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Memo lists possible border terror plot Officials play down plan described in secret FBI bulletin 11:03 PM CDT on Saturday, July 16, 2005 By ALFREDO CORCHADO and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News Dirt roads trace pale lines across a desolate landscape of bald peaks and plunging canyons near Texas' Big Bend and bridge the border at dozens of improvised crossings. For decades, these routes have been used to smuggle drugs and humans. Now there is growing concern they could become deadly conduits for terrorism. The concern is buttressed by a confidential but unclassified FBI intelligence bulletin, obtained by...

FBI bulletin outlines possible terrorist plot at Texas border BY ALFREDO CORCHADO AND JASON TRAHAN The Dallas Morning News DALLAS - (KRT) - Dirt roads trace pale lines across a desolate landscape of bald peaks and plunging canyons near Texas' Big Bend and bridge the international boundary at dozens of improvised crossings. For decades, these routes have been used to smuggle drugs and humans. Now there is growing concern they could become deadly conduits for terrorism. The concern is buttressed by a confidential but unclassified FBI intelligence bulletin, obtained by The Dallas Morning News, that contains the vague outlines of...

BEJUMA, Venezuela - In this deceptively tranquil farming village, people still talk about the ''Bejuma massacre'' in a whisper, partly because one man who spoke out is in a grave, partly because the killers were allegedly policemen. But the source of the fear can be summed up in a single word: drug trafficking, on the kind of massive level and involving corrupt government officials that has long been a profound problem in neighboring Colombia. Drug seizures in Venezuela doubled in the past four years. There are mounting allegations of drug-fueled corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied...

MOSCOW, May 6. (RIA Novosti) - U.S. and Russian approaches to the development of democracy on post-Soviet territory may not coincide, but that does not mean they should argue, says Dimitri Simes, an American political expert and president of the Nixon Center, in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, a popular daily. In his opinion, when the U.S. president arrives in Moscow to attend the celebrations marking the end of WWII, the U.S. side will display its "great desire to achieve mutual understanding on a number of issues." The U.S. expert singles out Russian-U.S. interaction on the post-Soviet territory as a...

London (PTI) -- Anjem Choudary, a radical Islamist preacher with dual British and Pakistani nationality, was on Tuesday jailed for life with a minimum term of 28 years behind bars by a UK court for directing a terrorist organisation.Choudary, 57, had been found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of directing Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) and encouraging support for the proscribed organisation through online meetings. Sentencing him at the same court to a prison term means he would be in his 80s by the time he can seek parole. Justice Mark Wall told Choudary his behaviour was of the “highest culpability”. “Organisations such...

MAKHACHKALA, Russia — An explosion believed to have been caused by a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a Russian military truck at a bath house in the capital of Dagestan (search), killing at least 10 troops in the deadliest attack in the southern province in months, officials said. Seven soldiers were wounded. Bloodstained bodies lay in the street on the outskirts of Makhachkala (search), and ambulances quickly whisked away the wounded. It was not immediately known whether there were any civilian victims of the blast. Rashid Isayev (search), the head of the province's criminal police, said the explosion occurred as three...

DENVER (AP) - A National Guardsman testifying at a hearing for U.S. soldiers accused of killing an Iraq general said he saw classified U.S. personnel beat prisoners with a sledgehammer handle and mock the general's death, according to a transcript. The transcript, obtained by The Denver Post, includes an exchange during the hearing that suggests the CIA was involved. Sgt. 1st Class Gerold Pratt of the Utah National Guard said he saw unidentified U.S. personnel use the 15-inch wooden handle to hit prisoners. "They'd ask you a question, and if they didn't like it, they'd hit you," he said, according...

Since his arrest last July -- he was accused of helping to plan the post-election uprisings -- Kian's family and friends have made countless appeals for clemency to the Iranian government, written letters to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pleading his innocence, and signed dozens of petitions. All to no avail. I've come now to realize that the regime probably thinks we're obtuse. Indeed, they know better than anyone that Kian is an innocent man. As the expression goes in Persian, "da'va sar-e een neest," i.e. that's not what this fight is about.

BEIJING, July 17 (Xinhuanet) -- The 2005 International Beer Festival will combine Munich characteristics, according to the festival organizers. The festival will introduce a Munich beer tent. Both the inner side and outside decoration will display characteristics of the Munich Beer Festival, such as German-style wooden chairs, German cooks and German bands. The festival has already attracted 30 international and domestic beer manufacturers, with over 100 kinds of beer. The annual beer festival was launched in 1999 and moved from Beijing to Dalian in 2002. It has already become one of the most influential beer festivals in the world. The...

The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret "black ops" CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday. "The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators]," Babbin told WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. "My information is that investigation is ongoing." Rockefeller is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Durbin is the No....

