Palestinian security arrested seven Iranian citizens during a raid at the Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold in Gaza City, a security official said, and another committed suicide during the raid. The raid came during a large-scale assault by Fatah-affiliated gunmen on the university. A Hamas official denied the claim and said there were no Iranian citizens at the university.
The raid came at the end of a day of clashes that collapsed a three-day truce between the warring factions. Iran has supplied Hamas with funds, but there have been no previous claims of Iranians working with Hamas in Gaza.
http://www.eecho.ie/news/bstory.asp?j=209070604&p=zx9x7y3yx&n=209071364
U.S. Special Forces using Mullah Omar's compound in Afghanistan to plan missions
February 1, 2007
FIREBASE MAHOLIC, Afghanistan: Osama bin Laden built it. Taliban leader Mullah Omar lived in it. But today it's men of the U.S. Army's Special Forces who call it home.
Firebase Maholic, a sprawling and spacious compound on the outskirts of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, is plush living by typical standards of the Special Forces, known as the Green Berets. There's plenty of serious work here. A constant roar of shooting-range gunfire bounces off a towering granite peak behind the complex. Military missions are planned here. And Special Forces soldiers recently started training 130 new Afghan recruits for the country's fledgling auxiliary police force.
"The irony of this is that the home of the (Taliban's) supreme leader is being used to train forces whose mission it is to destroy the force he created," said Rusty, the team leader of a Special Forces detachment. Teams usually consist of 12 members. Rusty, like all Green Beret soldiers in the field, is not allowed to be fully identified.
Excerpted
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/02/asia/AS-GEN-Afghan-Mullah-Omar-Compound.php
Saudi police seize armed man entering Mecca mosque
Fri Feb 2, 2007
RIYADH - Saudi police arrested a man with weapons hidden under his clothes as he tried to enter the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Islam's holiest site, a Saudi security official said on Friday.
Police stopped the man late on Thursday because he appeared to be acting strangely. He was carrying a revolver and a sub-machinegun under his clothes, and was wearing what appeared to be a suicide belt but which later proved to be fake. The man's nationality was not clear.
Militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda launched a campaign to topple the U.S.-allied Saudi monarchy in 2003. Sunni-Shi'ite Muslim violence in Iraq and Lebanon has raised fears of sectarian strife across the region. Militants stormed the Grand Mosque in Mecca in 1979, in a rebellion that was crushed two weeks later.