Daiyl Intel Brief 05-05-09

1. Bail denied in nuclear export case

By Shanon Kari, National Post May 4, 2009 12:02 PM
http://www.canada.com/news/Bailed+denied+nuclear+export+case/1561871/sto...

TORONTO — A provincial court judge has denied bail to Mahmoud Yadegari, an Iranian-Canadian accused of trying to export parts that could be used in the production of nuclear weapons. Justice Sheila Ray issued her decision Monday morning, following a two-day bail hearing last month. Yadegari has been in custody since his arrest on April 16, following a two-month-long investigation by the RCMP. The 35-year-old Toronto resident is accused of purchasing two "pressure transducers" that were allegedly destined for Iran. Transducers are small parts with many commercial applications such as in air conditioners. Certain types of transducers, however, can help centrifuges produce enriched uranium and may have military applications. Yadegari purchased the transducers for just over $2,000 and was trying to sell them for nearly $6,000, police alleged at a news conference following his arrest. He is the first person prosecuted in Canada for allegedly violating United Nations Security Council resolutions prohibiting the export of certain products to Iran… Yadegari will be back in court briefly on May 11 for scheduling issues and possibly to set a date for a preliminary hearing.

2. U.S. May Revive Guantánamo Military Courts
By WILLIAM GLABERSON New York Times May 2, 2009

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02gitmo.html?

The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself. Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration's system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects. Continuing the military commissions in any form would probably prompt sharp criticism from human rights groups as well as some of Mr. Obama's political allies because the troubled system became an emblem of the effort to use Guantánamo to avoid the American legal system. Officials who work on the Guantánamo issue say administration lawyers have become concerned that they would face significant obstacles to trying some terrorism suspects in federal courts. Judges might make it difficult to prosecute detainees who were subjected to brutal treatment or for prosecutors to use hearsay evidence gathered by intelligence agencies… But in recent days a variety of officials involved in the deliberations say that after administration lawyers examined many of the cases, the mood shifted toward using military commissions to prosecute some detainees, perhaps including those charged with coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks…

Dems don't fund bid to close Gitmo
S.A. Miller Washington Timesn Monday, May 4, 2009

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3310

House Democratic leaders Monday dropped President Obama's request for $81 million to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, bowing to strong Republican criticism that the administration lacks a plan to relocate terror suspects detained there. Mr. Obama requested the money as part a spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Democratic appropriators left it out of the bill circulated Monday among House Appropriations Committee staffers. Republicans have been criticizing Mr. Obama for rushing to keep his campaign promise to close the prison camp at the U.S. Navy base on Cuba without a plan for what to do with the roughly 240 terrorism suspects currently held on the island… Democratic leaders were not immediately available to comment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, previously dismissed the Republicans' objections as another example of partisan obstructionism by the minority...

3. Plea Deal Reveals Simple Technological Tools Used to Plot Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks
Saturday, May 02, 2009 Associated Press

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518670,00.html

WASHINGTON — In the days following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, alleged Al Qaeda operations mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed intended to use his free Hotmail account to direct a U.S.-based operative to carry out an attack, according to a guilty plea agreement filed by Al Saleh Kahlah al-Marri in federal court. The document shows how Al Qaeda, at least in 2001, embraced prosaic technologies like pre-paid calling cards, public phones, computer search engines and simplistic codes to communicate, plan and carry out its operations. Al-Marri also surfed the Internet to research cyanide gas, using software to cover his tracks, according to the document filed Thursday in federal court in Peoria, Ill. He marked the locations of dams, waterways and tunnels in the United States in an almanac. The government claims this reflects intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning to use cyanide gas to attack those sites. As a result of his guilty plea, al-Marri could be sentenced up to a maximum 15-year term in federal prison. In a stipulation of facts filed as part of the plea agreement, al-Marri admitted that he trained in Al Qaeda camps and stayed in terrorist safe houses in Pakistan between 1998 and 2001. There, he learned how to handle weapons and how to communicate by phone and e-mail using a code. After arriving in the U.S. on Sept. 10, 2001 — a day before Al Qaeda's long-plotted terror strikes in New York and Washington — Al-Marri stored phone numbers of Al Qaeda associates in a personal electronic device. He used a "10-code" to protect the numbers — subtracting the actual digits in the phone numbers from 10 to arrive at a coded number, according to a person close to the investigation…

4. Britain Pays to Keep Suspects From U.S. Hands

By Craig Whitlock Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, May 2, 2009

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR200905...