Meanwhile, There's A War On by John HinderakerWe noted here the mysteriously under-covered story of the three would-be terrorists who were arrested in Italy after vowing to launch an attack on America that would dwarf September 11. A reader sent us a link to this article, which has more: The mainstream U.S. media outlets have failed to report a major terrorist plot against the U.S. - because it would tend to support President Bush's use of NSA domestic surveillance, according to media watchdog groups. News of a planned attack masterminded by three Algerians operating out of Italy was widely...

The wife of disgraced former congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham felt deceived about the extent of her now-estranged husband's corruption, she said in her first public interview since the scandal broke last year. Nancy Cunningham told The New Republic magazine that she didn't question junkets paid by defense contractors because other senior congressional figures, including Speaker Dennis Hastert, joined in. "How can it be illegal or unethical if the most important man in Congress is doing it?" she asked interviewer Kitty Kelley, the celebrity biographer. Duke Cunningham, who held seats on powerful House intelligence and appropriations committees, resigned from Congress last...

Taliban hang Afghan tribal chief Sat Jul 16, 2005 Taliban guerrillas hanged a pro-government tribal chief in the troubled southern Afghan province of Zabul, accusing him of being an American spy, officials said on Saturday. Malik Agha's killing was the fifth in the past six weeks and came as violence mounts in the run up to the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections that the Taliban have vowed to disrupt. Agha was kidnapped on Friday by Taliban remnants as he came out of a mosque in Atghar district of Zabul and was hanged in a tree, district chief Gul Habib said. Agha...

MOSCOW - Russia on Friday rejected accusations by the top U.S. military officer that it, along with China, was trying to bully smaller Central Asian nations out of hosting U.S. troops fighting terrorism. "We have been bewildered by the comments" of Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Foreign Ministry statement said. "As is well-known, all decisions made within the framework of the SCO are consensus-based and reflect the collective opinion of all the member-countries," the ministry said. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional alliance led by China and Russia, last week called on the...

FBI Intelligence Analyst Arrested, Accused of Passing Classified Information; Former Philippines National Police Official Also Charged NEWARK - An FBI intelligence analyst at Fort Monmouth and a former official with the Philippines National Police were arrested Saturday morning, charged in a federal criminal complaint with acting as unregistered agents of a foreign official and passing classified information to that official and others in the Republic of the Philippines, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie and FBI Special Agent in Charge Leslie Wiser, Jr. announced.Leandro Aragoncillo, 46, a former U.S. Marine, was arrested by Special Agents of the FBI at his home...

A Saudi national who served as director of the Virginia office of the Muslim World League (MWL) has been deported by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on immigration charges. ICE spokesman Dean Boyd said Abdullah Alnoshan, 44, of Falls Church, was returned to Saudi Arabia over the weekend. He was arrested in July by ICE and FBI agents assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A criminal complaint charged Alnoshan with conspiring to commit immigration fraud by using fake employment documents to enter, exit and live in the United States. Alnoshan also was accused of seeking to deter...

Kofi Annan had what perhaps was the quote of the week recently. In an editorial displayed in The Washington Post, Annan said of Iraq: “In a media-hungry age, visibility is often regarded as proof of success, but this does not necessarily hold true in Iraq.” Most of Iraq’s successes have been away from the camera. They have been too far away for most Americans to see. President Bush has stated that “successes” abound in Iraq, but he has failed to elaborate. Therefore, I followed Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s advice and searched for the real facts about Iraq. We do see...

SNIPPET: "The Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) name has come up before in connection with terrorism plots, including the October 2002 Portland Seven and the September 2002 Lackawanna Six cases in the United States, as well as the August 2006 plot to bomb airliners en route from London to the United States, the July 7, 2005, London Underground bombings and the July 2007 attempted bombings in London and Glasgow, Scotland. Over the past several years we also have received several queries about TJ from U.S. law enforcement officials who are concerned about the group’s presence and activities in the United States. U.S....

In particular, Islamic radicals are looking to create cells of so-called white al Qaeda, non-Arab members who can evade racial profiling used by police forces to watch for potential terrorists. "They want to look European to carry out operations in Europe," said a Western intelligence agent in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro, adjacent to Bosnia. "It's yet another evolution in the tools used by terrorists." ... n addition, Serbian police accidentally came across a key suspect in the March 2004 bombings of Madrid commuter trains while he was traveling through the country by train. He arrived in the...

The explosive seized among terrorists supposed in Denmark was TATP COPENHAGEN - the substance, seized at one of the terrorists supposed stopped in Denmark last week, is TATP (triacetone triperoxyde), a chemical explosive snuffed by the islamist ones and used in particular at the time of the attacks of London, according to a Danish newspaper The bottle seized on September 5 in the residence of one of the supposed terrorists, at the time of a haul of the police force with Odense, contains "a clear liquid including/understanding a synthetic mixture for the manufacture of the TATP and of the...