World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #6 Disinformation, Inc.

January 6, 2007 PM Anti-Terrorism News

(Israel) London Times: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran - report
claims Israel has secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment
facilities with tactical "bunker buster" nuclear weapons
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2535310,00.html

'Saddam' terror group says it's targeting U.S. -- Palestinians
threaten, form 'resistance organization' named after hanged dictator
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53659

(Somalia) Hundreds of protesters rage in Mogadishu -- denouncing the
presence of Ethiopian forces and shouting defiance at the interim Somali
government's call for disarming Mogadishu
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070106/ap_on_re_af/somalia_240

(UK) Report: Terrorists may target UK energy facilities - report that
army would be deployed at British oil, gas and electricity facilities to
defend them from possible terrorist attacks
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467675664&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

(UK) Londoner named as Al-Qaeda "banker" - Mohammed al-Ghabra - US
Treasury and Bank of England have frozen accounts
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2535240,00.html

UK terror threat of 100 British Muslims fighting in Iraq war
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23380711-details/UK%20terror%20threat%20of%20100%20British%20Muslims%20fighting%20in%20Iraq%20war/article.do

(UK) Al-Qaeda bomb expert to stay in jail - Abbas Boutrab in possession
of a blueprint on how to blow up passenger planes
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1984524,00.html

(Australia) Terror nuke rocket attack plotted - terrorist rocket plot
included plans to attack Lucas Heights nuclear reactor and others
housing US companies
http://www.news.com.au/sundaytelegraph/story/0,22049,21017005-5005941,00.html

(Australia) Gang hides rocket launchers in pipes
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21020377-2,00.html

Iraqi army says it killed 30 militants
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070107/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_070106222707

Police report finding 80 bodies, most tortured, in Iraq Saturday
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2007-01-06-iraq-bodies-tortured_x.htm?csp=34

(India) One killed, 30 wounded in Kashmir market blast
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070107/india_nm/india282503_2

(India) Death toll at 55 in insurgency-hit northeast India
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070106/wl_asia_afp/indianortheastunrest_070106194319

(California) Man Pleads Not Guilty To Making Terror Threats
http://wcco.com/local/local_story_006162906.html

Islamist Insurgency Hits Thailand Hard
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badguys/070105/islamist_insurgency_hits_thail.htm#more

(Philippines) Terror groups to use crime to raise funds
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/jan/07/yehey/top_stories/20070107top2.html

(Philippines) Asian leaders talk security under threat of bombs
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/January/theworld_January161.xml&section=theworld

Hamas threatens to expand its own force
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20070106-062923-1980r.htm

Abbas declares Hamas militia illegal and Report: Egypt let Haniyeh
bring $20 million into Gaza
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070106/ap_on_re_mi_ea/palestinians_politics
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/810060.html

Canadian pol receives death threats for being "anti-Muslim"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014722.php
http://www.cjad.com/node/462426

Suspected suicide bombing kills 11 in Sri Lanka - Female suicide bomber
on bus also wounded 47
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070106/wl_afp/srilankaunrestblast_070106195033

Related News:

(Philadelphia) Woman in Muslim garb robs Center City bank
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/philadelphia_county/philadelphia/16395438.htm

To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53659

Saturday, January 6, 2007
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
'Saddam' terror group
says it's targeting U.S.
Palestinians threaten, form 'resistance organization' named after hanged dictator
Posted: January 6, 2007
12:43 p.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – Palestinians in the Gaza Strip today announced the formation of what they say is a new "resistance" group to carry out attacks against the United States, Israel and Iran in the name of executed former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

The new purported organization, the Saddam Hussein Martyrs Brigades, will "hit America, Israel, Iran and all the traitors to our people," according to a pamphlet distributed today in the densely populated Gaza Strip city of Khan Yunis and obtained by WND.

"The Zionists and Americans will not dream of more invasion because the reaction of our wing will be very painful. The cells of our organization are spread all around Palestine," the pamphlet stated.

Israeli and Palestinian security sources could not immediately confirm the formation of the purported new group.

Meanwhile, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip this weekend mourning ceremonies continued for Hussein, who was hanged one week ago after being sentenced to death for crimes against humanity.

(Story continues below)

In the northern West Bank town of Yabed, near Jenin, about 500 people yesterday participated in a march for Hussein. They also opened a mourning tent in his honor.

In Halhoul, near Hebron, hundreds of Palestinians reportedly attended a rally in honor of Hussein, waving flags of several Palestinian terror groups. Rally-goers burned the Israeli and American flags, and chanted slogans against Iran and against Iraqi Shiite leaders who opposed Hussein.

Pictures of Hussein alongside late PLO leader Yasser Arafat were posted throughout Gaza and the West Bank.

Iranian leaders last week hailed the death of Hussein. Iran and Iraq engaged in a bitter war from 1980-1988. Many Iranian Shiites saw Hussein as an enemy in part due to his violent repression of Iraqi Shiites.

Hussein was considered a hero to most Palestinians. His final words last week reportedly included "Palestine is Arab."

During the first Gulf War in 1991, Palestinians cheered Hussein's missile attacks on Israel, chanting "Beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv," as the Scud missiles flew overhead. Some scuds fell short and landed in Palestinian areas.

Hussein further endeared himself to the Palestinians during the latest Palestinian intifada, or terror war, which began in September 2000. The Iraqi dictator donated about $25,000 to the family of each Palestinian suicide bomber and $10,000 for each Palestinian killed while committing attacks against Israel. The stipends amounted to an estimated $35 million.

Mideast analysts say Hussein's support for the Palestinian cause was mostly aimed at gaining widespread support throughout the Arab world.

Decision time
YAAKOV KATZ , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 4, 2007

It was exactly a year ago. A small Falcon jet - favored by top Iranian military officers - crashed in northwest Iran near the Turkish border. Among those killed were Brig.-Gen. Ahmad Kazemi, commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard ground forces division, and at least 12 other officers.

Rumors quickly spread that the plane had been sabotaged and that Kazemi had been killed in a devious Israeli plot.

While Iranian official statements blamed bad weather and dilapidated engines for the crash, there was room for speculation that foul play may have had a hand. Kazemi had been responsible for the production and development of Iran's Shihab ballistic missile series, capable of delivering a nuclear warhead into the heart of Europe, not to mention Israel.

He was also a close confidant of Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Muhammad Najjar, from their days together in the Revolutionary Guard, where Najjar served as the head of the Middle East department, responsible for Israel and Lebanon.

Since last January's crash, air travel for Iranian military officials has become increasingly dangerous. On November 27, a military transport plane crashed just after take-off from Teheran. More than 40 people were killed including 30 members of the Revolutionary Guard, some of them reported to be close advisers to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A week before, a helicopter crashed into the central town of Najafabad, killing six, including a senior Revolutionary Guard officer.

The combined effect of these crashes, some Iranian analysts claim, has effectively gutted the high command of the Revolutionary Guard. But whatever the truth concerning the cause of these mysterious crashes, they show that numerous stumbling blocks confront Iran's efforts to develop nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching Israel.

International pressure - in the form of UN-approved sanctions such as those imposed last month - as well as internal strife and recent technological challenges all serve as obstacles the Islamic Republic has had to face throughout its 20-year effort to obtain nuclear weapons.

Within the Israeli leadership, there is one clear voice - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - that refuses to come to terms with a nuclear Iran and claims that Teheran must be stopped, even at a heavy price, from obtaining weapons of mass destruction and rocking the balance of power in the Middle East.

Currently nine countries are known to have or are suspected of having nuclear weapons: the US, France, the UK, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel. Adding Iran to the mix will not only constitute an existential threat to Israel, but will also impair its operational independence.

"What if a soldier is kidnapped in Lebanon and we want to go to war?" asks one senior official. "All Iran would need to do is wave its nuke at us and make us reconsider."

Israel currently has invested most of its intelligence-gathering resources into the Iranian issue. The Mossad holds the "Iran File" and the Foreign Ministry is spearheading diplomatic efforts.

There are additional, top-secret committees, whose members are appointed by the prime minister and include senior officials from the intelligence community and former politicians with a strategic background. These committees, one participant says, meet from time to time and are responsible for amalgamating all of the details gathered by the different security branches and brainstorming on strategy.

At the end of the day, however, as one former IAF commander involved in the successful strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 points out, it is solely up to the prime minister to decide what course of action Israel will take - military or diplomacy.

The way things looks now, D-Day might not be too far away.

STATUS REPORT
Iran has built at least two dozen suspected nuclear facilities and, according to recent revelations, intends to produce fissile materials on two parallel tracks: the uranium track and the plutonium track.

Using the excuse of a plan to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, Iran is building uranium enrichment capabilities with gas centrifuges in Natanz.

According to latest assessments by Western intelligence sources, it has encountered "serious" obstacles on its way to crossing the nuclear threshold and obtaining independent research and development capabilities. These obstacles have pushed back predictions regarding the point when Iran would obtain these capabilities, with Western sources now claiming Iran will cross the technological threshold only in late 2007.

Despite the setbacks in the enrichment of uranium - a critical step in the development of a nuclear bomb - Ahmadinejad last month announced plans to build 60,000 additional centrifuges, leading Western sources to believe that it is only a matter of time before Iran overcomes the technological obstacles. (Pakistan encountered similar difficulties in its nuclear program but eventually overcame them.)