The British government has paid nearly $900,000 in legal fees on behalf of three associates of Osama bin Laden who have fended off attempts by the U.S. government to extradite them for a decade, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The three al-Qaeda suspects were arrested in London shortly after the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people. British authorities pledged to extradite them swiftly to the United States to stand trial for their alleged roles in the attacks. But the cases have plodded through the British bureaucracy with no end in sight, undermining transatlantic cooperation on counterterrorism and highlighting how easy it can be for international terrorism suspects to elude the reach of U.S. prosecutors. The stalled extraditions have proved expensive for British taxpayers. In Britain, as in the United States, the government covers legal expenses for criminal defendants who cannot afford lawyers. Critics say the combination of free lawyers and a byzantine legal system enables al-Qaeda sympathizers in Britain to file frivolous appeals and avoid deportation or extradition. According to documents obtained by The Post under Britain's Freedom of Information Act, the U.K. Legal Services Commission has paid the equivalent of $371,207 in legal fees for Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi citizen who served as bin Laden's public relations representative in London from 1994 until his arrest in 1998. U.S. officials charge that Fawwaz played a key role in recruiting "military trainees" for al-Qaeda, served as a communications go-between, and gave logistical support to terrorist cells in Africa and Afghanistan. He is also accused of supplying bin Laden with a satellite phone that the al-Qaeda leader used to call Fawwaz and other associates in London more than 200 times. The documents show that British taxpayers have covered $163,420 in legal bills for Adel Abdel Bary, an Egyptian confidant of al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri…

5. New jury problem surfaces in Fla. terrorism trial with juror supposedly refusing to deliberate
Ill juror replaced; panel accuses another of refusing to deliberate

CURT ANDERSON AP Legal Affairs Writer 5:59 PM EDT, May 1, 2009

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30501772/

MIAMI (AP) — A new jury problem surfaced Friday in the terrorism conspiracy trial of six men when panel members asked a federal judge to remove a juror because she supposedly refused to deliberate. A few hours after an ill juror was replaced, a note signed by the jury foreman in the "Liberty City Six" case said a female juror "refuses to engage in discussions based on the evidence or the law" and that this could be "unfair to the defendants," according to U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard. The note said the juror was disruptive and had made comments offensive to others. "Please help us, judge," the note said, adding the juror "feels deliberating is a waste of time." The juror problems were only the latest difficulty in the case, which has gone through two mistrials when earlier juries were unable to agree on verdicts. This third trial has taken over two months and comes nearly three years after the six men were arrested in June 2006. The six are charged with conspiring with al-Qaida to destroy Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices around the country. The plan never got beyond the discussion stage and the group never obtained any weaponry or explosives necessary for such attacks…

Judge denies defense request for 3rd mistrial in Fla. terrorism trial
CURT ANDERSON | AP Legal Affairs Writer 11:34 AM EDT, May 4, 2009

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3312

MIAMI (AP) — A judge has denied a request for a mistrial in the Miami case of six men accused of plotting to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices. U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard refused Monday to grant a third mistrial in the "Liberty City Six" case. Now Lenard must decide whether to remove a juror that other panel members say is being disruptive and refusing to deliberate. That juror did not show up Monday, claiming illness. Lenard could replace the juror with an alternate or continue with 11 juror...

6. Republicans See Threat in FBI Security Work by France's Safran
Bloomberg May 4, 2009 By Justin Blum

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aapfryZ7QmUg&refer=e...

May 4 (Bloomberg) -- Republican lawmakers asked FBI Director Robert Mueller to examine the national-security implications of awarding a contract for a fingerprint-search system to Safran SA, a defense and aerospace company partly owned by the French government. Members of Senate and House committees that oversee spy agencies, including Representative John Kline of Minnesota and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, warned that the FBI contract, which may be worth more than $100 million, could give an overseas-based company access to law-enforcement and intelligence data. "Allowing a foreign government to provide services regarding sensitive information to our law-enforcement and intelligence communities could potentially pose a grave counterintelligence threat," according to the letter from Kline, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence…

