Missile kills Pakistan tribal head

This is not about FATA, but nevertheless another AQ in the slammer

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=560239&section=news

Saudis arrest top wanted militant
Thu 5 August, 2004 22:10

RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's security forces have arrested a leading wanted militant, Faris al-Zahrani, a Saudi security source says.

The source said on Thursday Zahrani did not resist when he was arrested in the south of the kingdom.

Security forces recognised Zahrani as he sat in a cafe in a city in the mountainous Abha province, the source told Reuters.

Zahrani was on a Saudi list of 26 top wanted militants with suspected links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, 12 of whom are still on the run after the latest arrest.

Militants linked to al Qaeda are waging a campaign of suicide bombings and shootings aimed at destabilising Saudi Arabia and forcing foreigners from the pro-U.S. kingdom.

Some 90 policemen and civilians, many of them foreigners, have been killed in the attacks that have targeted government institutions, oil industry sites and expatriates in the world's largest oil exporter.

I found this on a blog called Your Big Mouth

I thought it was a hoot and shows what kind of men we have defending this great country.

FORWARD OPERATING BASE TIGER, Afghanistan — Frustrated that Taliban fighters were making themselves scarce, cavalry commander Capt. Brian Peterson ordered his psychological operations detachment to find a way to get the enemy onto the battlefield. Their solution: shame. The soldiers drove into the mountainous region of southern Afghanistan near Tarin Kowt, a known Taliban stronghold, and blared through Humvee-mounted loudspeakers a simple message. “Take off your burqas,” Afghan interpreters shouted, referring to the head-to-toe powder blue shrouds Taliban leaders once forced all women in the country to wear. “Come out and fight us like men.”

Peterson, commander of the 25th Infantry Division’s Hawaii-based 3rd Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment’s Apache Troop, had heard of Special Forces units using similar schoolyard tactics to dishonor local insurgents into a fight and figured it couldn’t hurt to try. He knew Taliban fighters were out there. Local villagers were being threatened to stay away from U.N. voter registration efforts for the country’s Oct. 9 presidential elections. It didn’t take long to get an answer to Peterson’s cantankerous call to arms. Within hours, an angry ambush was unleashed, a heavy fusillade of automatic weapons fire raining down from two sides as his patrol moved through a steep valley. “The bullets were zinging within a few inches of my head, I could actually feel their heat,” said .50-caliber machine gunner Spc. Michael Plummer, 25, from Klamath Falls, Ore. He was astounded. After four months in Afghanistan, this was Apache Troop’s first contact with the enemy. “I couldn’t believe they were actually shooting at us,” said Plummer.

Pushing his patrol of Humvees through the ambush kill zone, Peterson turned his men around and charged back into the fray. “We weren’t going to run from those punks,” said Peterson. “We chased them up the mountain.” After a 45-minute gunfight, four Afghan guerrillas lay dead and another four were captured. None of Peterson’s men were injured. “We’re pretty sure we got more, but they carry their dead away,” said Peterson. It’s hard to tell how many escaped, he said, adding “they can run, but they’ll only die tired.”

“Take off your burqas,” ..Lol

Still no word on who the unknown AQ biggie is ... the Pakistanis claim has a multi-million bounty on his head. I've searched all the news sites....and they are keeping his identity close to the vest.

My guess is probably not a name many would recognize...but he is probably someone important within AQ (obviously) - and he probably has some decent Intel we continue to get out of him....or are in the process of following up on -

We just have to keep taking down these mid-level guys one after another - Though it does appear UBL/Zawahiri have some type of procedures so that these level AQ don't have a clue to their whereabouts -

A report from the Governor

http://www.paknews.com/main.php?id=6&date1=2004-08-06

Law and Order Situation In FATA Reviewed

PESHAWAR, Pakistan : Aug 06 (PNS) - The NWFP Governor Lt. Gen.(R) Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah presided over a high level meeting at Governor's House Nathiagali on Wednesday that reviewed the law and order situation in FATA. The meeting besides the Chief Secretary Mr. Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi, Home secretary Abdul Karim Qasuria, Inspector General Frontier Corps Maj. Gen. Hamid Khan, IGP Riffat Pasha and Commandant Frontier Constabulary Israr Shinwari was also attend by secretary to Governor Sahibzada Saeed Ahmed, Secretary FATA Security) Brig.(R) Mehmood Shah, and all the Political agents.

