ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani helicopter gunships attacked a suspected al-Qaida hide-out in forest near the Afghan border Tuesday, killing up to 10 people and sparking anger among tribesmen who said the dead were woodcutters, not terrorists.
The raid in South Waziristan came as Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Afghanistan and as pressure grew on Pakistan to crack down on militants launching attacks across the frontier.
Pakistan's army said intelligence sources confirmed the presence of 25 to 30 militants, including four or five unidentified al-Qaida terrorists, occupying five compounds in the area of Zamzola — a village about two miles from the frontier.
Excerpted
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070116/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida
Philippine troops overrun Muslim militant camp on southern island
January 16, 2007
MANILA, Philippines: Troops battled al-Qaida-linked Muslim extremists on a southern Philippine island, capturing a rebel camp and killing one militant, officials said Tuesday. Army soldiers fought 60 Abu Sayyaf members in mountainous Talipao town on Jolo island on Monday, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro said. Talipao is 950 kilometers (590 miles) south of Manila.
The clash with the group of Abu Solaiman, a senior Abu Sayyaf leader on a U.S. list of terrorists, also left two soldiers wounded. "We believe that Abu Solaiman was wounded," Bacarro added without elaborating. The U.S. government is offering a U.S.$5 million (€3.86 million) reward for Solaiman's capture. Bacarro said troops overran the militant's jungle camp, where soldiers found 17 bunkers and bomb-making tools.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/01/16/asia/AS-GEN-Philippines-Abu-Sayyaf.php
Russian missiles delivered to Iran
Tue Jan 16, 2007 7
MOSCOW - Russia has delivered new anti-aircraft missile systems to Iran and will consider further requests by Tehran for defensive weapons, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday.
"We have supplied the modern short-range anti-aircraft systems TOR-M1 in accordance with our contracts," Ivanov told reporters. "Iran is not under sanctions and if it wants to buy defensive ... equipment for its armed forces then why not?"
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SAN FRANCISCO - A federal appeals court on Tuesday threw out the sentence of a man who was convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport at the turn of the millennium.
Ahmed Ressam was arrested near the U.S.-Canadian border in December 1999 after customs agents found 124 pounds of explosives in the trunk of his car. Prosecutors said he was intent on bombing the airport on the eve of the millennium. The arrest raised fears of terrorism attacks and prompted the cancellation of millennium celebrations at Seattle's Space Needle. p>Ressam was sentenced to 22 years in prison after being convicted off all nine charges. On Tuesday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed his conviction on one of the charges and sent the case back to a lower court to issue a new sentence and explain the rationale behind the original 22-year term.
The decision does not necessarily mean Ressam will get a shorter term. Judges are given wide latitude to sentence defendants as they see fit. After his conviction in 2001, Ressam began cooperating with authorities in hopes of winning a reduced sentence. Over the next two years, according to court documents, he provided information on more than 100 potential terrorists and testified against coconspirator Moktar Haouari and Sept. 11 plotter Mounir el-Motassadeq.
Ressam told authorities he saw Zacarias Moussaoui at a training camp in Afghanistan in 1998. He also told investigators about the type of shoe bomb Richard Reid attempted to detonate on a U.S.-bound airline flight in 2001, and provided information about a network of Algerian terrorists in Europe.
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour of Seattle, who sentenced Ressam, said the information he provided was "startlingly helpful." But Ressam's cooperation came to a halt by early 2003, resulting in charges being dropped against two other coconspirators. His lawyers said years of solitary confinement, broken by periods of intense interrogation, had taken their toll on his mental health and corrupted his memory.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070116/ap_on_re_us/millennium_terror_3