CIA reports that a Jordanian insurgent captured last week in Iraq is reporting that the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq – under heavy pressure by U.S. forces in Iraq – has relocated to Syria and is now coordinating attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces from the Syrian side of the Syria – Iraq border. Separately, 8 members of Al Qaeda captured infiltrating across the Syrian border into Iraq by U.S. Army units.
The Associated Press is reporting that four Israeli buses have been attacked on the West Bank by suicide bombers; at least fifty casualties.
BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Blast kills Philippine Muslim MP
... "It looks like the congressman was the target of the attack," Mr Barias told reporters. ... Mr Akbar, 47, had twice served as governor of Basilan, an island in the south of the Philippines used by the Islamist group Abu Sayyaf as a base for launching kidnapping and bombing raids.
The United States has listed Abu Sayyaf as a terrorist organisation and says it has links to al-Qaeda.
Intel official: Expect less privacy - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON - As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
7 Are Acquitted in Madrid Bombings - New York Times
Does this buttress the administration's arguments to keep terrorism suspects in an alternate "legal" universe?
The counterterrorism experts said the verdicts reflected the challenges faced by police forces and judges as they seek to imprison those accused of international terrorism: the preponderance of circumstantial evidence rather than concrete proof; problems with evidence translated from Arabic and with evidence collected by other countries; unreliable witnesses; and the absence of confessions — none of the 28 defendants confessed.
“It is a point of pride to be able to try people in a courtroom, with full constitutional guarantees,� Fernando Reinares, an expert in international terrorism at the Royal Elcano Institute, said. “But in Spain there is space for debate about whether we need to adapt our judicial legislation and culture to confront international Islamist terrorism.�
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Putin compares US shield to Cuba
Pootie-Poot must have watched the movie with us in class yesterday, as he totally compares US efforts to put a missile "shield" in Europe to the Cuban Missile Crisis.
FBI working to bolster Al Qaeda cases - Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON -- The FBI is quietly reconstructing the cases against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and 14 other accused Al Qaeda leaders being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, spurred in part by U.S. concerns that years of CIA interrogation have yielded evidence that is inadmissible or too controversial to present at their upcoming war crimes tribunals, government officials familiar with the probes said.
Pakistan's Embattled Mosque Reopens With Fresh Momentum - washingtonpost.com
The government had hoped that raiding the Red Mosque would strike a powerful blow against radical religious groups in Pakistan.
Instead, the mosque has become a memorial, a rallying cry and a propaganda tool for those groups, giving them more recruits and fresh momentum to unleash vicious attacks. Al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have both dwelt on the Red Mosque in recordings that call for jihad against Musharraf. Their pleas have been answered in a surge of violence that has claimed more than 1,000 lives and has turned even more Pakistani territory into hostile terrain for the country's army.
U.S. Military Technology Being Exported Illegally Is a Growing Concern - washingtonpost.com
Pentagon investigators thought they had discovered a major shipment of contraband when they intercepted parts for F-14 Tomcat warplanes headed to Iran, via FedEx, from Southern California. Under U.S. sanctions since its 1979 revolution, Tehran had been trying for years to illegally obtain spare parts for the fighters, which are used only in Iran.
BBC NEWS | Africa | Vaccine-linked polio hits Nigeria
"Nigeria is fighting a rare outbreak of a vaccine-derived form of polio, says the UN's World Health Organization. The concern is that the cause of the outbreak could be misinterpreted by people here and reinforce their scepticism of the whole vaccine campaign."
YouTube - WH Press Briefing, October 9 2007
Dana Perino: "I think it's a hypothetical right now, we are focused on cooperating with the Turks and the Iraqis to make sure the PKK can be stopped."
Like we read in the containment document early on: America need only live up to its highest ideals and most dearly held values in order to succeed in this global struggle.
George does have it right. George Washington that is, who fought an existential, guerilla war against an unbeatable enemy, won over hearts and minds, and established a new nation... and he did it all without torturing a single redcoat (as far as we know).
Kyrgzstan to help on nuclear smuggling - Yahoo! News
In Last Best Chance News: Kyrgyzstan on Sunday signed on to a U.S. program to curb nuclear smuggling, becoming the fourth former Soviet state to join the initiative. Still no word on vowel smuggling talks...
In Somalia, Promise of Order Remains a Vapor - New York Times
(LA Times version)
United Nations officials are increasingly concerned. All the signs of a famine are on the horizon: the cereal harvest is the worst in 13 years; food prices have nearly doubled in some areas; malnutrition rates are rising sharply; and long-range weather forecasts indicate that the rains this fall will be disappointing.
“Thousands of people are marching right up to the edge of a crisis,� said Peter Goossens, the director of the World Food Program in Somalia. “Any additional little thing, any little flood or drought, will push them over.�
BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Germany 'drops CIA extradition'
Germany will no longer seek to try CIA operatives for kidnapping a German citizen and flying him to Afghanistan for interrogation for five months before realizing they got the wrong man. Presumably this means that US intelligence agencies will be able to continue their aggressive anti-terrorism activities in Europe, including extraordinary rendition, without worrying about interference from the local governments. Or so the Germans would have us believe...
Pakistan slows pursuit of al-Qaida | IndyStar.com
Cause of concern? Definetely could change course on some of our policies in the region.