The meeting also discussed a number of problems relating to law and order situation and took certain decision. The Political agents briefed the meeting in detail about the prevailing situation and different incidences occurred during the previous fortnight in their respective agencies Brig.(R) Mahmood Shah, Secretary FATA (Security) presented an overall review of the law and order situation in FATA with special reference to the situation in South and North Waziristan Agencies, repatriation process of Afghan Refugees, situation in Orakzai Agency, operation in FR Lakki, smuggling as well as other related problems and issues.

Addressing the meeting the Governor said, law and order in FATA has to be maintained at all costs and stressed the political agents to take precautionary measures. In this connection, he said, "pre-emptive cognizance is far better than the proactive actions to avoid damages". He also urged the need of further streamlining and consolidating intelligence network to remove the flaws in this respect. The Governor also took serious notice of the situation in FR Lakki and directed the concerned authorities to make the ongoing operation result-oriented. The Governor also directed the political authorities to ensure enforcement of ban on politicking in FATA. He also urged the need of curbing the road blockade incidences in different areas and said that no one should be allowed to take the law in to hand and such people must be punished under the law of the land. He especially referred to the Peshawar-Torkham road, saying that being an international route, smooth and uninterrupted flow of traffic must be ensured.

The Governor while urging the need for further streamlining the efforts to curb the smuggling of cattle across the border also desired that in fact all types of smuggling must be controlled as it is damaging the country's economy. He also directed the political authorities that besides punishing the respective tribes and people involved in use of heavy weapons; all such weapons must also be confiscated.

Referring to the proposed Agency Councils the Governor said that members comprising these councils would not be nominated by the Government rather they will be elected by the respective tribes and sub-tribes through the traditional process of Jirga. "The basic idea behind forming these councils is to involve the people in the decision making and monitoring process at the local gross root level", he added. Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah urged that the root causes of the issues and problems in FATA must be identified, addressed and properly focussed, so as the writ of the Govt. is further strengthened. The political authorities will have full backing and all out support of the Government in this regard, he concluded.

I found the name of the guy picked up the other day boarding a plane fleeing Lahore.

He was on a plane bound for South Africa....his name is Shafa Ibrahim

Not on the list of those with the bounties.

There has to be an unknown person they are hiding.

BTW....I found the info in a Reuters article..

From my post #663....(might have helped if I hadn't left the 'I' off Ibrahim's name)

Also some crawl at bottom of screen said Brahim was arrested at a bus station in Pakistan, and another arrest was made of a guy boarding a plane.(no name given) (FOXNews)

Well, there is a Ibrahim (Juma Ibrahim) here http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1155685/posts?page=657#657 Are you really sure about Shafa (from Tanzania) in this article http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP188192.htm? My guess is that the "source" mixed him up with Juma (from Syria)

http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/06/top5.htm

Ambush and clashes in Shakai leave 11 dead

By Dawn Report

WANA/PESHAWAR, Aug 5: Seven people died and three others suffered injuries in a heavy exchange of fire between security forces and militants following an
ambush on a convoy in the Shakai area of South Waziristan on Wednesday night in which four troops were killed , residents and unofficial reports said.

The convoy was on its way from Shakai to Khamrang, close to the Afghan border, when militants ambushed it with rockets and machine-guns, witnesses said. ISPR
chief Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan denied there was any death on the military side.

"Some soldiers have been wounded during the attack near Shakai, but there is no killing on the army side," he told Dawn by phone from Islamabad. Witnesses in
Wana said that they had seen bodies of four soldiers while six others had been brought in wounded condition.

Official sources said that the military had secured the Khamrang valley from militants last month after heavy clashes and air strikes. The Frontier Corps had since
established its posts in the area, they added.

The security forces responded the ambush with artillery fire from the Brigade Headquarters at Zarai Noor colony and the Wana scouts camp, targeting the suspected
hideouts of militants.

Residents said there was a heavy exchange of fire between security forces and militants that throughout the night. Gunship helicopters kept hovering over the troubled
areas, they added.

Reports said that artillery and mortar shells hit the houses of Malik Nandar Khan and Baota Khan in the Shakai valley. Malik Nandar Khan and Baota Khan's
16-year-old daughter and a 14-year- old nephew were killed. Shells hit another house in the same locality, killing a woman, a girl and two boys.

The names of those killed could not be ascertained. Three wounded tribesmen, one of them in serious condition, were brought to the agency headquarters hospital in
Wana, doctors said.

