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Posted on 03/01/2007 8:28:33 PM PST by nwctwx
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Correcting title in post no. 1159:
"Iraqi, Coalition Forces Kill, Capture Terrorists"
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=32529
"Joint Chiefs Chairman Optimistic About Relations With China"
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
TOKYO, March 21, 2007
RECAP:
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200703/NAT20070319b.html
CNS NEWS.com: Washington - "CHINA EDGING US IN ESPIONAGE, AUTHOR SAYS" by Kevin Mooney
(March 19, 2007)
NOTE: The following text is a quote:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/015738.php
March 21, 2007
Somalia: crowd chants "Allahu akbar," pelts corpses with stones
Mutilation of corpses is forbidden in Islam, except when it isn't. At the time of the Fallujah incidents some Islamic authorities justified the practice on Islamic grounds.
"Bodies dragged, burned as Mogadishu battles rage," from Reuters, with thanks to Greg:
MOGADISHU, Somalia (Reuters) -- Somali insurgents dragged soldiers' bodies through the streets of Mogadishu before burning them on Wednesday in heavy fighting that killed at least 13 people and injured scores more, witnesses said.
The corpses of five soldiers -- either from the Somali government army or their Ethiopian allies -- were desecrated during some of the worst clashes in the lawless capital since the interim government took over in December, witnesses said.
In one place, men dragged two semi-naked corpses by the feet while members of a crowd chanting "God is Great" kicked and pelted them with stones, a Reuters reporter said.
Posted by Robert at March 21, 2007 12:45 PM
stepping back in time...
---
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/001504.php
April 09, 2004
Al-Qaida calls for more mutilations
It worked before
This is understandable. After all, mutilations worked in Mogadishu: Bill Clinton pulled the American troops out of Somalia after the Black Hawk incident. Osama has explicitly stated that he saw this as evidence that the Americans were weak-willed and could be defeated. So why shouldn't Iraqi jihadists try the same thing in Iraq? From WND:
WASHINGTON – The latest communique from al-Qaida calls for assassinations of world leaders, kidnappings and mutilation attacks like those carried out in Fallujah and Mogadishu, according to a translation and analysis by the Northeast Intelligence Network.
The communication came in the form of the 14th edition of the Voice of Jihad, an online publication believed to be produced by Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.
The communique offers support for the murders of four U.S. civilians in Fallujah, Iraq, who were providing security for food deliveries in the violent Sunni triangle. They were killed by militants, their bodies dismembered, burned and hanged on display.
The four American employees of a private U.S. security firm who were killed and mutilated in Iraq last week were identified as highly trained former American military troops.
The al-Qaida report linked the mutilation deaths with those of Army Rangers in Mogadishu in 1993 – deaths that resulted in the withdrawal of U.S. troops from that African nation. Bin Laden, according to some intelligence sources, was in charge of operational planning for that attack.
The Voice of Jihad encourages "holy warriors" to repeat such attacks until the U.S. withdraws all troops from the Islamic world.
Blackwater Security Consulting, a firm that provides paramilitary training for private and government needs, confirmed that the four men killed in Fallujah were employees. Blackwater declined to release their identities, but sources close to the families said three of the men were former U.S. Special Operations troops:
• Jerry Zovko, 32, an Army veteran from Willoughby, Ohio.
• Mike Teague, 38, an Army veteran from Clarksville, Tenn.
• Scott Helvenston, 38, a veteran of the Navy. His hometown was not known.
Other sources said the fourth man also had previously served in the military, but his identity was not immediately made public.
Blackwater Security Consulting, based in Moyock, N.C., recruits security specialists for contract work from elite U.S. and other special operations units worldwide. It also trains police and other government employees.
Television pictures broadcast outside the United States showed the incinerated body of one of the four contractors being kicked and stamped on by people in a jubilant crowd in Fallujah, while another body was dragged down the road by its feet. Two bodies also were temporarily hung from a bridge.
Last week, WorldNetDaily reported, a popular Islamic online site, quoting a European sheik, justified the mutilation of the bodies of enemies when it is part of retaliation.
Responding to a specific question about Islam's view of mutilating bodies of enemies in wartime, Sheik Faysal Mawlawi, deputy chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, wrote "it is permissible to mutilate the dead only in case of retaliation."
"If any one cuts the ear of another, his ear is to be cut in return," wrote the sheik. "If he inflicts any physical damage on anyone, he should be retaliated against in the same manner. In case of war, Muslims are allowed to take vengeance for their mutilated dead strugglers in the same way it was done to them."
