Ops and Intel Update 02.02.08

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

British man charged with two terrorism offenses


2008-01-30 20:24:54 -

LONDON (AP) - A man was charged Wednesday with two offenses under Britain's terrorism act, police said.
Nathan Worrell, 34, of Grimsby, a town in northeastern England, was arrested a week ago at his home, where police discovered potentially suspicious material, police said.
He was charged with possession of material for terrorist purposes and collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism, the Counter Terrorism Unit of Leeds police said. Worrell also has been charged with racially aggravated harassment.

Police provided no details about what the defendant had allegedly done, planned or possessed. Worrell is scheduled to appear at London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday.

http://www.pr-inside.com/british-man-charged-with-two-terrorism-r413561.htm

http://snipurl.com/1yv50

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Operations in South Waziristan halted for peace talks

February 2, 2008 2:21 AM ET
By Bill Roggio

Nazir negotiates for the return of pro-Uzbek Taliban; suicide attack in North Waziristan kills six troops.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

An al-Qaida related site was shut down Monday by Tampa, Florida-based Noc4Hosts after it received a call from a Tampa Tribute (tampatrib.com) reporter. Internet security specialist Paul Henry discovered the new al-Qaida encryption program hosted at alekhlaas.info.

On Wednesday, Phoenix, Arizona-based Web hosting provider CrystalTech Web Hosting (crystaltech.com) took down an al-Qaida website after being notified by The Arizona Republic (azcentral.com). The site was reportedly being used by al-Qaida to recruit car bombers, promote war on the West and provide a forum for Islamic militants.

The website, ek-is.org, offers forum discussions about weapons, explosives and propaganda, often playing out like a resource for terrorists, reports The Arizona Republic. The site contained video casts of an American tank being blown up, as well as messages from al-Qaida leaders and forums in which terrorist acts are openly discussed, says the Middle East Media Research Institute, a non-profit group in Washington, D.C. that tracks and translates Islamic websites.

CrystalTech president Bob Cichon said he was unaware of the site's content when the Web host posted the site earlier this week. Cichon says CrystalTech has no association with extremists or terrorists of any kind, and that his staff had no way to research the website since its content was entirely written in Arabic.
SOURCE:
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Al-Qaeda top militant, terrorist financier arrested N. Baghdad
Law 2/2/2008 7:44:00 PM

BAGHDAD, Feb 2 (KUNA) -- A leading Al-Qaeda militant and a terrorist-financier were arrested in northern Baghdad Saturday, Iraqi and American security sources said.
A source at the Iraqi police told KUNA Iraqi and US forces captured Abdulrahman Al-Mashhadani, the military official of so-called Iraq Islamic State, in Tarmiya town in Salahuddin governorate northern Baghdad.
He is also accused of carrying out suicide operations and sectarian deportation in Al-Adl neighborhood in western Baghdad.
The US army said in a statement the American forces have captured a person financing gangs.
The arrestee is accused of paying wages for terrorist groups in the governorate of Waset in southern Baghdad, it said. (end) ahh.bs KUNA 021944 Feb 08NNNN

http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1881078&Language=en

http://snipurl.com/1yvbj
( another REWARD DOWN )
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Are you aware that terrorists are using the internet, specifically YouTube, to showcase their graphically violent videos celebrating American and Coalition soldiers being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Additionally, they are using these videos for propaganda and teaching/recruitment purposes!

Our mission - remove as many of these videos as possible! Then maybe YouTube will take it upon themselves to join us in trying to preserve what our military fights for every day: Life! Liberty! The Pursuit of Happiness!
SOURCE:

JIHAD ACCOUNTS SUSPENDED &/# OF VIDEOS WITH THEM

HyCot3 (34) Jan
cingu90 (32) Jan
mkrbsh (59) Jan
shaheeda87 (169) Jan

fightglobalists (135) Dec
eslamali50 (9) Dec
sadon00000 (30) Dec
AmbientDrone (11) Nov
sunnilelnukha3 (2) Nov
ISIvideoss (76) Nov
TALALRAFA (38) Nov
aboodyaar (4) Nov
msb2pac (23) Nov
AbuMustafa1 (107) Oct
Nitcharizdoing (56) Oct
Mowen11 (27) Oct
bady512 (16) Oct
undergroundsniper (12) Oct
ThisIsOilWar (11) Oct
abuuosama (7) Oct
Lukaszz1407 (6) Oct
IrhabiFromIraq (42) Sept
MujahideenMedia (88) Sept
Azadwatan (5) Sept

NICE jOB.


g

.