7. Court hearings to consider whether Muslims may testify with veil on
TIMOTHY APPLEBY From Saturday's Globe and Mail May 2, 2009 at 2:21 AM EDT

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3313

TORONTO — Should a devout Muslim be allowed to testify in a Canadian criminal trial with her face concealed? Perhaps, a court ruling has suggested. But much hinges on how devout she really is. At centre stage in the first such case of its kind in Canada is a Toronto-area woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by two men and who wants to give evidence wearing a niqab, a veil that covers all of the face save the eyes. At a preliminary inquiry for the two defendants last year, Provincial Court Judge Norris Weisman concluded that the woman's veil was more a reflection of "comfort" than belief, and instructed her to remove it. Late Thursday, Mr. Justice Frank Marrocco of Ontario Superior Court quashed that decision. The battle, however, is far from over. Judge Marrocco's ruling gave no green light for the woman, a Canadian-born mother in her early 30s, to testify from behind her veil. Rather, the judge ordered that the preliminary inquiry — on hold since the issue surfaced — convene two hearings to determine whether the woman's beliefs are sincere, and if they are, whether testimony from a veiled witness would be admissible as evidence. He also granted intervenor status to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, which backs the woman and her lawyer, David Butt, in arguing that at stake is religious expression, a staple of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Pitted against that is the competing principle, articulated by Jack Pinkofsky, lawyer for one of the two accused, that open testimony, including a complainant's appearance, is central to a fair criminal justice system and should supersede religious beliefs...

Air, rail, port, health & communication infrastructure security

IPT NOTE: For more infrastructure news, see Dep't of Homeland Security Daily Open Source Infrastructure Reports http://www.dhs.gov/xinfoshare/programs/editorial_0542.shtm; Public Safety Canada Daily Infrastructure Report http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/dir/index-eng.aspx; TSA Press Releases http://www.tsa.gov/press/releases/index.shtm

8. Reversal lets screeners wear protective masks
Sara A. Carter and Audrey Hudson Saturday, May 2, 2009 Washington Times

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/02/screeners-get-ok-for-masks-i...

The Department of Homeland Security is allowing airport screeners to wear protective masks to guard against swine flu, reversing a directive earlier this week by the Transportation Security Administration. The initial TSA PowerPoint presentation distributed Wednesday said masks do not protect against the disease and that the sight of them might alarm the public. "Based upon the guidance provided by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] there is no need at the present time for personnel to wear protective masks during normal duty operations, nor is there any substantial medical benefit," said a presentation provided to all TSA officials and obtained by The Washington Times. "Consequently, the routine wearing of protective masks by TSA personnel in the workplace is not authorized," said the presentation on swine flu, titled "H1N1 Virus, preventing the spread and maintaining readiness." "In addition to not being medically necessary, the masks interfere with normal [transportation security operation] duties and hold the potential for unnecessarily alarming the public," the guide instructed. That all changed Thursday night, however, after Homeland Security issued new guidelines to be followed by all 22 of its agencies…

9. Bills aim to bolster electric grid's cybersecurity
By Ben Bain Apr 30, 2009 Federal Computer Week

http://fcw.com/articles/2009/04/30/web-ferc-authority.aspx

IPT NOTE: The House Homeland Security Committee's press release is posted at http://homeland.house.gov/press/index.asp?ID=450 and the Senate Homeland Security Committee's press release is posted at http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3314

The chairmen of the House and Senate committees that oversee homeland security plan to introduce legislation today that would expand the authority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to protect the country's electricity grid from cyber threats. The legislation would also require the Homeland Security Department to conduct ongoing assessments of cyber threats to the nation's critical electricity infrastructure and recommends corrective measures. The measures Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.) are set to introduce would give FERC the authority to require utility companies to take protective action against cyber threats identified by national security agencies. The legislation would also give FERC the authority to issue rules or orders to protect critical elements of the electricity infrastructure. The commission would also be able to issue emergency rules or orders without prior notice if a threat is imminent. In addition, the bill would require DHS to investigate whether the federally owned portion of the electricity infrastructure has been compromised and report its findings to Congress. The department would also have to assess cyber threats to the critical infrastructure on an ongoing basis and provide mitigation recommendations. Private companies own and operate much of the electricity infrastructure. After the Wall Street Journal recently reported that spies had infiltrated the electricity grid, Thompson promised to introduce legislation to deal with the problem. He cited "a significant gap in current regulation to effectively secure this infrastructure."…

Financing, identity theft, money laundering

10. KindHearts and feds battle in court over frozen assets
By ERICA BLAKE TOLEDO BLADE Article published May 02, 2009
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090502/NEWS02/90...

