Posted on 04/01/2008 8:13:21 PM PDT by nwctwx
Note: The following text is a quote:
https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=82428
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Warden Message: Democratic Republic of the Congo Increased Security Precautions
CONSULAR AFFAIRS BULLETINS
Sub-Saharan Africa - Congo (Democratic Republic)
4 Apr 2008
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RELATED REPORTS
8 Jan 2008
WARDEN MESSAGE: DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
5 Dec 2007
WARDEN MESSAGE: DRC NORTH KIVU PROVINCE TRAVEL DEFERRMENT URGED
U.S. Embassy Kinshasa issued the following Warden Message on April 4, 2008:
The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa hereby informs American citizens in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that the Embassy has increased security precautions for U.S. government personnel traveling to the Goma/North Kivu area and recommends travelers to defer non-essential travel to this area. The Travel Warning dated January 8, 2008 remains in effect for the DRC.
American citizens resident in or visiting Goma and the surrounding areas are reminded that the area remains dangerous due to the continued presence of armed militia groups, in spite of the ongoing efforts of many to move forward with the recently forged Goma Peace Accords.
Due to an increase in hotel robberies, the recent violent assault and robbery of a U.N. staff member and several murders in Goma, the U.S. Embassy has recently implemented the following additional security measures for official U.S. government travelers in the Goma area. American citizens are advised to consider taking the same measures:
1. Remain indoors at night; observe an Embassy-imposed curfew of 22:00 hrs. (10:00 PM);
2. Minimize the carrying of large sums of cash or other valuables on your person or in your quarters;
3. When staying at area hotels, use appropriate safe deposit boxes and/or safes when possible;
4. Travel in official vehicles whenever possible. (If you are with an official organization like the UN, use marked vehicles.)
Americans in the area are advised to closely monitor local and international news from reliable sources for updated reports. Radio Okapi broadcasts in French on 103.5 FM at 0700, 0800, 1200 and 1800, and also provides flash broadcasts throughout the day. English language news can be found on BBC at 92.6 FM.
Additionally, American citizens are urged to review and update their personal and professional emergency plans, and take necessary precautions. As always, Americans are urged to use caution when traveling in the DRC and to be prepared for sudden changes in the safety and security situation throughout the country.
Americans are also reminded to register with the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa and are strongly urged to also register with the Consular Section of the U.S. Embassy in Kigali, which is located closer to the area of conflict. Registration for both Embassies may be completed online at: http://registration.state.gov or by calling the Embassy in Kinshasa at: 081-884-4609 or Kigali at: 250-505-602. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassies to contact them in case of emergency.
The U.S. Embassy in Kinshasa is located at 310 Avenue des Aviateurs, tel. 243-081-225-5872 (Do not dial the zero when calling from abroad). The Consular Section of the Embassy may be reached at tel. 243-081-884-6859 or 243-081-884-4609; fax 243-081-301-0560 (Do not dial the first zero when calling from abroad). For after-hours emergencies please call 081-225-5872 or 081-556-0151.
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“Mexican army finds $6 mln in truck near U.S. border”
39 minutes ago
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican soldiers looking for drug traffickers found $6 million in cash inside a truck near the U.S. border and arrested five men at the scene, the army said on Friday.
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Army drug squads in the northern state of Tamaulipas, a smuggling hot spot over the border from Texas, found the U.S. currency stuffed into eight suitcases as they inspected a tractor trailer and smaller truck parked along a highway.
They also found four pistols, the army said in a statement.
Army and federal police units deployed in President Felipe Calderon’s 15-month-old crackdown on drug cartels are grappling with a spike in violence that has left more than 800 people dead in gangland-style killings so far this year.”
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“Great Britain: Muslim is spared a speeding ban so he can drive between his two wives”
This Is London / The Evening Standard (U.K.) ^ | April 5, 2008
Posted on 04/04/2008 6:15:49 PM PDT by Stoat
WEEDSPORT, N.Y. -- A section of the Thruway was closed for two hours because of a suspicious package. It happened around 2 p.m. Thursday at the Weedsport exit in Cayuga County.
