10-30-09 Daily Update

1. Gates Suggests New Arms Deal With Russia
Next President Should Engage Moscow on Warhead Reduction, Defense Secretary Says

By Walter Pincus Washington Post Wednesday, October 29, 2008; Page A09

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1424

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday that he would advise the next president to seek a new nuclear arms agreement with Russia that provides for further reductions in nuclear warheads, keeps the existing verification procedures and is easy to amend in the event threats develop. No matter who is elected president, Gates said, "there is a willingness and an ability to make deeper reductions" below the limit of 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads called for in a June 2003 treaty signed by President Bush and then-President Vladimir Putin. "I am confident that . . . whoever is elected president, we will go to the bargaining table," Gates said in response to a question at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he delivered a wide-ranging speech on nuclear weapons. A new agreement, Gates said, ought to be "shorter, simpler and easier to adjust to real-world conditions than most of the strategic arms agreements that we've seen over the last 40 years." He also said that, should negotiators not reach agreement before the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires in December, he was confident that the pact's provisions would be extended. In his speech, Gates took a hard line on the need for the next Congress to move forward on the Bush administration's plan to develop and produce a new warhead. He warned of the "bleak" prospect that the roughly 4,000 older warheads in the current stockpile would no longer be safe, secure and reliable…

2. More Than 145 Defendants Charged in National Export Enforcement Initiative During Past Fiscal Year
Three Charged Today in Plot to Export Sensitive Technology to China Space Entity; New Counter-Proliferation Task Forces & Training Part of National Effort

Department of Justice FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, October 28, 2008
NSD (202) 514-2007 TDD (202) 514-1888

http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/October/08-nsd-958.html

WASHINGTON -- A multi-agency initiative to combat illegal exports of restricted military and dual-use technology from the United States has resulted in criminal charges against more than 145 defendants in the past fiscal year, with roughly 43 percent of these cases involving munitions or other restricted technology bound for Iran or China, the Justice Department and several partner agencies announced today. Over the past fiscal year, the National Export Enforcement Initiative has also resulted in the creation of Counter-Proliferation Task Forces in various judicial districts around the country. Today, there are approximately 15 such task forces or versions of them nationwide. In addition, the initiative has resulted in enhanced training for more than 500 agents and prosecutors involved in export control and the creation of new mechanisms to enhance counter-proliferation coordination among law enforcement agencies, export licensing agencies and the Intelligence Community. Among the most recent cases brought in connection with the initiative was an indictment returned today in the District of Minnesota charging three individuals, Jian Wei Ding, Kok Tong Lim, and Ping Cheng, with conspiring to illegally export to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) controlled carbon-fiber material with applications in rockets, satellites, spacecraft, and uranium enrichment process. According to the indictment, the intended destination for some of the material was the China Academy of Space Technology, which oversees research institutes working on spacecraft systems for the PRC. Unveiled in Oct. 2007, the National Export Enforcement Initiative is a cooperative effort by the Justice Department’s National Security Division (NSD), the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and other agencies…

Fact Sheet: Major U.S. Export Enforcement Prosecutions During the Past Two Years
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2008/October/08-nsd-959.html

Below is a snapshot of some of the major export and embargo-related criminal prosecutions handled by the Justice Department over the past two years, beginning in October 2006. These cases resulted from investigations by the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS), and other law enforcement agencies. This list of cases is not exhaustive and only represents select cases…

3. Iran opens new naval base at mouth of Persian Gulf
Move boosts Tehran threat to choke vital oil supply
Extent of forces at site remains unclear
Julian Borger, diplomatic editor The Guardian (UK) Wednesday October 29 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/29/iran

