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LONDON (Reuters) - The threat of an al Qaeda attack from the sea remains an "absolute concern" and could intensify as operations on land are countered, the U.S. Navy's top commander in the Gulf told Reuters on Monday. Since the September 11 attacks on the United States, governments and security experts have repeatedly voiced fears about the vulnerability of the maritime industry, which carries more than 90 percent of the world's traded goods. "I don't think there is any question that as we thwart their attacks and disrupt their operations on land, that we should expect them to turn to...

Terror plots accelerating, warns police chief By John Steele (Filed: 04/07/2006) Anti-terrorist police are tackling an "accelerating" number of plots by violent Muslim Jihadi extremists, according to Britain's most senior counter-terrorism officer. Scotland Yard anti-terrorism branch is involved in an "unprecedented" 70 investigations, Peter Clarke the head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch and national co-ordinator for anti-terrorist investigations, warned yesterday. More than 60 people are facing trial on terrorist allegations. Two-thirds of those have been charged since last July. In one of the most sombre and detailed statements yet on the threat to Britain from Islamic extremist terrorists, Mr...

POLICE are locking down parts of Melbourne as part of Commonwealth Games security preparations, with a week still to go before the opening ceremony. Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said security for the Games was now in full swing, with venues locked down following security sweeps in preparation for the opening next Wednesday. Police will evaluate security at the MCG later this week when they begin using airport-style screening to check spectators entering two dress rehearsals for the Games opening ceremony. In the largest security operation ever seen in Australia, more than 2500 military personnel will join Victoria's 13,000...

An international effort that includes the U.S. Navy has prevented potential terrorist attacks in Asian seas and waterways aimed at disrupting global commerce, a high-ranking Naval officer said Monday in Pittsburgh. "There has been planning that has been thwarted, so we have to be on the guard," said Vice Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, a Butler County native and commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet since August 2004. Although the fleet operates on the other side of the world, the trade it helps protect has a large impact on the U.S. economy, he said. "There is a strain of al-Qaida in...

Dana Priest of The Washington Post sounds shocked - shocked! - to discover that George W. Bush ordered a complete remobilization and reinvigoration of the CIA immediately after September 11th: "The effort President Bush authorized shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, to fight al-Qaida has grown into the largest CIA covert-action program since the height of the Cold War, expanding in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over clandestine tactics . . . ." This is news? Isn't this just what W. told the country he would do in the aftermath of September 11th? "Ours will...

The Bush Administration's use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terrorism continues to generate controversy, and Congress is planning hearings. The issue is not about circumventing normal civilian Constitutional protections, after all. The debate concerns surveillance for military purposes during wartime. But what the critics are really insisting on here is that the President get a warrant the minute a terrorist communicates with an associate who may be inside in the U.S. That's a loophole only a terrorist could love. Jimmy Carter's Attorney General, Griffin Bell, emphasized when FISA passed that the law "does not take away the power...

Iraq Interior Minister Bayan Jabir said terror attacks in the country decreased by 70 percent and no escapee has been arrested at Syrian borders for two weeks. In the statement to Kuwaiti reporters, Jabir indicates this figure was based on the latest statistics. The decrease in the number of these attacks is a big success, the minister noted, declaring by the end of next year Iraqi army could take over security. The US Army had declared after the months long operations against insurgents, suicide attacks had decreased to the lowest level in November and roadside bombings had been at its...

Lebanon is sending an urgent complaint to the United Nations over Israeli land, sea and air space violations, Information Minister Ghazi Aridi announced Thursday. It would be the second such complaint in just over a month. The Foreign Ministry has been instructed to ask the world community, the UN and Secretary General Kofi Annan to pressure Israel to stop such violations "in order to prevent further deterioration of the tense situation along the border" between Lebanon and Israel, Aridi said. Aridi was reading a statement following a four-hour Cabinet meeting.

Jakarta, 17 Nov. (AKI) - Britain, Italy, Australia and America have been warned "you will be the target of our next attack", in a video found in Indonesia featuring a masked man believed to be a key leader from the group accused of organising the Bali bombings. The video, which Indonesia's top police chief said appeared, from the man's accent, to show Noordin Mohamad Top from the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah group, was found, along with several other tapes, during a raid on a recently-abandoned hideout in the central Java province. "As long as you keep your troops in Iraq and...

CANBERRA, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Sydney's harbour bridge and Opera House are among a range of possible targets linked to intelligence about potential terror attacks in Australia, newspapers said on Friday. Prime Minister John Howard has said Australia received intelligence this week about a "terrorist threat", but refused to give any details on Friday, saying to do so would compromise police and security agency investigations. Australia, a staunch U.S. ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has never suffered a major peacetime attack on home soil. The country has been on medium security alert since shortly after the Sept. 11,...

