Suspected terrorist aided, financed group linked to al-Qaida: CSIS
By BRIAN DALY
MONTREAL (CP) - A former literature student and karate instructor aided and financed a deadly al-Qaida splinter group, say newly released documents from Canada's spy agency.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says jailed Moroccan national Adil Charkaoui is a member of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (MICG), which has been blamed for deadly attacks in Spain and Morocco. Charkaoui, a suspected sleeper agent for al-Qaida, has been held in detention since May 2003 on a national security certificate
Excerpted
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/01/10/890075-cp.html
Thursday January 13, 2005 3:28pm Washington (AP) - A new program is relying on area businesses to help prevent terrorism in the nation's capital.
D.C.'s Metropolitan Police Department (website - news) rolled out Operation TIPP Thursday with a new hotline and information on how to identify suspicious activity....
Ramsey says they've identified more than four dozen industries and services that terrorists could potentially target. Police will hand out customized information packets for each one.
Police will also answer the tip line at 1-877-YOU-WATCH for business leaders and their employees.
Mysterious Outage Darkens Coast (MI - 1/12/05)
Brad Kessie Reports On Coastwide Power Outage
For a flickering moment overnight, the lights went out in sleepy neighborhoods across South Mississippi. People woke up to flashing clocks with incorrect times on them.
"This was a very unusual morning and a very unusual event," he said. Something malfunctioned in Mississippi Power's switch yard. But nobody is sure what piece of equipment stopped working. So a transmission substation crew spent the day looking for clues that could explain why thousands of people lost power for up to 10 minutes.....
A power outage of this magnitude is very rare. Normally, it takes a hurricane coming ashore for Mississippi Power to have a significant percentage of its service interrupted. "Our reliability is 99.9%," the Mississippi Power spokesman said.
Russian Passenger Plane Missing (1/13/05)
MOSCOW - A Russian passenger plane with 10 people on board went missing Thursday on a flight over Siberia, officials said.
The An-2 plane carrying a crew of two and eight passengers went missing shortly before landing in the town of Tura in the region of Evenkiya in central Siberia, according to the Emergency Situations Ministry....
Plane Skids Off Runway; No Injuries (Atlanta, GA - 1/13/05)
An airplane skidded off a runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport shortly after 4:30 p.m. Thursday afternoon. The plane was identified as Delta Air Lines flight 782 –- a Boeing 737 -– en route to St. Louis from Atlanta. It was in the air and notified the tower that it was experiencing mechanical problems. It returned to Hartsfield-Jackson and landed on runway 8L....
One Dead, one seriously injured in El Cajon plane crash (CA - 1/13/05)
EL CAJON, Calif. Authorities say one person is dead and another seriously injured in the crash of a small plane near Gillespie Field in El Cajon.....
Villanova Men’s Basketball: Villanova’s plane makes a U-turn (1/13/05)
The Villanova’s men’s basketball team had a harrowing experience following its 83-78 overtime victory over Providence Tuesday night. The team’s chartered flight was forced to return to Providence International Airport early Wednesday morning and make an emergency landing because of an instrument problem.
The terrifying episode took place about five minutes after the plane took off around 12:15 a.m., according to Villanova director of media relations Mike Sheridan.
"You could tell the plane was having difficulty climbing," Sheridan said. "The lights in the cabin came on and the flight attendant told us he had to prepare for an emergency crash landing. The look in her eyes was like, ‘Holy God.’".....
IDF Arrests Hebron Islamic Jihad Commander (1/13/05)
By MARGOT DUDKEVITCH Senior Islamic Jihad commander for the Hebron area, Khalil Mahsin, 38, was arrested overnight Wednesdasy in Yata south of Hebron, IDF sources revealed.
Mahsin was detained by Israel in the 90's for his involvement in terrorist activities, and was declared a fugitive in 1996 for weapons dealing, recruiting activists to the movement, and for his contacts with Islamic Jihad officials in Syria.
In 1998 he was arrested by Palestinian preventive security but was released to Hebron when the Aksa intifada broke out. Once in Hebron, Mahsin headed the Islamic jihad student body at the local university, which was the main nucleus of the Islamic Jihad Jerusalem brigade responsible for numerous suicide bomb attacks and shooting attacks in Israel and in the West Bank...