The Terrorist Round-up for 4/29/06

4/29/06

[Straight Vermonter]

Getting it Done in Baquba

Iraqi army soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint during a citywide curfew in Baquba(AFP/Ali Yussef)

Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers patrol Baqouba after two days of fighting there between Iraqi government forces and insurgents (AP Photo/Mohammed Adnan)

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100 insurgents fail to capture Baqouba

Baquba

Clashes broke out Thursday in the ethnically and religiously mixed Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, with more than 30 people reported killed in intense fighting.

Witnesses in the region said that at least 100 insurgents attacked police stations and checkpoints in enclaves near the provincial capital of Baqouba, leaving at least a dozen dead. Gen. Adnan Bawi, provincial police commander, said the attackers came in six waves in a foiled attempt to take the city.

U.S. helicopter gunships launched airstrikes on suspected insurgent positions in the dense thicket of orchards surrounding the area, police said.

American military officials said 21 insurgents were killed and 43 captured in the fighting. At least seven members of the Iraqi security forces and two civilians were injured, a news release said.

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Java raid targets senior militant

Noordin Mohammad Top

Indonesian police seeking one of South East Asia's most wanted men have raided a house in Java, killing two militants.  Two others were arrested in the raid, in which police fought an early-morning gun battle in the village of Binangun.  But police failed to apprehend the target of their operation, Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top.

He is wanted in connection with a string of attacks across Indonesia, including the 2002 Bali attacks in which more than 200 people died.  He has also been accused of involvement in the 2003 attack on Jakarta's JW Marriott hotel and a bombing on the Australian embassy in 2004. Previously believed to be one of al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah's key financiers and recruiters, analysts now think Noordin may have broken away to form a new militant group.

The man thought to be his closest ally, bomb maker Azahari Husin, was killed in November after police tracked him down in east Java.

'Explosives experts'

Police spokesman Brig-Gen Anton Bahrul Alam said that police had been watching the house in Binangun for three months for the wanted man. "We thought that Noordin was there because he frequented the house," he said. But he was not there when the raid was launched.

"We are still looking for Noordin," he said.

Residents reported hearing gunfire and blasts coming from the site of the house after police surrounded it.

National police chief Gen Sutanto said that two suspected militants, Abdul Hadi and Jabir, were killed in the raid. The two men, said to be explosives experts, had been accused of involvement in the September 2004 Australian embassy attack in which nine people were killed.

Two other men were arrested, police said.

The BBC's Rachel Harvey says the operation will be seen as another significant breakthrough by Indonesian police in their ongoing efforts to capture the militants.

(Top is the leader of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad an offshoot of JI.  He is a top bombmaker as well as financier and indoctrinator.  This guy is one we really want to get. )

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US forces arrest two terrorist cameramen in N. Iraq

The US army arrested two cameramen working for armed groups in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a statement by the army said Saturday.

US soldiers "noticed the two men video taping their convoy as they conducted a security patrol in the city," the statement said.

It added, "As soon as the Soldiers began to move towards the camera crew, the two individuals scrambled in an attempt to flee. Effective maneuvering allowed the troops to box in the men without incident." According to the statement, weapons and an initiating improvised explosive device was found in the vehicle of the camera crew.

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Ten suspected Taliban held in Afghanistan

Afghan and coalition troops arrested at least 10 suspected Taliban militants in the southern Kandahar province during a large-scale operation on Friday.

The arrests took place in the Punjwai district, about 50 km southwest of Kandahar, Governor Haji Asadullah Khalid said.

"The government had information that the Taliban were hiding in this area, and with support of coalition forces at least ten Taliban were arrested," Khalid said.

Remnants of the toppled Taliban government have been stepping up attacks against coalition and Afghan forces across the country, particularly in southern provinces like Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand.

(Helmand province seems to be the new hotspot. I would have bet my next paycheck that the Taliban would have gone 100% after the new Canadian forces. Especially in light of some of the problems they have had since coming in theater.)

