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British spying chief Alex Allan, the chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, has regained consciousness having been in a coma for 10 days. Mr Allan's committee collates information from MI5, MI6 and GCHQ and briefs the prime minister, ministers and officials on intelligence assessments on issues such as security, defence and foreign affairs.

The head of the Government's top spy committee is in a coma in hospital after falling mysteriously ill, it emerged today. Alex Allan, who chairs the Joint Intelligence Committee, was found collapsed at home on Monday and his condition is said to be critical. Scotland Yard denied speculation that he may have been the victim of an assassination attempt aimed at the heart of Britain's intelligence community. -snip- Mr Allan, who is responsible for assessing material produced by the UK's three main spy agencies, is one of Whitehall's most senior civil servants. As a close adviser of the Prime Minister...

<p>Foes of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to kill the hard-line leader with X-ray radiation during his recent visit to Italy, Iran’s former ambassador to Rome told Russian news service RIA Novosti on Monday.</p> <p>Ex-ambassador Abolfazi Zohrevand said the rising concentration of high-intensity radiation at Ahmadinejad’s temporary residence in Rome earlier this month led to the claims.</p>

Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejeii on Sunday said his ministry was informed of a U.S. plot to kidnap President Mahmud Ahmadinejad during his trip to Iraq in March. “The Intelligence Ministry was unaware of the plan to kidnap the president before he traveled to Iraq. We were informed of the plot when the president was staying in Iraq and finally… by taking some security measures, the U.S. plan was aborted,” Ejeii told reporters. Earlier this month, Ahmadinejad said the enemies had planned to kidnap and kill him in Iraq but the plot was foiled after the Iranian delegation changed their...

Iran's Ahmadinejad charges US with assassination plot Jun 19, 2008 Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday charged the United States with an assassination plot against him, Fars news agency reported. 'According to reliable information, as I rejected to reside in the green zone during my trip to Iraq, the Americans had planned to kidnap and kill this humble servant of the nation,' Ahmadinejad told clergy circles in a meeting in the religious city of Qom in central Iran. 'The plot was neutralized due to a last-minute change of our schedule,' Ahmadinejad added, without however elaborating how Iran gained...

The fortunes of Hollywood actor Tom Cruise have suffered a blow with the news that his next big film has been postponed until 2009. The release of Valkyrie, which tells the story of the 1944 assassination plot against Hitler, was first postponed from this summer to the autumn and is now not expected to appear until next year. “We were originally expecting the film to be released in June,” said a senior executive at one of Britain’s leading cinema chains. “I know there have been all sorts of problems with this production and we will not be screening it at...

ANKARA, Turkey - The Turkish gunman who shot and wounded Pope John Paul II is applying for Polish citizenship because he wants to live in the country of the late pontiff, whom he called his "spiritual brother." But the Polish Foreign Ministry said the chances of Mehmet Ali Agca getting citizenship are "minimal" since he hasn't provided any "good service" to John Paul's mostly Catholic homeland. Agca also wants to be transferred to a prison in Poland to serve the remainder of his sentence on a different conviction, lawyer Haci Ali Ozhan told The Associated Press. "He has chosen Poland...

‘Karzai killing plot hatched in Pakistan’ Thursday, May 01, 2008 KABUL: The plot to kill President Hamid Karzai over the weekend was hatched in lawless tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistan, the Afghan intelligence chief said on Wednesday. Intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh said there was no evidence that Pakistan's government or its intelligence agencies were involved in the assassination attempt on Sunday. "We have no evidence whether ... the operation has had any mercy or go ahead from the government of Pakistan and (its) special agencies," Saleh told reporters in Kabul. "There (is) very, very strong evidence suggesting that Pakistan's soil...

Afghan President Hamid Karzai escaped unharmed Sunday after militants attacked a high-profile military parade with rockets and gunfire, killing three people including an MP and wounding a dozen. The extremist Taliban movement claimed responsibility for the daring attack, denying however that it was an assassination attempt on Karzai. Bullets struck into the back of a stage where the president and Afghan leaders, including the most senior international representatives here, were seated to review the country's most important annual military parade. There were also several large explosions, with one -- likely from a rocket-propelled grenade -- landing just in front of...

