Algiers, 22 Jan. - Algeria's Salafite Group for Preaching and Compat (GSPC), a terror group that has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, has posted a video on the internet of what it claims was its latest attack. The video, which was released on Sunday, shows the bomb attack on a bus carrying employees of a US oil company, a subsidiary of Halliburton. The attack on 10 December killed two people, an Algerian and a Lebanese, and wounded another eight, including a US citizen and a Briton.
The video showed that the militant group used satellite pictures and other advanced technology to carry out the attack.
Excerpted
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=
Spain: Non-Renewal Of Muslim Soldiers' Contracts Sparks Row
Ceuta, 22 Jan. - The army's decision not to renew the contracts of a number of minority Muslim soldiers deployed in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the north Moroccan coast - sparking a row - was based on military intelligence, according to El Pais daily. The intelligence services suspect that a number of the soldiers who have been "let go" were in contact with radicals from cells smashed by anti-terror police in December in an operation that led to eleven arrests, the paper reports.
There are fifteen Muslim soldiers serving in Ceuta whose contracts have not been renewed, although the Democratic Union of Ceuta (UDCE) party, a much higher number of troops are involved. UDCE leader Mohammed Ali, has been distributing leaflets outside Ceuta's mosque, slamming "the persecution of Spanish Muslim soldiers" on the basis of "classified intelligence."
The army has denied it is guilty of any form of discrimination and says that half of the soldiers whose contracts were not extended are Roman Catholic.
Around 30 percent of the 2,300 soldiers stationed in Ceuta are Muslims. Last week, defence minister Jose Antonio Alonso reiterated that there is no discrimination in the Spanish army and said there is no need for concern over the increase in the numbers of Muslim soldiers serving in Ceuta and the other enclave in Morocco, Melilla. "The army does not ask anyone what their religion is," Alfonso was quoted as saying.
Police suspect the 11 people arrested on 12 December in Ceuta during 'Operation Duna' have ties to a Moroccan group that has been linked to the deadly 11 March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in the Spanish capital, Madrid's Atocha station, as well as to the May 2003 attacks in Casablanca, Morocco, El Pais reported.
In a video posted to Internet sites in December, al-Qaeda's second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri called on Muslims to rise up against Spain's "occupation" of Ceuta and Melilla and the "occupation of other Muslim lands by non-Muslim governments." Local press had already reported the presence of Islamic extremist operatives in Ceuta and Melilla ready to wage Jihad.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.378534475&par=0
IRAN: WOMAN, TWO CHILDREN BLOCKED AT MOSCOW AIRPORT
Tehran, 22 Jan. - Zahra Kamalfar and her two children have reportedly been living for the past 130 days at Moscow's international airport after they were denied entrance in the country and their political asylum application was rejected. Russian authorities have given them no assistance, reports said Monday.
Kamalfar reportedly decided to leave Iran after her husband disappeared a year ago. A political opponent of the Iranian government like her husband, Kamalfar also spent eight months in jail in 2004 for taking part in a demonstration, reports say.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.378682545&par=0