True Islam also rejects and condemns terrorism.

Taliban, screwups, lecture, ammo recovery

Ex-Taliban Commander Lectures Mullah Omar About Koran

Posted on February 1st, 2008 in Asia by admin

From his hilltop headquarters in the center of the southern Afghan town of Musa Qala, former Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Salaam has a sweeping view over dusty flatlands in northern Helmand Province. But Musa Qala is like a ghost town now compared to the bustling center it had been under Taliban control last year.

Just before NATO led an offensive in December to wrest Musa Qala from the Taliban, Salaam defected to the side of the central government. Afghan President Hamid Karzai later appointed him as the district chief in Musa Qala.

As a former Taliban commander, he still has a penchant for quoting the Koran — whether he is speaking to journalists, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, or NATO military officers. But now, he is also lecturing the Taliban leadership on the meaning of the Koran and Islam. “We must ask what is the goal of those who are fighting our government and the people of this country? What do they want?” Salaam says.

In exclusive interview with RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan, Salaam says he decided to support the Kabul government after he became convinced that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and his followers were violating the “orders of God” as revealed in the Koran.

“My brothers,” Salaam says, “these were the first five verses of the Koran that were revealed to the Prophet Muhammad at Mount Hira: ‘Read! In the Name of your Lord, Who has created all, has created man from a blood clot. Read! And your Lord is the Most Generous, who has taught by the pen, has taught man that which he knew not.’”

Salaam says those verses led him to question who the Taliban really are after seeing them “taking pens from our children and taking away schools and education.”

‘Take Up The Pen’

“If we take action based on the Koran and based on God’s orders, God says to take up the pen,” Salaam says. “But if the Taliban does not allow us to take up the pen, then I must demand to know what they are inspired by.”

Salaam says he knows from his days as a Taliban commander that Mullah Omar still sends orders to militants in the form of audio recordings from a cave where he hides.

But he thinks legitimate Islamic scholars would reject Omar’s claims of authority. He says that’s because Mullah Omar relinquished his authority before he fled Kandahar in late 2001 — passing his powers on to a commander named Naqibakhond who has since been killed by coalition forces in Afghanistan.

“So Mullah Omar has resigned his authority as emir,” Salaam concludes. “Islamic scholars know that an emir who has given his authority away can no longer claim to be an emir. And now, [Omar] is so weak that he is hiding in a cave. He gives his orders on an audio recording. And he orders the killing of teachers and students and the destruction of schools. This is not the Islamic way. And it is not the Islamic way for an emir to resign and then claim that he still has authority as an emir.”

The Taliban is not happy about Mullah Salaam’s defection and already has tried to kill him. Salaam survived one attempted assassination in January when a suicide bomber managed only to injure several of Salaam’s bodyguards.

The town of Musa Qala is still struggling in the aftermath of the December offensive. Thousands of residents were forced from their homes by the fighting.

Many of the displaced tell RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan that they prefer living on the dusty, rural plain outside of the town for now. Fearing fresh fighting between NATO and the Taliban in the spring, they say it is too early to start rebuilding what is left of their community.

Pulling a threatening Taliban letter from his pocket — which was posted anonymously at night on the walls and doors of buildings in Musa Qala — Salaam says he doesn’t think last month’s attack will be the last against him.