Iran yesterday signalled its intention to extend its military presence in the world's most important oil conduit, opening a new naval base at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and adding weight to its threats to choke off oil supplies, if the Islamic Republic came under attack. The inauguration of the new base at Jask was announced by Iran's naval commander, Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, who said it represented a new line of defence, blocking the entry of the "enemy" into the Persian Gulf and the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, the gateway through which 40% of the world's traded oil passes each day. As international tensions have grown over Iran's nuclear programme and US allegations of Iranian involvement in Iraq's insurgency, the US has reinforced its naval presence, keeping two aircraft carriers and their battle groups in the Gulf for long periods this year, instead of one. The USS Ronald Reagan and USS Theodore Roosevelt carriers are currently on patrol, and being used for sorties over Iraq. Nato and the EU have announced plans to dispatch more ships to the Gulf of Aden in the coming months. The move is aimed at combating Somali-based pirates and escorting food aid deliveries in the Horn of Africa, but the naval build-up has been viewed with suspicion in Tehran…

4. CIA’s Loss of Top Spies ‘Catastrophic,’ Says Agency Veteran
By Jeff Stein, CQ Staff CQ HOMELAND SECURITY Oct. 17, 2008 – 9:27 p.m.
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000002976430&parm1=2&...
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1426
Only a few months ago, Sam Faddis was running a CIA unit charged with preventing terrorists from getting nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Today, only 50, the equivalent of a full colonel at the top of his game, he has quit. Scores more like him, Faddis says, spies with years of working the back alleys of the world, have walked away from the CIA’s Operations Directorate at the top of their careers, at a time when the agency needs their skills the most. The directorate is losing “25 or 30 chiefs of station” — the top CIA representative in a country or major city — “or their equivalent” at headquarters, every six months, Faddis estimates. That’s out of an estimated thousand or fewer case officers — the men and women who recruit and manage spies — worldwide. “The effect in any time in history would be serious,” Faddis says, “but at this time, when you’re trying to rebuild the agency from the cutbacks of the Clinton years, massively trying to catch up, at a time when you really need your most experienced people to run operations and mentor the new blood coming in, it’s catastrophic.” “It’s getting to the point where we just don’t have any experience on the ground,” Faddis maintained during several hours of conversation over the past two weeks…

U.S. intelligence agencies spend $47.5 billion in 2008

CongressDaily October 28, 2008

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=41279&dcn=todaysnews

The U.S. intelligence community spent $47.5 billion in fiscal 2008 spying on terrorist groups and foreign countries, conducting electronic wiretaps and operating classified programs, the office of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said on Tuesday. The budget figure, larger than the $43.5 billion spent in fiscal 2007, covers spending for the National Intelligence Program, which includes the National Security Agency, the CIA, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and a dozen other agencies. It does not include spending on tactical military intelligence programs. McConnell's office did not disclose details on how the funding was used or on specific programs it supports…

5. DARPA seeks technology for seeing inside buildings
By Doug Beizer Federal Computer Week Published on October 13, 2008

http://www.fcw.com/online/news/154056-1.html?type=pf

A new Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency project hopes to give warfighters the ability to see inside buildings in urban environments. The DARPA pre-solicitation aims to develop a suite of sensing technologies for looking deep inside a building from above- and below-ground. The technologies should be suitable for a broad range of building types. The technologies must support several intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance operations including pre-mission planning, assessments of targeted structures and live updates during missions... The name of the project is Harnessing Infrastructure for Building Reconnaissance. DARPA officials say they think the technologies developed under the program will use a building’s infrastructure to gain information about its interior…