A federal judge in Toledo will decide whether the freezing of a local Muslim charity's assets by the U.S. government violated the organization's rights or if it was a proper response to an investigation of a group which the government claims has potential ties to terrorism. Judge James Carr heard arguments from both government attorneys and those on behalf of KindHearts for Charitable Humanitarian Development Inc. during a daylong hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court. The oral arguments were a step in the process begun in October when KindHearts filed suit against the government challenging the methods used in designating organizations as terrorist groups. The judge ended the hearing by taking the issue under advisement. He did not say when he would release his decision. KindHearts, founded in 2002, was targeted by federal agents in 2006, and its financial assets were frozen. According to court documents, the organization was under investigation by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department and would potentially be labeled a "specially designated global terrorist."…

Border security, immigration, customs

IPT NOTE: For more details, see US Customs and Border Protection releases at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/newsroom/news_releases/ ; US Immigration and Customs Enforcement http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/2754 , and Canada Border Services Agency http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/menu-eng.html

11. Underground Threat: Tunnels Pose Trouble from Mexico to Middle East
By Ken Stier Saturday, May. 02, 2009 Time.com
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1895430,00.html
With swine flu frenzy gripping the U.S., the threat coming from south of the Mexico border may seem more real to many Americans than ever before. But the U.S. border authorities who patrol that 1,969 mile long border have another stealth threat to worry about. This month, they will begin installing the first small, 50 mile segment of a "virtual fence" on the dividing line with Mexico. By 2014 most of the border will be home to sensor-equipped towers that are linked to a central communications network. But while proponents argue that the system will help stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drugs and arms coming over the border, most experts admit it will do little to guard against people making their way under it. And as above ground border defenses and patrols get tougher, that subterranean vulnerability is becoming a growing problem. Since 2001, more than 100 tunnels have been discovered by U.S. law enforcement, compared with just 15 in the 1990s, and the pace is accelerating. Most of those have been uncovered through human intelligence, since there are no currently available technical means to reliably detect tunnels. The Department of Homeland Security started spending research money on detection technologies two years ago. But even the most promising ones — primarily adapted from mining and petroleum exploration industries — are several years from proving reliable. "We see this as one of those frontier threat areas that have to be mitigated but it is a very, very difficult problem area," says Rick Miller, a leading expert at the Kansas Geological Survey…

MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

12. DoD Identifies Marine Casualties

U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release No. 290-09 May 01, 2009
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12643

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two Marines who were supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. The following Marines died April 30 while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province, Iraq: Sgt. James R. McIlvaine, 26, of Olney, Md.; Staff Sgt. Mark A. Wojciechowski, 25, of Cincinnati, Ohio; Sgt. McIlvaine was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Staff Sgt. Wojciechowski was assigned to 7th Engineer Support Battalion, 1st Marine Logistics Group, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif. For additional background information on Sgt. McIlvaine, news media representatives may contact the 1st Marine Division public affairs office at (760) 763-5397…

DoD Identifies Navy Casualty
U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release No. 291-09 May 01, 2009
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12642
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a sailor who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler J. Trahan, 22, of East Freetown, Mass., died on April 30 while conducting combat operations in Fallujah, Iraq. Trahan was assigned to Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit Twelve in Norfolk, Va., and was deployed with an East Coast based Navy SEAL team…

DoD Identifies Army Casualty

U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release No. 292-09 May 02, 2009

http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12644
The Department of Defense announced the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Iraqi Freedom. Sgt. Christopher D. Loza, 24, of Abilene, Texas, died Apr. 10, 2009, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C., of a non-combat related illness after becoming ill 17 March in Radwaniyah, Iraq. He was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 124th Cavalry Regiment, 56th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 36th Infantry Division, Waco, Texas…

13. Al-Qaeda allies active in Kenya, says US report

By KEVIN J KELLEY, Correspondent, New York
The Daily NATION (Kenya) Posted Friday, May 1 2009 at 19:58
http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/593038/-/u66802/-/index.html