The ISPR director-general denied that civilians had been killed due to the troops' firing. "Security forces fired very precisely. Forces avoid aerial firing and we do not
think it has happened due to military action," he said, adding that miscreants had fired 'free flight' rockets and missiles which had mostly hit the civilian population.

http://www.dawn.com/2004/08/06/welcome.htm

Rockets fired on army checkpoints in South Waziristan: ISLAMABAD, Aug 06: Rockets were fired on military checkpoints and patrols in overnight attacks in South Waziristan
region after a shootout between suspected terrorists and government troops killed seven people a day earlier, local residents said today. Unidentified men twice attacked the military
positions, one kilometre away from the regional headquarters Wana drawing retaliatory fire from the security forces. There were no reports of casualties in the latest overnight attacks.
(DPA) (Posted @ 15:40 PST)

Good!

It doesn't matter how these Islomafascists are killed, Just kill them.

Interesting background with a clear link to Wana:

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3303583

Suspected Al-Qaida Computer Expert "A Genius"

"PA"

Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, the computer expert suspected of sending coded messages to a vast network of al-Qaida operatives, was a quiet and gifted student who was religious but never showed signs of Islamic militancy, his father and a professor said.

They painted a picture of a good-natured young man from a middle-class Karachi neighbourhood with a passion for computers who always stayed out of trouble.

Not anymore.

Khan, who is about 25, was arrested in Lahore on July 13 on suspicion of being a point man who sent e-mails to al-Qaida operatives possibly planning attacks in the United States, Britain, even South Africa.

His arrest led authorities to another major al-Qaida figure, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian with a £14 million bounty on his head for his role in the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa that killed more than 200 people.

Ghailani was arrested in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujrat on July 25.

Khan graduated in 2001 from the prestigious Nadir Eduljee Dinshaw Engineering University in the southern port city of Karachi. He got high marks, and shied away from troublesome students.

Zafar Qasim, a teacher at the university's computer science department, remembered Khan as a "genius student" who graduated near the top of his class.

Khan began his studies at the university in 1997. There are reports he spent time at an al-Qaida training camp in Khost, Afghanistan, though neither his father nor Qasim said they were aware of such a trip. Qasim said Khan never appeared interested in any militant activity, and never missed a class.

A senior intelligence official said Khan married a woman who is the sister of a "top ranking" Taliban leader and that he frequently visited her at their home in Wana, the capital of tribal South Waziristan. It was not clear if they were married after he left home.

The official also said that Khan had been to Britain four times, always on reduced-price tickets he got through his father, a flight attendant with Pakistan International Airlines.

That casts doubt on his father's claim to have severed all ties to his son.

The elder Khan said earlier this week that he has no contact with his son for several years, and indicated there had been a falling out.

"Whatever I know about my son is through newspaper reports. He has not been with me for the last two or three years," said the father, Noor Khan, from the doorway of his home in a middle-class Karachi neighbourhood. "I am trying to get the facts but I am not too bothered."

He said his son had not been a part of any militant group until after he left home, and then quickly closed the door.

The New York Times reported today that Khan was arrested at Lahore airport while picking up a package sent to him by his father.

Khan is about 6 feet tall and fair skinned, Qasim said, and dressed in the traditional Pakistan clothing, rather than the Western clothes preferred by many of the nation's university-age people.

"While here he was a quiet and humble student. I remember him around. There were a few mischievous students but he always remained quiet and concentrated on his study," Qasim said.

He said Khan had a particular interest in a database program designed by Oracle Corporation.

Intelligence officials have said that a computer seized from Khan contained photographs of Heathrow airport, as well as pictures of underpasses that run beneath several buildings in London, believed to be possible targets for attacks he was involved in planning against them. He is also accused of sending coded e-mails to al-Qaida operatives.

Khan is said to have been in contact with Eisa al-Hindi or Abu Musa al-Hindi, believed to be a senior al-Qaida figure in Britain, who was allegedly plotting to attack London's Heathrow airport. Al-Hindi also used the code name of Bilal, according to reports published in Britain.

Khan also led Pakistani security forces to Ghailani and two South African men arrested with him. The South Africans had maps of several cities in their home country and are believed to have been planning attacks there, intelligence and police officials say.

Qasim, the professor, said he was shocked to learn of Khan's arrest.

"I did not find him to be leaning in any peculiar direction," Qasim said. "He was a little religious and had a short beard ... but I never saw him engage in the activity of any (militant) student organisation."

AN English newspaper said the UK police are looking for 5 other suspects now. No news of that here. So, this thing is still playing over there at least.

Looks like a bigthing was stopped there.

After all, London is vital financial center, it's City area.