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Pakistan police arrest 3 militants

Police raided a suspected hide-out of an Islamic militant group before dawn Friday in southern Pakistan, arresting three men for their links with a 2002 bomb attack that killed one person, a police official said.

Officers also recovered pistols and hand grenades from the men during the raid in Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, said an area police chief, Raja Omar Khitab.

He said the men were from Harkatul Mujahedeen Al-Almi, an outlawed domestic group. Dozens of its activists and leaders have been arrested in recent years for alleged involvement in several acts of terrorism in Pakistan.

Khitab said the suspects had confessed to links with a 2002 bombing in Karachi that killed one man and wounded nine others. He gave no further details.

Harkatul Mujahedeen Al-Almi is also suspected of playing a key role in a failed assassination attempt against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Karachi in April 2002, reports the AP.

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Tajik Court Jails Four Alleged Islamic Militants

A court in Tajikistan's northern Sughd province today sentenced four alleged members of the outlawed Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir to jail terms of between five and 10 years.

The four were found guilty of inciting national and religious hatred and of calling for the violent overthrow of the country's constitutional order.

Court officials said this was the fourth trial this year of alleged Hizb ut-Tahrir members in Sughd.

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Asia-Pacific Making "Significant Progress" in Fighting Terrorism
Southeast Asia still "a major front," State Department report says
By Jane Morse

Southeast Asia remains a major front in the global War on Terror, according to the State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism 2005.

Indonesia and the Philippines suffered the most from terrorist activities, having lost citizens and tourists to bombings, according to the report released April 28.

Nonetheless, governments in Southeast Asia were "reliable partners" in the global War on Terror, although they do face "challenges," the State Department said. For example, the long, irregular coastlines of both Indonesia and the Philippines are hard to monitor and control.

Because terrorism in Southeast Asia is a transnational problem, capacity-building in a regional context is a priority, the report says. Institutes like the Southeast Asia Regional Center for Counterterrorism in Malaysia and the U.S.-Thailand Law Enforcement Academy in Bangkok continued to expand their activities to provide effective counterterrorism training to law enforcement officers throughout the region.

According to the report, Australia remained a key counterterrorism partner, providing critical assistance to other countries in the region as well as maintaining "a vigorous domestic counterterrorism posture."

Australian police arrested 18 suspected terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne in 2005, enacted comprehensive counterterrorism legislation and strengthened cooperative counterterrorism efforts with its regional partners and allies. Australia also announced a four-year regional counterterrorism assistance package aimed at countering terrorist links and movements among the countries of maritime Southeast Asia.

The Indonesian government took "strong steps to counter the threats posed by the regional terrorist network Jemaah Islamiya (JI), which has ties to al-Qaida," the report says. It jailed JI Emir Abu Bakar Ba'asyir for his involvement in the 2002 Bali bomb attacks that killed 20 people and injured more than 120. Indonesian police also located and killed in a raid the Malaysian bomb maker Azahari bin Husin.

The government of Thailand, threatened by separatist violence in its Muslim-majority provinces in the south, has maintained an "unwavering commitment to domestic and international counterterrorism efforts," the report says.

"There is no evidence of a direct connection between militants in southern Thailand and international terrorist organizations such as JI and al-Qaida," the report says. "There is concern, however, that these groups may attempt to capitalize on the increasingly violent situation for their own purposes."

Also earning praise for their counterterrorism efforts were Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia and China.

China -- whose citizens have been victims of terrorist acts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Jordan -- is increasing its efforts to build its domestic counterterrorism capabilities with a focus on improving security for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the report says.

The State Department prepares the annual Country Reports on Terrorism to meet a congressional requirement for an assessment for countries and groups meeting the criteria set by U.S. law as well as to summarize key developments in the international campaign against terrorism.

The full text of the report is available on the State Department Web site, as is the regional overview (PDF, 25 pages) of East Asia and the Pacific.

For more information on U.S. policies, see Response to Terrorism and East Asia and the Pacific.