“I have a short night letter in my pocket and you will see that even in this letter, they humiliate the Koran of God,” Salaam says. “They posted this on people’s homes and signed it at the end. The author doesn’t know the Koran. At the beginning, he writes, ‘The Great God says in the Koran….’ But although they talk about what the Koran says, they don’t follow the Koran. I say they should stop deceiving themselves. They should not pervert the Koran like this. They should not sell Islam.”

Building Trust?

When locals talk about Salaam’s defection from the Taliban, they are careful to avoid expressing personal opinions — fearing possible retaliation from both the Taliban and government forces if they support one side or the other.

With Taliban fighters still positioned within 2 kilometers of Musa Qala, most residents say they hope their town eventually will be firmly behind only one side — rather than being split by loyalties to both the Taliban and the Afghan government. Meanwhile, they also anxiously await the arrival of reconstruction aid promised by NATO forces in Afghanistan.

With so many residents and shop owners still away from Musa Qala, the town’s central bazaar stands almost empty. It is a dramatic contrast to the bazaar’s appearance under Taliban control last year when it was bustling with activity. And since December, the prices of basic foods already have doubled. Still, under the Taliban, most traders at the bazaar had sold weapons or large bags of heroin and opium.

The government in Kabul has responded to Salaam’s earliest request — to deploy hundreds of Afghan police and troops to Musa Qala. Those forces now comprise most of the security guards posted around Salaam’s hilltop headquarters. Of some 300 fighters form Salaam’s own militia force, only the most trusted are allowed to carry weapons through the checkpoints and into the headquarters.

His 19-year-old son, who still wears the black turban of the Taliban, is Salaam’s most trusted companion. He accompanies Salaam to all of his official meetings and even carries his father’s mobile telephone.

For his part, the 45-year-old Salaam continues to wear the long, black beard and the turban that he donned during his days as the Taliban regime’s governor of nearby Oruzgun Province.

That could help him maintain his credentials as an Islamist and tribal leader. And with the government hoping more moderate Taliban will join him and support Kabul, it also gives Mullah Salaam the appearance of being what some Afghans now call “good Taliban” as opposed to “armed Taliban.”

(RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Saleh Mohammad Saleh contributed to this report from Musa Qala in Afghanistan.)

By Ron Synovitz

Source Radio Free Europe

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Taliban, troops clash in SWA

Blast damages PAF truck

Arif Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: Security forces and local Taliban have traded severe fire in Srakha area in the troubled Matta tehsil, the once hub of Maulana Fazalullah's Shaheen Force in Swat district.

Security forces also clashed with militants in areas surrounding Kot Kai in South Waziristan Agency.

The Post published a story Wednesday quoting reliable sources that a bunch of Taliban, loyal to defiant cleric Maulana Fazalullah, had resurfaced in the Srakha area in Tehsil Matta.

No casualties were reported as a result of heavy exchange of gunfire between the insurgents and security personnel. Security forces claim to have taken complete control of the troubled Matta Tehsil. However, they admitted that pockets of resistance were still there in some mountainous parts of the area. Taliban are now more inclined to ambush attacks, said an official in Swat. Local sources told this correspondent that Taliban in small groups usually appear after dusk and patrol some areas to show their presence, but quickly go underground to avoid arrest. Security forces could not establish the writ in the Gat Peochar area from where Taliban are putting resistance. It is said that Maulana Fazalullah along with his key commanders and close aides had been hiding in the Gat area.

As life is coming to normal in the Swat valley, people are still living under of fear of being bombed and killed in the crossfire. They still cannot move freely due to curfew. On the other hand, elections are fast approaching but no polls-related activity is seen in the area and people are sceptical about the holding of elections in Swat district.

The recently formed Qaumi Aman Jirga (National Peace Council) is struggling hard to reach a negotiated settlement between Taliban and security forces.

So far, the Jirga has managed the surrender of 34 suspected militants. Security personnel have also arrested an alleged commander of the Sheen Force, Sultanat Shah, who is said to be a close aide of Maulana Fazalullah.