IPT NOTE: The State Dep't report may be downloaded at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2008/index.htm [HTML] and http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/122599.pdf [PDF]
A group of al-Qaeda supporters is active at the Coast and in parts of Nairobi, the US State Department says in a global terrorism report issued on Thursday. Al-Qaeda agents responsible for the 1998 US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam remain at large and currently pose "the most serious threat to Kenya," the State Department warns. It adds that "the escalating conflict in Somalia provides a permissive environment for terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda operatives and al-Shabaab." While Kenya's border with Somalia remains officially closed, "some Kenyan officials characterised the closure as irrelevant, given the ease of crossing in both directions," the report notes. These high-level expressions of concern about terrorist activity in East Africa represent the latest in a series of recent warnings by US officials concerning growing threats to Kenya…

14. Fears of Yemen turning into another Afghanistan
By DONNA ABU-NASR – Associated Press May 3, 2009

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3315

SAN'A, Yemen (AP) — The cave tucked in the remote Saudi mountains near the Yemeni border was clearly a way station for Islamic militants, Saudi police say, pointing to the stock of guns and ammunition, nooks for holding hostages and cameras for filming them. It even had buckets of sugar, rice and flour, as well as boxes of charcoal, candles, pasta and beans — supplies for a long stay by al-Qaida fighters moving across the border to prepare attacks in the kingdom. The discovery in early April reinforced a growing fear in Saudi Arabia: that Yemen could become another Afghanistan right on its doorstep, an out-of-control state where al-Qaida runs free and exports violence into its neighbor. The United States shares the Saudis' fear. Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command, told Congress in April that the weakness of Yemen's government provides al-Qaida a safe haven and that terror groups could "threaten Yemen's neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states." Yemen is the Arab world's poorest nation — and one of its most unstable — making it fertile territory for al-Qaida to set up camp. The country is also in a strategic location, next door to some of the world's most important oil producing nations. It also lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia, an even more tumultuous nation where the U.S. has said militants from the terror network have been increasing their activity. Al-Qaida militants, including fighters returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, have established sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly ones in three provinces bordering Saudi Arabia known as the "triangle of evil" because of the heavy militant presence, Yemeni authorities say…

Terror suspect killed as bomb he was making accidentally explodes
Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA) May 3, 2009, 19:16 GMT

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3316

Sana'a, Yemen - A suspected member of al-Qaeda was killed Sunday when an explosive device he was making went off accidentally in southern Yemen, the defence ministry said. The suspect, identified as Anwar Muhammed al-Taghshi, died instantly as the bomb exploded in his hideout in the al-Wadhea district of the southern province of Abyan, the ministry said in a statement. It said al-Taghshi was on the list of most wanted al-Qaeda members sought by police in Yemen. The suspect 'was preparing the bomb to use it in a terrorist operation when it exploded and killed him instantly,' the statement said...

Yemen jails four Qaida men for attack plots
4 May 2009, 1722 hrs IST, AFP
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3317

SANAA: A Yemeni court on Monday sentenced four suspected al-Qaida militants to up to three years in prison for planning attacks against foreigners and government targets. Three were sentenced to three years in jail and the fourth to two and a half years for the attack plots and forming an armed gang. Meanwhile, the interior ministry said that a al-Qaida fighter on its most wanted list was killed as he was making a roadside bomb to carry out a "terrorist" operation in Abyan in southern Yemen. The ministry also said it has arrested a 22-year-old man in the west of the country who is suspected of involvement in a bomb attack that targeted a south Korean delegation in March…

15. Yemen tries 33 Somalis on suspicion of piracy
Aqeel Al-Halali For the Yemen Times May 3, 2009

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=1256&p=local&a=2

SANA'A, May 3 — Yemen is due to begin the trial of 33 Somalis next week on charges of practicing piracy and intercepting Yemeni and foreign vessels in the Gulf of Aden and other areas of Yemen's territorial waters. The tribunal of Somali pirates was expected to begin yesterday but informed judicial sources confirmed to the Yemen Times that the tribunal was adjourned until next week without giving any further details. Last week, Yemeni marine forces arrested 11 Somali pirates who held four commercial vessels approximately 13 miles off the Yemeni shore opposite Belhaf Port in Shabwa governorate. Efforts to release the ship named "Qana" resulted in the killing of two pirates and injuring another. A Yemeni soldier and five of the ship's crew were injured in the operation. Since last December, Yemeni security authorities have detained 12 Somali pirates who were handed over to Yemen by Indian marine forces, plus another 10 extradited by Russian marines last February. Hassan Al-Lawzi, Information Minister and official spokesperson for the Yemeni Government, confirmed at a press conference on Tuesday that relevant security authorities will finish investigating these Somali pirates before trying them according to Yemeni Law or before decisions are taken by the judicature...