The sheik cited the Quranic verse: "If ye punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith ye were inflicted. But if ye endure patiently, verily it is better for the patient."
"This verse was revealed when the polytheists mutilated the corpse of Hamzah ibn Abd el-Muttalib (may Allah be pleased with him)," the sheik continued. "The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) swore to mutilate seventy corpses of the polytheists in retaliation for what they had done with Hamzah's dead body."
Other sheiks offered dissenting opinions on whether mutilation is ever warranted or justified.
The Voice of Jihad communique also points to the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat as an action to be emulated.
“It specifically encourages assassinations and kidnappings as a means of advancing the efforts of the jihad and taking the struggle to greater levels,” reports Northeast Intelligence Network.
Posted by Robert at April 9, 2004 08:22 AM
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp325.htm
March 21, 2007
HP-325
Testimony of Stuart Levey
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial
Intelligence
Before the Senate Committee on Banking,
Housing and Urban Affairs
WASHINGTON, DC- Chairman Dodd, Ranking Member Shelby and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about the Treasury Department's role in dealing with the myriad challenges posed by the radical regime in Iran. I welcome this Committee's ongoing focus on the Iranian threat, and, more broadly, your continued support for our efforts to stop illicit financial flows.
INTRODUCTION
The challenges posed by Iran have become particularly urgent, and the Administration is employing a multi-faceted strategy to meet them. I know you are hearing much about that strategy today from my colleague, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns. The Department of State's diplomatic efforts have yielded critical successes, including a unanimously adopted UN Security Council resolution last December, Resolution 1737, imposing Chapter VII sanctions targeting Iran's nuclear and missile programs. As a result of Iran's noncompliance with that resolution, including its expansion rather than suspension, of uranium enrichment, the Security Council is now set to pass a follow-on resolution with expanded sanctions. That our international partners now support pressuring the Iranian regime to comply with its international obligations is a true credit to Under Secretary Burns's patient, yet persistent, diplomacy.
The Treasury developed the financial component of the Administration's overall Iran strategy at the direction of Secretary Rice and Secretary Paulson and in close coordination with other agencies. Through our teamwork, we have crafted an innovative strategy to highlight the reckless and dangerous conduct of the Iranian regime, deter Tehran's dangerous activities through the use of financial measures, and prevent the regime's abuse and manipulation of the international financial system. As I will discuss, the Treasury's efforts and the State Department's intensive diplomacy at the United Nations are mutually reinforcing.
Over the past nine months, senior Treasury Department officials, including Secretary Paulson and Deputy Secretary Kimmitt, have met with foreign finance ministry and central bank counterparts from tens of countries -- in many cases multiple times -- to discuss the imperative of ensuring that the international financial system is not tainted or harmed by Iran's abuse. We have also engaged in unprecedented outreach to the international private sector, meeting with more than 40 banks around the world to share information and discuss the risks of doing business with Iran. And we have implemented targeted financial measures against Iranian banks, entities, and individuals engaged in illicit activities, highlighting to the world their dangerous conduct, preventing U.S. persons from doing any business with them, and, in some cases, requiring that any assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction be frozen. Those targeted actions have helped pave the way for international action.
Today, I would like to give you an overview of these Treasury efforts.
IRANIAN THREAT AND DECEPTION
Mr. Chairman, the Committee is well aware of the threat posed by Iran's dangerous activities, so I will just briefly summarize the problem. Iran poses two threats – an unrelenting pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, on the one hand, and the provision of financial and material support to terrorist groups, on the other – the combination of which has an extraordinarily lethal potential. Under President Ahmadinejad, the regime has ignored calls from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Security Council to suspend its enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, and to comply with its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The danger we face is that Ahmadinejad not only has an extreme vision of the future but that he might develop the weapons that make him believe that his vision can be obtained.
Iran's role in supporting international terrorism is of serious concern. Iran has long been a state sponsor of terrorism. Tehran arms, funds, and advises Hizballah, an organization that has killed more Americans than any terrorist network except for al Qaeda. It is also widely reported that Iran provides extensive support to Palestinian terrorist organizations, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and Hamas. In the case of PIJ, Iran's financial support has been contingent upon the terrorist group carrying out attacks against Israel. And we are all familiar with Iran's funding and equipping of elements of the insurgency in Iraq, further destabilizing that country and resulting in deaths of Americans, Iraqis and others. Iran needs money to provide all of this support. Indeed, the regime operates as the central banker of terror, spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year to fund terrorism.
