Global War on Terror

The U.S. State Department congressionally-mandated “Country Reports on Terrorism” said Al Qaeda enjoyed its safe haven in Pakistan and rebuilt its capabilities since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan. The report said Al Qaeda attacks rose sharply in 2007 due to restored capabilities despite the loss of major commanders. The report also cited a revived network in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But the report said Pakistan has also been the main victim of Al Qaeda's resurgence. The State Department recorded a doubling of Al Qaeda strikes in Pakistan from 2006 and 2007. The attacks were also deemed more lethal as the number of fatalities quadrupled last year. At the same time, Al Qaeda appears to have lost its steam in Iraq. The report said Al Qaeda strikes, mostly suicide bombings, in Iraq dropped slightly between 2006 and 2007. The State Department concluded that Al Zawahiri has become Al Qaeda's "strategic and operational planner." Al Zawahiri, an Egyptian national, has been regarded as No. 2 in Al Qaeda. (Source: World Tribune)

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Muslim rebels have forced hundreds of mainly Christian families off their farms in the southern Philippines, escalating tensions in the region ahead of the withdrawal of Malaysian peace monitors next week. Rolando Garcia, mayor of Kalamansig town on the troubled southern island of Mindanao, said on Friday that heavily-armed members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) claimed the farmers' land belonged to the Muslim minority. The 11,000-strong MILF is meant to be observing a ceasefire and a spokesman for the rebel group said he was unaware of any land seizures. (Source: AFP)

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An explosion at a mosque in north Yemen has caused many casualties. Dozens of people were killed or wounded in the blast, news agency AFP reported, citing witnesses. A security source told Reuters the blast took place as worshippers were leaving the mosque in the Saada region, the site of a Shia rebellion. The cause of the blast was not immediately known.
(Source: BBC)

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U.S. missiles destroyed the house of the man identified by the U.S. military as the top Al Qaeda commander in Somalia, killing him and 10 others Thursday in a pre-dawn attack that analysts warned could torpedo peace talks. The killing of Aden Hashi Ayro comes amid escalating fighting and a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation. Islamic fighters have staged a series of attacks on towns in the months leading up to the U.N.-sponsored talks, scheduled to start May 10. The insurgents typically hold the towns for a few hours, free people from jails, then withdraw with captured weapons. Somali government officials have said Ayro, who was believed to be in his 30s, trained in Afghanistan before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and headed Al Qaeda's cell in Somalia. (Source: AP)

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Moroccan police have arrested one of nine convicts who escaped from prison in April and were linked to deadly 2003 terrorist attacks in Casablanca. Police arrested Mohamed Chetbi and two men who helped him to hide out. It did not say where the arrests occurred or provide other information. Chetbi and eight others tunneled to freedom in the town of Kinitra, about 30 miles northeast of the capital, Rabat. The disappearances were discovered April 7, the Justice Ministry said at the time. Chetbi had been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his role in a series of nearly simultaneous suicide bombings in downtown Casablanca in 2003 that killed 45 people, including the 12 bombers. Chetbi's exact role was not clear. (Source: AP)

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A Kuwaiti man released from the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay in 2005 has carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq, his cousin told Al Arabiya television yesterday. A friend of Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi in Iraq informed his family that Abdullah carried out the attack in Mosul, his cousin Salem said. He did not say when the suicide bombing happened. Abdullah, 30, had been missing for two weeks and his family learned he left Kuwait illegally for Syria, he said. Abdullah had sent messages to his wife from Iraq. (Source: Washington Times)

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One of Osama bin Laden's sons has been denied British residency because London authorities think his presence in the country would cause "considerable public concern," the man's wife said yesterday. Omar Osama bin Laden, a 27-year-old metals trader, had hoped to live in Britain with his British-born wife. The couple lives in Cairo but she is eager to return to her country, where she has a home. But his wife, Zaina Alsabah, said Omar's residency application was rejected. Omar has not renounced his father, but says he wants to be an "ambassador for peace" between Muslims and the West. (Source: Washington Times)