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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Utah arrest could have al-Qaida tie
By Geoffrey Fattah and Ben Winslow

Sharif Omar

The brother of a man suspected of ties to the al-Qaida terrorist group has been arrested in Utah and indicted on charges of loan fraud and money laundering.

The question that federal authorities are trying to answer is whether Sharif Omar funneled some of that money to support terrorist activities. Omar is the brother of Shawqi Omar, who is being investigated for ties to al-Qaida in Iraq.

"We do have some indications of where the money went," said Greg Bretzing, a special agent with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Utah. "We know some went to Jordan overseas and a lot went to personal accounts. What exactly it was spent on or what happened to it overseas is still under investigation."

Sharif Omar, 37, of Cottonwood Heights, appeared Thursday in U.S. District Court on four counts of bank fraud and money laundering. Family members looked on as U.S. marshals led Omar, in chains and wearing a red Salt Lake County Jail jumpsuit, into the courtroom. During the brief hearing, U.S. District Magistrate Judge David Nuffer ordered Omar released from custody, pending trial.

Asked if there were any terrorist ties between his brothers and al-Qaida, Gus Omar told the Deseret Morning News, "None whatsoever."

"The money was coming from Jordan, not going there," he said as he walked quickly out of court Thursday.

Emotions ran high outside the federal courthouse just before the hearing as family members scuffled with a Deseret Morning News photographer, threatening to hit him. Federal Protective Services (a division of the Department of Homeland Security) and Salt Lake City Police were investigating the altercation Thursday.

Later, a member of Omar's family came outside the courthouse to apologize to news photographers, saying the family had been under a lot of stress since Sharif Omar's arrest.

According to grand jury indictments handed up in October 2005 and unsealed this week, Omar and his brother-in-law, Ahmad Abudan, 35, of Chula Vista, Calif., took part in an auto loan fraud scheme that yielded $40,000. That money, according to officials, was then sent to a bank in the country of Jordan.

More..

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U.S. puts Pakistani Islamist charity on terror list

The United States put two Pakistani charities on its terrorist list on Friday, saying they were fronts for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), one of the most feared Islamist militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

The State Department announced that it was freezing assets in the United States belonging to Jamaat ud-Dawa and one of its affiliates, Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq.

Jamaat ud-Dawa has been prominent in providing relief after an earthquake killed over 73,000 people and left around three million destitute in Kashmir and northwest Pakistan in October.

Lashkar, which itself grew out of an anti-U.S. Sunni Muslim missionary group, was put on the U.S. terrorist list in 2001. It has been blamed for several violent attacks in India.

It was also sanctioned by a U.N. committee on terrorism for its association with al Qaeda, though security analysts say that Lashkar has maintained less strong linkages with Osama bin Laden's network than several other Pakistan jihadi movements.

When Lashkar was banned by the Pakistani government, its leadership simply claimed they were members of Jamaat ud-Dawa and that Lashkar-e-Taiba only operated in Indian-held Kashmir.

Lashkar's founder, Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, is head of Jamaat ud-Dawa.

The State Department's move prompted charity spokesman Mohammad Yahya Mujahid to say: "It is an unjustified and unjust decision against an organisation which has been providing relief to needy people all over the world."

More..

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Militant commander arrested in Afghanistan

Afghan Army has claimed arresting a former jihadi commander and opponent of the present government in eastern parts of the country.

Commander Najibullah was arrested in the Monogay area of the mountainous Kunar province, where the US and Afghan forces are carrying out an anti-insurgents operation "Mountain Lion" over the past two weeks.

Afghan Defence Ministry's spokesman Zahir Azimi, in a statement released on Thursday evening, said the commander was arrested by their units in a raid. He was said to be one of the close aides of Gul Badin Hekmatyar, former mujahideen prime minister and warlord, who is on top of the US' list of "most wanted men".

Najibullah was a deputy minister during Taliban era in Kabul. He was hiding and allegedly taking part in anti-government insurgency in the area, said the statement. It added the man was being investigated and they were expecting valuable information about Gul Badin and other fugitive leaders.