Iran also uses its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, to provide a `train and equip program' for terrorist organizations like Hizballah, as well as to pursue other military objectives of the regime. The head of the IRGC was listed last December by the UN Security Council as supporting Iran's nuclear and missile programs. The IRGC's control and influence in the Iranian economy is growing substantially. More and more IRGC-associated companies are being awarded important government contracts. An IRGC company, for example, has taken over management of the airport and runways in Tehran, while another company has won the contract to build the Tehran metro system.
Iran's present integration into the world financial community allows it to support and facilitate its dangerous activities. The regime disguises its hand in terrorism and weapons proliferation through an array of deceptive techniques specifically designed to avoid suspicion and evade detection from the law-abiding international community. For example, Tehran uses front companies and intermediaries to engage in ostensibly innocent commercial transactions that are actually related to its WMD programs. These front companies and intermediaries enable the regime to obtain dual-use technology and materials from countries that would typically prohibit such exports to Iran.
We have also seen Iranian banks request that other financial institutions take their names off of U.S. dollar transactions when processing them in the international financial system. This practice is even used by the Central Bank of Iran. This practice is specifically designed to evade the controls put in place by responsible financial institutions and has the effect of threatening to involve them in transactions they would never knowingly choose to settle. It can allow Iran's banks to remain undetected as they move money through the international financial system to pay for the Iranian regime's illicit and terrorist-related activities.
TREASURY ACTION AGAINST IRAN
Because of the longstanding U.S. concerns about Iran's well-documented illicit behavior, the Treasury Department maintains broad sanctions against Iran. Although I want to focus today on our new, targeted sanctions -- or "measures" as I prefer to call them – against individual bad actors, it is important to remember that the U.S. Government has maintained these general country sanctions for some time and that the new measures build upon our overall and long-standing Iran policy.
U.S. commercial and financial sanctions against Iran, which are administered by the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), prohibit U.S. persons from engaging in a wide variety of trade and financial transactions with Iran or the Government of Iran. They prohibit most trade in goods and services between the United States and Iran, and any post-May 7, 1995 investments by U.S. persons in Iran. U.S. persons are also prohibited from facilitating transactions via third-country persons that they could not engage in themselves.
Beyond these general country sanctions, we are relying more and more on "targeted" measures directed at specific individuals, key members of the government, front companies, and financial institutions. These measures are aimed at specific actors engaged in specific conduct. Some require financial institutions to freeze funds and close the accounts of designated actors, denying them access to the traditional financial system. At times, the action includes bans on travel or arms transfers, which further confine and isolate those engaged in illicit activities. To maximize the effect, we try to apply these measures in concert with others. Whenever possible, we act with a partner or a group of allied countries. We have done so, for example, in the context of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737, which I will discuss shortly.
These kinds of measures have several advantages. Because they single out those responsible for supporting terrorism, proliferation, and other criminal activities, rather than apply to an entire country, they are more apt to be accepted by a wider number of international actors and governments. Targeted financial measures also warn people and businesses not to deal with the designated target. And those who might still be tempted to work with targeted high risk actors get the message loud and clear: if they do so, they may be next.
The United States is using various types of targeted measures to combat Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and development of ballistic missiles, as well as its support for terrorism.
First, while under our general Iran country sanctions program Iranian financial institutions are prohibited from directly accessing the U.S. financial system, they are permitted to do so indirectly through a third-country bank for payment to another third-country bank. In September 2006, we cut off one of the largest Iranian state-owned banks, Bank Saderat, from any access, including this indirect, or "u-turn," access to the U.S. financial system. This bank, which has approximately 3400 branch offices, is used by the Government of Iran to transfer money to terrorist organizations. Iran has used Saderat to transfer money to Hizballah. Iran and Hizballah also use it to transfer money to E.U.-designated terrorist groups, such as Hamas, the PFLP-GC, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Since 2001, for example, a Hizballah-controlled organization received $50 million directly from Iran through Saderat.