Experts speculate that the enrichment difficulties Iran is encountering at its plant at Natanz could be behind its second track - the construction of a heavy-water production facility near the town of Arak to produce plutonium. Israeli observers note that Iran is also building - in the same location - a "research reactor" which will probably be used for irradiating uranium and later separation of plutonium from the irradiated rods.

According to nuclear experts, Iran would need 3,000 working centrifuges to successfully enrich uranium, and Ahmadinejad has announced plans to immediately begin installing these centrifuges in defiance of last month's UN Security Council decision to impose sanctions. At the moment at Natanz, Iran has two working cascades - each consisting of 164 centrifuges - with which it claimed in April to have enriched uranium to 3.5 percent. For a bomb, uranium needs to be enriched to 90 percent or SQ, a nuclear technical term for Significant Quantity.

Once Iran completes the construction of the centrifuges and masters the technology, it will still take another year to reach SQ and then another two years to assemble a nuclear device, putting current assessments for when Iran will have a nuclear weapon at 2010.

Teheran initially had planned to activate 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006, but failed, and then increase this to 54,000. Iranian officials say that would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as that being built by Russia and nearing completion at Bushehr.

Iran is also working to upgrade the type of centrifuge it has been using at Natanz. The National Council of Resistance revealed at a press conference in August that Iran was secretly producing P2 centrifuges in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. P2 centrifuges are second-generation and, according to nuclear experts, are "better and more effective" in enriching uranium.

Diplomacy vs Military
In 1992, Israeli Military Intelligence put Iranian nuclear efforts on the nation's agenda as a potential existential threat. A few years later, reports began to surface regarding a covert Iranian missile project aimed at developing a rocket capable of reaching Israel called the Shihab. Israel's course of action at the time was mostly waiting and watching.

By 1996, Amos Gilad, then head of the MI Research Division, began pointing to Iran as a growing threat. At the time, he recalls, the Americans were obsessed with Iraq and Israel was following suit. Saddam Hussein was perceived as the region's most immediate threat. As a result, the shift in focus took time, possibly precious time.

By the end of the decade, however, MI and the Mossad began to see eye-to-eye, viewing their main task as tracking weapons of mass destruction in Iran.

Israel began investing in spy satellites - like the Eros B launched in April 2006 - in addition to making improvements to the Arrow 2 anti-missile system. The IAF purchased sophisticated long-range fighters - the US-made F-15I and F-16I - which IAF officers say can easily reach Iran.

Aware that a military strike on Iran would be far more difficult than the 1981 bombing of the Iraqi reactor in Osirak - its nuclear sites are scattered across the country and some are underground - Israel had to create an image that if necessary it has the will and the firepower.

At the same time, Israel has been warning from every available podium of the looming threat emanating from Iran. Ahmadinejad's accession to power in August 2005 assisted Israel in grabbing the world's attention. A denier of the Holocaust who calls persistently for Israel's destruction, Ahmadinejad himself made Jerusalem's case.

From the beginning, it has been a race against time, and the strategy chosen is to enlist the world against Iran. If not to stop Iran, then to at least slow it down enough so that if and when Teheran does go nuclear, the radical ayatollahs would have been toppled and would not be the ones with their finger on the trigger.

The diplomatic work has partially paid off. The UN Security Council decision two weeks ago to impose sanctions was considered a major achievement. Russia had initially objected to sanctions but in the vote aligned itself with the US, possibly the result of a series of high-level recent visits to Moscow by National Security Council head Ilan Mizrahi, Gilad, now head of the Defense Ministry's Diplomatic-Security Bureau, and Foreign Ministry Director-General Aharon Abramovich.

But while the decision was greeted as a "positive step," the defense establishment does not believe that sanctions will be effective in stopping Iran from continuing with its nuclear program.

"There is no way to stop Iran anymore except with military action," says one high-ranking officer. "At this point, sanctions will only leave a dent, but they will not stop the program."

Not everyone agrees with that assessment. Foreign Ministry officials voice cautious predictions that the sanctions could eventually lead Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions.

One proponent of sanctions is Uri Lubrani, an adviser to the defense minister. Lubrani, 80, has been in the Defense Ministry for decades and served as ambassador to the Shah's Iran.

He follows events in Iran closely and while he ultimately believes the most effective way to stop the Islamic regime would be by overthrowing the mullahs, he also believes tough sanctions - not like the ones approved by the UN - can be effective. In contrast to the regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Lubrani claims the people of Iran are interested in "staying a part of the world" and not being cut off as a result of the regime's nuclear program.

"It is very late but we still need to try to impose sanctions, since they can be effective," he says in an interview. "There is no reason not to try. Iran is dependent on importing refined fuel. Why don't we cut the amount they get by 90 percent?"

A close adviser to Olmert on security and diplomatic issues says that he too believes sanctions could be effective if not in stopping Iran's nuclear program, then at least in delaying it. The official agrees with Lubrani that the Iranian people do not want to turn into a "leper state" like North Korea, which has also come under sanctions since announcing it tested a nuclear device in October.

Even if sanctions are escalated and begin to affect Iran's oil production - the country's main source of income - some Israeli experts are doubtful Teheran will completely abandon its nuclear program.

Ephraim Asculi, a 40-year veteran of the Atomic Energy Commission and currently an analyst with the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, wrote recently that Iran would be prepared to follow in North Korea's footsteps. In face of major sanctions and international isolation, he predicted that Teheran would continue with its nuclear program clandestinely.

"It will be very difficult for Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions," Asculi wrote in the center's Tel Aviv Notes in August. "The first [reason] is the need to deter several perceived threats: US armed forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Gulf pose a danger from almost every direction; Iraq, though currently incapable of threatening any of its neighbors, could eventually reemerge as a regional force; and Israel is seen as a hostile nuclear-weapons state."

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the same argument during his Senate confirmation hearing last month. Asked why he thought Iran was pursuing nuclear weapons, Gates responded: "They are surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons - Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf."

Asculi also noted internal processes that play a role in Iran's decision to press forward with its plan despite sanctions. "The current Iranian regime has been successful in rallying the nation around its nuclear program, which is perhaps the only policy uniting the population, and undoing this could help hasten its downfall," he wrote.

But if the diplomatic track reaches a dead end, it will still be necessary to stop Iran's atomic plan, even at a heavy price. Olmert has said numerous times in public that Iran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. He has also said that "Iran has what to be afraid of."

ISRAELI MILITARY CAPABILITY
While diplomatic efforts have taken center stage over the past year, military commanders have been drawing up the plans that could be used if all else fails. Senior security officials predict that 2007 will be the crucial year of decision on whether to launch a strike.

But is Israel even capable of such an attack?

A former IAF head claims that Israel has the ability to destroy Iran's nuclear program or at least set it back by several years. The time gained, he says, could be used to work to topple the Islamic regime or follow up the strike with tough sanctions that would make Iran abandon its atomic plans.

Not everyone agrees. One former IAF brigadier-general says he is not certain the air force is capable of dealing Iran the powerful blow necessary to delay the program. "If we send the air force there, we run the risk of losing a third of our fleet," he says. "And if we return without fulfilling the mission, then what will we have achieved?"

With Iraq, Israel has certainly proven its willpower. In 1981, a formation of eight F-16 fighter jets flew just over 2,000 kilometers and destroyed the Osirak reactor outside Baghdad. According to the former head of the IAF, prime minister Menachem Begin decided - together with the OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. David Ivry - that the moment the Iraqis put fuel into the reactor, Operation Opera would be given the green light.

"The government needs to decide what its red line is," he says. "Once that line is crossed then we need to attack."

Israel seems to be preparing for the possibility that it will have to "go it alone" against Iran. A recent escalation in rhetoric seems to indicate that the country is getting ready for such an option.

According to the intelligence assessment for 2007, the defense establishment does not foresee the US launching a preemptive strike on Iran's nuclear installations. The Democratic takeover of the US Congress and the Baker-Hamilton report, which calls for dialogue with Iran, led to the prediction that President George W. Bush will not order a military strike.

"The entire movement in the US is toward dialogue, not military action," says one high-ranking intelligence official. "Countries are beginning to come to terms with the fact that there will be a nuclear Iran."

ISRAEL IS NOT one of those countries.
Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh told The Jerusalem Post in November that sanctions were unlikely to work and that Israel must be prepared to thwart Teheran's drive for nuclear capability "at all costs," even in a preemptive strike. Since then other leaders have added their voices, including Vice Prime Minister Shimon Peres who recently declared: "Iran too can be destroyed."

Military Intelligence, however, admits it works under the assumption that it is not aware of all Iran's nuclear sites. According to senior officers, the assumption is that Iran has built secret installations for its covert military program.

There are additional complications. While Osirak was a distant target that required expert pilots who could maneuver at low altitude, it was only one facility and was above ground. A number of Iran's nuclear facilities are underground and are heavily fortified, some with steel reinforcements and others with layers of concrete.

According to a senior government official involved in security and strategic affairs, the military would need precise intelligence on every facility to be able to choose the most effective weapon.