<p>SONNY Bono, former husband and singing partner of superstar Cher, was clubbed to death by hitmen on the orders of drug and weapons dealers, an ex-FBI agent claims.</p> <p>Ted Gunderson, now a private investigator, has told the US Globe tabloid that Bono, who served as mayor of Palm Springs for four years, did not die after hitting a tree on a Nevada ski slope in January 1998 as everyone believed.</p>

Russian secret services have foiled an attack on President Vladimir Putin close to Red Square, it has been claimed. A man with a sniper rifle and Kalashnikov assault gun was found and detained in a rented apartment overlooking Moscow's St Basil's Cathedral, on March 2, the day of the Presidential election in Russia. Mr Putin and his president-elect, Dmitry Medvedev, appeared under the cathedral for a late-night pop concert once early results indicated that Mr Medvedev would win a landslide. The popular Tvoi Den newspaper, which broke the story, claimed that both men could have been killed from the flat...

The blast last week is believed to have been a failed attempt to kill a top police official. Drug traffickers are suspected. MEXICO CITY -- Authorities on Tuesday accused drug traffickers of attempting to kill a top Mexico City police official last week by blowing up his car, a botched assassination that left the bomber dead. The unfolding mystery of the attack, which also left a suspected accomplice severely wounded, has fascinated Mexicans for days. Investigators have used surveillance video and forensic anthropology to reconstruct the plot. "The investigation is very advanced; we know the target was a high official...

Århus - Police in Denmark have arrested four people suspected of planning an attack on one of the creators of the controversial Muhammad cartoons. The arrests were made in Århus. The intended victim was the 73-year-old cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. He had drawn an image of the Prophet Muhammad with a bomb lodged in his turban. The publication of the 12 Muhammad cartoons in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten two years ago led to angry demonstrations in many Islamic countries; some 150 people were killed.

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has been wounded in a pre-dawn attack on his home that killed a guard, says army spokesman Major Domingos da Camara said. It was unclear what condition Ramos-Horta - a Nobel Peace laureate - was in following Monday morning's attack, he said. However Reuters reported he had been wounded in the stomach, quoting a military spokesman. House guards shot back, killing attacking rebel soldier Alfredo Reinado, who was wanted on murder charges for a flare up of violence in 2006, da Camara said. Two cars passed Ramos-Horta's house on the outskirts of the capital, Dili,...

Osama bin Laden's 16-year-old son led a suicide bomb squad sent to kill Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, according to her own claims. Before she was assassinated in December the former prime minister claimed she had been warned that four such death teams would try to kill her. And the naming of bin Laden's teenage son, Hamza, could now strengthen claims that he is being groomed as a future leader of the al Qaeda terror group. In 2001, he appeared in a joint Taliban and al Qaeda video of a militant attack on a Pakistan army camp in South Waziristan,...

A short-lived "honeymoon" between Fatah and Hamas ended abruptly Saturday when the Islamist movement accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's office of being behind an attempt to assassinate Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Photo: AP [file] The charges came just as Fatah and Hamas appeared to be close to launching negotiations over solving their dispute. Relations between the two parties warmed up after Abbas phoned Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar last week to offer his condolences over the death of his son, Husam, in an IDF operation in Gaza...

LONDON: A plot by al-Qa'ida operatives to kill the Queen during a state visit to Uganda less than two months ago was foiled by security services. The terrorists had planned to hide inside two broadcast vans owned by the Ugandan Broadcasting Corporation and then set off bombs during the Queen's visit to Kampala last November. London's Sunday Express reported the vans were seized after a tip-off from intelligence agents. As a result, the broadcaster was unable to transmit live pictures of key summit events, including the Queen's historic address to the Ugandan parliament on November 22. The Queen, Prince Philip,...

A European country has recently conveyed to the Hamas authorities in Gaza Strip that Israel is planning to assassinate senior leaders of this Palestinian movement. An Arabic-language newspaper published in London reported on Sunday that the Israeli cabinet had approved plans to assassinate the former Premier Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal and former foreign minister, Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahar. Al Hayat newspaper added the implementation of the plan will start after American President George W. Bush finishes his regional visit later this week. According to the daily, Hamas is taking the threat seriously. Sources told the newspapers following the...

Boy scout saves leader of the Maldives By KRISHAN FRANCIS, Associated Press Writer The president of the Maldives was saved from assassination Tuesday when a boy scout grabbed the knife of an attacker who had jumped out of a crowd greeting the leader, an official said. President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was not hurt, but his shirt was ripped when the attacker tried to stab him before the boy and security guards intervened during the event on the small island of Horafushi, said government spokesman Mohammad Shareef. "This fellow in the crowd with a knife in his hand attempted to stab...

