Manhunt as terror suspect escapes control order
Wednesday January 17, 2007
The home secretary, John Reid, faced fresh embarrassment last night when he revealed that an urgent police manhunt had begun for a suspected terrorist who disappeared within four days of being placed on an anti-terror control order. The man, who has gone missing within the past fortnight, is a British citizen who was living in the Greater Manchester area. It is believed he wanted to travel abroad, possibly to Iraq, for "terrorism-related purposes".
He is the third suspected terrorist to go on the run out of 19 who have had control orders - amounting to virtual house arrest with 24-hour surveillance by the security services - imposed upon them. Mr Reid informed MPs in October that the other two, one an Iraqi and the other a British citizen, were missing.
There were reports last night that the man had sought sanctuary in a mosque after failing to show up at a local police station to surrender his passport.
It was claimed that police, who rarely enter mosques, held discussions with community leaders linked to the mosque while officers from Greater Manchester were stationed outside. The suspect is understood to have escaped from the mosque through a back entrance while these talks were taking place.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,,1992019,00.html
Swede questioned about Stockholm mosque
16th January 2007
Ahmed Essafri, the Swedish citizen of Moroccan descent arrested in Morocco on December 25th, is reported to have spent ten days in a prison cell with his hands and feet bound and his eyes blindfolded. Moroccan security services have been questioning him about a mosque in the Brandbergen suburb of Stockholm, Dagens Nyheter reports.
The newspaper spoke to Essafri's daughter after the family visited him in the Moroccan jail where he is being held. "When he was arrested he was led away with his hands and feet tied and with a blindfold on. He does not know where he was taken but he thinks it was far underground," she told Dagens Nyheter. He is then reported to have spent the following ten days bound, blindfolded and isolated in a small cell. Security services are said to have interrogated him around the clock.
"The questions were all just about Sweden, about a mosque in Brandbergen, about who went there, what they did and what they talked about," said Essafri's daughter. He was also quizzed about another Swede of Moroccan origin, who had his assets frozen by the US Finance Department in early December 2006.
The 41-year-old man was described by the American authorities as having been an "undisputed leader for an extremist group" associated with a Muslim community in the same Stockholm suburb. These suspicions have not led to any charges being brought against the man in Sweden.
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Pakistan is buying 700 air-to-air missiles made by US defence group Raytheon for 284 million dollars, the company said on Monday. Pakistan is purchasing 500 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM), the largest international order for this weapon, and 200 short-range AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, Raytheon said in a statement.
Delivery of the AMRAAM arsenal will start in 2008 and continue through 2011, it said. AMRAAM, from a joint US Air Force and Navy program, are used by the armed forces of 32 countries, while 20 countries have AIM-9M Sidewinder missiles, the statement said.
Pakistan has signed a letter of offer and acceptance for the 700 missiles, it said. “The combined 284 million dollar procurement augments Pakistan’s established inventory and will provide the bulk of the air-to-air fire power of the Pakistan Air Force,” the statement said.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\01\17\story_17-1-2007_pg7_21
Israel’s pilot ID system to foil Sept 11-style attacks
1/17/07
TEL AVIV — Israel will this year issue all commercial airlines that fly to its territory with a locally invented pilot identification system designed to prevent September 11-style suicide attacks, Israeli officials said yesterday. Planes without the “Code Positive” system, which will be distributed free of charge as of May, will be turned back from Israeli airspace on pain of being shot down, an official said. Israel is widely considered to have the world’s most sophisticated aviation security. Such expertise has been in high demand abroad since Al Qaeda squads hijacked American commuter jets and rammed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The hijackers are assumed to have killed the pilots.
Danny Shenar, head of security at the Transportation Ministry, described Code Positive as a credit card-size device that is personally and exclusively assigned to each pilot, and carried aboard their flights. “Using this card, it will be possible to verify that the person flying the aircraft is indeed the person qualified to fly it,” Shenar told Israel's Army Radio. “This system was developed to prevent aviation mega-terror over Israel, in the form of a plane coming through one of the borders and crashing into a target in Israel,” he said. “The system should be operational by the end of the year.” Code Positive was developed by Israeli firm Elbit Systems Ltd. Shenar declined to elaborate on the specific technology involved for security reasons.
But he said it would be impossible for a hijacker to force a pilot to hand over identifying details, or otherwise pose as a legitimate member of the flight crew. “You can’t bluff this system,” Shenar said. It was unclear from his remarks whether the system would send an alert if a pilot remained at the controls but was forced to follow hijackers' orders. The US government inquiry into the September 11 attacks said ground radio overheard orders apparently given by hijackers to their captive passengers over aircraft public address systems.
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