State Police said a maintenance worker found explosive material near the exit. Hazardous material crews were able to remove the explosive and no one was injured. No word how the device got there.
Shin Bet fears attack on Israeli plane
04.04.08
Number of security guards on flights boosted, helicopters escort takeoffs and arrivals in several airports worldwide for fear of missile launching. Defense source: Threat concrete and we are doing everything possible
The security measures on aircraft belonging to Israeli airlines and around them during takeoffs and arrivals abroad have been significantly boosted over the past few days for fear that Hizbullah would act on its promise to avenge the February assassination of its top commander Imad Mugniyah. The number of armed security guards on some of the flights to several destinations has been increased, as was the number of guards surrounding the plane after the landing and before the takeoff.
Excerpted
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3527513,00.html
Taliban Deputy Leader Mullah Bradar Muhammad Akhand announced “a new series of operations” under the code name “Operation Ebrat” (Lesson) on March 27. The Taliban’s spring offensive is “aimed at giving the enemy a lesson through directing powerful strikes at it, which it can never expect, until it is forced to end the occupation of Afghanistan and withdraw all the occupier soldiers… We will add to the tactics and experiences of the past years new types of operations.
The operations will also be expanded to cover all locations of the country, in order for the enemy to be weighed down everywhere” (Sawt al-Jihad, March 28). There are indications that a main target of the offensive will be the Afghanistan/Pakistan frontier, in particular the strategically vital Khyber Pass.
Excerpted
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374076
Warlords using heroin cash to buy surface-to-air missiles
Friday April 04 2008
Taliban drug lords are using cash from Afghanistan's bumper heroin crop to try to buy Stinger missiles, the country's anti-narcotics chief has warned. The surface-to-air missiles played a key role in driving out Soviet forces in the 1980s because they enabled mujahedin fighters to shoot down Russian helicopters.
General Khodaidad, the Counter-Narcotics Minister, said the Taliban was desperately trying to buy better anti-aircraft weapons, to undermine Nato's military advantage. He urged Nato leaders meeting in Bucharest to concentrate on eradicating the poppy crop, before the insurgents succeeded.
Excerpted
On the night of July 10, 2005, an obscure militant preacher named Abu Yahya al-Libi escaped from an American prison in Afghanistan and rocketed to fame in the world of jihadists. The breakout from the Bagram Air Base by Libi and three cellmates — they picked a lock, dodged their guards and traversed the base's vast acreage to freedom — embarrassed American officials as deeply as it delighted the jihadist movement. In the nearly three years since then, Libi's meteoric ascent within the leadership of Al Qaeda has proved to be even more troublesome for the authorities.
Libi, a Libyan believed to be in his late 30s, is now considered to be a top strategist for Al Qaeda, as well as one of its most effective promoters of global jihad, appearing in a dozen videos on militant Web sites in the past year, counterterrorism officials said. At a time when Al Qaeda seems more inspirational than operational, Libi stands out as a formidable star whose rise to prominence tracks the group's growing emphasis on information in its war with the West.
"I call him a man for all seasons for AQ," said Jarret Brachman, a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency who is now research director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. "He's a warrior. He's a poet. He's a scholar. He's a pundit. He's a military commander. And he's a very charismatic, young, brash rising star within AQ, and I think he has become the heir apparent to Osama bin Laden in terms of taking over the entire global jihadist movement."
The secrecy that envelops Al Qaeda's leadership structure makes such estimates speculative, other analysts noted. But one Islamist insider said that in addition to youth and charisma, Libi possessed one skill that Al Qaeda's leaders had been lacking: religious scholarship. Perhaps with this in mind, Al Qaeda is featuring Libi, who spent two years in Africa studying Islam, in as many of the videos as the group's top leaders, bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.
Excerpted
Pakistani security agencies have arrested four Turks with suspected links to al-Qaeda, intelligence officials said on Friday.
Explosives, some 1,400 rounds of ammunition and a laptop containing jihadi material were found on the suspects, who were detained by paramilitary troops late on Thursday as they were traveling on a bus from the western province of Baluchistan to neighboring Sindh, the officials said.