Here is more background and links to "our" area http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4393643,00.html AP: Arrests Damage al-Qaida Network

Friday August 6, 2004 7:01 PM

By PAUL HAVEN Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The torrent of intelligence that led to dozens of arrests in Pakistan and Britain and a terror warning in the United States began with a hunt for those behind an audacious ambush in June on a Pakistani commander as his motorcade tried to cross Karachi's Clifton Bridge.

The trail has led from the teeming streets of that southern port city, to the dusty tribal village of Shakai along the Pakistan-Afghan border, to seemingly placid suburban London, to the world's financial headquarters in New York and to Washington, D.C.

The arrests of several senior al-Qaida figures in Pakistan and Britain in the weeks that followed - including a key operative in London and a man on the FBI's most-wanted list for the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa - are a striking example of intrepid police and intelligence work, international cooperation and simple good luck.

The breaks have dealt a significant blow to Osama bin Laden's network, eliminated a tribal transit point for his men and drawn the strongest link yet between al-Qaida's international plans and attacks on senior politicians here, including President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the prime minister-designate, more than half a dozen Pakistani police and intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

What they haven't done, officials warn, is eliminate the al-Qaida threat, or prevent leaders like bin Laden from organizing attacks.

"This is a network that we are trying to break. It is in the process of being dismantled," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayyat told the AP in an interview Friday. "But the network is still not finished."

The gunmen escaped after the June 10 attack on Ahsan Saleem Hayat, Karachi's top general, but police traced them through a stolen van found abandoned and bloodstained later that day. The general escaped unharmed; 10 other people died in the attack.

The van's owner gave police a description of the men who had stolen it, and that led them to a militant hideout in Karachi where on June 12 they arrested nine people, including alleged ringleader Atta-ur Rahman and another man, a young Pakistani named Shahzad Bajwa.

The men, part of a previously unknown group called Jundallah, or Allah's Brigade, are also believed to have been involved in recent attacks on Shiite Muslim mosques in Karachi.

Both Rahman and Bajwa received training in October and November of 2003 in South Waziristan at an alleged al-Qaida facility and shooting range on the property of tribal leader Eda Khan.

The camp near Shakai, a town of mud-brick compounds surrounded by mountains and forests, was overrun by the army in June following the arrests in Karachi. Eda Khan surrendered and is in custody.

On June 12, police and intelligence agents in Karachi also arrested Masrab Arochi, a nephew of al-Qaida's former No. 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and a suspected terror operative himself, Hayyat told the AP.

Hayyat said Arochi, Rahman and Bajwa had all been to Shakai, which he described as "a major transit point" for al-Qaida figures.

"They received their training in Shakai," the interior minister said. "Shakai is an area where - when we finally overpowered these elements and flushed them out - we found that it was being used as a training ground by al-Qaida."

Pakistani intelligence officials say the CIA cooperated in the Arochi arrest, as well as those that followed.

Arochi's family has long ties to terrorism. He is a cousin of Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and is serving a life sentence in the United States.

The government has failed to produce Arochi in court. Hayyat was circumspect about his connection to other al-Qaida figures, but three intelligence officials told the AP on condition of anonymity that he led police to a network of other operatives, including Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old computer expert nabbed July 13.

The arrest of Khan was a breakthrough - revealing a terrorist web that stretched far beyond Pakistan's borders, officials say.

His computer had coded e-mails to many other al-Qaida operatives, as well as photographs of Heathrow airport and other potential terrorist targets in Britain and the United States, according to a Lahore-based intelligence official involved in the investigation.

Khan used to frequently visit Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, the intelligence official said, and he was married there to the sister of a "top ranking" Taliban leader.

The official said Khan had been to Britain four times, always on reduced price tickets he got through his father, a flight attendant with Pakistan International Airlines.

Khan helped lead authorities to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian with a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head for his role in the deadly 1998 embassy bombings.

Ghailani was arrested July 25 after a fierce gunbattle in the eastern city of Gujrat. Two South Africans, identified as Feroz Ibrahim and Zubair Ismail, were arrested with him, and authorities said they were believed to be plotting attacks in their homeland.

Hayyat said at least three other senior al-Qaida operatives have been arrested, including two Africans and another man he claimed is on the FBI's list of 22 most wanted terrorists. He has refused to name them, but confirmed that one of the Africans is known as Ibrahim and was arrested at Lahore airport Monday night.

Ghailani, who fled to Pakistan the day before the 1998 embassy bombings, also was believed to have spent time in Shakai and other parts of South Waziristan, Hayyat told the AP.