In the last few days there were multiple threads on terrorist forums calling for the assassination of President Bush during his coming visit to the Middle East. They are calling for suicide bombers and others to act and kill the President. Most probably those are all empty threats but the terrorist rhetoric on these forums is very dangerous and may be some terrorist who wants to prove himself for his brethren on these terrorists forums may try to commit violent act including the attempt to assassinate President Bush. The danger of these terrorist forums is so great and there must...

Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has been critically injured after a suspected suicide attack at a political rally in Pakistan. It was believed to be a suicide attackShe is undergoing emergency surgery at a nearby hospital, Sky News sources say. The explosion went off just after Ms Bhutto left the rally in Rawalpindi, minutes after her speech to thousands of people.

BLAST HEARD OUTSIDE BHUTTO RALLY IN PAKISTAN'S RAWALPINDI - REUTERS WITNESS PAKISTANI OPPOSITION LEADER BENAZIR BHUTTO IS SAFE - DAWN TV

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned on Wednesday that a plot to assassinate him was being hatched in Guatemala, saying he might not attend the inauguration of the country's new president next month because of the alleged scheme. "I've received very recent information that worries us about Guatemala and puts at risk my attendance at the swearing-in of President (Alvaro) Colom," Chavez told a news conference in Venezuela's capital, Caracas. Chavez, an outspoken critic of President Bush, has alleged similar plots in the past and accused Washington of backing the plan. "The government of the United States, is...

An opposition politician running in Russian parliamentary elections was shot and seriously wounded on Wednesday as he entered his house in the southern Russian region of Dagestan... Farid Babayev, who will lead the regional list for the liberal anti-Kremlin Yabloko party was in a serious condition in hospital, RIA novosti news agency reported after an unidentified gunman fired on him in the regional capital Makhachkala. "The incident occurred at about 10 p.m., not far from his home. Farid Babayev is now in hospital in a serious condition," ... Dagestan is in the North Caucasus, next to Chechnya,

The homicide terror bomb used in an assassination attempt on former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last month may have been strapped to a 1-year-old child who was being carried by his jihadist father, The Australian newspaper reported Thursday. The bomb, which killed 170 people and injured hundreds more, detonated during a crowded procession for Bhutto as she returned from exile. Investigators from Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party said the homicide bomber tried repeatedly to carry the baby to Bhutto's vehicle as it proceeded through the streets of Karachi. "At the point where the bombs exploded, Benazir Bhutto herself saw the...

Lebanese parliamentary majority leader Saad Hariri revealed on Tuesday that he has evidence of Syrian assassination plots against himself and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Hariri made the claim in response to a question about alleged assassination plots against the leaders by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's brother-in-law and head of intelligence Assef Shawqat. "We have intelligence about this and we are following it up," he told reporters. "The intelligence is correct and our security services are working on it. "There is cooperation between Lebanese security services and Arab security services to avoid such assassinations," he said, without specifying which countries were...

When Rudy Giuliani was U.S. attorney, he came within a single vote of having a mob contract put on his head, according to a memo read in court Wednesday. “That was one vote I won, I guess,” Giuliani responded Thursday on Mike Gallagher’s syndicated radio show.

Breaking on Fox...they are reporting 3 explosions near Bhutto....she is reported safe....but scores are dead and wounded.

'Plot to assassinate Putin' in Iran Vladimir Putin, left, visited Germany on Sunday ahead of a planned trip to Iran [AFP] The Russian president has been warned of a plot to assassinate him during a planned visit to Iran next week, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. But Tehran has described as "totally baseless" the report, which said Russian security services had been told suicide bombers and kidnappers were training to kill or capture Vladimir Putin. "Reports published by some media are totally baseless and are in line with the psychological war launched by enemies who want to harm Iran...

MOSCOW (AP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin has been told about a plot to assassinate him during a visit to Iran this week, a Kremlin spokeswoman said Sunday. The spokeswoman, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, refused further comment. Interfax news agency, citing a source in Russia's special services, said suicide terrorists had been trained to carry out the assassination. A spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, denied any such plot had been uncovered, characterizing the news as disinformation spread by Iran's adversaries. "These sort of reports are completely baseless and in direction with psychological operations of...

