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Thread Six: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1109459/posts |
Posted on 03/12/2004 8:23:06 PM PST by thecabal
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This week's deadly train bombings in Spain will not lead to a rise in the U.S. color-coded terror threat alert system, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Friday.
"Based on the current intelligence, we have no specific indicators that terrorist groups are considering such an attack in the U.S. in the near term," said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Sun Mar 21, 3:02 PM ET
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
SHKIN, Afghanistan - From a mosque high on an Afghan peak, tribal elder Mohammed Safai pointed to what he said was an al-Qaida training camp on the mountain of Salor Gai — just across the frontier in Pakistan.
One by one, fellow Afghan tribal leaders around him ticked off the names of surrounding Pakistani villages that they say are sheltering al-Qaida and Taliban: Bahna. Shakul. Mangadthai.
Across the poorly marked and little-heeded border, Pakistani forces on Sunday were searching homes in South Waziristan province in a six-day-old hunt for suspected al-Qaida that has seen dozens of people killed and more than 100 people arrested.
The Afghan Pashtuns say their Pakistani Pashtun brothers know the terror camps and hiding places. But the tribal elders in Pakistan will likely never tell — silenced by a code of honor, by al-Qaida money, and by a fierce distrust of the far-off Pakistani government, Pashtun leaders said.
"The tribal area people, they are sympathizers with al-Qaida and Taliban," Safai said. "They are not showing the exact location where al-Qaida is hiding."
In South Waziristan, Pakistani officials and residents said they had no idea whether there was an al-Qaida camp on Salor Gai, as the Afghans charge. But the Afghans, who cross the border at will, say the Pakistanis are playing dumb.
"The al-Qaida people, they are so rich — they are giving so much money to the people who are giving shelter to al-Qaida and Taliban," said Mirowgain Khan, like Safai, an Afghan elder of the Pashtun Kharoti tribe.
Pakistan's anti-American Jamaat-e-Islami religious party is helping seal the silence, circulating among Pakistani border villages to encourage the Pashtun there to be faithful hosts to their al-Qaida and Taliban guests, say the Afghans.
Pakistan military leaders said they believed a "high-value" suspect might be at the center of this week's fighting — perhaps Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawarhri, or Tahir Yuldash, the leader of an Uzbek terror group allied with al-Qaida.
On Thursday, Safai said, six al-Qaida fighters seeking escape from the Pakistani operation fled over the border to villages around a U.S. military outpost at Shkin, 100 miles south of Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Safai sent tribal gunmen, chasing off five of the men and capturing a sixth, he said.
The man was al-Qaida, a Chechen who spoke a little Pashto and Dari, the two leading languages in Afghanistan, Safai said.
Tribal men took an AK-47 assault rifle and seven grenades off the fugitive, and turned the Chechen over to the U.S. military at Shkin.
Around Shkin, tribal elders were worried Sunday after they were warned in an anonymous letter that their villages would be rocketed if they failed to release the Chechen.
The elders repeat a common complaint of Afghans here in Paktika province — that neither side, Pakistani or Afghan, does anything to close the frontier.
In two days in the mountains of Paktika, an Associated Press reporter saw no Afghan troops in the countryside, and only a few American soldiers. But the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, said U.S. forces are still keeping a close eye on the border.
"We know several key Taliban figures are there and there is some sense that some of the remaining al-Qaida leaders are in the border area on the other side," the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, told The Associated Press.
He said they included Mullah Dadullah and Mullah Brader, Taliban commanders believed to be orchestrating attacks in southern Afghan provinces including the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar.
Afghans in Shkin insist they welcome the U.S. forces, seeing them as the promise of reconstruction, aid and security. But they said the Americans have not sought help from locals who know the hundreds of cross-border trails.
"If they want to stop al-Qaida, they have to get support of the local people living and belonging to this area. They know all the ways," Safai said.
Pakistan, meanwhile, says it is confident that its paramilitary and soldiers can track down militants.
"Our people who are guarding the border know these tribesmen very well," Abdul Rauf Chaudhry, spokesman for Pakistan's Interior Ministry, said in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
Looking at Salor Gai mountain, Safai scoffed.
"If you wanted to, you could walk from there to Kabul, and not hit a single checkpoint," he said.
