounded at least two civilians. (Source: IHT)

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A Turkish news agency says two Turkish soldiers have been killed in a clash with Kurdish rebels in southeastern Turkey. Dogan news agency says the clash erupted on Mount Kato in Sirnak province, bordering Iraq. Thursday's report says one soldier was also wounded in the overnight clash. Kurdish rebels have been fighting for autonomy in Turkey's southeast since 1984. Tens of thousands have been killed in the fighting. Some rebels infiltrate Turkey from bases in neighboring Iraq. Turkey has launched several air attacks and one major ground offensive across the border into Iraq so far this year.

(Source: AP)

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Middle East

The Islamic Jihad militant group said a Palestinian suicide bomber died in a truck bomb blast near the Erez border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel on Thursday.

There were no reports of Israeli casualties from the explosion of the truck, which was packed with 400 kilos (about 900 pounds) of explosives. Islamic Jihad said the bomber, Ibrahim Nasser, 23, was a member of its armed wing, the Al Quds Brigade. It said the truck blew up earlier than planned, a few hundred metres (yards) from the border crossing. The powerful explosion damaged buildings on the Palestinian side of the border and Palestinians shot at Israeli troops at the crossing without hitting anyone. Other armed Palestinian militants who followed the truck fled after their car rolled over, witnesses said. Israel's army radio said the car was targeted by a military helicopter and that several militants were hit. (Source: AFP)

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An Israel Defense Forces soldier was wounded on Wednesday when a mortar shell fired by Palestinians in Gaza exploded at the Zikkim base near Ashkelon. (Source: Ha'aretz)

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Israel set terms for concluding a peace deal with Syria on Thursday, closing ranks with Washington in demanding Damascus distance itself from Iran and stop supporting Palestinian and Lebanese militants. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel wanted to live in peace with its neighbors, but Syria needed to "distance itself completely" from "problematic ties" with Iran. Syria must also cease "supporting terror - Hizbullah, Hamas." (Source: Reuters/Washington Post)

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Joe Varner is Assistant Professor and Program Manager for Homeland Security at American Military University