"We would need to know all of the specifications," he says. "Whether the bunker is fortified by steel or concrete and even how thick it is."

So how would it be done? According to Jane's Intelligence Review, the IAF can generate more than 300 long-range attack and fighter-cover sorties daily, supported by refueling tankers, electronic warfare, electronic intelligence and airborne warning and control systems planes, while maintaining a strong reserve against intervention by the Arab states.

Each attack sortie could include the use of Popeye or GBU-15 standoff missiles, laser or electro-optical guided bombs, and Joint Direct Attack Munition missiles with further protection provided by Samson decoys. Following the war in Lebanon, the IAF has ordered large numbers of JDAMs to refill stocks used against Hizbullah.

Israel is also buying 500 US BLU-109 "bunker buster" bombs that are reported to be capable of penetrating the concrete protection around some of Iran's underground facilities, like the enrichment center at Natanz, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Israeli fighter jets have carried out other long-range missions in the past including the 1985 2,060-km strike on the Palestine Liberation Organization's headquarters in Tunis in response to the murder of three Israelis on a yacht in Cyprus.

Today, the IAF's 25 F-15Is (called "Ra'am" or "Thunder" in Hebrew) based in the Negev, with a combat range of close to 4,400 kilometers, are capable of striking Iran in a nonstop operation like that against Osirak. By the end of the year, the IAF will also finish receiving the remainder of the 102 F-16Is ("Sufa" or "Storm" in Hebrew) it procured in the late 1990s. These too are capable of long-range missions, with a combat radius of closer to 2,200 km., extended by another 1,000 km. if conformal fuel tanks are used.

The combat radius on these aircraft could be increased by utilizing the IAF's fleet of B-707 air-to-air refueling tankers that could nurse attack planes as they make the flight to Iran and back.

According to foreign media, Israel can also utilize its Jericho 2 missiles, which according to Globalsecurity.org have a range of 1,500 km. and a payload of 1,000 kilograms. The Jericho 2, according to foreign reports, has enhanced accuracy and puts almost every Arab capital, including Teheran, within striking distance.

The navy also has three German-made Dolphin-class submarines which, according to foreign reports, may carry surface-to-surface Harpoon missiles capable of delivering a 227-kg. warhead to a range of 130 km. Some foreign reports suggest the subs might be capable of carrying nuclear-armed Popeye Turbo cruise missiles, which would enable second-strike capabilities.

Another issue of extreme importance is the route the air force would choose. The quickest and most convenient would be over Jordan and Iraq, but according to Brig.-Gen. (res.) Shlomo Brom of the Jaffee Center, it would be best to fly the longer route over the Indian Ocean with minimal penetration of other states' air space. Asking Jordan or the US for permission prior to the flights could jeopardize the entire mission.

"Flying through Jordan without the explicit or implicit permission of the Jordanians would hurt relations with a friendly Arab state," Brom wrote in a recent article in the book Getting Ready for a Nuclear Iran. "Flying over Iraq without coordination with the United States would lead to a clash with US interceptors."

In addition to the underground reinforcement at certain nuclear sites, the Iranians have also beefed up their air defenses in preparation for a possible air strike. But the strong air defenses do not protect fixed Iranian targets against standoff precision-guided weapons fired from out of range of the anti-aircraft missiles.

According to a high-ranking IAF officer, "The Iranian air force is not a threat to the IAF. None of our neighbors pose an aerial threat that the air force would not be able to deal with."

The Iranian Air Force is comprised of MiG-29 squadrons and other planes, some dating back 30 years. Air defense systems, which are currently heavily deployed near the various nuclear sites, feature Russian SA-2, SA-5, SA-6 and shoulder-launched SA-7 missiles, according to the Military Balance prepared by the Jaffee Center. The Iranians also have aged US-made Hawk missiles and have been seeking to purchase the sophisticated S-300P from Russia.

"Israel can do it," the former head of the Air Force says. "All you have to do is pick a number of essential targets and destroy them. This way you postpone the process and wait to see what happens."

The fallout
During this summer's war in Lebanon Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin, head of Military Intelligence, warned one night during a press conference at military headquarters in Tel Aviv that Hizbullah sleeper cells abroad, directed and supported by Iran, had been "awakened" and were preparing plans to attack Jewish and Israeli sites.

The assumption within Military Intelligence took into account Iran's long-reaching terror arm. Iran is held responsible for the bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association building in Buenos Aires in 1994 in which 85 people were killed. Hizbullah is also believed to be behind the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 in which 29 people were killed and 242 wounded.

"If Israel decides to attack Iran's nuclear installations, it will have to take into account a response in kind," Brom wrote.

The Iranians would most probably utilize Hizbullah to ignite the Lebanese border like they did this past summer when 4,000 rockets pounded the North. While Hizbullah refrained from firing long-range Iranian-made Fajr and Zelzal missiles, it would most probably launch the missiles - which can reach south of Tel Aviv - following an attack on Iran.

Iran has also developed its own ballistic missile, the Shihab 3, which is said to have a range of 1,330 km. and gives Iran the capability to strike directly at targets in Israel. In mid-December 2005, it was also reported that Iran had acquired 18 BM-25 missiles from North Korea which have a range of 2,500 km. Iran is also said to be in the midst of developing missiles that would be capable of carrying heavier payloads for increased distances: 2,000 km., 2,500 km. and even 4,000 km.

No solid evidence of these advanced Shihabs is available, and it is unclear whether the Iranians have moved beyond the initial planning phase. But if they are being developed - and MI believes they are - then they indicate that Iran also has its sights on European countries - possibly even US military bases in Germany, one diplomatic official speculated.

While the Shihab is deadly when carrying a conventional warhead - its payload is up to 800 kg. - Brom warned that Israel would also have to take into account Iranian use of chemical weapons. For that purpose, the Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile defense system, which according to senior IAF officers is capable of intercepting all of Iran's missiles, was developed.

"The fallout of a preemptive attack would be painful," admits a high-ranking security official. "But we need to think of the trade-off: A nuclear bomb could destroy the State of Israel."

An uncontrollable region
In April, following close to two years of work, Dan Meridor presented his report on Israel's defense doctrine to then-defense minister Shaul Mofaz. The report, the first of its kind, made practical recommendations concerning defense strategy: Develop anti-missile systems, upgrade the National Security Council and prepare the IDF for low-intensity conflicts.

An additional and no less important recommendation was: under no circumstances to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons. According to Meridor's report, success for Iran would set off a race to join the nuclear club throughout the Middle East.

"The region," the report states, "would become uncontrollable."

That day might not be too far away, With Iran plunging ahead with its program in defiance of the UN and the international community, Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates announced in early November that they intended to begin upgrading their nuclear energy programs. Of the six, the most advanced by far are Egypt and Algeria. Turkey is also reported to be toying with the idea of starting a nuclear program.

"To remain a player in the region, these Arab countries will have no choice but to quickly develop nuclear weapons," says a senior government official responsible for formulating strategic policy.

The countries that would be most affected by Iranian success, Meridor's report claims, are Saudi Arabia and Egypt, both heavily dependent on American military support and afraid to lose their place of dominance in the region. Saudi Arabia is a leading Sunni power while Iran is a Shiite-dominated country.

"The Saudis will not be able to stand by and let their archenemies overtake them militarily," said the official. "Egypt is the same and will want to retain its military superiority in the region."

This was actually pointed out three years ago in a report - "Saudi Arabia - a New Player on the Nuclear Scene?" - published in the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies' Notes by Ephraim Asculi, a veteran of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission.

Asculi claimed that a Sunni fear of a Shi'ite nuclear bomb prompted Saudi Arabia to strike a deal with Pakistan under which it would contribute to the Pakistani nuclear project and in return receive a commitment from Islamabad to provide it with a "nuclear umbrella." Saudi Arabia can also launch the weapons; it purchased 36 CSS-2 missiles, with a range of 3,000 kilometers, from China in the late 1980s.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1167467659996&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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Whose finger will be on the button?
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 4, 2007

Iran's complex and unusual political system combines elements of modern Islamic theocracy with democracy, as a network of unelected institutions are controlled by a supreme leader who is countered by a president and parliament elected by the people.

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini first established the theocracy after toppling the shah, one of the first things he did was set up a task force to examine how vulnerable his regime was to a takeover. This paranoia has been the key to the regime's survival over the past 25 years.

"If there is anything the Islamic regime fears most, it is being toppled," said a high-ranking defense official. "This is its biggest nightmare."

One of the first things the mullahs did after gaining control of the government was to duplicate the military. There is the official Armed Forces with a large navy and air force, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard which also has its own navy and air force and is in charge of the Shihab ballistic missile program.

While there are free elections for parliament, elections that brought Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, the real decisions are made by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei, appointed to the post following Khomeini's death in 1989.

The question is, whose finger would be on the nuclear button? If Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, who would make the decision whether they would be used or not? Ahmadinejad, the radical president? Or Khamenei, the supreme leader?

According to the senior defense official, whose job is to closely monitor events in Iran, the decision is not up to one person but would involve a small, close-knit group, including Ahmadinejad and Khamenei as well as the energy and defense ministers, both former officers in the Revolutionary Guard.

