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China Warns of Military Clash with Taiwan by 2008

2 hours, 55 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By John Ruwitch

BEIJING (Reuters) - Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian risks war with China if he pushes for a new constitution by 2008, but can guarantee security if he recognizes the island as part of China, the China Daily on Friday quoted a top official as saying.

The island's security lies not in building up an arsenal of missiles and submarines but in offering assurances that Taiwan is not planning to declare independence, Vice Minister of the Taiwan Affairs Office Wang Zaixi told the newspaper.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=2&u=/nm/20040730/wl_nm/china_taiwan_dc

World - Reuters

Karachi Put on Alert Against Suicide Bombers

2 hours, 21 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!

KARACHI (Reuters) - Security forces in Pakistan's volatile port city of Karachi have been put on high alert because of fears of suicide attacks by Islamic militants on mosques during Friday prayers.

Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said intelligence agencies feared the banned extremist Sunni Muslim group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, was planning suicide bomb attacks on Shi'ite mosques

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=586&e=5&u=/nm/20040730/wl_nm/pakistan_security_dc

Islamists Warn Europe Again After Bin Laden Truce (NOT AGAIN)

2 hours, 22 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

DUBAI (Reuters) - Islamists claiming links to al Qaeda issued another threat Friday against European countries for supporting the policies of President Bush (news - web sites).

"We will not hesitate to shed blood in all parts of Europe, in Rome and other places, as long as countries move in the orbit of the pinnacle of unbelief, America," the statement by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=4&u=/nm/20040730/ts_nm/security_europe_militants_dc

Top Al Qaeda Men Resists Pakistani Interrogators

2 hours, 13 minutes ago Add Top Stories - Reuters to My Yahoo!

By Zeeshan Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A top al Qaeda operative, one of the world's most wanted men with a multi-million-dollar price on his head, is resisting questioning by Pakistani interrogators seeking clues to the hiding place of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), officials said Friday. Investigators are scouring a computer and several disks seized when they captured Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and 13 others after a 14-hour gunbattle with security forces at the weekend in the city of Gujarat, 110 miles southeast of Islamabad, intelligence sources told Reuters Friday.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&e=5&u=/nm/20040730/ts_nm/security_qaeda_pakistan_dc

AQ operations are tightly "compartmentalized".
Ghailani was one of the seven listed on the FBI national alert a few months ago.
The issue is not his pecking order on the AQ food chain but what does he know?

If he has general knowledge of the current situation, that is one thing.
(And the fact he was hiding out in Pakistan rather than here tends to indicate that)
But if he has specific knowledge on an operation(s) currently underway . . .
His capture will either accelerate if not trigger it (use it or lose it)
Or (hopefully) disrupt the operation and force them to go to ground

Same goes for Zarqawi or any other "big fish"
I guess it is always "good news/bad news"

Just a thought.