Beirut - Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah has reported very disturbing information on the assassination of former MP Antoine Ghanem, including the preparation of the booby trapped car and the execution of the assassination The Al-Seyassah sources in Syria were able to link the assassination of Ghanem, his bodyguards and 3 others to the opening of the Arida and Dabussiya border crossings between Lebanon and Syria on September 17, 2 days before the assassination took place. The Al-Seyassah sources also revealed that the opening of the crossings was to facilitate the entry of the assassins with their equipment and the Mercedes car...

http://www.who2.com/arthurbremer.html 21-year-old Arthur Bremer shot Alabama governor George Wallace at a presidential campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland on 15 May 1972. Arthur Bremer, 57, is due to be released after serving 35 years of the 53 year sentence for the attempted assassination of George Wallace.

Intelligence officer contradicts government denials of attack ISLAMABAD - Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s plane was fired on as it took off on Friday from a military airfield in Rawalpindi, an intelligence officer said, contradicting official denials. Musharraf’s plane arrived safely in the southwestern town of Turbat, where the president visited flood victims. The military denied there had been any attack. But an intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there had been an unsuccessful attempt on Musharraf’s life.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA worked with three American mobsters in a botched "gangster-type" attempt to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, according to documents released by the CIA on Tuesday. The CIA hauled the skeletons out of its closet by declassifying hundreds of pages of long-secret records that detail some of the agency's worst illegal abuses during about 25 years of overseas assassination attempts, domestic spying and kidnapping. CIA Director Michael Hayden released the documents to lift the veil of secrecy on the agency's past, even as the Bush administration faces criticism of being too secretive...

From NBC12 News A federal appeals court in Richmond is set to hear arguments in the case of a convicted Al Qaeda supporter. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is a U.S. citizen born to a Jordanian father. He was raised in Falls Church. He was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy to assassinate the president, conspiracy to hijack an aircraft and providing support to Al Qaeda. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

ALBANY - A mosque leader charged with helping launder money in a missile plot thought all the weapon talk was a joke, his lawyer said yesterday - but prosecutors were not laughing. Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref was jailed without bail after prosecutors questioned why his name was found in a notebook in a terrorist camp listed as "Commander Yassin, United States." They also unveiled a photo of the imam's co-defendant watching as an informant shouldered a real surface-to-air missile in the back room of an Albany-area convenience store. That was among the evidence cited by prosecutors in Albany Federal Court...

Britain covered up WW2 "plot" to kill Polish PM By Peter Griffiths Mon Sep 4, 2:00 AM ET LONDON (Reuters) - A distinguished Polish pilot who said he found a bomb intended to blow up the plane of Poland's wartime leader admitted to lying but the episode was hushed up by Britain's government, secret files released on Monday showed. The apparent plot to assassinate General Wladyslaw Sikorski, who led the Polish government in exile until his death in 1943, sparked a big inquiry with suspicions it was a German or Russian conspiracy but it turned out the pilot took the...

July 14, 2005 JS-2632 Treasury Designates MIRA for Support to Al Qaida ******In 2003, MIRA and Faqih received approximately $1 million in funding through Abdulrahman Alamoudi. According to information available to the U.S. Government, the September 2003 arrest of Alamoudi was a severe blow to al Qaida, as Alamoudi had a close relationship with al Qaida and had raised money for al Qaida in the United States. In a 2004 plea agreement, Alamoudi admitted to his role in an assassination plot targeting the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and is currently serving a 23 year sentence.******

AMSTERDAM — Shots were fired as police raided a building on the Moerweg in The Hague on Friday. Dutch parliament buildings hermetically sealed by police Witnesses reported seeing masked men with automatic weapons entering a flat complex on Moerweg which has been sealed off by the police. Radio 1 News was told of people hearing gunfire. The police in The Hague have declined to comment at this stage about the reports. A spokesperson would only say police operations are taking place at several locations in the city. She would also not confirm that a raid was carried out at a...

Terror suspect linked to Afghan assassination October 28, 2003 - 9:11AM A Frenchman under investigation in Australia and France for possible terrorist activities was also suspected of links to the assassination of an Afghan leader, authorities said. Willie Virgile Brigitte, 35, is in custody in a Paris area jail where he is being held on suspicion of association with a terror group, French police and justice officials said. Investigations are under way in France and Australia into Brigitte's alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror network, French officials said today. A judicial official said that Brigitte was also suspected of running...

