ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A man was arrested on explosives charges Thursday night after authorities responded to a fire inside the bedroom of an Orange County home, which led to the discovery of jars of chemicals, guns, swords and terrorism-related books, according to a charging affidavit.
Abram Smith, 20, was arrested on charges of possession of explosives and attempting to make a destructive device. FBI agents, police and hazmat teams swarmed a house in which Smith lives with his parents in the 3300 block of North Orange Avenue near Florida Hospital in Orlando after the fire broke out.
While checking the home, police found a box that appeared to contain fireworks and mortar-type shells, the affidavit said. An officer noted that several unidentified devices appeared to be electrical in nature and homemade. A mattress inside the house had fire damage and a PVC pipe was capped on both ends and wired to an unidentified device that appeared to be a pipe bomb, the report said. Officers also found two long-guns that appeared to be loaded, several swords and jars of chemicals, according to the report.
Some of the glass jars had handwritten labels reading ammonium nitrate, sulfur and nitric acid, the affidavit said. Several other containers had white powders and granular materials, according to the report. As the house was being cleared, a military-style hand grenade was found on the floor of a closet, the report said.
Excerpted
http://www.local6.com/firstnews/11345473/detail.html
Two rockets fired in Quetta
Friday, March 23, 2007
QUETTA: Two rockets were fired in the provincial capital’s cantonment area on Thursday night. One of the rockets hit the Radio Pakistan building, disrupting the supply of electricity to the entire locality.
Excerpted
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007/03/23/story_23-3-2007_pg7_3
Pakistani al-Qaeda camps destroyed
March 22 2007
A week of fighting between al-Qaeda loyalists and tribal militants in a remote Pakistani border region has almost completely destroyed camps used by a leading terrorist from Uzbekistan, Pakistani intelligence officials claimed on Thursday.
The claim, if true, could mark not only a success in Pakistan’s war against militants hiding on its soil, but could also vindicate Pakistan’s position on two controversial agreements signed by the government with tribal elders in the region bordering Afghanistan. General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s military ruler, last year ordered his troops home from the North Waziristan border region after deals that would see local tribal elders policing the region themselves. The move has been widely criticised as giving freer rein for militants to launch cross-border attacks into Afghanistan on US and Nato forces.
Pakistani intelligence officials, however, claimed on Thursday, after a week of fighting that left more than 100 people dead, the infrastructure used by loyalists of Tahir Yuldashev, the pro al-Qaeda militant, had been wiped out. More than half the people killed so far were said to be Uzbek Islamists who took refuge on the Pakistani side of the border after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.
“There’s no way to confirm if Yuldashev himself may be dead. But what I know for certain is that his group has suffered heavy casualties,” said one Pakistani intelligence official. “It’s hard to imagine if the Uzbeks have any firepower remaining to carry on in the tribal areas”.
Western diplomats warned that there was no way of independently confirming the claim. “Since the Pakistanis do not let anyone from the outside to freely venture around the tribal areas, it’s impossible to know what is happening,” said one.
Abdul Sattar, Pakistan’s former foreign minister, said the challenge of militancy in the tribal areas was too complex to be resolved quickly. “The people of the tribal area are fed up of militants present among them. But the militants have had a long-term presence in the tribal areas. You can’t get rid of them in one go.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c8746d14-d895-11db-a759-000b5df10621.html
FBI, Hazmat Teams Swarm Orlando Home After Fire
... but it's not terror-related, I'm sure they'll say, so just move along ...
British police began questioning three men suspected in plotting three suicide bombings in July 2005 which killed 52 people and wounded over 700 in London subway and a bus.
Two of the suspects, aged 23 and 30, were arrested shortly yesterday at Manchester airport. The third, aged 26, was arrested in Beeston, a suburb of Leeds, same afternoon. Beeston, a working-class area of Leeds, was home to three of the 2005 bombers.
One of the three arrested, Mohammed Shakil, 30, is a taxi driver and father of three from Beeston. He quit his job saying that he was going to Pakistan for some time to deal with family problems. He was arrested at Manchester Airport as he prepared to board a flight to Pakistan, London's Metropolitan Police said. Police sources indicated that the three men arrested were not "bomb makers", although they were suspected of providing financial support and accommodation to the bombers, and of having knowledge of the attacks on three London tube trains and a bus.
Excerpted
http://www.torontodailynews.com/index.php/WorldNews/2007032306arrested-bombings
Court affirms former professor's contempt citation
RICHMOND, Va. A federal appeals court Richmond today affirmed a civil contempt ruling against a former professor who refused to testify in front of a federal grand jury investigating Islamic charities in northern Virginia.
Sami al-Arian taught computer science at the University of South Florida but is now in a North Carolina federal prison. He claimed that a plea agreement in Florida exempts him from testifying before the grand jury in Alexandria. A three-judge panel of the Fourth U-S Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously rejected that argument.
Prosecutors accused al-Arian of being a leader of a terrorist group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad. After a six-month trial ended in an acquittal on some counts and a hung jury on others, al-Arian struck a plea bargain last May and admitted to conspiring to aid Palestinian Islamic Jihad. His prison sentence was extended indefinitely after he refused to testify before the grand jury.
http://www.wdbj7.com/Global/story.asp?S=6272777&nav=menu368_2