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Man arrested for links to Islamic terrorism (Spain)
24 January 2007
BARCELONA — A Moroccan man was arrested on Wednesday for alleged links to an Islamic terrorist organisation. Abdellatif Nekkavi alleged sent cash to help the 'yihad' in Iraq.
The operation, which is ongoing, has involved raids on a number of addresses in the Badalona area of Barcelona. It is the latest arrest in an operation against alleged sympathisers who are sending money and false documenation to help the insurgency against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Excerpted
http://www.expatica.com/actual/article.asp?subchannel_id=81&story_id=35758
A suicide bomber on Monday rammed his explosives-laden car into a military convoy near Mirali, North Waziristan Agency, killing four security personnel and a woman, and injuring 23, including 20 soldiers, officials and eyewitnesses said. The incident occurred at the Khajori checkpoint, about two kilometres east of Mirali town, when a joint convoy of the army and paramilitary force was heading from the Bannu Garrison to Miramshah, the restive region’s administrative headquarters.
A militant commander in the neighbouring South Waziristan Agency, Baitullah Mehsud, had vowed last week to avenge the Hamzola air strike in which over 10 people were killed and eight others wounded. Witnesses said that three military vehicles and a passenger coach were also damaged in the first deadly attack since the government and Taliban-backed tribal insurgents signed a peace agreement on Sept 5, 2006. Army and paramilitary troops had vacated the Khajori checkpoint as per condition of the peace deal and it is now managed by members of the Khasaddar force.
Militants in the North Waziristan promptly denounced the incident and claimed they were not involved in the attack. A statement issued from the security office of the Taliban, North Waziristan, said: “We (Taliban) have no hand in the bomb attack and we want to keep the peace agreement intact and the government should also act upon the deal”.
Excerpted
http://www.dawn.com/2007/01/23/top1.htm
UK airline bomb suspects "radicalized in weeks"
Wed Jan 24, 2007
LONDON - A group of British Muslims suspected of plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners flying from Britain had been radicalized in just weeks or months, Britain's top police officer said on Wednesday.
British detectives announced last August they had foiled a suicide bomb plot to blow up planes using liquid explosives. Officers have charged 15 people over the suspected plot with offences including conspiracy to murder and planning acts of terrorism. The suspects are due to go on trial next year.
"One of the really shocking things ... is the apparent speed with which young, reasonably affluent, some reasonably well-educated, British-born people were converted," London police chief Ian Blair told a conference on Islamophobia. He said the suspects had been converted "from what would appear to be ordinary lives in a matter of some weeks and months, not years, to a position where they were allegedly prepared to commit suicide and murder thousands of people."
British authorities are trying to understand what has caused a growth in extremism among the country's 1.8 million Muslims, dramatically exemplified by the July 2005 suicide bomb attacks on London's transport system by four British Islamists who killed themselves and 52 other people.
Excerpted
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070124/wl_nm/britain_security_dc_1