"Obviously he has been here for some time, and it is believed that he was also present in Wana and Shakai," Hayyat said.

The region has long been a suspected hide-out for al-Qaida terrorists, possibly including bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. Pakistan's army has moved 70,000 troops there, and has launched at least three major attacks on foreign militants and their local supporters that have killed more than 200 people.

A senior intelligence official told the AP that Ghailani may also have met his Uzbek wife while living in the border area. He said al-Qaida "facilitators" arranged for Ghailani to hide in several houses in Waziristan.

Information taken from Khan and Ghailani's computers was shared with British authorities, who on Tuesday conducted a sweep in and around London that netted 13 suspects, including a man known as Abu Eisa al-Hindi or Abu Musa al-Hindi. One man was later released.

Al-Hindi is suspected of having written terrorist surveillance reports detailing security, construction and other features of five U.S. financial buildings that were the center of a terror warning issued by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge on Sunday.

An official called al-Hindi "a key al-Qaida operative." A counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said much of the documentary evidence for the alerts, including surveillance reports, was in fluent English, indicating the author spent significant time in the West.

Hayyat pointed to a link between the al-Qaida figures arrested since the Waziristan crackdown and several high-profile attacks in Pakistan, including two attempts in December to assassinate President Musharraf and the failed suicide attack last month on prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz.

"We have every reason to believe that there is a very strong connection between elements connected to the al-Qaida network and the al-Qaida hierarchy" and the attacks on senior politicians, Hayyat said.

The interior minister said he hoped the arrests would eventually lead authorities to bin Laden, but cautioned against too much optimism.

"Whenever we get hold of high profile al-Qaida activists there is a great deal of euphoria and excitement, and it leads to a lot of optimism ... that it will lead us to the eventual prize - the apprehension of Osama and al-Zawahri," said Hayyat. "But we have to be very cautious. This network ... remains a potent threat to Pakistan, and to civilized humanity."

Putting this all together, it looks like a single branch of the tree. Ghailani at the apex, Khan as his communications officer, Hindi and others gathering intelligence, and the smaller fish heading individual operational cells, running messages and cash, etc.

There is probably at least one other commander of Ghailani's stature within Al Qaeda, or affiliated to them. Somebody has to be running the Morroccans that bombed Spain, obviously we have vertically integrated branches in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, whatever's left of the operational arm of Jamaat Islamiya, the Chechnya branch, and probably someone running several cells in Europe.

There may be a parallel branch setting up operations in England, the US, and South Africa too. Still, this puts major obstacles in the way of Al Qaeda's terrorism agenda, and the good guys involved deserve more thanks than we can give them.

Note that the bad guys in and around Waziristan are still fighting, indicating that even more big fish may be close by.

Expect more arrests the coming week:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP191599.htm

Pakistan going after al Qaeda planners
06 Aug 2004 17:50:04 GMT

By Simon Cameron-Moore

ISLAMABAD, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Pakistani security forces aim to close a net around more key planners in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in coming weeks and months, senior government officials said on Friday.

The government was also considering handing to U.S. agents two captured suspects at the centre of Pakistan's recent breakthroughs against al Qaeda -- Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, intelligence sources said.

Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat said recently arrested militants were still in Pakistan's custody though he refused to confirm Khan's arrest.

With terror a crucial issue in who wins the U.S. election in November, the Bush administration is increasingly looking to Pakistan to deliver big names on its wanted list for al Qaeda.

"We know key al Qaeda planners are operating out of Pakistan, and we are hoping to neutralise them," a senior government official told Reuters.

A senior Interior Ministry official said security forces were trying to arrest several foreign al Qaeda members on the basis of information extracted from some 20 Pakistani and foreign militants captured over the past couple of weeks.

"Investigations are in full swing by our top agencies. But we cannot reveal the names of those we are looking for because it would hamper investigations," he said.

Interior Minister Hayat described Ghailani's capture as the most significant by Pakistan in some time.

The United States offered a multi-million dollar reward for the capture of Tanzanian-born Ghailani, wanted for his role in the 1998 East African U.S. embassy bombings.

But intelligence sources said it was information resulting from Khan's arrest in early July that led to the arrest of 12 al Qaeda suspects in Britain earlier this week and the U.S. decision to put New York and Washington on high alert against possible al Qaeda attacks.

One intelligence source said Khan had e-mailed al Qaeda comrades while in custody as part of a sting operation by security agencies.

