Posted on 03/07/2005 8:16:15 AM PST by Straight Vermonter
Soldiers nab Sayyaf bandit, bus blast suspect (This one has American blood on his hands)
MANILA -- Troops have caught a suspected Muslim rebel allegedly involved in a series of kidnappings, including of three Americans, and another militant linked to the bombings of a bus and mall in Manila, the military said Sunday. Rasidin Mohammad, a suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group using the aliases Rasam, Rasa, and Rasim, was arrested Friday at the village of Arena Blanco in southern Zamboanga city, Army Major General Gabriel Habacon said.
Army Chief Generoso Senga said Mohammad is now under the custody of military officers in Zamboanga and is undergoing interrogation. Mohammad is reportedly involved in a number of atrocities, including the kidnapping of 20 people from a resort in southwestern Palawan Province in May 2001, Habacon said.
Among those abducted were American missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham from Wichita, Kansas and Californian Guillermo Sobero. Most of the hostages later escaped, were rescued or ransomed. But Sobero was beheaded in captivity, while Martin Burnham was killed in crossfire during a rescue, which freed his wife.
A military report also said Mohammad was among the bandits who stormed and took control of a parish church and hospital in Lamitan town in Basilan in June 2001. Mohammad was also involved in the 2001 kidnapping of 15 Golden Harvest plantation workers in Basilan. Two of the captives were beheaded, while the rest escaped or were rescued, Habacon said. He was also accused of involvement in the raid on Barangay Balobo in Lamitan town in August 2001. The bandits took 35 hostages from the area and beheaded 10 of the hostages upon reaching a nearby village.
Abu Sayyaf has been loosely linked to al-Qaida and is on a US terror list. Although its ranks have been largely decimated by US-backed military assaults, the group remains a major security threat and has been blamed for the bombing of a ferry last year that left more than 100 dead, and bombings last month that killed eight in the capital and two southern cities.
Separately, military troops arrested Friday a suspect in the bombing of a passenger bus in Makati City that killed four people and injured more than 40 others in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao. Rahib Buday, 49, a resident of Barangay Layog in Pagalungan town, was arrested inside his house at 11 p.m. Friday. Major General Raul Relano, 6th Infantry Division commander, said Buday also figured in the May 21, 2000 bombing of SM Megamall in Mandaluyong City, resulting in the death of one person and the wounding of 12 others.
Relano could not give details on the extent of Buday's participation in the Makati explosion as he said the Intelligence Service of the military merely informed him the suspect was involved in the attack. Buday is the fourth bus bombing suspect to be arrested.
Prior to Buday's arrest, three men who claimed to be members of the dreaded Abu Sayyaf bandit group are in government custody for the Makati bombing. Among them is Gappal Bannah, alias Boy Negro, who surrendered last Thursday in Camarines Sur. He reportedly supplied the explosive used in the bombing. The two other suspects were Gamal Baharan, alias Tapay, and Muslim convert Angelo Trinidad, alias Abu Khalil, who were arrested late last month by military and police operatives in San Juan and Mandaluyong City.
Authorities said Baharan and Trinidad planted the improvised explosives device on the ill-fated bus. The two said when questioned that Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Solaiman ordered the attack.
4 senior Taliban commanders arrested in Afghanistan
KABUL, March 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Troops of the Afghan National Army (ANA) have arrested four senior Taliban leaders in the southern Uruzgan province, an Afghan official told Xinhua Sunday. "Personnel of ANA arrested Thursday four Taliban leaders, including Mullah Abidullah Akhund, a prominent commander, in Deh Rawad district," Mohammad Ishaq Paiman, a Defense Ministry spokesman said.
However, he clarified the name of the detainee Mullah Abidullah Akhund coincided to be the same as the fugitive Taliban Defense Minister who is still at large. "All the four detainees are under investigation,"the spokesman noted.
Uruzgan, a constant restive province of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's hometown, along with the neighboring provinces ofZabul, Kandahar and Helmand have been scene of militancy for the last three years. More than 20 people including at least one American soldier were killed in Taliban-related violence in the restive south, southeast and east Afghanistan during the past two weeks.
U.S. General: (Mullah) Omar Loses Control of Afghan Insurgency
By Sayed Salahuddin
KABUL (Reuters) - Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has lost control of the insurgency in Afghanistan and the number of attacks has fallen dramatically, a senior U.S. general said Monday. Taliban spokesmen have said attacks will resume once the harsh Afghan winter is over. But Major General Eric T. Olson told a news conference in Kabul that the Taliban lacked cohesion and were a fading force in the southern and southeast provinces that had been their strongholds.