A former mayor of Teheran, Ahmadinejad, Israeli intelligence says, was involved in the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979. He has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and most recently held a conference in Teheran described as a meeting of Holocaust deniers.

Israeli officials breathed a sigh of relief last month after Ahmadinejad's ally, the ultra hardliner Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, failed to dominate in the elections for the Assembly of Experts, the council that filters all candidates for parliament. In the last elections, it disqualified 220 candidates and in effect threw out the reformists.

"Yazdi is one of the most radical people in Iran today," the official said. "He is also Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor and has a great deal of influence over him."

He noted that while Khamenei is certainly anti-Israel and a radical, he is more moderate than Ahmadinejad. "The president's anti-Israel rhetoric and focus on the Holocaust does not make Khamenei happy," he said.

Khamenei, he added, has a more pragmatic take on international relations, but is almost helpless in face of Ahmadinejad's high popularity among the public.

A more remarkable aspect of Ahmadinejad's ideology is his devotion to the hidden imam, a messiah-like figure in Shi'ism who will appear at the end of days. He believes that his government needs to prepare the country for his return.

One of the first decisions of Ahmadinejad's government was to invest millions of dollars in renovating the Jamkaran Mosque, where the devout drop notes for the hidden imam into a holy well. As mayor of Teheran, he invested millions in expanding a main thoroughfare it is believed the imam will use when he returns.

In a recent interview on CNN, former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu compared Ahmadinejad to David Korush, leader of the Branch Davidians from Waco, Texas.

"It's the cult of the Mahdi, a holy man that disappeared a thousand years ago and the president of Iran believes that he was put here on Earth to bring this holy man back in a great religious war between the true Muslim believers and the infidels," Netanyahu said. "Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, is first trying to develop nuclear weapons and then going about his mad fantasy of global conflict."

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Who's who in fighting Iran
Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 4, 2007

The holder of the official government "Iran File" is Meir Dagan, head of the Mossad and the man entrusted with leading the efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear power. According to high-level defense sources, Iran currently takes up a good deal of the Mossad's resources and is certainly the spy agency's number one priority.

Another agency closely watching Iran is Military Intelligence which, together with the Mossad, is responsible for intelligence gathering and analyzing overt and secret information. The Israeli Atomic Energy Commission is responsible for maintaining contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency and for providing a professional up-to-date analysis on the technical progress in Iran's nuclear program.

There is also the Foreign Ministry, which is spearheading diplomatic efforts to stop Iran, starting with the sanctions imposed last month by the UN Security Council. National Security Council head Ilan Mizrahi, a former deputy head of the Mossad and a well-respected expert on Iran, is also intimately involved in all spheres of the effort.

Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz has appointed OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Elazar Shkedy as the head of the "Iranian front" in the IDF. If military action is decided on, he will command the strike against Iranian nuclear sites, an attack that will be primarily carried out by IAF fighter-bombers.

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A modern Cassandra
ANSHEL PFEFFER, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 4, 2007

Much has been written over the last couple of years of the exodus of Jews from France. In the face of a wave of violent anti-Semitism, thousands have left Paris, Strasbourg and Marseilles for Israel.

In certain middle-class neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Netanya and Ashdod, it's impossible not to notice them. Last week's aliya figures from the Jewish Agency disclosed another trend: Quietly, without fanfare, another community seems to be on the move.

Immigration from Britain was up by 45 percent in 2006. In absolute numbers this might not be a high figure - 720 new olim, up from 480 in 2005. Perhaps it's just a statistical blip, but all the same, it's the highest number of British olim in decades, and when it's added to unknown numbers of young British Jews who reportedly are leaving for other shores, such as the US, a worrisome trend begins to emerge. Are the Jews of one of the most successful outposts of the Diaspora beginning to leave?

Melanie Phillips has never been an official spokeswoman, but in her writing over the years she has never shied away from her Jewishness, and she is currently one of the most outspoken voices in a community which traditionally has been very careful not to rock the boat. On a visit to Jerusalem this week, she expressed no surprise at the aliya statistics.

"I wouldn't have thought it's quite so high," she says, "but I'm not surprised by the fact that it's jumped, because Britain's Jews are beginning to think in an increasing number that there is no future for the new generation of Jews in Britain."

As a leading columnist for the Daily Mail, Phillips has been at the forefront of the anti-establishment campaign trying to convince Britons that their country is being threatened by a wave of radical Islamism that has found in London and other cities not only a physical safe haven, but also a convenient center for the dissemination of its ideas and a source of many eager new converts.

Her latest book Londonistan analyzes the rise of a new generation of Muslim youths, radicalized by fanatical preachers who found shelter in Britain thanks to a lax immigration policy and the blind eye of the authorities, a situation that led to the bombings of London's public transport in July 2005 by British-born suicide bombers. Phillips connects the loss of national and religious values in British society and the culture of moral relativity and political correctness with an environment which continues to allow the activity of these preachers and their followers, even after the bombings.

In the media and in person, Phillips cuts an austere, almost puritanical image. She is very quick to correct her interviewers, making absolutely sure they understand her precise message. In Israel for a short winter break with her family, she rarely seems to be on vacation. On the day we met, she had two other interviews scheduled and a lecture at the Hebrew University.

Her journalistic output of long, opinionated and carefully argued columns in the Daily Mail, the Jewish Chronicle and the Spectator and an extensive on-line diary on her personal Web site is prodigious. She enjoyed a meteoric rise at the Guardian, Britain's major left-wing newspaper, at the start of her career, but her stubborn questioning of various policies, such as family values and educational standards, led to a rapid alienation from her former colleagues. Today they are among her many detractors in Britain, where she is widely regarded as an outspoken extremist.

An adjective often applied to her is "shrill," a consequence of her incessant challenges to the prevailing wisdom and confronting the media and political establishment with a constant supply of uncomfortable facts. She is fully aware that many in her own community see her as a troublemaker. She insists that despite the headstrong image, she is capable of self-criticism.

"I question myself all the time. And of course they regard me as an extremist because I rock the boat, I make life uncomfortable for them. They will have to tell me what I say is untrue or exaggerated, and I will deal with these claims one by one."

PHILLIPS IDENTIFIES the radicalized and growing Muslim community as only one factor leading many British Jews to consider emigration.

"It's also not entirely because of the perception that non-Muslim Britain has become very aggressive towards Israel" she says, "though these are very important contributory factors. In my view, a very significant driver is simply the increasing Jewish awareness among British Jewish youth. There's been a dramatic increase in my lifetime of the number of Jewish children being educated at Jewish schools, a very considerable rise in Jewish awareness and learning that is all for the good. And such young people increasingly feel in large numbers that there is no future for them, or to be more precise for their children, in Britain, that it's not possible to live the kind of fulfilled Jewish life that you can live in Israel."

And this is perhaps the irony of the Jewish existence in Britain: On the face of it, British Jews have never had it so good. Their numbers among the higher levels of politics, culture, business and media are astounding, out of all proportion to the size of the community. But this, coupled with the resurgence of Jewish education, is the reason Phillips thinks that many of them are frustrated by the current attitude toward them.

"Somebody said to me the other day that he intends to make aliya as soon as he possibly can. He's young, he's got a small family, he's extremely successful in British terms, but he doesn't want anymore to live on the defensive. He doesn't want anymore to wake up in the morning and be worried about what he's going to read, about what he's going to hear, what people might say to him socially about Israel or about Jews.

"He's fed up with having to defend what is patently a just position, that is being made out to be a completely evil position. He's fed up with being made to feel as if he's a pariah, and that's a very important factor, people do feel this acutely. I believe that these young people who come to Israel think that there are more important things in the world than success, and that the future spiritual, religious and moral life of their children is more important. They also feel - and it's not an inconsiderable factor at all - that British public life has turned against them, that it's much more hostile than it was."

Phillips also identifies a growing divide between two parts of the community. "The Jews who tend to be most successful in the professional world tend to be Jews with an either secular perspective or not to have a very large attachment to Jewish life. They're not very religious, they don't play an active part in a synagogue, they don't have much cultural or religious feeling. That's not always true - obviously there are a number of very successful Jews who are Orthodox or indeed very Orthodox - but the Jews who have made it in Jewish life are overwhelmingly not religious, so that tends to create a distorted perspective. There seem to be a lot of Jews in Britain, but those Jews who are most active in public life tend to be the kind of Jews who are typically at the forefront of demonizing Israel because they are left-wing."

Those who openly identify themselves as Jews and defend Israel come up against a more modern, understated type of anti-Semitism - not one which puts Jews in immediate physical danger, but one which Phillips sees as no less disturbing.

"The idea that because there is no physical persecution, people shouldn't be feeling uncomfortable shows a complete inability to understand that there is a whole scale of social pressures which make people feel uneasy and uncomfortable. In certain professions, like journalism and academia, to be very publicly in favor of Israel - and I don't mean supporting the activities of the Israeli government at any one time, I mean merely taking Israel's side as the regional victim rather than the regional bully - can cost you your job."

There was always a degree of anti-Semitism among the British establishment, especially within the upper classes, but through much of the second half of the 20th century it was hidden and considered socially unacceptable. Phillips says that has changed over recent years.