Interrogations revealed they were Turkish and three were carrying Turkish passports, although they all had fake identity cards. “They are between the age of 30 and 35 and were carrying identity cards showing them as Afghan refugees,” said an intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We have arrested them on suspicion they may have links to al-Qaeda.”
A Frontier Corps official said the men were arrested in Dera Murad Jamali town after a tip-off and had been handed over to an intelligence agency. The United States is concerned that al-Qaeda has regrouped in the ethnic Pashtun tribal lands straddling the Pakistan-Afghan border, and is working with the new government in Pakistan to find the best approach to tackling the problem. Arab and Central Asian militants have taken refuge in the region and young radicals from Europe have also sought militant training there, according to Western intelligence agencies.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=138213
Police raids give insight into Turkish al-Qaeda
4/5/08
Last week the police conducted raids on several locations in İstanbul and apprehended 35 suspects. The police yesterday issued a written statement about raids simultaneously conducted in three provinces, including İstanbul, in which 35 al-Qaeda suspects were detained.
The statement gave details about the police raids, noting that the perpetrators of the bombing attacks of Nov. 15-20, 2003, have reorganized themselves. The most striking revelation of the statement was, however, about the educational activities undertaken by the organization. The members of the organization refused to send their children to public schools and instead they gave them their own education, even preparing report cards and issuing them to their children, the statement said. The İstanbul Police Department's statement came after the suspects were referred to the court. The suspects abused people's religious sentiments and went abroad to receive training in the organization's camps, the police said. They returned to Turkey to conduct the bombing attacks in İstanbul in 2003.
The police asserted that the suspects were preparing to conduct acts of terror in cooperation with other radical groups in Turkey. The police had been closely monitoring their activities and found that they were concentrated in the Bayrampaşa and Bağcılar districts of İstanbul, where they used buildings that appeared to be mosques for training. The police also unearthed the connection of the suspects to a police raid conducted on Dec. 24, 2007, in Gaziantep when one police officer died and four members of the terrorist organization were killed.
On April 1 the police conducted simultaneous raids on several locations in Hatay, Konya, Gaziantep and İstanbul and apprehended 35 suspects.
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/detaylar.do?load=detay&link=138212
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,544714,00.html
“THE RUSSIANS ARE COMING
Moscow Investors Go on Shopping Spree for German Companies”
By Alexander Jung, Matthias Schepp and Benjamin Triebe
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Russia’s business elite are reaping huge profits from the high prices for natural resources and many are looking westwards to Germany for investment opportunities. However, the close ties between business and politics in Russia has prompted fears that Moscow could be intent on buying up the West one company at a time.”
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Thanks to Toby Westerman of INATODAY.com (http://www.inatoday.com ) for pointing to this article as well as other articles.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/04/04/russia.venezuela.ap/index.html
updated 12:43 p.m. EDT, Fri April 4, 2008
“Reports: Venezuela to buy subs from Russia”
SNIPPET: “STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Russian news media: Venezuela expected to sign deal for at least three submarines
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez reportedly will sign contracts during May visit
Venezuela already has bought some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia”
MOSCOW, Russia (AP)
Thanks Straight Vermonter for pointing to this thread and starting it.
Note: The following post is a quote:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1997045/posts
Taleban seeking missiles to attack Nato helicopters
Scotsman ^ | 05 April 2008 | Jerome Starkey
Posted on 04/04/2008 9:43:40 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter
TALEBAN warlords are using cash from Afghanistan’s bumper opium poppy crop to try to buy shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles, the country’s anti- narcotics tsar has warned.
The surface-to-air missiles played a key role in driving out Soviet troops in the 1980s because they let mujahideen fighters shoot down Russian helicopters. Military commanders fear that such attacks could paralyse current Nato operations.
Afghanistan’s counter-narcotics minister, General Khodaidad, said the Taleban was busily scouring illegal arms markets for better anti-aircraft weapons.
He said: “They are trying to get weapons to shoot down helicopters. They are trying to get ground-to-air missiles and they are trying to get anti-aircraft guns.