In South Waziristan Agency, the ISPR said miscreants have suffered heavy casualties and huge caches of arms and ammunition have also been recovered during operations around Kot Kai. Sources said that security forces also conducted operations on the hideouts of militants located in the areas of Kot Kai, Kani Goom, Makeen and Brown and kept their pressure on the hideouts of militants through out the night while the militants equally resisted the onslaught with equal tenacity.

A group of journalists visited the areas which have been cleared by security forces and were shown the trenches and caves which were used by the miscreants. Security forces have also established relief camps in Jandola and surrounding areas to provide relief to the displaced people of the area.



Bomb explosion: In a separate incident, a truck of the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) was partially damaged in a roadside bomb explosion on main Grand Trunk (GT) road in Akora Khattak, some 42 kilometre east of this provincial capital on Thursday.

The driver of the truck, Salahuddin, and two PAF officials who were identified as Mohammad Habib and Shafqat remained safe in the attack, occurred at 9:40 in the morning.

A PAF truck carrying spare parts and other such goods from Chaklala Airbase, Rawalpindi to Badabher Scheme in Peshawar was attacked with a remote controlled explosive planted in the dividing portion between two roads near Khushal Khan Khattak library in the main Akora Khattak town.

The explosion completely damaged the front of the truck but the PAF staffers remained safe. Soon after the blast, police and army personnel reached the spot and blocked the road for traffic for few minutes. After collecting pieces of the bomb and shifting the truck to Akora Khattak police station, the road was reopened for traffic.

Initial investigation says it was a local made bomb, however, it could not be ascertained immediately if the PAF truck was the main target of the alleged miscreants.

An air force official confirmed the bombing and "slight" damage to the truck.



Ammunition recovered: Another report said that the security forces and political administration claimed to have recovered official ammunition seized by militants on January 24, 2008, during an ambush on the security convoy in Darra Adamkhel.

Officials in Kohat told The Post that three of the four trucks hijacked by militants had been recovered during search operation by the security forces in Kot Chapper area, the place from where soldiers recovered the bodies of 13 slain security personnel the other day.

As the search operation in Dara Adamkhel is continued, the security personnel are patrolling the bazaars and streets to reassure the locals that the situation was under control.

Hundreds of locals who had fled the area due to military operation are now coming back. However, many of them still fear another backlash in their area.

On the other hand, the security forces, engineers and the Pak-Japan Friendship Tunnel staffers had been busy in restoring traffic flow via the tunnel. However, due to electricity and other technical problems the tunnel could not be reopened completely. Officials said that complete restoration of traffic could take a couple of days.

http://thepost.com.pk/MainNewsT.aspx?fdtl_id=1033&fb_id=2&catid=14

http://snipurl.com/1ys96

al Qaeda forces Mental deficients to become suicide bombers

al Qaeda forces Mental deficient women to become suicide bombers.
Next they plan to fill toddlers diapers with remote explosives and turn them lose in markets.

....

Allah please:
They do this in YOUR NAME, blasphemers.

G
If such is the case then their is no nobility in the actions of those that would and did volitionally use the mentally retarded instead of themselves for such "martyrdom" attacks.

.
.

Third Internet undersea cable cut between Sri Lanka, Suez

"It seems now to be way beyond the realm of coincidence that a further 4th critical international communications cable should break within seven days," one ArabianBusiness.com reader commented.

"Clearly Iran, who was most affected, would gain nothing from such an action and is perhaps the target of those responsible," said another reader.

Those theories were fuelled further on Monday when Egypt said damage to the cables in the Mediterranean Sea was not caused by ships, as previously thought.

Egypt's Transport Ministry said footage recorded by onshore video cameras of the location of the cables shows no maritime traffic in the area when the cables were damaged.

"The ministry's maritime transport committee reviewed footage covering the period of 12 hours before and 12 hours after the cables were cut and no ships sailed the area," a statement by the Communications Ministry said.

"The area is also marked on maps as a no-go zone and it is therefore ruled out that the damage to the cables was caused by ships."

It is not clear how badly Iran's internet access has been affected by the cable breaks.