6. Khawaja guilty
Andrew Duffy, The Ottawa Citizen Wednesday, October 29, 2008

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1415

OTTAWA - Momin Khawaja, the Ottawa computer specialist who plotted jihad from his government desk at foreign affairs, has been found guilty of five terrorism related charges. Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford ruled Wednesday that Mr. Khawaja, 29, played a significant role in a plot to bomb sites in London, England in 2004. Mr. Khawaja, the judge concluded in his verdict, was not guilty of the two most serious terrorism offences connected to his building of a radio-frequency device for London terror cell. The judge, however, found Mr. Khawaja guilty of two related, lesser Criminal Code offences… "I find you guilty as charged," Judge Rutherford told Mr. Khawaja five times as he convicted the former Algonquin College student of participating in, financing and supplying a terrorist group. The 29-day trial heard that a British terror cell, to which Mr. Khawaja was connected, considered targets that included a popular London nightclub, a shopping centre and major public utilities. Five British Muslims were convicted last year in the foiled bomb plot; they're now serving lengthy prison sentences. Mr. Khawaja faced a total of seven charges in relation to his explosives work, his terrorist training in Pakistan, and his financial and material support of terrorism… Mr. Khawaja, the first Canadian to be charged under the Act, now represents the government's first major terrorism conviction since 9-11… The trial heard that Mr. Khawaja secretly used his foreign affairs email account to communicate with violent jihadis in Britain and Pakistan…

Project Awaken: The case behind a charge of terrorism
Ian MacLeod The Ottawa Citizen Wednesday, October 29, 2008

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1416

Ian MacLeod reveals the details of how an Ottawa man was allegedly at the centre of a London bombing conspiracy…

Khawaja guilty on terror charges
COLIN FREEZE Globe and Mail Update October 29, 2008 at 10:51 AM EDT
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1417

… Mr. Khawaja, a 29- year-old who took terrorist training in Pakistan while on leave from his job fixing computers for Canada's Foreign Affairs Department, is the second person convicted under antiterrorism laws passed in 2001. The Canadian-born jihadist, is a far more significant suspect that a young offender convicted last month of peripheral involvement in a Toronto plot. The evidence against Mr. Khawaja was amassed by agencies in several countries, and it was always overwhelming. Even so, it took nearly five years for the justice system to convict him, as a flurry of legal challenges were launched Mr. Greenspon… Much of the evidence against Mr. Khawaja – wiretaps, surveillance footage, intercepted e-mails related to a three-day visit he made to Britain to interact with co-conspirators – arrived all but gift-wrapped to Canadian prosecutors from the British Crown more than 1,670 days ago. The RCMP launched ”Project Awaken” upon his arrival back in Canada and watched him for several weeks before tactical officers raided Mr. Khawaja's family home in the suburb of Orleans, Ont. The Mounties pulled guns, circuitry and combat manuals and a detonation device called ”the Hi-Fi Digimonster” out of the house as officers arrested Mr. Khawaja at his work. A publication ban was immediately sought on the evidence. His immediate family quickly went public with complaints that they were victims of a wrongful campaign against Muslims. The suspect's father, Mahboob Khawaja, published several opinion pieces arguing that the whole family was wrongly swept up in the wider ”war on terror” – and even argued that his son's interest in signal jammers, circuitry and radio equipment flowed from a entrepreneurial interest in making millions by selling devices that would keep cellphones from ringing in mosques at prayer time…

7. GUANTANAMO BAY TERROR TRIAL
U.S. details role of Osama bin Laden's `media man'
The U.S. government alleges that the 'media man for Osama bin Laden' conspired to commit terrorism with a video that sought to legitimize suicide bombings among devout Muslims.

Miami Herald Posted on Wednesday, 10.29.08 BY CAROL ROSENBERG
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/745735.html

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- An Army prosecutor on Tuesday described an alleged al Qaeda propagandist as being at the heart of the Afghan-based terror group by early 2000, a time when Osama bin Laden had decided to spread his message through media and mayhem. The accused, Ali Hamza al Bahlul, listened intently as the prosecutor outlined plans for a weeklong trial showcasing spy-plane imagery, video gadgetry, prison camp confessions, intercepted letters and testimony from convicted terrorists. Bahlul, about 40, is charged with three war crimes for working as bin Laden's media secretary after he moved from his native Yemen to Afghanistan in February 1999 until his capture in the U.S. invasion in late 2001. Conviction could carry, at most, life in prison…

Witness: Gitmo detainee wants Americans targeted

ASSOCIATED PRESS 8:58 a.m. October 29, 2008

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1425

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba – A former FBI agent testifying at a military trial in Guantanamo Bay says a Yemeni defendant believes all Americans should be targeted for terror attacks. Prosecution witness Ali Soufan is an expert on al-Qaeda who had interrogated the defendant. The former agent testified Wednesday that Ali Hamza al-Bahlul considers all Americans to be enemies – even American Muslims...