“If they get them they would limit the movement of helicopters and take away Nato’s main advantage.”
Afghanistan’s opium trade is worth £2 billion a year, almost half the country’s GDP, and UN officials say the Taleban gets up to 60 per cent of its income from drugs.
Gen Khodaidad has first-hand experience of the devastation ground-to-air missiles can cause. He spent seven years fighting the mujahideen as part of Afghanistan’s communist army.
He said: “They cause a lot of casualties, they bring down the morale of the armed forces and they limit the movement of helicopters.”
Some British outposts are so far inside Taleban territory that it is too dangerous to reach them by road, so everything, from men to ammunition, has to be flown in by helicopter, and Attack helicopters have a key role supporting ground forces.
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“INTERNET CRIME REPORT
The Top Scams of 2007”
04/03/08
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http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewForeignBureaus.asp?Page=/ForeignBureaus/archive/200804/FOR20080403b.html
“Iran Applies to Join Security Bloc Dominated by Russia and China”
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
April 03, 2008
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “(CNSNews.com) - Stepping up a campaign to join a Eurasian security and economic bloc dominated by Russia and China, Iran is looking for allies within the organization to back its bid, but political analysts doubt it will succeed.
Late last month, Iran secured the support of one of the members of the six-country Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Tajikistan, which later this year will host the bloc’s annual summit.
Established in its current form in 2001, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) comprises Russia, China, and four Central Asian states — Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Together they control a large proportion of the non-Arab world’s oil and natural gas reserves.
The SCO is mainly focused on fighting the “three evils” of terrorism, extremism and separatism, but in recent years, attempts to deny the U.S. military basing rights in Central Asia raised concerns that Moscow and Beijing view the SCO as a tool to counter U.S. security interests.”
SMALL UPDATE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/04/AR2008040403765.html
Around the Nation
Saturday, April 5, 2008; Page A07
“Man, 20, Charged With Va. Tech Copycat Threat”
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -
ARTICLE SNIPPET: “Wong bonded out of jail on those charges but was arrested again after the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigated threats Wong made March 25 on an Internet chat site.”
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18124&Itemid=128
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE No. 20080405-04
April 5, 2008
Iraqi Security Forces discover weapons caches, detain key suspect in separate operations (Mahmudiyah)
Multi-National Division – Center PAO
CAMP VICTORY, Iraq – Iraqi Security Forces, in a joint effort with Coalition forces, detained a key suspect in the area of Mahmudiyah April 3.
In a separate location, a tip from a local resident led Iraqi Army Soldiers to a weapons cache in Suwayrah.
The cache included two explosively formed projectiles, two rocketpropelled grenade launchers, two Katusha rockets, an anti-tank rocket and one PKC with 500 rounds.
In southeastern Baghdad, an Iraqi citizen led Soldiers from Company C, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) to a cache.
The cache included two 107 mm rockets, 200 DSHKA rounds, various rocket and mortar parts, and 34 120 mm projectiles.
Iraqi citizens continue to reject criminal activity and are assisting the Iraqi Security Forces to defend their communities.
-30-
Note: The following text is a quote:
http://www.mnf-iraq.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18128&Itemid=128
Press Release A080405a
April 5, 2008
Two terrorists killed West of Samarra
BAGHDAD – Coalition forces killed two terrorists in central Iraq Friday, during an operation targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq regional leadership.
Intelligence sources led Coalition forces to the terrorists’ location west of Samarra. As Coalition forces approached, the terrorists attempted to evade capture by driving off a paved road and into a rural area. Coalition forces pursued them and engaged the terrorists’ vehicle to stop it, killing the terrorists and igniting the vehicle. Explosions from weapons and ammunition came from inside the vehicle.
“Al-Qaeda in Iraq is an adaptive, lethal enemy, but they will find no safe haven,” said Maj. Winfield Danielson, MNF-I spokesman. “A tough fight remains ahead, but Iraqi and Coalition forces will continue to target the terrorist networks, capturing or killing their members and improving security for the Iraqi people.”
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