We have also acted against 19 entities and individuals supporting Iran's WMD and missile programs, including another Iranian bank, Bank Sepah, using Executive Order 13382. That Executive Order, signed by President Bush in June of 2005, authorizes the Treasury and State Departments to target key nodes of WMD and missile proliferation networks, including their suppliers and financiers, in the same way we target terrorists and their supporters. A designation under E.O. 13382 effectively cuts the target entity or individual off from access to the U.S. financial and commercial systems and puts the international community on notice about the threat they pose to global security as a result of their activities. Specifically, such a designation freezes any assets that the target may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from doing business with it.
While most states do not have a similar national-level designation authority as a tool to stem proliferation, they do now have binding obligations, which are similar to those under our Executive Order, under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1737. That resolution contains an annex listing entities and individuals responsible for Iran's nuclear and missile programs, and requires states to freeze their assets and the assets of entities owned or controlled by them.
Five of the U.S. designations against Iranian entities and individuals under E.O. 13382 have been similarly designated under UNSCR 1737. And, where our designations are not matched by designations at the United Nations, I can tell you that they still receive a great deal of international attention. I have traveled all over the world, sharing our list of Iran-related designations with foreign government counterparts and private sector representatives, and stressing the importance of ensuring that these proliferators are not able to access the international financial system. Our list of targeted proliferators is incorporated into the compliance systems at major financial institutions worldwide, who have little appetite for the business of proliferation firms and who also need to be mindful of U.S. measures given their ties to the U.S. financial system.
The Treasury's designation of Iran's state-owned Bank Sepah under E.O. 13382 in January of this year is particularly significant because it makes it more difficult for the regime to hide behind its banks to support its proliferation activities. Like certain other Iranian banks and entities, Bank Sepah has engaged in a range of deceptive practices in an effort to avoid detection, including requesting that other financial institutions take its name off of transactions when processing them in the international financial system.
Bank Sepah provides direct and extensive financial services to Iranian entities responsible for developing missiles capable of carrying weapons of mass destruction. It has been a key provider of financial services to the Shahid Hemmat Industries Group (SHIG) and the Shahid Bakeri Industries Group (SBIG), two Iranian missile firms listed in the annex to UN Resolution 1737 for their direct role in advancing Iran's ballistic missile programs. Bank Sepah also provides financial services to SHIG's and SBIG's parent entity, Iran's Aerospace Industries Organization (AIO), which has been designated as a proliferator by the United States for its role in overseeing all of Iran's missile industries. AIO's Director is listed in the annex of Resolution 1737, thereby requiring states to freeze his assets as well as the assets of entities under his ownership or control.
Since at least 2000, Bank Sepah has provided a variety of critical financial services to Iran's missile industry, arranging financing and processing dozens of multi-million dollar transactions for AIO and its subordinates. The bank has also facilitated business between AIO and North Korea's chief ballistic missile-related exporter, KOMID. Also previously designated by the Treasury, KOMID is known to have provided Iran with missile technology. The financial relationship between Iran and North Korea, as reflected in the business handled by Bank Sepah, is indeed of great concern to the United States.
PRIVATE SECTOR RESPONSE
As I mentioned, aside from these "formal" actions, the Treasury has engaged in unprecedented, high-level outreach to the international private sector, meeting with more than 40 banks worldwide to discuss the threat Iran poses to the international financial system and to their institutions. Secretary Paulson kicked off this effort last fall in Singapore, in discussions during the annual IMF/World Bank meetings, where he met with the executives from major banks throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Secretary Paulson, Deputy Secretary Kimmitt, Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes Patrick O'Brien, and I have continued to engage with these institutions abroad, as well as in Washington and New York.
Through this outreach, we have shared information about Iran's deceptive financial behavior and raised awareness about the high financial and reputational risk associated with doing business with Iran. Our use of targeted measures has aided this effort by allowing us to highlight specific threats. We share common interests and objectives with the financial community when it comes to dealing with threats. Financial institutions want to identify and avoid dangerous or risky customers who could harm their reputations and business. And we want to isolate those actors and prevent them from abusing the financial system.
By partnering with the private sector, including by sharing information and concerns with financial institutions, we are increasingly seeing less of a tendency to work around sanctions. As I have traveled and met with bank officials abroad, I have learned that even those institutions that are not formally bound to follow U.S. law pay close attention to our targeted actions and often adjust their business activities accordingly for two main reasons. First, regardless of the underlying law in any particular country, most bankers truly want to avoid facilitating proliferation, terrorism, or crime. These are responsible corporate citizens. Second, avoiding government-identified risks is simply good business. Banks need to manage risk in order to preserve their corporate reputations. Keeping a few customers that we have identified as terrorists or proliferators is not worth the risk of facing public scrutiny or a regulatory action that may impact on their ability to do business with the United States or the responsible international financial community.