8. War court judge: Threats to family is torture
A war court judge tossed a confession extracted in Afghanistan by threatening a teen captive and his family, declaring it torture.

Judge excludes teen's tortured confession
By CAROL ROSENBERG Miami Herald Posted on Tuesday, 10.28.08

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation/story/745587.html

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- In a first, a military judge ruled on Tuesday that a Guantánamo detainee's confession was extracted through torture, and excluded it from the trial of a young Afghan detainee at the war court. Afghan police threatened the family of teenager Mohammed Jawad while he was undergoing interrogation at a Kabul police station, said Army Col. Stephen Henley, the judge, in a three-page ruling. Jawad, now facing trial by military commission, is accused of throwing a grenade inside an Afghan bazaar in December 2002, which wounded two U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter. None were killed. Henley found in the ruling that there was reason to believe Jawad was under the influence of drugs at the time of his capture and forced confession. He also accepted the accused's account of how he was threatened, while armed senior Afghan officials allied with U.S. forces watched his interrogation...

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

9. Report: Some good news on government IT security
By Brian Robinson Federal Computer Week Published on October 28, 2008

http://www.fcw.com/online/news/154220-1.html?type=pf

A recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers states that the government has greatly improved its use of security technology, but it still lags on setting policies for using that technology and training employees about it. Less than two of three government officials responding to the survey said their organizations have an overall information security strategy or centralized security information management process, and about half don’t understand basic ideas such as risks to sensitive data. Three-quarters of the public-sector respondents said their organizations have people directly responsible for security, either as a chief information security officer or chief security officer. Slightly more than half of those respondents had those positions in 2006. Meanwhile, organizations have made “wholesale, double-digit advances across a wide range of security technologies, from prevention to detection,” the PricewaterhouseCoopers report states. The gains came in data encryption and areas such as reduced or single sign-ons and centralized user data stores, the survey states…

10. ER Staffs: Gaps Exist In Hospital Preparedness For Dirty Bombs

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2008) —

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081016162236.htm

Emergency room doctors and nurses around the nation worry that hospitals are not adequately prepared to handle casualties from a radioactive 'dirty bomb,' said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). The finding underscores the need for better hospital preparedness training and clearer guidelines for managing radiological events, the researchers said. A dirty bomb combines conventional explosives and radioactive materials. In focus groups, doctors and nurses working in emergency departments (EDs) in the Southeast, Northeast and West expressed a powerful commitment to caring for patients in the wake of a terrorist attack. But they were deeply concerned about hospital preparedness and whether ED personnel, in a dirty bomb scenario, could protect themselves and give appropriate care to contaminated patients, the researchers said. Their findings are published in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, a journal of the American Medical Association…

Financing, identity theft, money laundering

11. Holy Land Foundation trial takes Tuesday off; mystery Israeli continues testifying tomorrow
11:04 AM Tue, Oct 28, 2008 Jason Trahan Dallas Morning News

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1418

U.S. District Judge Jorge Solis called off Tuesday's session because of a sick defense attorney, according to court staff. When testimony resumes Wednesday in the terrorism financing case, jurors will continue to hear from "Avi," a counterterrorism lawyer for the Israeli Security Agency and the prosecution's last major witness before it rests its case. His testimony prompted calls for a mistrial from defense attorneys at the end of Monday's session. The Israeli, who is testifying under an assumed name for security reasons, told jurors that Hamas' social work is key to its winning not only "hearts and minds" in the Israeli occupied territories, but also led to political victory in Palestinian parliamentary elections two years ago… "Even in times when Hamas was in financial crisis at the start of the '90s, the first money they collected went to families of the martyrs and prisoners," Avi told jurors Monday. His testimony is key to the government proving that five former organizers of the now-defunct Richardson charity funneled millions of dollars to Hamas using Palestinian groups called zakat committees...

