When Muhammad Jamal Khalifa was found dead at a remote gemstone mine in south-eastern Madagascar at the end of January, local police quickly put the murder down to a business deal gone wrong. The Saudi businessman, 49, had had to call in local police to evict a gang who had taken over the mine during the owner's six-year absence. All the evidence pointed towards another of the many killings that dominate the notoriously violent Madagascar gem mining business.
Khalifa had been shot twice, stabbed and hacked at with an axe. His laptop, notebooks and money were missing, as were his two mobile phones. A survivor from the attack said a gang of up to 30 men had burst in to the guesthouse at the mine in Soameloka before setting upon their victim. But it soon became apparent to the police that this was no ordinary killing. Khalifa was a man with a past, and at the time of his death he was being monitored by the US secret service.
He was married to one of Osama bin Laden's sisters, and was once the closest friend of the al-Qaida leader. He had also been sentenced to death in absentia in Jordan for allegedly funding a bombing campaign, had funded Islamic charities in the Philippines and had played a controversial role in the arrest of the gang that attempted to blow up the World Trade Centre in 1993. After the September 11 2001 attacks he had been arrested by the Saudi authorities and for several years afterwards had been prevented from travelling abroad. He was a man with many enemies.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,2024731,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1
Explosives experts found "several" suspicious devices and home-made explosive powder in a search of a house at a Hampshire village. People living in four streets in the village of Baughurst were forced to leave their homes as a precaution. A 100m cordon was put in place around the house in Wellington Crescent following the arrest of a man. The affected residents stayed at Hurst Community College but were allowed home just after 0100 GMT on Sunday.
The police action followed the arrest of a man, said to be aged in his twenties. A spokesman for Hampshire Police said: "Early indications are there are several small possible explosive devices inside." He added: "There is no intelligence that this arrest is connected to terrorism, nor is it connected to any others such as animal rights type groups." Two army bomb disposal teams, 25 police officers, three fire engines and two ambulances were on standby at the village, north of Basingstoke.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hampshire/6416495.stm
Police track chlorine lorries in terror alert (U.K.)
Sunday March 4, 2007
Police are monitoring the movement of industrial chlorine across Britain amid fears that terrorists are planning to hijack lorries transporting the toxic chemical. The security services have identified chlorine as a potential new weapon following a series of attacks in Iraq during the past fortnight in which insurgents have successfully detonated makeshift chemical weapons made from chlorine.
Stephen Swain, the Metropolitan Police's former head of anti-terrorism, said Scotland Yard and MI5 are working with the Road Haulage Association to ensure drivers are trained to spot potential threats. Swain added: 'Chlorine's a really nasty material and there's a lot of it about. There is a lot of work being done by the security services to try to track where all this is going.
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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2026177,00.html