As evidence of Iran's deceptive practices has mounted, financial institutions and other companies worldwide have begun to reevaluate their business relationships with Tehran. Many leading financial institutions have either scaled back dramatically or even terminated their Iran-related business entirely. They have done so of their own accord, many concluding that they did not wish to be the banker for a regime that deliberately conceals the nature of its dangerous and illicit business. Many global financial institutions have indicated that they have limited their exposure to Iranian business. A number of them have cut off Iranian business in dollars, but have not yet done so in other currencies. It is unclear whether this is just a first step toward phasing out the business entirely. Regardless of the currency, the core risk with Iranian business – that you simply cannot be sure that the party with whom you are dealing is not connected to some form of illicit activity – remains the same. Scaling back dollar-business reduces, but does not eliminate, the risk.
As further evidence of the change in tide, a number of foreign banks are refusing to issue new letters of credit to Iranian businesses. And in early 2006, the OECD raised the risk rating of Iran, reflecting this shift in perceptions and sending a message to those institutions that have not yet reconsidered their stance.
Additionally, many other companies have scaled back on their investments or projects in Iran, concluding that the risks of expanding operations in the country are too great. Multinational corporations have held back from investing in Iran, including limiting investment in Iran's oil field development. These companies have done their risk analyses, and they have realized that the Iranian regime's behavior makes it impossible to know what lies ahead in terms of Iran's future and stability.
If Tehran chooses to continue on its current path, this is a trend that will continue. Iran's increasing isolation is the result of its own costly behavior. These are costs that the regime is not only imposing on itself, but also the Iranian people. Targeted financial measures, coupled with the private sector's reevaluation of its business with Iran, have sparked a debate inside Iran about the wisdom of the regime's policies. It is our hope that the Iranian regime will realize that the only way to rejoin the community of responsible nations is to change its behavior.
CONCLUSION
Mr. Chairman, the Treasury Department – working closely with the State Department and the rest of the interagency – is playing an integral role in the Administration's Iran strategy. Our use of targeted financial measures, along with outreach to the private sector about the risks of doing business with Iran, are indeed having an impact on the Iranian regime's ability to misuse the financial system to carry out its dangerous activities. To be sure, the threat posed by Iran remains significant, but it is not insurmountable. We have made important progress on countering this threat, and we will continue working diligently to take all prudent steps to respond expediently to this challenge.
I look forward to working closely with you, other Members of the Committee, and your staff on this important issue. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify today.
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/unity_gov_e.htm
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center
at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S)
March 20, 2007
"Analysis of the Palestinian national unity government: its composition, platform and the implications of its establishment"
Full Version
http://off-topic.internet-haganah.com/archives/000927.html
March 21, 2007
"All apostate, all the time"
TERRORISM-INFO.org.il - INTELLIGENCE AND TERRORISM INFORMATION CENTER at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S.): "Argentina accuses Iran of responsibility for the Hezbollah terrorist attack which destroyed Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, 1994. The Argentinean Attorney General's office announced it had found Iran responsible for the terrorist attack and an Argentinean judge issued arrest warrants for seven senior Iranians and one senior Hezbollah member" (November 14, 2006) (Read More...)
http://hotair.com/archives/2007/03/21/radical-islam-in-the-nations-capital/
HOTAIR.com - VIDEO/blog (Erick Stakelbeck): "RADICAL ISLAM IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL"
(March 21, 2007)
===
===
(Note: Includes Video)
http://www.cbn.com/CBNnews/121083.aspx
Stakelbeck on Terror
Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News Terrorism Analyst
STAKELBECK ON TERROR
Main Page >>
"Islamic Radicalism in Our Nation's Capital"
Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News
March 16, 2007
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=antiamerican
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=antiamericans
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=antiamerica
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=unamerican
===
===
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/007137.htm
"Witness to a US soldier effigy burning"
By Michelle Malkin · March 21, 2007 10:05 AM
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1804548/posts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T0eL-Z2-sM
"We Were Soldiers music video"
Added March 02, 2007
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10784&Itemid=21
Five terrorists killed, explosives factory destroyed
Wednesday, 21 March 2007
MULTI-NATIONAL FORCE-IRAQ
COMBINED PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGHDAD, Iraq
http://www.mnf-iraq.com
703.270.0320 / 0299
March 21, 2007
Release A070321b
FIVE TERRORISTS KILLED, EXPLOSIVES FACTORY DESTROYED
BAGHDAD, Iraq –Coalition Forces killed five terrorists, destroyed a bomb-making factory and detained three suspected terrorists during an operation Wednesday near Taji.