Cruise lines begin dropping Middle East calls as pirate worries grow

USA Today Gene Sloan May 4, 23009
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=66241787.b...

Britain's Fred Olsen Cruise Lines has joined MSC Cruises in saying it will steer clear of the waters around Somalia -- a decision that effectively means the line is dropping the Middle East as a destination. The line this week announced its world cruise in 2010 would be re-routed to avoid the pirate-plagued northern Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden -- the latter a key waterway that cruise lines use to reposition ships between Asia and Europe…

16. TERROR ARRESTS
Posted on » Friday, May 01, 2009 Gulf Daily News (Bahrain)

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/NewsDetails.aspx?storyid=249379

MANAMA: Security forces in Bahrain have arrested two suspects in connection with a terrorist cell, it was announced last night. Interior Minister Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa said the cell members were planning terror acts in the kingdom and other Gulf countries. Police searched their house and seized two machine guns, a pistol and ammunition, knives, a sword, CDs, tapes, computers, bank statements and exchange companies' documents, said Shaikh Rashid. The men were arrested on Sunday. They admitted to possessing arms and ammunition and were being held in custody pending further investigation, said Shaikh Rashid...

17. Mali arrests four al Qaeda members near Algeria
Fri May 1, 2009 1:57pm GMT Reuters
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE5400BG20090501
BAMAKO (Reuters) - Mali's armed forces captured four members of al Qaeda's North African wing after a clash this week near the border with Algeria, a security source said on Friday. The source in Mali's capital Bamako said the clash happened on April 26 about 60 km (40 miles) from Algeria, in a remote area of the Sahara desert where a mixture of traffickers, nomadic Tuareg rebels and Islamist gunmen operate. "It was an army patrol that stopped a Toyota 4x4 with four men aboard. After an exchange of fire, the four men, all slightly wounded, were arrested," the source said, adding that they were from Algeria, Ghana, Mali and Mauritania. Al Qaeda's North African wing claimed responsibility for kidnapping four Western tourists and two Canadian diplomats in December and January in the West African desert. The diplomats and two of the tourists were freed last month, but two men from Britain and Switzerland are still being held. Al Qaeda has said it will kill the British hostage this month if Britain does not release a Jordanian Islamist it is holding…

ASIA / PACIFIC

18. Taliban using gemstones' money to fund terrorism

* Swat businessmen say emeralds mined from Taliban-controlled Mingora, Shangla and Gujaro Killay are sold in Mingora black market

By Akhtar Amin The Daily Times (Pakistan) May 4, 2009

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\05\04\story_4-5-2009_pg7_26

PESHAWAR: Swat Taliban are using money earned from mining and selling gemstones in Swat and Shangla for terrorism, entrepreneurs from the Swat valley said on Sunday. Entrepreneurs in a Gem Bazaar – organised by the Pakistan Gems and Jewellery Development Company at Namak Mandi – told Daily Times that Taliban were using the money for terrorist activities in Swat, Buner and Dir districts of Malakand division. Babu Khan, an entrepreneur from Swat who had displayed emeralds in the bazaar, said that Taliban had started extensive mining through hired labourers and were selling the precious stones in the black market. He said plunderers had also taken over several mines of high quality gemstones, one of which had earned the government about Rs 90 million in a single auction in the past. Another entrepreneur from Swat, Muhammad Ali, told Daily Times that Taliban had also taken over the Mingora emerald mine...