12. Jury still out in Venezuelan suitcase trial
BY JAY WEAVER Miami Herald Posted on Wed, Oct. 29, 2008
http://www.miamiherald.com/newsletters/venezuela/story/746166.html

A Miami jury resumes deliberations on Wednesday in the federal trial of a businessman accused of working as an illegal agent for Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in a conspiracy to silence an international political scandal over a cash-filled suitcase. The deliberations first got underway on Friday and continued through Tuesday in the closely watched trial dubbed ``Suitcase-gate.'' During much of the trial, Franklin Durán, the wealthy Venezuelan businessman on trial in Miami, listened impassively as the prosecution argued he was at the center of an attempt to hide the origins and destination of the cash that was discovered in an Argentine airport -- money that the prosecution alleges was a gift from the Venezuelan government to the campaign of Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Durán is charged with conspiracy and acting as an unregistered government agent. He faces up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted…

13. FBI shifts focus to financial crime
Besides terrorism: The bureau's Philadelphia office expects to get more agents to investigate role of mortgage fraud in crisis.
By Matt Birkbeck | Of The AllentownMorning Call October 27, 2008

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5fbi.6638830oct27,0,7774512.story

After 2001 the FBI's Philadelphia office, like other FBI bureaus around the country, re-focused its manpower and resources to combat terrorism. That left less room for probing other crimes, particularly mortgage fraud. Those investigations were routinely referred to other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service and Secret Service, and to postal inspectors. Now, with billions being pumped into the economy as part of the federal stimulus package, the potential for financial fraud, particularly mortgage fraud, has forced the FBI to reconsider its strategy and beef up its bureaus, including Philadelphia, by assigning more agents to white collar crimes…

14. Kromberg Posts Another Win
Monday, October 27, 2008 Josh Gerstein
http://joshgerstein.blogspot.com/2008/10/kromberg-posts-another-win.html

A Virginia-based federal prosecutor … Gordon Kromberg, scored another win in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit yesterday. In a per curiam opinion, a three-judge panel ruled that Kromberg had the right to seize a Fairfax, Va. home as part of the government's punishment Abdulrahman Alamoudi, a prominent American muslim leader who was sentenced to 23 years in prison after pleading guilty to participation in a scheme to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. A foreign woman with family in Kuwait, Jehad Alhindi, claimed the home, bought for $380,000 in 2003, was actually hers. Her lawyer, Henry Fitzgerald, told me Alhindi came to America for treatment of an incurable muscle disease and got help from Alamoudi, who agreed to assist her in buying a house. Ultimately, the lawyer said, Alhindi's name was left off the paperwork because lenders said they wouldn't write a mortgage with her name on it. Alhindi said she put up $3000 in earnest money and made payments on the mortgage, but Alamoudi didn't formally deed the house over to her until after he was sentenced. At a hearing held to discuss Alhindi's claim to the house, Alamoudi took the Fifth Amendment...

Border security, immigration, customs

15. "A War is Raging on our Southern Border with Mexico"

Perry blasts federal inaction, announces new programs to fight Mexican drug gangs in Texas
By Jim Forsyth Wednesday, October 29, 2008

http://radio.woai.com/cc-common/news/sections/newsarticle.html?feed=&art...