As ground forces entered the target buildings, they encountered several armed men. Coalition Forces used self-defense measures killing five terrorists and detaining three suspected terrorists.
During the raid, Coalition Forces discovered an adjacent building was being used as an explosives factory. Inside the building, Coalition Forces found large caliber ammunition and explosive manufacturing materials including numerous 50-gallon barrels of explosive material.
Coalition Forces conducted an air strike to destroy the explosives factory, associated vehicles, ammunition and weapons.
At least four large secondary explosions were noted after the initial bomb was dropped on the target, indicating the destruction of the explosive material within and beneath the structure.
A careful analysis was conducted prior to the strike, and every possible precaution to avoid unnecessary collateral damage was taken. No Coalition Forces or civilians were injured during the operation.
“Coalition Forces will continue to systematically kill or capture al-Qaeda in Iraq terrorists regardless of where they may hide or operate,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, MNF-I spokesperson. “No place is safe for a terrorist in Iraq.”
-30-
An 8-inch knife found on board a Horizon flight that landed at Portland International Airport Monday has exposed airline security concerns. Officials with the Transportation Security Administration said a passenger handed the knife to a flight attendant as passengers were getting off the plane and said he found it between two seats.
The TSA said it’s possible that an employee working on the plane had left it behind after working on the plane. According to TSA spokeswoman Tina Burke, it appeared to be a kitchen knife. However, such knives aren't typically used by employees working on the plane. “Eight-inch knives are not in the toolbox for our mechanics, flight attendants or pilots,” said Jen Boyer, a spokeswoman for Horizon Air.
Jennifer Currier, president of the flight attendants' union for Horizon Airlines, said the knife incident is just one example that airline security needs to be tightened. Currier said she has heard of numerous prohibited items, including butane lighters, getting past security and onto planes. “A lot of people are granted access to the aircraft area that are not going through security, everybody from the maintenance, the rampers, the aircraft groomers, they have full access to all parts of the aircraft yet they are not having to go through security,” Currier said.
The Horizon Airlines plane landed at the Portland International Airport just before 5 p.m. from Ontario, California. The investigation continued
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_032007_news_knife_horizon.2f494a6f.html
Air Arabia flight disrupted (United Arab Emirates)
Wednesday, March 21 - 2007
A passenger on board an Air Arabia flight to Saudi Arabia on Sunday, March 18, tried to force his way into the cockpit of the plane, forcing it to return to Sharjah International Airport, reported Gulf News.
The Sri Lankan passenger became violent towards other travellers and crew shortly after take-off and then tried to open the cockpit door. Police boarded the plane at Sharjah and arrested the man.
http://www.ameinfo.com/114235.html
Bomb Threat Against Swedish Nuclear Plant
March 21st 2007
Police were Wednesday investigating an anonymous bomb threat against one of Sweden's three nuclear plants. The threat was made against the Forsmark plant, 140 kilometres north of the capital Stockholm.
Police have erected roadblocks near the site and some non- essential staff at the plant have left the plant but the reactors were still operating, officials said. The nuclear watchdog agency, the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate (SKI) was also on the alert and was monitoring events.
Details of the threat were sketchy but Uppsala police spokesman Christer Nordstrom said that it had to taken seriously since it was aimed at a nuclear plant. Forsmark has in recent months generated numerous headlines and been under review by the SKI after a shut-down of one of the reactors late July 2006 after a short-circuit in a switchyard outside the plant. Subsequent reports have suggested a deterioration of security routines and as part of measures to reverse the trend, a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was slated to conduct a review under its so-called Operational Safety Review Team Programme.
http://www.playfuls.com/news_10_20159-Bomb-Threat-Against-Swedish-Nuclear-Plant.html
DHAKA: As Bangladesh prepares to hang six militants convicted of masterminding fatal bombings, a close associate arrested last week said about 5,000 members of banned Islamist groups were still active in the country.
Mostafizur Rahman Shahin, detained in northern district Pabna on March 14, gave the information under interrogation by security and intelligence agencies, police said on Wednesday. Shahin confessed to being a senior member of the outlawed Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, led by Shayek Abdur Rahman. Another banned militant group active in Bangladesh is Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, headed by Siddikul Islam Bangla Bhai.