"Then it was latent, now it is blatant, it's open. Twenty years ago, one would have never ever read in a mainstream newspaper or heard mainstream politicians talk openly about the Jewish conspiracy subverting the policies of the prime minister or the president of the US, now you do."

She cites examples, such as the mainstream left-wing magazine New Statesman, which five years ago featured on its cover the question "A kosher conspiracy?" with a picture of a golden Star of David stuck on the British flag, or veteran Labor Party parliamentarian Tam Dalyell, who four years ago accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of being influenced by "a cabal of Jewish advisers." Phillips says this is part of a trend that began in 1982 following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and intensified with the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.

IN THE FACE of this challenge, Phillips sees no organized response by the leadership of the Jewish community. "The leaders of the British Jewish community are servile," she says. "They never put their heads above the parapet; they believe in doing things behind the scenes and are very reluctant to jeopardize their standing in the British social circle. They have the standing of worms; in other words they have a social standing as long as they don't identify themselves with the Jewish people. That to me is disgusting, degrading and outright betrayal."

In such an environment, she feels she can't blame those Jews who are leaving Britain.

"It's up to people and I understand precisely why they're doing it. It's regrettable that the British Jewish community is losing its brightest and best, but I understand and sympathize very much with why they're coming here. It's entirely logical that with British Jews under siege as they are, an increasing number will choose to come here. It's absolutely inevitable. It doesn't lessen the fact that it's a tragic situation that Britain is effectively getting rid of its Jews.

"I think it's tragic above other things because there's a fight to be had in Britain, and one of the problems of the spinelessness of the British Jewish leadership is that the fight has not been had, that the lie has not been countered in public and that the Jewish community has allowed itself to be spineless. And if you're spineless, people kick you.

"I believe there is a fight that must be had because it's a fight not just for Britain but for better values. If the Jews allow themselves to be persecuted out of a country like Britain, it does not augur well for the wider fight to defend the West. And I don't think it right that the Jewish community just sidles out of history."

When confronted with quotes from Israeli leaders like Jewish Agency Chairman Ze'ev Bielski, who say that all Jews should live in Israel, and the feeling that there are some Israeli politicians who perhaps see a positive side to this persecution feeling of Jews in the Diaspora, she is equally critical.

"It's the siege mentality of Israel - that everyone else can go hang as long as Israel exists with American support. This is a poison that is seeping fast through the West. Other European countries are showing similar signs, and Israel is very shortsighted if it thinks that in time it won't be to Israel's own detriment that this has been allowed to happen.

"I think its understandable that Israel thinks that all Jews should live in Israel, but the fact is that they don't and for Israel simply to shrug at this is morally reprehensible. If all the Jews lived in Israel, it probably wouldn't survive. Israel needs Jews around the world."

DESPITE THE dire picture she paints of the situation in Britain, Phillips insists that she is an optimist who believes that Israel and the West can still win, though first they must realize that their battle is a joint one.

"Saving British Jewry can't be done in isolation. It has to be a part of the defense of the free world. We have to say that Israel is not the cause of the free world's problems, Israel is actually the front line of the free world's defense and that its fight is the free world's fight. And that is one very important way of shifting the perception, because the impression that the Jews are responsible for the danger that Britain is in is to a large measure what fuels the animosity."

And here again, Phillips believes that Israeli politicians have much to answer for.

"Israeli hasbara has failed strategically ever since the point that the Israeli Foreign Ministry felt that it didn't have to make the case any more. They've left the battleground open, they've allowed the enemy to colonize the battleground without the fight being had.

"I'm not saying for a moment that Israel should stop fighting the military fight, of course, but behind the military fight is a battleground of ideas. The Muslim Brotherhood has spent the last 50 years spending; billions of dollars of Saudi money have gone into guiding Europe to the ideas of Islam. They understand something that the West does not understand, that Israel has never acknowledged - that the way to fight the war of civilizations is first of all to command minds. It used to be a project to enlighten Britain and Europe and to bring truth into the public mind. The problem is that it has been stopped and the lies come instead.

"The Israelis are always on the defensive, responding to accusations. What they should be doing is making the case. They should be occupying the aggressive intellectual position, saying, 'Look world, these guys in the Islamic world are telling lies.'

"I'm an optimist. I don't believe that lies need only win, that it is inevitable. They'll only win if we allow them to, which at the moment is what we're doing."

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A-Najah University lecturer shot in his home
JPost.com Staff, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 6, 2007

A lecturer from A-Najah University in Nablus was seriously wounded on Saturday night when he was shot by gunmen in his home in the West Bank town.

The lecturer, Marwan Kadumi, is a Hamas supporter.

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Hamas announces plans to double size of militia
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 6, 2007

The Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry on Saturday said it would double the size of the Hamas militia in the Gaza Strip, defying calls by President Mahmoud Abbas that the force is illegal.

Interior Ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said the unit would be doubled to 12,000 members. He said Interior Minister Said Siyam made the decision "in view of the ongoing security deterioration."

Earlier Saturday, Abbas said the unit is illegal. His announcement came days after members of the force stormed the home of a Fatah security official, killing the man and seven bodyguards.

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Saudi King holds talks with Hizbullah
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 4, 2007

A Saudi diplomat said Thursday that Saudi King Abdullah made his first-ever personal contact with Lebanon's Hizbullah in a bid to ease the Lebanese political crisis.

The meeting was held in the kingdom on Dec. 27 between Hizbullah's deputy leader Sheik Naim Kassem and the Saudi monarch and Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, the diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the talks.

# Report: PM plans to meet Saudi leaders

# Saudis quietly working to curb Iran's influence in region

The Saudi and Hizbullah leaders discussed ways to end the internal conflict in Lebanon that pits Hizbullah against the Saudi- and US-backed government of President Fouad Siniora.

The Saudi King invited Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah to the kingdom to perform the Muslim Hajj pilgrimage, but Nasrallah turned down the invitation, the diplomat said.

Talks between Hizbullah and the Saudi government are continuing through the Saudi embassy in Beirut, the diplomat said.

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Analysis: Egypt hedges its bets in Gaza
Khaled Abu Toameh, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 5, 2007

Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in August 2005 has prompted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to deepen his country's involvement in Palestinian affairs.

Egypt, which controlled the Strip from 1948 to 1967, has always shown interest in what's happening in this tiny area, home to some 1.3 million Palestinians - most of them refugees.

Following the Israeli pullout, Mubarak decided to dispatch Egyptian security officials to keep a close eye on developments there.

Those security officials have found themselves playing roles ranging from advising and training Palestinian Authority policemen to mediating between Fatah and Hamas.

In recent months, the Egyptians have also tried to mediate in the case of kidnapped soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit.

PA officials said last week that Egyptian Intelligence chief Gen. Omar Suleiman had finally convinced Hamas and two other armed groups to release Shalit in return for several hundred Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.

On the eve of the Israeli withdrawal, the Egyptians also played an instrumental role in persuading most of the armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip to agree to a unilateral truce with Israel.

The truce, known as tahdiyah (calm), ended seven months ago when Palestinians resumed their rocket attacks on Israel in response to a tragic incident in which several members of the same family were killed by what the Palestinians claimed was an IAF missile attack on Gaza City's beach.

Egypt's growing involvement in Palestinian affairs stems mainly from Mubarak's desire to appease Washington and to divert attention from his troubles at home. But there are other reasons behind Mubarak's decision to play the role of trouble-shooter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Mubarak's biggest fear is that the Gaza Strip, which is entirely under the control of armed militias, could turn into a major base for global jihad and other terrorist groups.

Reports about al-Qaida terrorists who have infiltrated the Strip through the border with Egypt have left Mubarak and his top security officials extremely worried. These terrorists, who apparently work in cooperation with elements in Egypt's banned but powerful Muslim Brotherhood, are said to be very active among the Beduin population in Sinai.

Mubarak's merciless crackdown on al-Qaida cells in Sinai has forced some of the terrorists to flee to Gaza, where they have been welcome to use the training camps established on the ruins of some former settlements. The Egyptians fear that these terrorists will eventually return to Egypt to carry out attacks.

The absence of IDF troops along the Philadelphi Corridor, the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, has put Mubarak's regime at risk. The weapons smuggling industry that has flourished there in the aftermath of disengagement poses a serious threat, not only to Mubarak's regime but also to that of PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Some PA security commanders are convinced the Egyptians are not doing enough to combat the smuggling. According to these commanders, the main reason for this is Mubarak's fear that the weapons, including tons of explosives, could end up in Cairo if they don't make their way to the Gaza Strip.

Mubarak, who has been in power since 1981, is under growing pressure at home to end his one-man rule and to implement major political reforms. He hopes that acting as mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will keep the world's attention off his internal problems.

Last week Mubarak announced that bold reforms would be implemented in Egypt in 2007. But Egyptians have every reason to doubt that the proposed changes will ever be fully implemented.

Mubarak called to end the country's emergency law, but only after a new counterterrorism law is passed. Several times in the past he made similar pledges to accelerate reforms, but none has ever come to full fruition.

Aware of the Palestinians' "democratic experiment," which brought Hamas to power in January 2006, Mubarak also proposed to outlaw parties based on religion, a step directed against the Muslim Brotherhood. This means that instead of expanding participation, Mubarak is aiming to eliminate political competition before opening up the playing field.