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Many theories are circulating inside U.S. intelligence agencies on who killed notorious Hizbullah terrorist Imad Mughniyah, who was blown up in a car bomb attack in Damascus February 12. One theory popular in the Middle East is that the hit was an Israeli intelligence operation. An Israeli hit is considered possible but unlikely since even though Israel's Mossad has a long arm, the bombing took place in the Syrian capital, considered a very difficult intelligence operating area. A prime suspect is Syria itself, specifically Syrian intelligence agents who would have known Mughniyah's personal security measures and travel. Syria's government is investigating the killing and recent reports from the region state Damascus is blaming Saudi Arabian agents for the killing, a charge Riyadh has denied. Iran also is suspected. Despite its decades-long backing of Mughniyah, Tehran, this theory goes, was not happy with Mughniyah and wanted him out of the way. Even Hizbullah is a suspect, based on stories of growing factionalism inside the Iranian-backed Lebanese terror group. Still another theory is that the killing was the work of Lebanon's security service, in retaliation for the terrorist killings of Lebanese officials. Asked who killed Mughniyah, Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East, said in a brief interview recently that he knows at least 15 theories on the death of Mugniyah, who has been blamed for killing more Americans than any other terrorist, not counting Al Qaeda. "And all 15 could be wrong," said Mr. Kimmitt, a retired Army one-star general, adding: "Whoever did it, the world is a better place without him." (Source: Washington Times)

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Iraq
The U.S. military on Friday blamed Al Qaeda in Iraq for a double suicide bombing that killed at least 35 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 Qaeda 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. 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. The two explosions tore through the stalls and stores that lined the area. At least 35 people were killed and 65 were wounded, including the bride and groom. Diyala has been a flashpoint in the battle against Al Qaeda in Iraq, which the U.S. military says has been increasingly using women as suicide bombers. Explosive belts are easier to conceal under female clothing and women are often not treated with the same suspicion as men. Two suicide bombings staged by women last week in Diyala killed a dozen people. (Source: AP)

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United States

The nation's top military officer warned yesterday that the transition to a new American president will mark a "time of vulnerability" as the United States fights two wars, and he said military leaders are already actively preparing for the changing of the guard. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Navy Admiral Michael G. Mullen, said the U.S. political transition will be "extraordinarily challenging," particularly as the military is engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan and faces interference in both countries from Iran.

Mullen spoke on a day when Pentagon officials announced that a second U.S. aircraft carrier group, the USS Lincoln, had arrived in the Persian Gulf for a brief overlap with another carrier. (Source: Washington Post)

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With energy prices soaring and the federal deficit approaching $400 billion, senators from both parties moved yesterday to force Iraq to shoulder more financial responsibility for its reconstruction and self-defense. Under the plan, Iraq also would have to pay to train and equip its security forces and provide the salaries of Sunni-dominated "Sons of Iraq" security groups. In addition, the administration would have to negotiate cost-sharing agreements for U.S.-Iraqi joint military operations, with an eye toward Iraq picking up the tab for items such as fuel. (Source: Washington Post)

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Applicants for government security clearances will no longer have to declare whether they sought mental health counseling after serving in combat zones, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday. The policy change is part of a broader Pentagon effort to reduce the stigma that military service members and civilian defense workers face in seeking care for post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological wounds of war. (Source: Washington Post)

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Africa
Gunmen opened fire on a convoy Thursday in eastern Chad near the Sudanese border, killing a French aid worker. The U.N. said the attack was the second targeting of a humanitarian worker in Chad in less than a year. Gunmen shot and killed a driver working for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in late 2007, and in March, a French peacekeeper working with a European force in eastern Chad was shot to death by Sudanese soldiers when his vehicle strayed across the badly marked border. Eastern Chad has become a zone of uprooted refugees from Sudan's Darfur region spilling across the border. Displaced Chadians, humanitarian groups and EU peacekeepers work in the tense area, and Sudan has been hostile to the peacekeeping mission, which has not yet fully deployed. France has found itself deeply engaged this year in Chad, its former colony. Besides contributing to the EUFOR peacekeeping mission, French soldiers were deployed during a brief but tense effort by Chadian rebels to seize the presidential palace.

A failed bid by a French aid group, Zoe's Ark, to bring 103 children, allegedly orphans from Darfur, to France ended in scandal and recrimination that translated into distrust among many Chadians for all aid groups. (Source: AP)

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Zimbabwe's opposition on Friday disputed results of a March 29 presidential election released by electoral officials, saying opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had the outright majority needed to avoid a run-off. Official data seen by Reuters showed Tsvangirai had 47.9 percent of the vote, beating President Robert Mugabe with 43.2 percent, but not enough to escape a second round contest with the veteran leader, who has led Zimbabwe since 1980. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says Tsvangirai got 50.3 percent of the vote. (Source: Reuters)