"We believe that this spring there will be a number of factors combined to make this so-called spring offensive much less effective and much lesser scale than we've seen in the past in Afghanistan," said Olson. Remnants of Mullah Omar's hard-line Islamist militia have kept up an insurgency since being driven from power in late 2001 for giving shelter to al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden, following the Sept. 11 suicide airliner attacks in the United States.
Olson, who last month warned U.S. policymakers against cutting troop levels in Afghanistan because the Taliban and al Qaeda posed a grave threat, now sees a "dramatic decrease" in the number of attacks. President Hamid Karzai's government will soon announce an amnesty offer to rank-and-file Taliban fighters, Olson said, and he expected the number of diehards to dwindle further by the time parliamentary elections are held later this year.
The elections were due in April or May, but are now expected to be delayed until September. Many saw the Taliban's inability to mount an effective threat to last October's presidential election as a sign the movement was a spent and demoralized force. Olson said about 30 fighters, described as mid-level in the Taliban, had surrendered to U.S.-led forces recently.
Karzai has said his government is in contact with Taliban members and the amnesty offer will not extend to Mullah Omar or up to 150 of his most hardened followers.
Three militants, two Afghan civilians killed
KABUL: Three militants and two Afghan civilians were killed in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday after US-led troops came under fire from unidentified militants, the US military said on Saturday.
Three Afghan civilians and two members of the US-led coalition were also wounded in the ensuing gun battle, the statement said. No further information about the location or nature of the incident was currently available, Major Steve Wollman said. It was also not clear how the civilians had been caught in the exchange of fire.
The Taliban fighters attacked the district headquarter in Kunar province, an official said but gave not further details. Four policemen and two militants were wounded. In another incident overnight, the Taliban militants fired five rockets at Nowmaish, the capital of Helmand province. According to police one of the rockets landed in a school, but there were no casualties. The headmaster of the school also said that the attack caused no damage to the school.
There was yet another Taliban attack in Sarkani district of the Kunar province shortly after midnight. Provincial Governor Asadullah Wafa said a wounded militant was captured after the attack, while other fighters fled from the scene of the incident.
Two Police, Three Militants Killed in Thai South
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Gunmen Sunday attacked a railway station, killing two policemen, and in a separate incident wounded a school teacher in Thailand's largely Muslim south, police said.
One militant was killed in a shootout with police at the railway station in the southern province of Narathiwat, another died later of his injuries and a third, who fled the scene, was shot dead by village militiamen, a police officer told Reuters.
In a separate incident in nearby Yala province, plagued by more than 12 months of violence, gunmen shot and wounded a 44-year old headmaster, another police officer said.
They were the latest incidents of separatist violence in the three southernmost, mainly Muslim provinces of Thailand where nearly 600 people have been killed since unrest started in January last year.
Alleged terrorist arrested in Kashmir
Jammu, March 5 (IANS) Police here Saturday claimed to have arrested a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group who was allegedly planning a series of bomb blasts in this winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir. Police said Sajjad Hussain, whom they had been searching for three years, had arrived here Friday night.
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"Sajjad is the biggest catch of this year," said a police officer. A tip by an informer led the police to Sajjad, who had a large quantity of explosives with him. Sajjad had planned to set off a series of explosions in the city's crowded areas and spread terror, police said.<br>
Cleric attacked in prison
From correspondents in London
RADICAL Islamic cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, charged with 16 offences including incitement to murder Jews, has been attacked by a fellow detainee in the high-security Belmarsh prison, The Sun daily reported.
The paper quoted Abu Mussa, a spokesman for the former head of London's Finsbury Park mosque.
"It was a violent physical incident involving another inmate but I do not know whether a weapon was used," Mussa said. "There is no information on whether he received treatment.
"There are some tasty characters in there. They don't care about getting caught and one of them wanted to show Hamza exactly what they think of him."
Belmarsh prison in London holds some of Britain's most dangerous prisoners.
Mussa said the former imam had previously received threats from other prisoners.
Hamza, 47, a distinctive figure with one eye and a hooked hand, was charged in October with 10 counts of soliciting murder. The little-used charge relates to inciting others to murder unspecified people and carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. His trial will begin in July.
In Hamza's case it is connected to alleged incitement by the cleric at public gatherings to kill non-Muslims, specifically Jews, according to four of the charges.
He was also charged with four counts of using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour with intent to stir up racial hatred; one count of possessing threatening, abusive or insulting sound recordings; and one count of possessing a terrorist document.
Hamza is sought for extradition by the United States on separate charges, with this process suspended until the British court case is completed.
SV-My heart weeps.
10 Mujahideen shot dead in Valley
SRINAGAR, March 5: Indian troops shot dead 10 Mujahideen overnight in separate gun battles in occupied Kashmir, an army spokesman said.