Peace prize winner 'could kill' Bush Annabelle McDonald 25jul06 NOBEL peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren. Campaigning on the rights of young people at the Earth Dialogues forum, being held in Brisbane, Ms Williams spoke passionately about the deaths of innocent children during wartime, particularly in the Middle East, and lambasted Mr Bush. "I have a very hard time with this word 'non-violence', because I don't believe that I am non-violent," said Ms Williams, 64. "Right now, I would...

ALBANY -- The spiritual leader of an Albany mosque repeatedly called a phone number in Syria that an FBI report indicates had been used to gather terrorist intelligence for Osama bin Laden, according to classified documents unsealed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court. The FBI report, which was based on information from a confidential informant, was among several once-secret documents that federal authorities say raise questions about Yassin Aref's connections to terrorist organizations across the Middle East. Aref, 35, a Kurdish refugee who moved to Albany with his family in 1999, is in jail without bond while awaiting trial on...

PARIS (AFP) - A group calling itself Al-Qaeda in Palestine said it carried out a bombing against the Palestinian intelligence chief and threatened more attacks in a statement posted on the Internet. "We declare our full responsibility for this operation," the group said in the statement, whose authenticity could not be independently verified. "Your mujahedeen brothers managed to place a bomb in the special lift used by the apostate Tareq Abu Rajab ... but were hasty in detonating the device which should have been triggered once the lift door was closed." Abu Rajab, overall head of the Palestinian intelligence services,...

Al Qaida on Sunday claimed responsibility for an assassination attempt on the chief of the Palestinian Authority General Intelligence Services Tarek Abu Rajab on the previous day. In one of its internet sites the Palestinian branch of the international terrorist organization also issued threats against PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and other senior Fatah officials.

A HAMAS plot to assassinate Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been thwarted after he was tipped off by Israeli intelligence. Hamas’s military wing, the Izza Din Al-Qassem, had planned to kill Abbas at his office in Gaza, intelligence sources said. Abbas, who became president of the Palestinian Authority last year after the death of Yasser Arafat, was formally warned of the danger by the Israelis and cancelled a planned visit to the territory. The murder plan is the clearest sign yet of the tensions inside the Palestinian Authority between Hamas, which swept to power after elections in January, and...

The al-Qaeda terrorist network sent 12 of its militants to Denmark in order to assasinate those who drew the cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, according to Hamid Mir, the journalist who interviewed Osama bin Laden shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to an interview with the website of satellite television network al-Arabiya, Mir was brought to Waziristan, Pakistan's tribal area, in a zone believed to be run by the Taliban leader Abdullah Mahsud, where he met with some representatives of the Taliban. These sources told Mir that 12 members of al-Qaeda left Afghanistan and entered Iran with the...

Was General Patton's death the result of a traffic accident or was he the victim of an assassination plot? (By Stalin)

Trial for PM 'assassin' Turned down contract on Martin, man now faces drugs and weapons charges Toronto Sun Wed, April 26, 2006 By IAN MCDOUGALL, COURTS BUREAU BRAMPTON -- The man who said he turned down a $300,000 assassination contract on then-prime minister Paul Martin has lost his bid to get drugs and weapons charges tossed out of court. Justice Jack Bellegham dismissed Vincent Brown's abuse of process application yesterday. "I find on the evidence that there was never any agreement not to prosecute," Bellegham said. Brown had sought the application because he claimed the RCMP broke a promise...

PETATLAN, Mexico Unidentified assailants lobbed a grenade inside a restaurant near Mexico's Pacific coast today, injuring about 40 people. Several people were celebrating the birthday of the local mayor's chauffeur when the incident happened in the town of Petatlan (peh-TAHT'-lahn), about 100 miles northwest of Acapulco. The mayor wasn't present. The attack is the second in three days along the Pacific coast. Late Monday night, assailants threw a grenade at a home in the resort city of Acapulco, wounding two men and three women. Acapulco Mayor Felix Salgado said the attack was carried out by members of an organized criminal...

This May will mark the 25 th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. It took place on May 13, 1981 in St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Only a few weeks earlier, on March 30, Ronald Reagan had survived an attempted assassination in Washington. There are some remarkable similarities between the two crimes. Their would-be assassins both appeared to be lone gunmen acting on personal motives. They were within six or seven yards of their victims when they opened fire. The bullets entered both bodies, moved toward the hearts, and either stopped or passed within a few...