19. Taliban terror holds 2,000 villagers as human shields

Daud Khattak, NorthWest Frontier From The Sunday Times (London) May 3, 2009

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6211511.ece

TALIBAN militants who have seized swathes of North West Frontier Province in Pakistan have inflicted a reign of terror on villagers, landowners and the police, using kidnapping, looting, pillaging and murder to impose their will. Yesterday, as Pakistani forces stepped up their campaign to retake territory in the districts of Buner, Dir and Swat, it emerged that in one Taliban-controlled village, Pir Baba in Buner, the militants were holding 2,000 people as human shields in case the army attacked. Elsewhere the Taliban appeared to be relying on kidnapping to extort funds and intimidate the population. Many of their victims have been members of rich families. "Kidnapping has become routine in our village. Armed Taliban were picking up people and then demanding a huge ransom for their release," said an elderly refugee now living with his family in a tent in Timergara, a town in Dir. Police officers were also being abducted or killed. Last Thursday militants kidnapped a local officer and 11 guards in Upper Dir, an area that had been peaceful. In Mingora, the largest city in Swat, three policemen were abducted by militants...

For Many Pakistani Children, Madrasas Fill a Void
By SABRINA TAVERNISE May 4, 2009 New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world/asia/04schools.html?

MOHRI PUR, Pakistan — The elementary school in this poor village is easy to mistake for a barn. It has a dirt floor and no lights, and crows swoop through its glassless windows. Class size recently hit 140, spilling students into the courtyard. But if the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have not. With public education in a shambles, Pakistan's poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here. The concentration of madrasas here in southern Punjab has become an urgent concern in the face of Pakistan's expanding insurgency. The schools offer almost no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy. In an analysis of the profiles of suicide bombers who have struck in Punjab, the Punjab police said more than two-thirds had attended madrasas. "We are at the beginning of a great storm that is about to sweep the country," said Ibn Abduh Rehman, who directs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization. "It's red alert for Pakistan." …

Taliban on the offensive in Swat
By Bill Roggio May 4, 2009 3:12 PM Long War Journal

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/05/taliban_on_the_offen.php

The Taliban have begun to attack security forces in earnest in the lawless district of Swat less than one day after declaring the peace agreement with the government "practically stands dissolved." A Taliban force ambush a military convoy in Swat and killed one soldier after a firefight. The Taliban took credit for the ambush, claiming it was in retaliation for military operations in the region. "Why do you think we should remain silent if they come heavy on us?" Muslim Khan, the spokesman for radical Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah, told The Associated Press. "We will attack them too." A Taliban force has also laid siege to the electrical grid station in Mingora. Two security personnel were wounded and 46 more are said to be surrounded as the Taliban surround the utility, Geo News reported. An explosion was also reported near the main police station in Mingora. The spate of attack take place just one day after the Taliban admitted to beheading two government officials. The Taliban said the brutal murders were in response to the death of two low-level Taliban leaders…

20. Terror threat still exists in Bangladesh Says US envoy

Monday, May 4, 2009 The Daily Star (Bangladesh) Staff Correspondent

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=86754

US Ambassador James Moriarty said there is still a terrorist threat in Bangladesh and the US has disturbing indications in this regard. "We do have disturbing indications that there continues to be threat in Bangladesh…my government does believe that there is a threat here," he told reporters during Meet the Reporters programme at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) yesterday. "The recent seizure of weapons in Bhola and continued arrests of JMB members throughout the country demonstrate that terrorism remains a concern," he said. DRU organised the programme on Bangladesh-US bilateral relations. The US ambassador to Bangladesh said the US has offered help to Bangladesh in reconstituting border security force Bangladesh Rifles (BDR). This is an area where the US can help and it depends on the Bangladesh government's requirements, he added...

21. Tamil Tigers 'putting 11-year-old girls on the front line'
Child soldiers including girls as young as 11 have been forced to fight on the front line by retreating Tamil Tiger rebels, senior Sri Lankan army officers have claimed.
By Dean Nelson in Puthumatalan Lagoon 04 May 2009 The Daily Telegraph (London)
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3318

Division commanders described discovering their enemy included a conscript army of children as they stood on the edge of the 'no fire zone' where 50,000 civilians are believed to be trapped by the once-feared Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE) making their last stand. As both sides in the conflict traded claims of war crimes, one army commander spoke of his regret that his men had shot and killed young girls. Brigadier Priyantha, who commands an artillery division in the north told The Daily Telegraph: "It's like looking at your own child. Quite large numbers [of the dead] are under 16. "They grab them from their parents and they try to pull them back they get shot. These children have the dog tags and cyanide capsules. The younger children [captured] go for rehabilitation programme." His colleague, an officer who identified himself as 'Roan' said: "Considerable numbers of the dead [are] child soldiers. The youngest was around 12."…

'Welcome To Kilinochchi,' Former Tiger Stronghold

Monday, May 4, 2009 Stewart Bell, National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=1560912

The National Post's Stewart Bell was the first Canadian reporter to reach Kilinochchi, once the rebel stronghold of Sri Lanka, since the fall of the Tamil Tigers. This is his report from the front lines of the Tigers' last redoubt…

22. Al-Qaeda man under cover here for 4 years
By : Alang Bendahara New Straits Times 2009/05/04

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Monday/Frontpage/2547932/Article/...

