Algiers - Algeria is deploying extra security forces amid fears that Al-Qaeda is planning a wave of suicide attacks against police stations and foreign targets during the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Foreign embassies in the capital, Algiers, have asked employees not to venture outside central areas of the city during Ramadan, to avoid being caught up in any such attack, according to the daily, Ech-Chourouk. Areas believed to be at high risk of suicide attacks are poor neighbourhoods in south Algiers, where most suicide bombers are reportedly recruited.
Excerpted
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Religion/?id=1.0.2451805743
Wanted: Living terror legend
3/31/08
One of world's most wanted terrorists, author of al-Qaeda bomb-making manual, is only known by photo of his hands. International intelligence community believes man responsible for killing, maiming hundreds of people was born in Palestinian territories .
"I know this bomb from somewhere," mumbled the intelligence expert studying recent photos from a Damascus blast. After racking his brain and going through some files trying to remember where he had seen a combination of explosives rigged to gas tanks, it finally hit him – it was the trademark of Saif al-Din ("Sword of the Faith") – one of the world's most notorious and wanted terrorists to date.
In September of 2006, an al-Qaeda affiliated terror group attempted to carry out an attack on the US Embassy in Damascus. The footage taken of the intended scene included photos of the mass explosive device, which was placed in the most structurally-vulnerable point of the building; waiting to bring it down on its inhabitants. The footage left no room for error – the device was one of the explosives developed for al-Qaeda by Saif al-Din. It was the vigilance of the Syrian and American security guards that prevented a catastrophe, saving dozens of lives, if not more.
Saif al-Din has been the focus of a worldwide manhunt for the past two years, with dismal results. The international intelligence community doesn't even know what he looks like and all they have to go on is a picture of his hands. In a world that allows one to run his whole life through an online browser, essentially never leaving the house, one cannot be too surprised that the man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan is little more than a virtual character in cyberspace.
Excerpted
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3590179,00.html
“...known only by photo of his hands.”
That’s interesting.