The Daily Terrorist Round-Up 9/28/05

In a succession of intelligence breaks, the US says it has killed two key members of Al Qaeda in Iraq in recent days, including the organization's No. 2 man who is suspected of orchestrating a series of suicide bombings in Baghdad since April.

According to American military officials, the US has either made key arrests or developed informants who have led to a cascade of actionable intelligence over the past month. Since the middle of August, the US has reported killing or capturing at least 16 members of Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

How big a blow this is to the insurgency in Iraq remains unclear. While US human intelligence has clearly improved, no one has a clear understanding of the internal workings of Mr. Zarqawi's network, which is thought to be only a small portion of Iraq's decentralized and highly complex insurgency.

"By itself these events don't do much to destroy Al Qaeda as much as undermine and undercut it. But this comes after some very successful operations in Tal Afar that wrapped up the Al Qaeda network there,'' says Anthony Cordesman, a former senior intelligence analyst for the US and now an expert on the Iraq insurgency at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The US says it killed the insurgent leader of the town of Karabilah at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, and Abdullah Abu Azzam, said to be the Al Qaeda leader (or emir) of Anbar Province, in a raid in Baghdad on Sunday. Meanwhile Gen. Kevin Bergner told reporters that in northern Iraq, where the US recently fought a major engagement in Tal Afar and where major operations have also been carried out in Mosul, the US has made inroads against the organization.

"We are probably at the point of impacting about 80 percent of that network in terms of detaining, capturing, killing the leadership, and disrupting their resources, and disrupting their support bases and neutralizing their capability,'' he said.

Two Taliban commanders captured, one fighter gunned down
Aziz Zahid

Security officials have claimed the arrest of two Taliban commanders and the killing of an insurgent in fresh operations against militants in troubled southern Afghanistan.

Commander of 205 Military Corps in Kandahar General Muslim Amid told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday the Taliban commanders were apprehended during an overnight operation in Dai Chopan district of Zabul.

The crackdown on combatants was launched in Zabul on Sunday, he said without giving information as to the identities of the arrested Taliban commanders. He added specific details about the two men would be provided after the completion of interrogation.

Helmand officials informed a militant was gunned down and an Afghan policeman injured in a clash that erupted in Musa Qila district. Haji Muhiuddin, secretary to the governor, told this news agency the fighting broke out after Taliban attacked a security check-post.

The clash came hard on the heels of a US military helicopter crash in a mountainous region of the province, All five crew members aboard were killed in the copter downing claimed by Taliban.

The main suspect in the kidnapping of an Italian aid worker in Afghanistan in May this year has been arrested, the Interior Ministry says. Timor Shah, a powerful underworld figure, accused of leading the gang that abducted Clementina Cantoni, was picked up in a northern suburb of Kabul along with two other people. The authorities announced last month that a man believed to be Shah had been arrested, but he was freed after the intervention of an army general, on the grounds that it was a case of mistaken identity.

A gang of armed men dragged Clementina Cantoni from her car in Kabul at gunpoint in May. She was held for more than three weeks and eventually released unharmed.

After her release, five people, including an uncle of Timor Shah, were arrested and charged, but he has remained at large.

Cantoni had been working in Afghanistan with the aid agency Care International since September 2003 and was involved in projects to support women and children, especially widows.

Spanish court finds 18 Muslims guilty in terrorism, 9/11 charges
Tracy Wilkinson, Cristina Mateo-Yanguas

Madrid -- Concluding Europe's largest trial to date of alleged al Qaeda militants, a Spanish tribunal Monday convicted 18 Muslim immigrants of terrorism-related charges, among them a purported ringleader found guilty of conspiring to plan the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

It was a rare conviction of anyone associated with the 2001 assaults on New York and the Pentagon. But in a stinging blow to efforts here and abroad to prosecute terrorism cases, the court dismissed the most serious charges before it: that three of the defendants were accomplices to murder in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among those convicted was the Al-Jazeera television correspondent in Spain, who was sentenced to seven years. Six of the 24 defendants were acquitted of all charges.

The trial was seen as an important test of the ability of a democracy to investigate alleged Islamic terrorists in its midst and bring them to justice without sacrificing civil rights. The results are mixed.

Nine arrested in French terror raids

Nine people were arrested in France yesterday after an anti-terrorist operation against a group linked to Algerian militants.

Police detained nine people in the Paris area and in Normandy after investigations into an Algerian organisation, the GSPC - the French initials of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. There were reports it was suspected of planning attacks in France.

Italian authorities, meanwhile, raided flats and offices around Milan linked to 11 Algerians suspected of sending cash to the GSPC, which has declared its allegiance to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. No-one was arrested.