KUALA LUMPUR: A suspected al-Qaeda operative had been working here for more than four years before his cover was blown recently when he was arrested in Germany. Malaysian authorities were duly informed and checks revealed that he was an engineer at a car manufacturing plant in Pahang. The 31-year-old suspect, a German national of Turkish descent, is believed to have acted as coordinator for the transfer of funds from Malaysia to terrorist groups worldwide. Malaysian authorities are tight-lipped but it is learnt that checks revealed that the suspect moved funds to al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Sources told the New Straits Times that the suspect held a valid work permit and was employed on a contract basis at a manufacturing plant in Pahang. At the time of the arrest, he was still employed with the company as an engineer at its vehicle paint shop… A source said the arrest of the German national may be the "tip of the iceberg"…

23. Muslim matriarch Rabiah Hutchinson's suburban nightmare
Sally Neighbour | May 02, 2009 The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25416660-2702,00.html?

THE Mudgee girl who became a surfie chick as a teen only to now be described by security agencies as the "matriarch" of radical Islam has spoken for the first time of her "nightmare" living under constant surveillance, branded a threat to national security and barred from travelling abroad. Sydney mother Rabiah Hutchinson had her passport cancelled after returning from Iran in 2003, because of her links with al-Qa'ida and Indonesian militant group Jemaah Islamiah. The ASIO assessment says Ms Hutchinson "has directly supported extremist activities" and, if allowed to travel, is "likely to engage in conduct that might prejudice the security of Australia or a foreign country". Ms Hutchinson recently applied for a new passport to visit her daughters in Afghanistan, one of whom has a baby she has not yet seen. She said she was told that her application would be considered only if she agreed to meet officers from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, which she has declined to do, having met them numerous times in the past... Ms Hutchinson has been kept under surveillance by ASIO, but has never been charged or accused of any offence, or interviewed by the Australian Federal Police. She claims her confinement in Australia is tantamount to house arrest… It began when she joined a student Islamic group involved in the resistance against then Indonesian president Suharto in the 1990s. Through the student movement, she met cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who later co-founded JI. She was employed as an English teacher at Bashir's Ngruki Islamic boarding school and became a close friend of his family… Ms Hutchinson became a mentor to younger women in the Islamist movement and a confidante of senior leaders such as Bashir's lieutenant Fihiruddin, also known as Abu Jibril. His brother, Irfan Awwas recalled: "Rabiah was very famous among young Muslims because she was very motivated." In 1990, after divorcing her third husband, Indonesian-born Abdul Rahim Ayub, Ms Hutchinson travelled to northwest Pakistan with her six children to "join the jihad"…

EUROPE

24. Suspected terrorist recruiters sue ministry
Monday, 04 May 2009 12:04 RC News The Copenhagen Post
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/3319

Information relating to why two men are being held on tolerated stay has been made public, resulting in legal action being taken against authorities by the men's lawyers. Two Iraqis on tolerated stay are suing the Integration Ministry after finally learning what crime they were suspected of, reports Politiken newspaper. The information was released through the publication of a US intelligence report, which indicated that the two Iraqis had both co-operated with Al-Qaeda and were 'suspected of facilitating foreign fighters into Iraq', including suicide bombers. The documentation was supplemented with information provided by Danish intelligence agency PET. Documentation from German and Moroccan authorities confirm that PET suspected at least one of the men as being the head of Iraqi terrorist recruitment for Northern Europe. PET had kept its suspicions secret, but the two men were jailed for a considerable period before being placed on tolerated stay status. The two men remain on that status because although PET wants to have them deported, the Refugee Appeals Board will not allow their return to Iraq because the men are considered to be at risk of torture and persecution…