Mubarak's proposed "reforms" would also require presidential candidates to be endorsed by a minimum of 250 elected members of the parliament and local councils, which are dominated by his ruling party. Critics say the changes are designed to facilitate the way for his son, Gamal, to succeed him.

And Mubarak knows that an Egyptian-brokered prisoner exchange between Israel and the Palestinians or a regional peace conference under the auspices of Cairo will also bring him closer to achieving his desire to enthrone his son.

After all, if Syria's Hafez Assad got away with it, there is no reason why he can't, too.

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N. Korea accuses US of conducting practice strikes
Associated Press, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 6, 2007

North Korea on Saturday accused the US of carrying out aerial exercises to practice strikes on targets in the country.

The North's Korean Central News Agency said the exercises were conducted over South Korea, but were meant as practice runs for possible aerial attacks against North Korea.

"Strategic bombers of the US imperialist aggression forces staged a DPRK-targeted madcap air strike exercise" on Friday, KCNA reported, citing an unidentified military source, and using the acronym of the North's official name, the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea.

The report didn't specify which targets the U.S. planes were pretending to attack, but said they were "major."

North Korea routinely accuses the U.S. of aerial espionage, issuing a tally of such flights at the end of every month, and occasionally of conducting military drills targeting it.

The US military doesn't comment, although it acknowledges monitoring North Korean military activity.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/07/wdevil07.xml

Italian priests join the war on Satanic crime

By Nick Pisa in Rome, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 07/01/2007

Priests are to work alongside Italian police officers to tackle a rising tide of crimes linked to devil worship.

The clerics have been seconded to the Squadra Anti Sette (SAS) anti-sect squad by the Vatican after Church officials became concerned about the number of churches being desecrated by Satanists. In recent months there have also been a string of murders that have been linked to devil worship.

One of the Vatican's leading experts on Satanism and the occult, Don Oreste Benzi, has been brought in to liaise with police. He told The Sunday Telegraph that the natural curiosity of young people meant they were particularly attracted to the occult, and drugs were also used to influence and manipulate them.
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"We will provide the units with priests who have experience in the field of devil worship and the occult," he said. "They will help the SAS to combat this problem, which is growing at an alarming rate across Italy.

"We are not just talking about murders but the psychological grip that these sects have on young people, especially taking them away from traditional social values and exposing them to all sorts of horrors.

"We estimate that there are at least 8,000 Satanic sects across the country with more than 600,000 members and the numbers are growing. That is why the Church is more than happy to help."

The nationwide operation will be centrally controlled from Rome by police chief Gianni de Gennaro. SAS units are expected to work with psychologists and the Vatican's experts, while a special freephone hotline has been set up to report occult activities.

continued............

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/07/nlitvin07.xml

Police believe Litvinenko poisoned twice

By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:29am GMT 07/01/2007

Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, was the victim of a "double hit" by the assassins who poisoned him with radioactive polonium-210, police believe.

Pescatori restaruant
Traces of polonium have been found at Pescatori

Detectives suspect that Mr Litvinenko, 44, who lived in north London, was first poisoned several days before he was attacked at a central London hotel on November 1.

Officers had initially believed he was first poisoned that day at the Itsu sushi bar in Piccadilly, central London, when he met Mario Scaramella, an Italian espionage expert, for lunch. But now Scotland Yard is investigating whether Mr Litvinenko was attacked several days before the lunch meeting and are examining his movements during that period.

Police believe the second attack took place at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair. They are focusing their inquiries on two Russians – Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, both former KGB officers – who met Mr Litvinenko there on the day he fell ill.

continues and you will want to read it.............

from the January 04, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0104/p13s02-legn.html
How to go to M.I.T. for free
Online 'intellectual philanthropy' attracts students from every nation on earth.

By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
By the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted.

The cost? It's all free of charge.

The OpenCourseWare movement, begun at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2002 and now spread to some 120 other universities worldwide, aims to disperse knowledge far beyond the ivy-clad walls of elite campuses to anyone who has an Internet connection and a desire to learn.

Intended as an act of "intellectual philanthropy," OpenCourseWare (OCW) provides free access to course materials such as syllabi, video or audio lectures, notes, homework assignments, illustrations, and so on. So far, by giving away their content, the universities aren't discouraging students from enrolling as students. Instead, the online materials appear to be only whetting appetites for more.

"We believe strongly that education can be best advanced when knowledge is shared openly and freely," says Anne Margulies, executive director of the OCW program at MIT. "MIT is using the power of the Internet to give away all of the educational materials created here."

The MIT site (ocw.mit.edu), along with companion sites that translate the material into other languages, now average about 1.4 million visits per month from learners "in every single country on the planet," Ms. Margulies says. Those include Iraq, Darfur, "even Antarctica," she says. "We hear from [the online students] all the time with inspirational stories about how they are using these materials to change their lives. They're really, really motivated."

So-called "distance learning" over the Internet isn't new. Students have been able to pay for online courses at many institutions, either to receive credit or simply as a noncredit adult-learning experience. Many universities also offer free podcasts (audio or sometimes video material delivered via the Internet).

But the sheer volume and variety of the educational materials being released by MIT and its OCW collaborators is nothing less than stunning.

For example, each of the 29 courses that Tufts University in Medford, Mass., has put online so far is "literally the size of a textbook," says Mary Lee, associate provost and point person for the OCW effort there. The material provides much more than "a skeleton of a course," she says. Visitors to Tufts' OCW course on "Wildlife Medicine" call it is the most comprehensive website on that topic in the world, Dr. Lee says.

What OCW is not, its supporters agree, is a substitute for attending a university.

For one thing, OCW learners aren't able to receive feedback from a professor - or to discuss the course with fellow students. A college education is "really the total package of students interacting with other students, forming networks, interacting with faculty, and that whole environment of being associated with the school," says James Yager, a senior associate dean at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He oversees the OCW program there. His school of public health now offers nearly 40 of its most popular courses for free via OCW. The school's goal is to put 90 to 100 of its 200 or so core courses online within the next year or so. In November, learners from places such as Taiwan, Britain, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands logged some 80,000 page views of OCW course material, Dr. Yager says.

MIT's initiative began with the idea of giving faculty at other universities access to how professors at MIT approached teaching a subject. But after the OCW project went online, the school quickly realized it had two other huge constituencies: students at other colleges, who wanted to augment what they were learning, and "self learners," those not pursuing a formal education but interested in increasing their knowledge.

Along with course content, MIT also wanted to showcase its teaching methods. Many schools follow a traditional model, teaching the theory first, then allowing students to practice what they've learned. MIT has a "practice, theory, practice" way of teaching, Margulies says, that aims to get students engaged and energized immediately - before delving much into theory.

Younes Attaourti, a physics professor in Marrakesh, Morocco, stumbled upon MIT's OCW site while surfing the Net. He's used the materials as the basis for courses he's taught on statistical physics and quantum theory of fields. And for his own learning, he's downloaded theoretical physics courses and one on ultrafast optics. "I don't think there is another university elsewhere in the world that is more generous," he writes in an e-mail: "[T]his is the first time that many people around the world are able to have access to top-quality courses."

Phillipa Williams is an adult (40-something) student at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, studying mathematics ("don't groan, I love it!" she writes in an e-mail). She's worked her way through many of the OCW undergraduate mathematics courses, she says, because they provide "a different viewpoint, another explanation of material," as well as different practice questions.

MIT's OCW website features even more glowing feedback from learners. "[B]ecause of money, many good students with great talent and [who are] diligent do not have the chance to learn the newest knowledge and understanding of the universe," says Chen Zhiying, a student in the People's Republic of China. "But now, due to the OCW, the knowledge will spread to more and more people, and it will benefit the whole [world of] human-beings."

"The MIT OCW program is a generous and far-sighted initiative that will do more to change the world for the better than a thousand Iraq-style invasions," the MIT site quotes Leigh Pascoe, a self-learner in Paris, as saying. "It does much to restore my faith in the enlightenment of the American people and their great experiment in democracy. This program should be emulated by every university worthy of the name."

Besides MIT, Tufts, and Johns Hopkins, the OCW consortium (ocwconsor tium.org) in the United States includes among its members Michigan State, Michigan, Notre Dame, and Utah State. Internationally, members include groups of universities in China, Japan, and Spain.

So far MIT has published 1,550 of its courses for OCW and plans to get the rest online by the end of this year. The materials for each course vary. Full videos of lectures, one of the most popular features, are available for only 26 courses, about 1,000 hours of video in all. "We'd like to do more video because it's really quite popular and our users love it," Marguiles says. "But it's quite expensive." The program relies on "generous support" from foundations, individuals, and MIT itself for funding, she says.

Schools like Tufts and Johns Hopkins were able to jump-start their OCW programs quickly because the schools had already committed themselves for many years to putting all their classroom materials online for use by their own students. The biggest job has been to vet the materials for copyright issues, so-called "copyright scrubbing," Lee and Yager say. If permission cannot be obtained for a specific photo or chart, it must be left out of the OCW version or a substitute found.

The OCW effort is part of a wide range of dynamic educational content emerging on the Internet, says Dan Colman, associate dean and director of Stanford University's continuing studies program and host of the website oculture.com, which highlights what's happening in Web-based education, with an emphasis on podcasts.