Four Kashmiris were shot dead in Botnar village near the southern town of Tral, some 40 kilometres south of Srinagar, the spokesman said.
"The four were sighted inside a mountain cave in the snow-bound Botnar village," he said adding a gun battle erupted as Indian troops closed in. "We killed all the four," he said.
In Anantnag district Indian troops, backed by police and paramilitary soldiers, shot dead three more Mujahideen in another encounter, the spokesman said.
In a third operation, three freedom fighters were killed near the highway town of Banihal, 110 kilometres south of Srinagar, an army source said.
Indian troops resumed their counter-insurgency operations this week after winding up relief and rescue work in three districts of Kashmir, devastated by avalanches triggered by record levels of snowfall.
Meanwhile Indian army experts began removing landmines from occupied Kashmir on Saturday near disputed border with Pakistan, ahead of next month's first bus service.
Indian military authorities said they would be able to clear the mines before the start of the bus service on April 7.
"The army has commenced the process of de-mining the stretch close to the Line of Control to facilitate the timely opening of the Srinagar - Muzaffarabad highway," a defence ministry statement said.-AFP/Reuters
I knew there was a reason that I felt so good getting up today!
Bump for later.
would you put 'Sundog' on your ping list? I enjoy these immensely.
Any news on him that I've missed??
Is it possible you have him confused with Adnan El Shukrijumah aka "Jafar the Pilot"? He has been sighted in Latin America on several occassions. One has to wonder if he may be working with Latin American gangs like MS13 or if he is working as a "handler" to get AQ members into the US.
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Worldwide manhunt underway for Midhat Mursi
US Intelligence agencies have launched a worldwide manhunt for Al-Qaeda’s master bomb maker, who, they contend, may be building a "dirty" bomb and other new devices for terror attacks inside the United States. US counter-terrorism officials were quoted by the New York Post as saying that it was new information about the activities of Egyptian-born bomb maker Midhat Mursi, in part, that led the Bush administration to secretly dispatch Department of Energy radiological detection teams to New York and four other cities at New Year’s eve. Before the Bush administration decided to raise the nationwide alert level to Code Orange, an Al-Qaeda informant had said that Mursi, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Khabab, was active again, intelligence officials told The Post.
Khabab is Zawahiri's resident mad scientist, seen working with Zarqawi in the Pankisi Gorge, training bad guys in how to dish out ricin.
Intelligence officials said Mursi is a chemical engineer who was head of Al-Qaeda’s weapons-of-mass-destruction committee and reported directly to Al-Qaeda’s number- two, Ayman al-Zawahiri. He is believed to have gone underground before or during the 2001 Afghanistan war and is considered the most wanted Al-Qaeda figure after Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.
If I was keeping the list, I'd put Zarqawi a step ahead of him, but go on...
Before the Afghan war, Mursi operated crude laboratories at an Al-Qaeda complex near Jalalabad, where satellite imagery showed scores of dead animals outside, victims of ghoulish experiments with anthrax and other biological and chemical poisons, US officials were quoted as saying. The Post quoted unidentified sources as saying documents found at the camp and at Al-Qaeda safe houses in Afghanistan and Pakistan also included, what one intelligence official called, "very innovative designs for explosive devices" — some designed to be carried aboard airplanes without being detected. Some documents, it said, indicated Mursi was exchanging information with Palestinian and Hezbollah bomb makers — including some who helped design the shoe bomb carried aboard a Paris-to-Boston flight by Richard Reid in 2001, sources said. Reid was overpowered before be could ignite the bomb.
Building a dirty bomb is far easier, and the terrorist network's attempts to do so have been documented through evidence uncovered in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and elsewhere. Three men identified as Al Qaeda's weapons of mass destruction committee would likely plan the attack, said two European intelligence officials and independent experts. The committee leader is Midhat Mursi, an Egyptian chemical engineer also known as Abu Khabab. Officials said he is regarded as Al Qaeda's master bomb builder and is one of the group's most-wanted fugitives — although there have been unconfirmed reports that Mursi is in U.S. custody. LINK
"There are some tasty characters in there. They don't care about getting caught and one of them wanted to show Hamza exactly what they think of him."
Belmarsh prison in London holds some of Britain's most dangerous prisoners.
This guy is getting close to what he deserves . Nice to know it's not all cable TV . Maybe they'll play tag with him.
Music, sweet music....
Yes, it was Midhat Mursi.
Here's another older article (1/18/2004)
Thanks for the ping.
"We will not tire, We will not falter, and We will not fail."(GWB)
Good info, thanks.
Thanks! Keep up the good work SV.
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