By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI, Associated Press Writer
JERUSALEM - Israeli police arrested a man suspected of involvement in an arms smuggling operation to Iran that appears to be connected to a case in the United States, an Israeli police spokesman said Sunday.
At the request of U.S. investigators, Israeli police searched an office and warehouse Thursday in the Binyamina area of Israel, police spokesman Gil Kleiman said.
After the search, police arrested Israeli arms dealer Eli Cohen, who has been investigated in the past for allegedly transferring arms to Israel's arch-foe, Kleiman said.
Israeli Avichai Weinstein was also questioned by police Thursday and later released.
On Friday, Leib Kohn, an American, was indicted in Connecticut in connection with the alleged arms deal, Kleiman said.
A police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Israeli police found components of the Hawk missile and parts used in a radar system installed in warplanes in the warehouse, which belongs to the Israeli company QPS.
Defense Ministry spokeswoman Rachel Niedek-Ashkenazi confirmed her ministry is involved in the investigation. The ministry is responsible for issuing arms dealing licenses and is checking whether Cohen violated regulations, she said, but refused to elaborate further.
Two years ago, Israeli police investigated Cohen on suspicion he transferred armored personnel carrier parts to Iran, Kleiman said. Police advised the attorney general to charge Cohen, however, he has not been indicted.
In addition, Germany and Israel are jointly investigating whether Cohen is involved in transferring arms to Iran on a ship that was caught by German authorities last year, Kleiman said.
We are all paying lots of taxes for the inability of governmental agencies to function in the manner they were set up to do. Releasing foreigners taking pictures of a refinery does not speak well for our immigration or those who make decisions regarding homeland security involving these people. They are now free to take more photos, possibly of nuclear sites for their "vacation" album.
The Tucson incident was an open call for a massive run through the imaginary border because they cannot be stopped when there are enough of them. Word travels fast and so do they! Feel free to correct me if I am seeing this wrong.
09:45 21 March 04
Some experts fear that terrorists are trying to develop thermobaric and fuel-air bombs which can be even more devastating than conventional devices.
The Canadian defence research and development agency DRDC is taking the threat so seriously that it is testing thermobaric devices itself in an attempt to develop defences against them. And the US Marine Corps is using computerised war games to devise tactics that could help minimise casualties if insurgents in countries such as Iraq use thermobaric weapons in attacks.
The devices use a small charge to generate a cloud of explosive mixed with air. The main explosion is then detonated by a second charge (a fuel-air explosion), or by the explosive reacting spontaneously with air (a thermobaric explosion). The resulting shock wave is not as strong as a conventional blast, but it can do more damage as it is more sustained and, crucially, diminishes far more gradually with distance.
The main explosion is followed by a partial vacuum, creating a suction effect that compounds the damage and can add to the injuries ý hence the term vacuum bomb. In enclosed spaces, the devices also use up oxygen and produce choking fumes, suffocating any survivors of the initial blast.
Numerous industrial accidents attest to the power of thermobaric explosions ý a massive blast in Iran this year has been blamed on a fuel-air explosion after a train carrying petrol derailed.
Reaching around corners
The Soviet Union developed a wide range of thermobaric weapons, which were used by Russia in the Chechnya campaign of 1999. A US Marine Corps study, based on interviews with Russian officers and Chechens, concluded that they were capable of killing troops in bunkers and destroying buildings that hadn't been reinforced. "Walls and surfaces do not necessarily shield victims," notes a US training manual.
This prompted the US to rush out the BLU-118 "cave-buster" for use in Afghanistan in 2001. More thermobaric devices have been developed since, such as a new "Hellfire" anti-tank missile used in Iraq.
These weapons were widely publicised. "A thermobaric Hellfire missile can take out the first floor of a building without damaging the floors above," the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told a press briefing on 14 May 2003. "It is capable of reaching around corners, striking enemy forces that hide in caves or bunkers."
There are signs that terrorists too are trying to create thermobaric weapons. For instance, in 2002 a tanker truck was used in a suicide attack on a synagogue in Tunisia, thought to be the work of Al-Qaida. Some experts think the way the fuel tanks were rigged with explosives shows a knowledge of fuel-air explosive techniques.