PAKISTAN: HEAD OF AL-QAEDA LINKED MILITANT GROUP ARRESTED

Pakistani security forces have arrested a wanted Sunni militant believed to be the head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, an outlawed militant group thought to be linked to al-Qaeda, and mastermind of a string of suicide attacks on minority Shiite Muslims, officials were quoted as saying on the website of the Pakistani television channel Geo TV. Asif Choto, was arrested over the weekend when security officers stopped a car on a motorway between Rawalpindi and Lahore, according to a senior security official.

Choto has been accused of killing scores of Shiites in several cases. He is believed to be behind the attack on a Shiite mosque in Karachi, which left five people dead, a suicide bombing in the eastern city of Sialkot in October 2004, which killed 30 Shiites, as well as two bombings in Karachi in May 2004 which left more than 40 people dead.

According to Geo TV, Choto was planning new attacks when he was captured in Rawalpindi.

Another militant from Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Rashid alias Shahid Satti, was also arrested, according to senior police officials.

Philippine commandos seized sacks of bomb-making materials in a raid on a suspected hideout of Muslim rebels on a remote southwestern island on Tuesday, a senior navy official said.

The Abu Sayyaf, a small radical group with suspected links to al Qaeda and Indonesian terror network Jemaah Islamiah, operates in the southwestern Philippines and has been blamed for a series of bomb attacks.

"It was very fortunate we seized a cache of explosives and weapons," said Vice Admiral Ernesto de Leon, the navy chief.

"More or less, we have prevented the possibility of a large-scale bombing in the south".

He said a navy counter-terrorist team, acting on a tip-off from local residents, stormed the suspected Abu Sayyaf hideout on a remote island near Basilan island on Tuesday morning.

"There was practically no resistance from a group of armed men guarding the warehouse. They fled even before our boys could reach the shorelines," de Leon added.

Troops found hundreds of blasting caps, rolls of detonating cord, five small guns and 42 sacks of ammonium nitrate, an active ingredient in bomb-making, he said.

The navy said there were markings on the sacks indicating the ammonium nitrate may have been smuggled in from neighbouring countries, such as Indonesia or Malaysia.

Abu Sayyaf was known mainly for kidnappings for ransom until it claimed responsibility for planting a bomb on a ferry in February 2004 that killed 116 people, the worst terror attack in the Philippines.

Last month, four people died and two dozen were wounded in a blast on a domestic ferry in Basilan, which the government blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.

The group claimed responsibility three coordinated blasts in Manila and two southern cities in February this year that killed 10 people.

Israel arrested 82 Palestinian militants in the West Bank (search) overnight, the military said Tuesday.

The sweep against Hamas and Islamic Jihad (search) activists follows the arrest of 207 Palestinian militants on Sunday.

The detentions have come in tandem with an Israeli military offensive against Palestinian militants in Gaza (search) who bombarded southern Israel with dozens of homemade rockets over the weekend.

US to try Australian accused of aiding Taliban

An Australian accused of fighting for the Taliban and currently detained at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will have a pretrial hearing on Nov. 18, the Pentagon said.

David M. Hicks could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on charges of attempted murder, aiding the enemy and conspiracy to attack civilians, commit terrorism and destroy property.

Hicks, a former cowboy and Muslim convert, has pleaded innocent to the charges.

Six Stinger missiles seized
By Zulifqar Ali

The paramilitary Frontier Corps has seized six US-made Stinger missiles and a huge cache of arms and ammunitions dumped in a compound in Mohammad Gath area of Mohmand Agency and arrested an accused.

This was stated by Inspector General of Frontier Corps Maj-Gen Tariq Masood during a briefing to journalists at the FC headquarters in Balahisar Fort here on Monday.

Maj-Gen Masood said that an intelligence unit recently created in the Mohmand Rifles had information about the arms and ammunition.

A big contingent of Mohmand Rifles and Frontier Corps besieged the area on Sunday night and raided the compound on Monday morning. The security forces faced no resistance, Maj-Gen Masood said, adding that the detained man, identified as Taj Mohammad, had admitted that the compound belonged to him.

It was the biggest weapons seizure in the tribal areas, the IG FC said. However, he expressed ignorance about the origin of the weapons, which included Russian, Chinese and US-made arms.

The arms and ammunition seized included 100 RPG-7 rockets, 437 current ignition missile (small), 7 current ignition missile (large), 229 mortar bombs, 193 mortar bombs 60mm, 12 rockets 107mm, 54 RR rounds 75mm , 42 boxes of 20mm gun rounds, 331 anti- personnel mines, 4 anti-tank mines, 145 fuse (long), 129 bombs, 918 premier, 1,487 fuse, 45 pressure switch, 40 mine triggers, 3 batteries, 2 missiles with fins, 1 artillery round, 210 ammunition 20mm gun, 4 magazine 20mm gun, 7 hand grenades, 2 mortars (3 inch), 2 guns 12.7mm, 1 mortar 82mm, 1 mortar 60mm and other ammunition.