Full-fledged online courses "might eventually offer a viable alternative to the classroom, but right now we have a ways to go," he writes via e-mail. Podcasts, for example, let learners hear a lecture, but they don't require that the listener write a critical essay or take part in a classroom discussion - activities that are a key element of the learning process, Mr. Colman says.

And technology still needs to advance a bit more too. "We'll need a very fast fiber network and communication tools that give courses a greater degree of immediacy and sociability before this [online] model will become a real option educationally and economically," he says. "In the meantime, the traditional classroom is fairly safe."

For example, lab work, which usually requires close hands-on collaboration between an instructor and students, remains problematic online, Yager points out.

The losers in putting free content online aren't likely to be universities, which will continue to attract young students, Colman says. But free podcasts and OCW courses may pull adult learners away from other leisure activities, he says, such as reading books, watching educational television shows, or buying recordings of books or lectures. "All of these entities could suffer as users find free high-quality information on the Web," Colman says.

Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links

from the January 03, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0103/p01s04-woap.html
N. Korea escalates 'cult of Kim' to counter West's influence
In a time of famine and poverty, nearly 40 percent of the country's budget is spent on Kim-family deification.

By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

North Koreans are taught to worship Kim Jong Il as a god. In a manner unique among nations, the North exerts extraordinary control through deification - a cult ideology of complete subservience - that goes beyond the "Stalinist" label often used to describe the newly nuclear North.

While outsiders can see film clips of huge festivals honoring Mr. Kim, the extraordinary degree of cult worship is not well known, nor that programs promoting the ideology of Kim are growing, according to refugees, diplomats, and others who have visited the Hermit Kingdom.

In fact, in a time of famine and poverty, government spending on Kim-family deification - now nearly 40 percent of the visible budget - is the only category in the North's budget to increase, according to a new white paper by the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul. It is rising even as defense, welfare, and bureaucracy spending has decreased. The increase pays for ideology schools, some 30,000 Kim monuments, gymnastic festivals, films and books, billboards and murals, 40,000 "research institutes," historical sites, rock carvings, circus theaters, training programs, and other worship events.

In 1990, ideology was 19 percent of North Korea's budget; by 2004 it doubled to at least 38.5 percent of state spending, according to the white paper. This extra financing may come from recent budget offsets caused by the shutting down of older state funding categories, says Alexander Mansourov of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.

It has long been axiomatic that the main danger to the Kim regime is internal unrest. That is, Koreans will discover the freedoms, glitter, and diversity of the modern outside world, and stop believing the story of idolatry they are awash in. "It isn't quite realized [in the West] how much a threat the penetration of ideas means. They [Kim's regime] see it as a social problem that could bring down the state," says Brian Myers, a North Korean expert at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.

Since the poverty and famine of the late 1990s, everything from CDs and videos, South Korean radio, and cellphone signals from China, new styles and products, and new commercial habits have seeped in, mostly across the Chinese border, in a way that might be called "soft globalization." Such flows feed a new underground system of private business, information, bribery, and trade that exists outside the strict party-state discipline and rules.

Yet rather than accept such penetration as an inexorable threat, Kim is putting up a serious fight to slow and counter it - by increasing his program of cult-worship.
Kim Worship 2.0

Like a computer software firm updating program versions, the North is steadily updating its ideology to make it relevant. This practice of mass control by in-your-face ideology has been laughed off in much of the world, including China. But North Korea is increasing its ideological cult worship. The scope of the current project outdoes even the cult of personality during Mao's Cultural Revolution, according to a 2005 doctoral dissertation by Lee Jong Heon at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. Mr. Lee visited North Korea several times for his research.

After the Oct. 9 nuclear test, for example, banners sprang up over North Korea stating "We are a country with a nuclear deterrent." Kim's test feeds a national pride that is part of the propaganda drilled into Koreans from birth: that Kim alone can fend off the US and Japanese enemies. A US diplomat in Asia says such pride may prohibit Kim from giving up his nuclear program in the current "six party talks" - and those talks stalled again in late December in Beijing.

"The cult of personality campaign is more extensive today than in 1985," says former South Korean foreign minister Han Sung Joo, who visited Pyongyang this past October, and in 1985. "Unlike the Stalin and Mao personality cults, there is a deification and a religious emotional element in the North. The twinned photos of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are everywhere. Every speech says Kim Il Sung is still alive. I think if I stayed another two weeks, I might even see Kim Il Sung. The country worships someone who is deceased, as if he is alive."

Kim Jong Il has upgraded his deification strategies to strengthen the family cult system. Western reports often detail Korea's unique "juche ideology" - a theology of Kim worship, repeated hourly and daily, reminding Koreans they are insolubly bound to the Kim family and must erase foreign influence from their minds.

Yet juche is a subcategory of a far more encompassing umbrella of deification known as woo sang hwa, or idol worship. In North Korea, woo sang hwa contains all the aspects of cult worship. Kim broke away from orthodox communism, for example, in a program called "our style socialism." While Marxism-Leninism demands fealty to "nation," "party," and "serving the people" - Kim's "our style [Korean] socialism" does no such thing. It makes "family loyalty," with Kim at the head, the supreme good - a major deflection from communism.

During the late 1990s famine, a "Red Banner" campaign for unconditional loyalty and harder toil began. Then came "Kangsong Taeguk" in the late 1990s - a project to push economic and military ideology. This project culminated in the 1998 Taepodong-1 rocket launches, which thrilled North Koreans, frightened Japan, and started a whole new military mindset in Tokyo.

The North uses "ideology rather than physical control," Lee says, whenever possible. The current variation of the program is called "military first." It is intended to bolster North Korea's nuclear efforts. Military First started as a campaign to support juche, and as a slogan designed to remind Koreans that the nation is at war. It came packaged with a rallying cry called "dare to die," say refugees and Kim experts. (There's a dare-to-die pop song, and a dare-to-die movie. Recent internal memos brought by defectors indicate "dare to die" is urged on local officials due to a feeling in Pyongyang that young people aren't showing enough zeal to make such a dare.)
A new military focus

Yet Military First may now be a tool for evolving a significant structural change - a new ruling elite in day-to-day affairs. For years, the North Korean state was ruled by the workers' party. Under Kim Il Sung the party was the driving force in Korea - the main route to achievement and pay. Everyone wanted to join. (Party members in China and Vietnam are 5 percent of the population; a 1998 Korean Central report put Korea's membership at 5 million, or 22 percent, though it may be lower.)

"The outcome of the Military First policy replaces the workers as a main force," says Haiksoon Paik, a North Korean specialist at the Sejong Institute outside Seoul. "North Korea's party has not been functioning as well as it is supposed to ... several positions in the Politburo have not been reappointed. Kim is not depending on the party, but a smaller more streamlined military apparatus. This is due to his politics as a result of the nuclear crisis brought by the Americans."

"Military First is not aimed at building up the military, which is already quite built up and strong," says Lee, whose dissertation is titled, "A Political Economic Analysis of the North Korean Regime." "It is about replacing the old party - First Rice - structure of senior Kim. If the party is unwieldy, the military will control the people on behalf of the leader."

Tellingly, on New Year's Day, Kim Jong Il visited the shrine where his father was interred. He has gone there only four times since he came to power in 1995. Each visit has taken place in a year following major accomplishments. According to South Korean media, for the first time, Kim visited the shrine without party or government officials. This time, only key military officials were in attendance. On Tuesday, North Korean papers heralded the visit, and the Oct. 9 nuclear tests as "an auspicious event in the national history."

Kim-worship in the North is a vivid - and inescapable - spectacle to behold, say visitors. Thousands of giant "towers of eternality" to Kim scatter the landscape. Special "Kimjongilia" crimson begonias are tended in family gardens. Kim's media calls him variously the "Guardian Deity of the Planet," and "Lodestar of the 21st Century." In 2002, Korean mass dances known as Arirang, featured 100,000 flag wavers (and was described in state media as the "greatest event of humankind.") Many loyal Koreans bow twice daily to Kim pictures that sit alone on the most prominent wall of their homes.

Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the Korean cult project is its recent veering toward race and ethnic solidarity, say Kim watchers. His main appeal to his people today, a push that rarely gets attention outside the North, is to the racial superiority of a people whose isolation and stubborn xenophobia supposedly makes their bloodlines purer. Mr. Myers notes that festivals of 100,000 flag wavers is not a Stalinist exercise, but a celebration of "ethnic homogeneity." Since the 1990s Kim has more fervently claimed lineage to the first ancient rulers of Korea, a move intended to place him in a position of historical, if not divine, destiny as leader of the peninsula.

• Next: How smart is Kim Jong Il?

from the January 04, 2007 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0104/p01s03-woap.html
How Kim Jong Il controls a nation
By Robert Marquand | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA

As Kim Jong Il continues to elude efforts to constrain his nuclear program, a grudging regard for the North Korean leader's tactical skills is rising.

Mr. Kim was once thought to be over his head as a leader. But 12 years after the death of his father, Kim Il Sung, the son is showing brilliance as a dictator. Some experts say that Kim, in his own way, may be shrewder than the father who built the nation.