The Iranian embassy in Abu Dhabi told ArabianBusiness.com that "everything is fine", but internet connectivity reports on the web, citing a router in Tehran, appear to indicate that there is currently no connection to the outside world.

Third undersea cable reportedly cut between Sri Lanka, Suez.

DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--A third undersea fibre optic cable running through the Suez to Sri Lanka was cut Friday, said a Flag official.
Two other fiber optic cables owned by Flag Telecom and consortium SEA-ME-WE 4 located near Alexandria, Egypt, were damaged Wednesday leading to a slowdown in Internet and telephone services in the Middle East and South Asia.
"We had another cut today between Dubai and Muscat three hours back. The cable was about 80G capacity, it had telephone, Internet data, everything," one Flag official, who declined to be named, told Zawya Dow Jones.
The cable, known as Falcon, delivers services to countries in the Mediterranean and Gulf region, he added.

There are conflicting reports of how the two Alexandria cables were cut. Oman's largest telecom, Omantel, said a tropical storm caused the damage while the United Arab Emirates' second largest telecom, said the cables were cut due to ships dragging their anchors...

SOURCE:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Asymmetric warfare?

all out bot net Pearl Harbor attack

An attack on USA forces Internet connections?

G
strange

GREAT FOLLOW UP hERE: Renesys Blog

UPDATE: EMAIL
> In a conversation w/ US Navy this morning, it was
> said that any ship over 300 metric tons is supposed
> to beacon who and what it is, and that the ships of
> interest, which are explicitly tracked at all times
> in any ocean, are those that do not. Ipso facto,
> it is either a small boat or who it was can be
> ascertained.
>

One imagines the NOSS satellites play a role here... (those are
the US classified birds that fly in formation of twos or threes)...

They locate (mostly marine) emitters very efficiently....

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Email:
Gerald, . Internet here in the Middle East is still very slow today, it’s taking 10 – 15 seconds to open a simple email message, and we are experiencing problems with phone connections. Officials I’ve spoken to say bad weather is likely to be the reason behind the cuts – not terrorism.

Best Regards,

Tahani Karrar

his article:

FOCUS: Weather Not Terror To Blame For Mideast Internet Cuts
Zawya Dow Jones Newswires


Monday, Feb 04, 2008

By Tahani Karrar

Of ZAWYA DOW JONES

DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Bad weather not terrorism may be behind unexplained cuts to underwater cables that provide internet to more than 85 million users across the Middle East, according to telecommunications officials.

Internet and telephone users in India, Pakistan, Sudan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain have been directly affected by the cuts in the underwater cables, which began last week.

"Cables are exposed to the danger of terrorist groups but at this moment we don't think these events are a result of that," a spokesperson for Flag Telecom, owner of two of the cut cables, told Zawya Dow Jones Monday.

Two submarine cables responsible for 75% of telecommunications between the Middle East and Europe -- FLAG Europe-Asia and SEA-ME-WE 4 -- were cut on Jan. 30, off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt.

Ships anchoring due to bad weather, not terrorism, are the likely cause of three consecutive submarine cable cuts linking the Middle East and South Asia to Europe and the U.S., the Flag spokesperson said.

A second Flag cable, known as FALCON, was cut between Dubai, U.A.E., and Muscat, Oman, on Feb. 1, an hour after Qatar Telecom's DOHA-HALOUL subsea cable was severed at 0500 GMT.

Terrorists and militants have targeted infrastructure such as oil facilities in the Middle East and Persian Gulf in an effort to disrupt the region's economy. A high profile attack in 2006 narrowly failed to blow up Saudi Arabia's giant Abqaiq oil complex.

The U.S. Embassy officials in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the U.A.E., dismissed suggestions that the simultaneous cable cuts in the Persian Gulf could be linked to terrorist activity.

The Persian Gulf has played a central role in linking east and west with telecommunications since the British established the first wire link between India and Europe in the 19th century via a a landing point near the Strait of Hormuz, known as Telegraph Island.