Both Bangla Bhai and Shayek, along with four other Islamist militants, are likely to be executed within weeks, police said. They were sentenced to death last year for masterminding countrywide bomb attacks in late 2005, which killed at least 30 people. The victims included judges, lawyers and police.
The Islamists are fighting to introduce sharia law in mainly Muslim Bangladesh, and threatened to strike again even if their leaders were hanged, police said. Police said security was tightened around the country of more than 140 million in view of the threat, but gave no details. Bangladesh's army-backed interim government, headed by former central bank chief Fakhruddin Ahmed, is planning to enact a law to ban any group linked to Islamist militants or other terror groups.
Shahin told interrogators Islamist militants in Bangladesh received money from sources overseas, including in the United States and Saudi Arabia, police said.
Muslim pupils kill teacher
22mar07
MUSLIM pupils at a secondary school in northeastern Nigeria beat a teacher to death today after accusing her of desecrating the Koran. Oluwatoyin Olusase, a Christian, was adjudicating an Islamic Religious Knowledge exam at the school in Gombe state when the incident occurred. The students attacked her outside the school compound after the exam and killed her, witnesses said.
It was not clear exactly what Olusase had done that angered the students. Police confirmed the killing and said their intervention had prevented the incident from turning into a riot. "We have received information that a female teacher has been lynched by her students. We are investigating the report," Gombe state police commissioner Joseph Ibi said.
Excerpted
http://www.ntnews.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,21426086%255E1702,00.html
PESHAWAR: Forty-two Uzbeks militants and 16 tribespeople were killed in two days of fierce clashes in the volatile South Waziristan tribal region, government and security officials told Dawn. They said another 27 Uzbek militants had been captured by tribal militant commander Maulvi Nazir.
There was no independent confirmation of the death toll on both sides but information gathered from three different government security sources corroborate reports emerging from the restive region that the tribespeople who had once whole-heartedly welcomed foreign militants were now on a hunting spree for them. Officials said announcements were made from mosques on loudspeakers in some villages in Wana, regional headquarters of South Waziristan, exhorting local tribespeople to stand up and wage a “jihad” against Uzbeks.
SNIP: The latest flare-up, the second this month, occurred after the killing of an Al Qaeda-linked Arab identified as Saiful Adil last week. His body was found abandoned in the outskirts of Wana. Maulavi Nazir, a top pro-Taliban militant commander in Wana region, suspected Uzbeks for their involvement in the murder. The security official said a foreign militant and his tribal escort carrying blood money to the widow of Saiful Adil were also attacked on their way which added fuel to the fire.
Excerpted
http://www.dawn.com/2007/03/21/top1.htm
French official fired for opposing opening of Muslim high school
March 21, 2007
PARIS -- A senior, regional, education official was fired here Wednesday for strongly expressing opposition to the opening of a new Muslim school in the second largest city in France.
The Al-Kindi high school, located in the suburbs of the south-eastern city of Lyon, opened earlier this month after a long fight with the head of city education authority. French Muslims accused the official of being racist against Islam especially after he had tried to stop the school from opening three times, only conceded after national authorities in Paris intervened in the issue. Government spokesman Jean-Francois Cope said that the official was fired as "his behaviour was not that of a senior official, whose task is to carry out government policy".
Excerpted
http://www.kuna.net.kw/Home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=963901
Cologne, 21 March 2007 - German police have assigned plainclothese bodyguards to protect an Iranian-born woman, Mina Ahadi, who says she has received a number of death threats through the post since she formed a society in the northern city of Cologne. Formed last month together with around a dozen sympathisers and named the National Council of Ex-Muslims, the association contains a number of ex-Muslims who are atheists.
"I am a target," said Ahadi, 50, quoted by Deutsche Welle radio, adding that members of the society have received letters telling them they will be shot in the back. She is the widow of a murdered opponent of the Iranian regime and has lived in Germany since 1996. "We are going to get involved in politics, oppose women wearing headscarfs and building plans for new mosques," Ahadi said. She held a press conference in the capital, Berlin, in late February, announcing that she was no longer a Muslim.