More than 50 people died in the London bomb attacks, the head of the Metropolitan Police has said. Sir Ian Blair said the final death toll was unlikely to top 100, but warned an unknown number of bodies remain in the blast-hit Tube train at Russell Square. The police chief confirmed that 13 people were killed in the bus blast at Tavistock Square. The police had an "implacable resolve" to track down those responsible for the bombings, the Met Commissioner said. The blasts on three Tubes and a bus left 700 hurt, with 100 held overnight in hospital and 22...

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A quirk in how the U.S. government defined terrorism meant that when Chechen rebels blew up two airliners almost simultaneously over Russia last year, only one was counted in an annual tally of terrorist attacks. On board one plane were 46 Russians. But the other had 43 Russians and an Israeli citizen - a foreign national that allowed the explosion to meet the U.S. criteria for international terrorism. A new database assembled by the National Counterterrorism Center that was to go online early Wednesday has broadened the definition of terrorism to include both bombings. In the process, the center has...

Jan. 18, 2005 21:19 Zubeidi: Al Aksa will halt attacks against Israel By ASSOCIATED PRESS Zachariya Zubeidi, Jenin leader of the Al Aksa Martyrs' Brigades, announced Tuesday that his group would stop attacks inside Israel as a gesture to Mahmoud Abbas. Zubeidi announced the halt as Abbas was in Gaza, trying to negotiate a cease-fire to be honored by the various organizations. Shortly after Abbas arrived in Gaza on Tuesday, a Palestinian suicide bomber blew himself up there, wounding eight Israelis. Hamas took responsibility. The Al Aksa group has been behind dozens of shooting attacks and some suicide bombings in...

At least 63 people were killed and dozens were wounded Sunday, in two bombings in the Shi'ite cities of Najaf and Karbala and a shooting attack in Baghdad. Iraqi Shi'ite leaders called on their people to show restraint saying the Sunday attacks were intended to disrupt the coming elections. Shi'ite leaders accuse Sunni Muslim militants of carrying out the attacks. The Shi'ites suspect militants known as Salafists or Wahabis, and former ruling Baath Party members, of seeking to draw Shi'ites into a violence cycle that would spark a civil war and prevent the coming elections from taking place. Wahabis are...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Suicide car bombs struck Iraqi police and Kurdish militiamen in Baghdad and northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 14 people, wounding dozens, and again demonstrating the lethal reach of Iraq's insurgency just weeks ahead of crucial elections. The U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. John Abizaid, acknowledged that the country's homegrown forces aren't yet up to the task of ensuring secure elections, necessitating the planned increase in U.S. troops. More than 40 Iraqis have been killed in the last two days alone. But U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi criticized the military's hardline approach to the insurgency and...

Iraqi insurgents launched two major attacks Friday against a Shi'ite mosque and a police station in Baghdad, killing 30 people, including at least 16 police officers, in the deadliest insurgent attack in weeks. US military spokesman Lt. Col. Jim Hutton said gunmen in 11 cars attacked the station with rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire. He said a US military Humvee was also damaged. There were no American casualties. There was no word on the insurgents' casualties. Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Sunni rebel group, al-Qaida in Iraq, claimed responsibility for the attack on the police station in Baghdad's western...

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Two car bombs exploded north of Baghdad Saturday, killing eight people and wounding at least 20, police at the scene said. They said the blasts in the city of Samarra, 62 miles north of the Iraqi capital, targeted the town hall and a nearby joint Iraqi police and National Guard checkpoint. "I saw a dead National Guard burning on the ground," said one witness. "I saw people carrying away another corpse." Most of the those killed in the blast, which took place at 9 a.m. (0600 GMT), appeared to be Iraqi civilians, police said. Insurgents bent...

(IsraelNN.com) ZAKA Rescue & Recovery organization Chief Yehuda Meshi-Zahav is confirming reports that Egyptian officials are not giving the green light to move ahead with their work – seeking to tend to the tens of bodies at the scene of the Taba Hilton Hotel. Meshi-Zahav describes the scene at the hotel as unorganized and chaotic, explaining Egyptian officials do not even have a line to speak directly with government officials in Cairo. Reports indicate the Egyptian tourism minister is expected on the scene, hopefully to permit recovery efforts to get underway.

Zayneb Abu Salem, 18, of the Askar refugee camp in Nablus was the eighth female suicide bomber to blow herself up since the outbreak of violence four years ago, and the 41st female recruited by terror organizations to perpetrate attacks. Wednesday's bombing occurred despite the general closure imposed on Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip imposed two weeks ago. Security officials said that no specific warning of plans by a suicide bomber to blow up in Jerusalem was received. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz held consultations on the phone with military and security officials following the attack, but security officials said...