The source said Khan sent e-mails as late as Monday, the same day his name appeared in U.S. media after a briefing by U.S. officials, raising the possibility that the disclosure had jeopardised the sting operation.

Hayat sought to draw a veil over Khan's significance to the al Qaeda investigation calling it a "very sensitive subject" and saying there had been a lot of "media hype".

"It doesn't help us, it doesn't help the British, it doesn't help the Americans."

WHERE IS BIN LADEN?

Pakistani officials said military operations in South Waziristan on the border with Afghanistan were driving al Qaeda operatives to look for new safe havens.

Hayat said there was clearly an al Qaeda presence in the southern port of Karachi and the western city of Quetta, but operatives were also hiding in obscure towns.

The minister said the string of arrests in recent weeks had helped security forces get a better picture of the network, but the whereabouts of bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, was still unknown.

"In the weeks and months to come we hope to further intensify our efforts in hitting at those nerve centres and at those crucial and sensitive areas where, by hitting hard, al Qaeda will certainly be hurt the most," Hayat told Reuters.

Asked whether the wave of arrests had brought Pakistan closer to catching bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, the minister said security agencies were better placed than before.

"As far as these two top notches are concerned we do hope ... we are certainly in a much better position today to have a better view of where al Qaeda stands," Hayat said.

He added it had never been determined whether the two al Qaeda leaders were hiding in Pakistan or over the border in Afghanistan where U.S.-led forces are battling Taliban fighters, driven out of Kabul in late 2001 for sheltering al Qaeda.

Officials in Afghanistan believe only a small number of the network's foreign sympathisers, rather than die hard senior operatives, have been involved in helping the Taliban insurgency against U.S.-led troops and the government.

The source said Khan sent e-mails as late as Monday, the same day his name appeared in U.S. media after a briefing by U.S. officials, raising the possibility that the disclosure had jeopardised the sting operation.

A bragging bastard, send him to Wana.

A huge migration
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/06/content_1729784.htm

Over 250,000 Afghan refugees return from Pakistan
www.chinaview.cn 2004-08-06 23:43:21

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) assisted 2,618 Afghan refugees to head back to Afghanistan from Pakistan on Aug. 5, raising the number of returnees from Pakistan since the voluntary repatriationprogram started in March 2004 to 253,409.

"It has been three years since I became a refugee in Pakistan. Afghans are indebted to Pakistan for hosting a large refugee population for more than 25 years. Now I think we have to make a decision to return as an important election is near and we need totake part in that," said Khuda-e-Nazar, an Afghan refugee returning from Roghani refugee camp to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

Khuda-e-Nazar said that war and drought have uprooted millions of Afghans from their homes inside Afghanistan and they were compelled to become refugees. "It's a terrible thing to become a refugee, but you are just helpless and want to run for the life and safety of your family and relatives," he said.

UNHCR assisted 143,882 refugees to return from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP), 50,873 from Balochistan province, 31,155 from Sindh and 27,499 from Punjab, according to astatement issued by UNHCR here on Friday.

All refugees over the age of six years must go through computerized Iris tests in either Quetta, Balochistan, or Peshawar,NWFP, the two main cities before the exit point. The technology identifies anyone who has previously received assistance, preventing abuse of the UNHCR funds available to help returning Afghans.

Refugees then return to Afghanistan by the border exit points at Chaman for Balochistan and Torkham for NWFP. Once in Afghanistan, refugees go to UNHCR encashment centers to receive a travel grant that varies between three US dollars and 30 dollars per person, depending on the distance covered, plus eight dollars in cash instead of additional assistance such as food that was provided in the first two years of the program, it said.

UNHCR has also announced an enhanced package for Afghan refugees leaving from the newly established camps in Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks. Six out of 12 of these new camps are in Balochistan hosting a population of around 120,000 and the other six in NWFP has a population of 65000. According to a joint decision of the Government of Pakistan, UNHCR and the World Food Program, assistance will be withdrawn from these camps after Aug. 31, 2004.

"We have placed mobile teams in Chaman and Mohammad Kheil areasof Balochistan to register Afghan refugees voluntarily wishing to repatriate", said Zelmira Sinclair, Senior Repatriation Officer UNHCR.

Sinclair said that UNHCR also has set up an Iris Verification Center in Chaman to facilitate the Iris test of Afghan refugees returning from Chaman camps.

Spreading beans

http://www.computerworld.com/securitytopics/security/story/0,10801,95098,00.html

Online data a gold mine for terrorists
IT's high-alert response overlooks corporate sites