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The U.N. Security Council has extended its Western Sahara mission, charged with monitoring the cease-fire between Morocco and independence-seeking rebels. The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the one-year extension, calling on parties to engage in a "more intensive and substantive phase of negotiations" to resolve the dispute, the council said in a news release issued from New York. The mission also is charged with organizing a referendum on self-determination. Morocco maintains that its sovereignty over Western Sahara should be recognized, but the Frente Polisario, said a referendum including independence as an option should decide the territory's status. The Frente Polisario is a rebel movement working for the independence of Western Sahara from Morocco. In a report on the matter, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote the commitment of the two parties to negotiate was welcomed, but a breakthrough hasn't happened yet. (Source: UPI)

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Americas

President Evo Morales celebrated May Day by announcing the nationalization of Bolivia's leading telecommunications company, Entel, and returning four foreign-owned natural gas companies to state control. (Source: AP)

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Asia
North Korea has agreed to blow up the cooling tower attached to its Yongbyon nuclear facility within 24 hours of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, diplomats said this week. The destruction of the cooling tower is intended by U.S. officials to be a striking visual, broadcast around the globe that would offer tangible evidence that North Korea was retreating from its nuclear ambitions. Wisps of vapor from the cooling tower appear in most satellite photographs of Yongbyon, making it the facility's most recognizable feature, though experts say its destruction would be mostly symbolic. North Korean officials had privately indicated previously they would destroy the tower as part of the disablement of Yongbyon. During talks last week with a top U.S. State Department official, Sung Kim, North Korea reaffirmed it would act quickly after Pyongyang is removed from the terrorism list. (Source: Washington Post)

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China has secretly built a major underground nuclear submarine base that could threaten Asian countries and challenge American power in the region. Satellite imagery shows that a substantial harbor has been built which could house a score of nuclear ballistic missile submarines and a host of aircraft carriers. Of even greater concern to the Pentagon are massive tunnel entrances, estimated to be 60feet high, built into hillsides around the base. Sources fear they could lead to caverns capable of hiding up to 20 nuclear submarines from spy satellites. The US Department of Defence has estimated that China will have five 094 nuclear submarines operational by 2010 with each capable of carrying 12, 8000 kilometer range, JL-2 submarine launched ballistic missiles. Within the next five to 10 years the Peoples Liberation Navy is expected to build up to six carriers. The location of the base off Hainan will also give the submarines access to very deep water exceeding 5,000 meters within a few miles, making them even harder to detect. This will also allow them to move into their fire stations with greater ease and speed than their previous bases. (Source: Daily Telegraph)

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Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant on China, said recently that the U.S. strategy of "hedging" against an emerging military threat from Beijing by building up U.S. forces in the Pacific likely will continue whoever is elected president in November. Pillsbury made the comments during a panel discussion at a Jane's U.S. Defense Conference and noted that a key part of the strategy is the U.S. buildup of forces on Guam. (Source: Washington Times)

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The American ambassador to Nepal has met for the first time with the leader of the country's former communist rebels, which Washington still officially considers terrorists, the U.S. Embassy said Friday. (Source: AFP)

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Indian intelligence and security agencies are worried over the efforts of Maoist rebels to set up bases in the already restive northeast, which has now overtaken Jammu and Kashmir in militancy-related violence. Security experts are analyzing the possible ramifications of the move. Following inputs from the Intelligence Bureau, the Interior Ministry sounded a red alert to the region's seven states directing them to put their police and central paramilitary forces on high alert, said a top IB official, who declined to be named. The official said agencies are worried because the presence of Maoist rebels would further complicate the situation in the region, already under the grip of a severe armed conflict. Intelligence inputs sent to the federal Interior Ministry suggest Maoist rebels have supported the issue of scheduled tribe status in Assam that would grant the state's residents greater access to educational and employment opportunities. Assam's tribal communities have demanded the status. Intelligence inputs suggest Maoists have targeted two comparatively weak separatist outfits, the All Adivasi (tribal) National Liberation Army and Adivasi Viper Militant Force. The inputs say Maoists have already established contacts with these two organizations, which are active in the districts of Assam bordering Bhutan. These two groups have launched a massive recruitment drive in various parts of Assam and other northeastern states. (Source: UPI)

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Europe
U.S. State Department officials have not asked the Belarus missions in Washington and New York to close, a State Department spokesman said Thursday. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry Wednesday told U.S. diplomats they were declared persona non grata and asked to leave Minsk within 72 hours. The expulsion came after the United States imposed sanctions because of the authoritarian rule of President Alexander Lukashenko. (Source: AP)

Middle East
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas underwent heart tests in a Jordanian hospital yesterday, a spokesman said, describing his condition as good. "President Abbas has had some tests carried out in a hospital in Amman, including cardiac catheterization," spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah said. "He will be back in (the West Bank city of) Ramallah tomorrow," Abu Rdainah said. (Source: Turkish Daily News)