(SAN ANTONIO) -- Saying there is a 'war raging along our southern border with Mexico,' 1200 WOAI nws reports Texas Gov. Rick Perry today announced a major effort to fight Mexican drug cartels and 'transnational' criminal gangs which have been stepping up their increasingly brazen assaults and kidnappings in the southwestern United States. "All too often these gangs are better armed, they are highly organized, they are better funded than ever before, but we are going to start fighting back," Perry said. Perry cited the threat from Mexico's Gulf drug cartel and criminal gangs like Barrio Azteca, MS-13, and the Mexican Mafia….

16. FBI: Zetas arming for confrontation with U.S. authorities
October 28, 2008 - 10:53PM Jeremy Roebuck The Monitor (McAllen, TX)

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/authorities_19171___article.html/fbi_...

McALLEN -- Recent U.S. efforts to disrupt drug smuggling routes through the Rio Grande Valley have prompted threats of retaliation against authorities on this side of the river, according to an FBI intelligence report. Vowing to maintain control over valuable trafficking corridors such as those in Reynosa, Matamoros and Miguel Alemán, the Gulf Cartel and its paramilitary enforcement wing, Los Zetas, have begun stockpiling weapons, reaching out to Texas gangs and issuing orders to "confront U.S. law enforcement agencies to zealously protect their criminal interests," the report states. The organizations' encroachment north of the border marks a troubling shift in strategies, federal and local authorities say. Prior to now, smugglers largely maintained a non-engagement policy with law enforcement here, even as they carried out hundreds of assassinations and violent attacks on authorities in Mexico…

MIDDLE EAST / AFRICA

17. Syria 'Gave Green Light For Raid'
1:52pm UK, Tuesday October 28, 2008 Sky News

Dominic Waghorn, Middle East correspondent

http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1427

Why did America launch a daylight helicopter attack on Syria provoking worldwide outrage? The plot thickens. Publicly America is still saying nothing but US officials are making intriguing claims off the record. Now, a respected Israeli intelligence expert says he has been told the operation was carried out with the knowledge and co-operation of Syrian intelligence. Ronen Bergman, author of The Secret War with Iran, makes the claim in the Yediot Ahronoth newspaper, based on briefings with two senior American officials, one of whom he says until recently "held a very high ranking in the Pentagon". Mr Bergman told Sky News the raid happened after America had lobbied Syria intensely to deal with an al Qaeda group conducting activity on the border. The Syrians were unwilling to be seen publicly bowing to US pressure to tackle the group, he says, but in the end gave the Americans the green light to do so themselves. He claims the Syrian government told the Americans: "If you want to do this, do it. We are going to give you a corridor and carte blanche. We will not harm your troops." Mr Bergman maintains Syrian intelligence has been co-operating secretly with its US counterpart for some time in its war with al Qaeda…

Iraqi forces detain 180 "suspects" during Basrah raids
By Bill Roggio Long War Journal October 28, 2008 8:31 PM
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/10/iraqi_forces_detain_2.php
Iraqi security forces conducted a massive sweep throughout Basrah province Tuesday. Iraqi Army and police units detained 180 "suspects," including a Pakistani national, and found several large weapons caches, during the operations. Forty-four suspected insurgents were detained, including a Pakistani man, while entering Iraq "illegally through Safwan border road, 60 km west [of] Basrah," the Basrah media office told Voices of Iraq. Operations outside of Basrah netted additional 136 isuspects. The Pakistani man was likely an al Qaeda operative. Safwan is in southeastern Basrah, right on the border with Kuwait. While most al Qaeda operatives pass through Syria or Iran, the transit through Kuwait, while uncommon, does occur. Al Qaeda has an active support network in Kuwait. Some of the senior most al Qaeda leaders, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks; Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, an al Qaeda spokesman; Omar Farouq, a senior al Qaeda operative; Ramzi Yousef, a planner behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The affiliation of the rest of the captured men was not given, but are likely members of the Mahdi Army. The Iraqi military is often circumspect about the detention of Mahdi Army fighters...