In successful operations by security forces, 11 militants, including a section commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, were killed and an army jawan injured in separate encounters in Jammu and Kashmir since last night, official sources said today.

On a tip off, army troops launched an operation in Kanoi-Bajwa area of Doda district last night and in the ensuing encounter top Hizb militant and section commander of the outfit Mohammad Hussain was killed.

Three unidentified militants were killed in a fierce gunbattle with security forces in Maligund village of Shopian area in Pulwama district last night, a defence spokesman said.

A jawan also sustained injuries during the encounter, he said adding three AK rifles and some arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants.

Troops arrested another Hizbul Majahideen militant from Sang forest area in Udhampur district last night, the sources said.

Two top militants of Lashker-e-Toiba (LeT), identified as Abu Rashid and Abu Huma, were killed in Pathana Pir hills in Mendhar tehsil of Poonch district today, they said.

Troops also shot dead a section commander of LeT Abu Asgar in Surankote belt of Poonch district and recovered a sniper rifle, a pistol, 7 magazines, 9 grenades and a radio set from him, they added.

Three militants were killed in an encounter in Macchil sector of Kupwara district last night, the sources said adding another militant was killed in an encounter in Bemina area of the city.

Foreign fighter safe haven destroyed

Coalition air forces conducted an air strike and destroyed an al Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter safe house in al-Ushsh, Iraq, Sept. 26, at about 1:30 a.m.

Multiple intelligence sources and information from concerned citizens directed Multi-National forces to the safe house. In the house was Abu Nasir, a senior al Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter facilitator and the alleged new al Qaeda in Iraq Emir of Karabilah. Nasir was linked to other al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists and foreign fighter facilitators in the Hit, al Qaim, Karabilah and Husaybah areas.

Nasir’s presence in the safe house during the air strike was indicated by intelligence. Additionally, there were a large number of terrorists and foreign fighters present at the safe house. About 20 armed male terrorists and foreign fighters were identified at the location prior to the air strike.

The type of munitions used, and the time the air strike was conducted, mitigated the risk to civilians in the local area.

Unconfirmed reports alleged that Nasir recently became the al Qaeda in Iraq Emir of Karabilah, where he assumed control of all terrorist operations in the area. These operations include vehicle-borne improvised explosive device and individual explosive device bombings, mortar attacks, ambushes, and other direct attacks against Iraqi security and Coalition forces.

Nasir is also known to have al Qaeda connections in the region that include links to Syria, where all of his foreign fighters are funneled prior to their arrival in Iraq. Once in Iraq, they are sent to various groups and cells to attack Iraqi citizens, Iraqi security forces and Coalition forces.

Source : CPIC - Iraq

7 Abu Sayyaf men arrested in Tawi-Tawi

Seven suspected members of the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Group were captured during a military operation on their hideout in Bonggao, Tawi-Tawi, DZMM reported Monday.

Among those arrested was Abu Sayyaf sub-leader Jundan Jamalul, alias "Black Killer" who was hiding in Barangay Paniogan.

Also arrested after a brief shootout were Jundan Jain, 55; Nahalan Bagil, 27; Tonimal Paraca, 18; Haron Padan, 32; Tinan Jundan Usman, 50; Itting Jundan, 29 and Rizal Paraca, 31.

Recovered were eleven .38-caliber revolvers with six rounds of ammunition, 49 empty shells for a .45-caliber pistol, a firing pin for M016, ammunition for M-14 and M-16 rifles, gunsmith tools and equipment.

Combined elements of the Philippine National Police and Philippine Marines conducted the raid, according to Captain Geronimo Malabanan of the Philippine Navy.

Vice Admiral Ernesto de Leon commended members of the raiding team.

Pakistan arrests head of militant group accused of killing scores of Shiites
Asharq Al-Awsat / AP ^ | 9/28/05

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492952/posts

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP)- Pakistani security agents raided a home near the capital of Islamabad and arrested the head of an al-Qaeda linked outlawed militant group accused of killing hundreds of minority Shiites, a security official said Wednesday. Asif Chotto, the reputed head of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was captured with other suspects in Rawalpindi, a garrison city near Islamabad, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media. Chotto is believed to have masterminded major attacks against Shiites in recent years.......

including the organization's No. 2 man

No. 2 dead
New no. 2
New no. 2 dead
New new no. 2
New new no. 2 dead
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