"Kim was in many ways dealt a weaker hand than his father, but he has played it better," says Brian Myers, a North Korea specialist at Dongseo University in Busan, South Korea.

Certainly, Kim has become a skillful player on the world stage. He retains firm hold of the most totalitarian state on earth. His nation has survived an epic famine. Kim has astutely nullified a dawning realization among his people that the world beyond North Korea's borders is a better place. He's even created a new image for himself at home - not as a towering patriarch - but as a figure of sympathy, a beleaguered, America-taunted leader who eats soldier's gruel and deserves care by the masses. He's played a smart propaganda game in South Korea, where some elites admire him as a nationalist torchbearer for "true Korean-ness," and for outwitting the great powers.

Now, Kim has tested a nuclear weapon - the eighth nation to publicly do so - and has developed a ballistic missile program.

"Why shouldn't Kim be seen as extraordinary?" asks Alexander Mansourov of the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. "He's poked his finger in the eye of the US hegemon. He's tested missiles and nukes. At home he's more popular than ever."

Abroad, Kim is seen as enigmatic, reclusive - part fox, part oddball. He's reported to hold all-night parties that serve as loyalty tests. He chain-smokes, loves Ferraris, goes gaga over gourmet food, has 30 homes, wears 12-centimeter high (4.7 inch) platform shoes, kidnaps the occasional South Korean actress, and is crazy about karaoke, James Bond films, and the Internet.

Yet that image, though partly true, is itself propaganda, say former Pyongyang diplomats, high-level defectors, and Korea experts. They say the real Kim is a bit unsure, frightened of China and the US, and may suffer from a learning disability. Kim's sister-in-law told a diplomat that Kim is "often timid." His father may not have offered him much respect.
Not a TV personality

Bradley Martin, author of "Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty," says Kim may suffer from stage fright. Surprisingly for a state leader, especially a "godhead," Kim's voice has been heard only once by the nation, for a total of nine words. "Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People's Army," he said in 1992 at an obscure rally at a military base. Invitations to one state reception noted that one may speak to Kim, but that Kim would "not speak in reply," a Eastern European diplomat remembers. Kim has never appeared live on TV. Even in the period of mourning after the death of his father, the "Great Leader" - when posters stated mystically that "Kim Jong Il is now Kim Il Sung" - there was no fireside chat by Kim junior to his people.

Yet Kim reportedly micromanages the entire country. His state is a hermetically sealed cult that allows no debate; even top generals and their extended families undergo loyalty tests. A half-dozen concentration camps hold 200,000 inmates, a dozen intelligence units spy on the people and each other. North Korea has the world's fifth-largest army.

"Everything goes up to Kim, and everything comes down from him. There isn't a whole lot of lateral motion in the North," says Stephen Bradner, a civilian expert in Seoul and longtime adviser to the US military. "We often ask the wrong question. The question is not what North Korea needs, but what Kim Jong Il wants."

"I used to think Kim was irrational and unrealistic," says Lee Jong Heon, who has just published a structural analysis of the North at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. "But when you study his moves, he has kept a grip on the people, and he now heads one of eight nuclear nations. He's been highly rational from his standpoint."
But a busy populist

One side of Kim only now emerging is how closely he stays in touch with the people. The Dear Leader is on the road, working the crowds, a great deal. Studies of Korean media show Kim averages about 150 local visits a year. He may not make live televised speeches, but he's at a school, a factory, a farm, a military base - every three days. (He shows up at a military unit once a week.) This suggests a populist streak.

"When someone you worship comes to your factory, it's a personal connection. We tend to overlook this simple fact," says Mr. Mansourov, who has tracked Kim's appearances. "Kim knows the local leaders, the opinion makers, the local cadres. He's not in a fishbowl. He may be a dictator, but he's also a populist."

Kim also appears today to be intensifying his ethnic nationalist message: Korea is different, special, unique, pure - and must remain so. The message has more affinity with Imperial-era race-based fascism in Japan, than to the Stalinism he's often depicted as emulating, argues Mr. Myers.

"The North may not have plasma TVs and shiny cars, but it has people with character and virtue, that's Kim's message," says Myers. "South Korea is physically and spiritually polluted, misogynistic, occupied by the US, [has been] sold down the river, [and] lets its young people grow soft. The real Korean spirit is being held in trust in the North - that message appeals."

There's another fact often overlooked, say North watchers: Kim is getting older. There may be a new urgency to resolve the nuclear question, to seal his dynasty.

Kim was born "Uri" or George, in Khabarovsk lower Siberia in 1942 or '43 (the date is disputed), in a medicine supply house of the Soviet 88th Reconnaissance Brigade, according to South Korean scholar Suh Dae Sook. Kim Il Sung's guerrilla brigade had been bloodied in Manchuria by the Japanese, and he escaped to Russia with his wife. Young Kim was cared for by Korean and Russian servants. This early mix of foreign contact continued later in Pyongyang, so Kim never entirely imbibed Korean habits, where "sameness" is prized. He was early an individualist - adopting different hair-styles, dress, shoes, and behavior.

That "difference" has helped set Kim apart. Now he has nuclear capability. Yet the depths of Kim's pride, how he views his place in history, or how he would react in a threatening crisis, is not clear. In the former Soviet Union and China, and presumably in India and Pakistan, nuclear weapons are held by "mediating structures" of party and military decisionmaking committees. But Kim alone controls the dreaded button in the North.

It is unknown if Kim might ever find it "rational" to use his weapons, say experts. For example, might Kim behave like a jilted husband or postal worker who shoots his family or co-workers, then turns the gun on himself? Mostly, it is felt that Kim wants to avoid the fate that befell dictators such as Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, who was overthrown and killed.

"If we aren't careful, Kim could see using his weapons as rational," argues Mr. Lee.

Army lore in North Korea, in fact, has Kim telling his generals that if " 'we are ever losing in a war, I will destroy the world if I can. I will not go down quietly,' " Mr. Martin points out.
Opportunities lost?

Despite Kim's adroit nuclear card playing, Asia watchers say any appraisal must weighed against what Kim might have done with his rule. Fifteen years ago, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, there was genuine hope in Asia that Kim might be a new kind of leader. He might open up the economy, tone down the cult worship, act more like former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Kim could have created special economic zones as China did. Yet Kim has systematically quashed his own reforms, including those of a brilliant technocrat, Kim Dal Hyon, former deputy prime minister of the economy who experimented with the free market in the Tumen River project.

In one sense, Kim is prisoner to his own fantastic ideology of isolation. To allow outside influences into the regime could snap the spell of his own Oz-like deification, experts say.

"North Korea actually has everything," says Krzysztof Darewicz, a Polish journalist based in Pyongyang during the 1990s. "There's a wealth of valuable minerals, uranium and gold. It is smack-dab in the crossroads of Asia's current economic rise; trade and wealth surround the North. But what has it become? Nothing.

"Kim inherited a nuclear card with no idea what to do next," he adds.

"Kim is one hell of a tactician, but what is his strategy and where will it lead?" asks Martin. "What about his people?"
Kim Facts

North Korea's "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il ...

• Was born in Siberia in 1942 or 43.

• Is 5-foot, 3-inches tall and wears 12-centimeter (4.7 inch) high platform shoes.

• Has only been heard by North Koreans once, in 1992, in a national broadcast. He said: "Glory to the heroic soldiers of the People's Army."

• Has never appeared speaking live on TV in North Korea.

• Has the world's fifth-largest army.

• Gives his top generals loyalty tests.

• Averages about 150 visits per year to schools, military bases, factories.

http://majorityrights.com/index.php/weblog/C26/

This is a blog about P.C. in England.

Recent upsurge of similar incidents at US airports might indicate ...
By admin
During the late afternoon hours on Thursday, 4 January 2007, a United
Airlines
service vehicle was stolen from Chicago's O'Hare Airport. ... Police
reported
that a man tried to steal an airport work truck right out of a parking
lot at ...

http://www.homelandsecurityus.com/airports010607
Northeast Intelligence Network -
http://www.homelandsecurityus.com

Islamic Courts Council

http://abusayfullaah.wordpress.com/

They have news on this page.

Note: I have posted many articles that I did not ping to, something for everyone above this and I do not know what is on the way.
granny

This site, is it a new group of jihadi?

It has justification of jihad articles, it is ok to act alone, etc.

http://mujahida3001.wordpress.com/

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http://mujahida3001.wordpress.com/abu-bakr-al-siddiq/

Abu Bakr Al-Siddiq

bismigold.jpg

Delivered by Imam Anwar al-Awlaki:

CD1
Introduction

CD2
His Family
Embracing Islam
The Early Deeds

CD3
Hijrah

CD4
Jihad with the Messenger of Allah

CD5
Life in Madinah

CD6
The Khalifah of the Messenger of Allah

CD7
Inaugural Address
Abu Bakr and the Community

CD8
The Governors
The Army of Usama

CD9
The War against the Apostates

CD10
The War against the Apostates (Continued)

CD11
The War against the Apostates (Continued)
The Compilation of the Qur’an

CD12
The Conquest of ‘Iraq

CD13
The War Against the Romans

CD14
The War Against the Romans (Continued)
The Appointment of ‘Umar
His Death

CD15
Some of his Virtues