18. Suicide attacks kill dozens in Somalia

Three car bombs attack UN, diplomatic and government institutions in the breakaway Somaliland region

Xan Rice in Nairobi guardian.co.uk, Wednesday October 29 2008 17.14 GMT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/29/somalia-suicide-attacks

A wave of synchronized suicide attacks on UN, diplomatic and government institutions in northern Somalia killed up to 31 people today. Three car bombs detonated in Hargeisa, the capital of the breakaway Somaliland region. Another two vehicles exploded in neighbouring Puntland, which, like Somaliland, has been relative peaceful compared to the rest of the country. The careful coordination and nature of the attacks is unprecedented in Somalia and marks a serious deterioration in an already dire security situation. Suspicion immediately fell on the radical Shabaab militia, which is part of much broader Islamist-led resistance fighting against the Somali government and occupying Ethiopian troops. In Hargeisa, the Ethiopian consulate suffered the greatest damage, with up to 20 people reported dead. An attack on the president's palace killed at three people, including the presidential secretary, while two workers died at the headquarters of the UN Development Programme (UNPD)...

Somalia bombings have markings of Al-Qaeda: US official
Oct 29, 2008 Agence France Presse
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iCBZmOSI7FHeOlDwy42Li_5hCpaA

NAIROBI (AFP) — The deadly coordinated suicide car bomb attacks against key targets in two Somali breakaway states Wednesday have the markings of Al-Qaeda, Jendayi Frazer, US assistant secretary of state for Africa, told reporters in Nairobi. "Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but they have the markings of Al-Qaeda," she said after attending a summit on Somalia in the Kenyan capital. "We believe that these senseless attacks highlight the determination of violent extremists to undermine peace and stability throughout Somalia and the Horn of Africa."…

19. Islamists Attempt to Impose Their Agenda on Kuwaiti Society; Reformists Fight Back
By: H. Migron and By: E. B. Picali *

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 470
October 29, 2008
http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=IA47008

In June 2008, the Kuwaiti parliament reinstated the Committee for the Study of Negative and Alien Phenomena in Kuwaiti Society. The goals of the committee, whose members are mostly Salafi MPs, is to study "alien practices and other negative phenomena that are harmful to Kuwaiti society," and to find "effective ways to control them."(1) Since its formation, the committee has instructed the Kuwaiti Information Ministry to censure art, video games, and TV programs that "do not adhere to Kuwaiti traditions," such as Star Academy, the Arabic American Idol, which the country has banned, following the committee's order. The committee has also warned the Kuwaiti press against publishing photos and materials that "violate the values of Kuwait," and questioned the Minister of Health regarding a dance party organized by a hospital which involved "immoral mixing of the genders."(2) Another issue that concerns the committee is transsexualism, which it considers dangerous and threatening to Kuwaiti society and "requir[ing] prompt and serious action." (3) The committee's actions have evoked a wave of protest from Kuwaiti MPs, intellectuals, and journalists, who cast them as an attempt by Islamists to impose their agenda and curtail the country's democratic freedoms. Satirical articles have been published ridiculing the committee's attempts to police Kuwaiti morals, and criticizing it for being preoccupied with dance parties and TV programs instead of tackling the country's real problems… Following are excerpts from critical statements about the committee and from responses by the committee members, published in the Arabic- and English-language Kuwaiti press…

ASIA / PACIFIC

20. DoD Identifies Army Casualties

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release October 28, 2008 IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 908-08
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12315

The Department of Defense announced today the death of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Oct. 27 in Baghlan, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when a suicide bomber detonated explosives as they were preparing to enter a building. Killed were:…

DoD Identifies Marine Casualty

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs)
News Release October 29, 2008 IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 910-08
http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=12316

The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 1st Lt. Trevor J. Yurista, 32, of Pleasant Valley, N.Y., died Oct. 27 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif…

Fighting for the honour of serving their country
Reservists, who compete for limited number of spots on each deployment, finally get respect after years avoiding chopping block
CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD From Tuesday's Globe and Mail October 28, 2008 at 5:09 AM EDT
http://www.investigativeproject.org/ext/1414