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Al Qaeda Terrorist Leader in Samarra Killed in Assault

Coalition forces killed the top al Qaeda terrorist in Samarra today after tracking him to a house north of the city. Hamadi 'Abd al-Tahki al-Nissani was known as the al Qaeda "emir" of Samarra, meaning he was in a position of high leadership.

Based on intelligence reports, troops tracked the wanted terrorist and two others to a location about 15 kilometers north of Samarra. As they assaulted the house where the three men were known to be hiding, Nissani, who was armed, attempted to flee and was killed, U.S. officials said.

The ground troops also killed the other two armed terrorists inside the house. One, who had grenades strapped around his torso and one in his hand, was killed as he attempted to throw a grenade.

In the terrorists' car, parked next to the house, were a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher, multiple rockets, explosives, AK-47 assault rifles, ammunition, grenades, and a shotgun. The cache was destroyed on site.

Coalition forces also raided another related location, which resulted in the wounding and detention of one armed suspect. The troops found a suicide vest located in the front seat of his car along with an AK-47, which the suspect was carrying. The weapon and vest were destroyed. The injured suspect was medically evacuated for further treatment. His current condition is unknown. Civilians were present at both houses, but were not injured, U.S. military officials reported.

More..

[Straight Vermonter]

Let me know if you want on/off the terrorist roundup ping list

[Straight Vermonter]

Saturday good news ping.

[madconserv]

HEE HEE HE

It's time to pull out of Iraq, we're loosing the war on terror, the sky is falling, run for your lives's!\sarc

[Cap Huff]

"The US army arrested two cameramen working for armed groups in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul . . ."

Almost sound like CNN or BBC cameramen . . .

[FreedomPoster]

Al-reuters, was my thought.

[PGalt]

Great news! Every roundup is great news. Thanks SV.

[csvset]

Re Sharif Omar and his clan of fraudsters. I have to wonder, are they legal resisidents ? If not, deport the whole clan.

[Straight Vermonter]

At first I thought they had arrested this guy:

[Dog]

Coalition forces also raided another related location, which resulted in the wounding and detention of one armed suspect. The troops found a suicide vest located in the front seat of his car along with an AK-47, which the suspect was carrying. The weapon and vest were destroyed. The injured suspect was medically evacuated for further treatment. His current condition is unknown. Civilians were present at both houses, but were not injured, U.S. military officials reported.

Interesting...no time frame or location given

[babydoll22]

Please add me to your ping list.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for the good news ping.

"American military officials said 21 insurgents were killed and 43 captured in the fighting. At least seven members of the Iraqi security forces and two civilians were injured, a news release said."

So much for the Z Pig's claims about how the Americans and our Iraqi allies have been defeated.

[DTogo]

Excellent news! Excellent post, thanks!

[Valin]

Java raid targets senior militant

Indonesian police seeking one of South East Asia's most wanted men have raided a house in Java, killing two militants. Two others were arrested in the raid, in which police fought an early-morning gun battle in the village of Binangun. But police failed to apprehend the target of their operation, Malaysian fugitive Noordin Mohammad Top

Wonder if he was informed of the raid by someone inside the police?

[Valin]

Asked if there were any terrorist ties between his brothers and al-Qaida, Gus Omar told the Deseret Morning News, "None whatsoever."


According to grand jury indictments handed up in October 2005 and unsealed this week, Omar and his brother-in-law, Ahmad Abudan, 35, of Chula Vista, Calif., took part in an auto loan fraud scheme that yielded $40,000.
______________________________
Breaking: A Utah link to terrorism?
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:6f4gl6Q1N3sJ:www.sltrib.com/ci_3755851+%22Gus+Omar%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8


Regardless of the allegations in Iraq, Gus Omar believes the FBI is manufacturing a connection between Shawqi Omar's alleged terrorist actions and the family's U.S. business holdings.
"There is no connection," said Gus Omar, who works at a car dealership in Murray owned by the recently arrested Omar brothers.

(Please click on link for more)