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Islamic Jihad said on Thursday it would not formally sign onto an Egyptian-brokered truce with Israel but would not be the first to violate it. Egypt is expecting Israel to accept and implement the cease-fire proposal agreed on by the Palestinian factions, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit's bureau chief said Wednesday. But a number of factions were equivocal in their support for a ceasefire, and some said they reserved the right to retaliate against Israeli attacks. In a new statement, Zeyad al-Nakhala, deputy to exiled Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Shallah, said the group could not be a party to a truce agreement that did not also apply at the onset to the occupied West Bank. Meanwhile, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman is expected to arrive in Israel shortly to receive Israel's official response to the Egyptian cease-fire proposal. (Source: Ha’aretz)

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Israeli forces have killed two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including a Hamas militant who Israel says was involved in the capture of an Israeli soldier in 2006. An Israeli airstrike killed the militant Nafez Manzur Thursday in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza. The Israeli military says Manzur was involved in a 2006 raid on an Israeli border post near Gaza in which militants captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and killed two others. Shalit remains in captivity. The other casualty in Thursday's violence, an elderly civilian, was shot and killed near the southern town of Khan Younis. The Israeli army confirmed its forces were operating in the area, but gave few other details. (Source: VOICE OF AMERICA)

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Palestinian medical officials on Thursday said a 62-year-old civilian was killed and three militants wounded by Israel Defense Forces fire, during fighting in Gaza. The Israeli Defense Forces had no immediate comment. (Source: Ha’aretz)

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The Middle East Quartet called on Israel to halt the building of settlements, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said after a meeting of the so-called Quartet of Middle East peace mediators. The Quartet “called on Israel to freeze all settlement activities,” he said after the meeting in London. The Quartet comprises the U.S., Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is negotiating with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for an agreement that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. (Source: Bloomberg)

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The head of the Arab League is urging Lebanese lawmakers to quickly elect a new president. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa says such a step would meet the Syrian-backed opposition's demand for the formation of a national unity government.
Moussa spoke at an Arab economic forum Friday in Beirut, a day after holding talks with top leaders from the Western-backed parliamentary majority and the opposition led by the militant Hizbullah group. (Source: AP)

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U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised fresh doubts Thursday about the nature of Iran's nuclear program, saying if the clerical state really wanted only an avenue to peaceful atomic energy it could quickly have it. Instead, Iran is stonewalling on an attractive deal to trade away only the part of the program that could result in a nuclear weapon, Rice said ahead of a gathering of the U.N. nations that have presented a carrot-or-stick package to Iran. (Source: AP)

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It was reported in the internet press that the U.S. military has drafted and won approval for attack plans in response to an Iran attack. Western diplomatic sources said the U.S. military's Central Command has submitted plans for an air and naval strike on Iran. The sources said the plan envisioned escalating tensions that would peak with an Iranian-inspired insurgency strike against U.S. military assets in the Gulf. Meanwhile, on April 29, a second American aircraft carrier, USS Abraham Lincoln, steamed into the Gulf in what officials termed a show of force. They said the U.S. Navy plans to withdraw a carrier group, USS Harry S. Truman, from the region. Officials said the Defense Department has sought an update for plans to attack Iran amid what they term its "increasingly hostile role" against the United States. The officials cited the weapons flow to insurgency groups in Iraq as well as confrontations with U.S. ships in the Gulf. Under the plan approved by the Defense Department, Central Command would be allowed to retaliate for an Iranian attack with U.S. air strikes.

The sources said the plan contained a series of options that range from a limited to full-scale attack. The most comprehensive retaliation would target all Iranian military assets in the Gulf. The sources said the aim of Central Command was to prevent any Iranian attempt to block the Straits of Hormuz, the passage of 40 percent of global oil. In the second stage, the U.S. Navy and Air Force would strike missile centers and command and control facilities deep in Iran. Much of the strikes would be conducted from the two U.S. Navy carrier strike groups in the Gulf. If the second stage of the plan is implemented, the sources said, the U.S. military would also target Iran's nuclear weapons program. The sources said all major facilities, including Arak, Bushehr and Isfahan, would be destroyed. The sources said the Pentagon has not approved a CENTCOM option to initiate a U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear program. They said that at this point the Pentagon was concern with protecting the huge U.S. Navy presence in the Gulf. The U.S. Military has dismissed reports that it is preparing for a strike on Iran.
(Source: World Tribune)

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