"We'll stop honour killings, stop people being stoned to death… We want to make clear that the three million to three and a half million people from Islamic nations who live in Germany are people first and foremost, and should not be branded primarily as 'Muslim,'" she said. She is demanding that Germany do more to help women and girls who she says are oppressed by "political Islam", denied boyfriends or trips to the swimming pool and ostracised if they become pregnant outside marriage. The ex-Muslim groups said it wants to stop mosque groups speaking in the name of the entire community. It has received assistance from a German atheist organisation, the Giordano Bruno Foundation and is heeding police advice to rent office space in a safe location, Deutsche Welle reported.
The death threats are not believed to come from mainstream Muslim groups who say the new association should be tolerated. But they dispute her claim that Islam and human rights are incompatible, saying this only stokes latent Islamophobia already present in some Germans. Other former Muslims in Germany and abroad have rushed to join the group, according to fellow Iranian and council members Nur Gabbari, and it has grown to more than 400 members with daily contacts from countries such as Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Turkey as well as Germany.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Politics&loid=8.0.397469986&par=0
Items found by a Redford businessman – including gas masks and notes about terrorist activity – in a Dumpster outside his workplace on Inkster Road have drawn the interest of the FBI.
Andrew Wishaw, the president of R.W. Hydraulics Inc., said he found the items Sunday while looking for cardboard and scrap wood, and turned them over to police on Monday. “It just didn’t add up correctly,” said Wishaw on Wednesday.
In addition to new gas masks, still in boxes, and handwritten notes, Wishaw said, the cache included laminated pictures that could depict terrorist activity, a map with a circle drawn around an airport, plus clothing, a pair of eyeglasses, a basket, files and a rock collection.
“It looked like stuff, at first, that people dumped out of an apartment,” Wishaw said. “It looked like some of the stuff was thrown away in haste.”
Wishaw said he was interviewed regarding the find by an FBI agent on Wednesday at the Redford police station. The agent showed great interest in the items, he said. Dawn Clenny, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Detroit office, said she wasn’t familiar with the situation and couldn’t comment on any investigation. A Redford Township police report said the find included a copy of the Earth First! Journal, female clothing and a map of Mecosta County, Mich. Wishaw said he didn’t know what county the map showed, but that the airport on it was circled.
Redford police Capt. Kraig Brueck said the photographs looked as if they may have been taken from magazines, and showed scenes typically associated with terrorism, such as the possible aftermath of a car bombing. Wishaw said the photos were nicely laminated. He said the notes made references to an explosion and a fireball. He said he didn’t look closely at many of the items, because he and his company have been busy with a big job.
Wishaw’s family-owned company makes and works on industrial machinery. He said the company sometimes uses things found in the Dumpster – cardboard is used in the paint shop, where machine parts are painted, for example. Wishaw agreed there could be an innocent explanation for the items – but that the find was weird nonetheless. “It would be an awful strange combination of things, to be nothing,” he said.
http://www.hometownlife.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070321/NEWS16/70321020/1033/rss21
Jurors to be screened for anti-Muslim bias
Wed, Mar. 21, 2007 Potential jurors in the upcoming trial of a Boca Raton doctor and three other men accused of conspiring to help terrorists will be screened for anti-Muslim biases.
A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that attorneys for Dr. Rafiq A. Sabir, Tarik Shah, Abdulrahman Farhane and Mahmud Faruq Brent can ask possible jurors to fill out questionnaires before jury selection begins. The questions cannot ask potential jurors about their religious beliefs, U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska said.
The men, all U.S. citizens who are Muslim, are scheduled to stand trial April 24. They have pleaded not guilty. Sabir, 52, was arrested at his Palm Beach County home in May 2005, days after investigators claim he recited an oath of loyalty to al Qaeda in front of an undercover FBI agent. Prosecutors say Sabir agreed to use his medical training to treat injured terrorists in Saudi Arabia. But his attorney, Ed Wilford, has said Sabir never stated or implied a desire to harm Americans.
Shah, a New York musician and martial arts expert, is accused of taking the same oath as Sabir and agreeing to train terrorists in hand-to-hand combat. Farhane, a Brooklyn bookstore owner, allegedly discussed a plan with Shah in December 2001 to send money to terrorist fighters in Afghanistan so they could hurt U.S. troops.
Brent, a Washington, D.C., cab driver, is accused of conspiring to support Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based terror group. They are being held without bail in federal custody and face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/48729.html
Re the knife on the plane: "...found it between two seats."
That's a concern.
Thank you Oorang.
I will pray for Mina Ahadi.
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