BROCKVILLE, ONT. — When Task Force 3-08 was fully in place in Afghanistan by the end of last month, few Canadians realized that 537 of the 2,500 newly deployed troops - more than a fifth - are reservists, or part-time soldiers. Six rotations and almost three years after the Canadian army first moved into Kandahar province, reservists remain the untold story of Canada's mission there… But as the reserves were for decades unloved by the big brains at the Department of National Defence in Ottawa - only four years ago, some of the country's 125 militia regiments actually ran out of ammunition - so does their contribution today go largely unnoticed…

21. Is the Taliban Stockpiling Opium? And If So, Why?
By Vivienne Walt / PARIS Time Magazine Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1854660,00.html

If international drug- and law-enforcement officials are right, the Taliban might be hiding up to $3.2 billion worth of opium inside Afghanistan, potentially causing huge complications for NATO's decision this month to attack Afghanistan's opium laboratories and smuggling networks. If it exists, the drug stockpile would also have a major bearing on Afghan officials' tentative peace talks with the Taliban, which are favored by U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus and both U.S. presidential candidates. According to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, between 6,000 and 8,000 tons of opium have vanished during the past three years somewhere between the poppy fields of Afghanistan — which produce about 93% of the world's opium — and the world market. That's enough to supply all the world's heroin addicts for nearly two years. The whereabouts of the missing opium is a mystery so far, but international drug- and law-enforcement agencies say they believe the Taliban has begun to stockpile large quantities of the drug, which is worth about $464,000 per ton once it is exported from Afghanistan. When British forces recently occupied Musikalia in Helmand province, they uncovered a stockpile of 45 tons of opium. But that's a tiny fraction of what has disappeared. "Where is it? We have been asking," says Antonio Maria Costa, head of the U.N. drug office. He recently appealed to NATO forces and Western intelligence officers to launch an aggressive hunt for the opium. ..

22. Indonesia Steps Up Security Ahead of Bali Bombers Execution
By Nancy-Amelia Collins Voice of America News Jakarta 29 October 2008
http://voanews.com/english/2008-10-29-voa17.cfm

Police say they have beefed up security at vital sites, including a fuel refinery, and are checking vehicles and setting up road blocks to ensure the execution of the three men convicted for the 2002 Bali bombings is not disturbed. Followers of Amrozi Nurhasyim, Imam Samudra, and Ali Ghufron, who is also known as Muhklas, have vowed to launch revenge attacks after the executions take place. The men, all members of the regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, were sentenced to death five years ago for planning and carrying out the bombings on the resort island of Bali that claimed the lives of 202 people, many of them foreign tourists…

23. Bailed Muslim gang suspect 'swore allegiance to Osama

The Australian Gary Hughes | October 24, 2008

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24543861-5001561,00.h...

AN accused Melbourne Muslim terrorist released on bail had allegedly pledged personally to al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden to pursue violent jihad while he was undertaking paramilitary training in Afghanistan. Shane Kent, 31, returned to Australia with a large library of pro-al-Qa'ida material and became a "valuable adviser" to the Melbourne terror cell led by self-proclaimed sheik Abdul Nacer Benbrika, according to a Crown prosecutor. Details of the allegations against Mr Kent and his "long-term commitment to violent jihad" can be reported for the first time, following the lifting of a suppression order yesterday. The suppression order was put in place until the finish of the unrelated terrorism trial of Joseph Terrence Thomas, 35, who trained in Afghanistan with al-Qa'ida in 2001. The details of the case against Mr Kent, who has spent almost three years in jail awaiting trial, were given in the Victorian Supreme Court by judge Paul Coghlan while granting bail earlier this week…

24. Nation at risk from 'dirty bomb'

The Australian Cameron Stewart | October 27, 2008
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24555946-5001561,00.h...

AUSTRALIA