Designs for a fuel-air device were also acquired by the CIA from three alleged IRA members on trial in Colombia. The three are said to have been developing the bomb in conjunction with the country's FARC guerrilla group. "Although an IRA/Al-Qaida collaboration seems unlikely, the bottom line is that their respective manuals are probably in circulation," says David Ritzel, an explosives expert working for the DRDC.
Protection level
Defending buildings against such an attack would be extremely difficult. The deadliest conventional car-bomb attacks have been those where the attacker succeeded in getting a vehicle packed with explosives very close to the target.
To prevent this, concrete barriers have been placed around many buildings regarded as potential targets. But the barriers would have to be much further away than at present to provide the same level of protection against fuel-air devices of a similar size.
However, creating such devices poses far more technical challenges than making conventional bombs, says Stephen Murray, head of the DRDC's threat assessment group. Their aim is to develop software to predict how buildings will respond to thermobaric blasts and help design fortifications. Even small mistakes in the design or choice of materials can prevent fuel-air devices working, Murray says.
Unfortunately, terrorists could simply buy off-the-shelf thermobaric weapons on the black market. The Russians have used Shmel rocket launchers with thermobaric warheads for many years. They are available on the black market, and have turned up in the hands of the Cobra militia in the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance.
The US Department of State has also accused one arms company of illegally supplying thermobaric weapons like these to both Iran and Iraq ý a charge it has denied.
I wonder if this is the same arms company that I posted about in my last post Israel, U.S. Probe Alleged Iran Arms Deal Texkat
Western countries are developing similar weapons. The US created a bazooka with a thermobaric warhead called the SMAW-NE for the war in Iraq. China recently unveiled its own version, and the UK is also reported to be working on one ý although the defence ministry insists that it is merely an "enhanced blast weapon".
David Hambling
When I hear of the multiple millions of dollars donated to political campaigns, I see a real waste of money. A portion of those funds could build prisons or holding areas and jobs for detention personel. Our politicians would actually be doing something positive for the citizens they represent and assist Homeland Security for our nation.
11:40 19 March 04
NewScientist.com news service
The discovery of a new class of monkey virus jumping into humans has reinforced claims that HIV came from bushmeat hunting.
It also suggests that viruses jump species much more often than thought - raising the risk that new viral diseases will eventually develop in humans.
The simian foamy viruses newly found in the bushmeat hunters by US and Cameroonian scientists are probably harmless, but follow up studies are planned to check whether they spread between people or cause disease.
"Our research shows the transmission of retroviruses to humans is not limited to a few, isolated occurrences like those that gave rise to HIV," says Nathan Wolfe of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who lead the study. "It's a regular phenomenon, and a cause for concern," he says.
Cuts and grazes
Working with Eitel Mpoudi-Ngole's team at the Cameroon Military Medical Centre in Yaounde, Wolfe screened 1800 people from nine rural communities in Cameroon.
Ten of the 1100 who said they had been exposed to blood or body fluids of primates through hunting tested positive for the foamy viruses.
Three strains of foamy virus had jumped species in different geographic regions, reflecting their respective primate sources-the gorilla, the mandrill and the De Brazza's guenon.
Wolfe says that the viruses have jumped to humans before, but only in zoos or scientific primate centres. The work in Cameroon is the first to show that it can happen naturally, probably through cuts and grazes when hunters handle and prepare bushmeat.
"This has never been documented before," says Martine Peeters of the Institute of Research for Development in Montpellier, France, in a commentary alongside the paper in The Lancet.
She says that reducing hunting would have two benefits. "It would help conserve endangered species and lower the potential for transmission of viruses to people."
Next pandemic
Wolfe says that many hunters catch bushmeat through necessity, not choice, and that it would be cost effective for donors to provide them with alternative sources of food. "If you think of the lives lost and the billions of dollars spent on HIV/AIDS, the cost of replacing bushmeat to prevent the next pandemic seems a reasonable investment," he notes.
He also stresses that the phenomenon probably occurs throughout Central Africa and parts of Asia where primates are hunted.
Wolfe and Peeters say that the findings reinforce what is already largely beyond dispute-that HIV arose from its monkey equivalent, SIV, after it jumped into humans, probably in bushmeat hunters.
Journal reference: The Lancet (vol 363, p 932)
Andy Coghlan
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