A Flag repair ship sailing from Catania, Italy, is expected to reach the FLAG Europe-Asia cable by Feb.5 as Egyptian Authorities expedite permits for the repair work.

It is expected to take up to two weeks to fix the cable.

The port of Abu Dhabi is closed due to bad weather and another repair ship will set sail to fix FALCON as soon as the weather clears. It may take ten days to fix the FALCON cable, according to the spokesperson.

The U.A.E.'s second-largest telecom company, known as du, said up to 80% of previous cable cuts in the region had been due to external causes such as ships dragging their anchors, fishing boats using trawling nets or general wear and tear due to cable movement along the sea bed.

"One reason could be the bad weather in the region at that time forced ships to anchor to stabilize themselves," said Khaled Tabbara, executive director of carrier relations at du.

Submarine cables usually last between 15 - 20 years before wear and tear is bad enough for them to warrant being changed. SEA-ME-WE 4 is a new cable which was launched in 2005.

-By Tahani Karrar, Dow Jones Newswires,

http://www.zawya.com/printstory.cfm?storyid=ZW20080204000086&l=000000080204

http://snipurl.com/1yy59

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On NANOG are reports of yet another submarine cable in the middle east that was damaged Sunday. It's a cable between Haloul, Qatar and Das, United Arab Emirates.

Also interesting is that Egypt claims no ship were near two of the previous cable cuts.

• AFP: 4th cut
• 3rd cut ISC dairy
• Egypt investigation article into the first two cuts

Now even in the face of this many concurrent submarine cable losses, most will still have (reduced) service, so it's not a reason to panic just yet. See a.o. the renesys blog for reasons not to jump to conclusions too fast.

Still designing for a quadruple failure isn't the most trivial nor economical solution in all cases, especially not when dealing with expensive submarine links.

SOURCE:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

New class of WMD, ( RELATED)

Iran's Internet OUT, GONE. not,

5 th cable cut here: 02.04.08

.
.

DHS releases Cyber Storm report ( FLAWED, missed )

DHS releases Cyber Storm report ( for 1990's type of attacks..g )

The exercise simulated a large-scale cyber campaign that disrupts multiple critical infrastructure, ( READ: not an all out bot net Pearl Harbor attack, as it only disrupted infrastructure, NOT SHUT IT DOWN ..G )
as well as simulated "physical demonstrations and disturbances"
( should have tested kenitic attacks on the Internet Cable by subs Shutting off the INTERNET, as in Extensive Internet failure has affected much of Asia, the Middle ( RIGHT NOW, ON GOING) East, north Africa...G )
to test the ability of government to respond to multiple incidents simultaneously, even when its not clear that the events are related (read: 9/11).

So how'd our government do? Not so well.

Among other things, the report found that the NCRCG did not have sufficient technical experts on staff to respond to the volume of incidents. "As a result, development of an accurate situational picture was challenging, albeit in part due to the difficulty of the scenario."

That's kind of like saying "If the test was just easier, I would have done better!"

...."Contingency planning for backup or resilient communications methods is a critical need. While only tested for a few players during the exercise, many players noted a high reliance of cyber incident response activities on communication systems that can be, themselves, vulnerable to attack or failure."

So if Cyber Storm was designed to assess the U.S. government's readiness to respond to a coordinated physical and cyber attack on critical infrastructure, the conclusion of this report may be that such an attack, if launched, may well succeed.
SOURCE:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

DIDN'T EVEN LOOK AT WORST CASE scenario......
Take the Internet down one node at a time, till its gone.

NOW PREPARE FOR THAT EMERGENCY.
I would guess the volume of snail mail would explode 10, 100 fold.
Plan to bring in the National Guard to the Post office system
till civilians could be hired.

COME ON GUYS....



Gerald
Internet Anthropologist


.
.

New Threat to GWOT

From a members only group:
Emails:

> > http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html
> >
> > failure hits two continents
> > Story Highlights
> >
> > Extensive Internet failure has affected much of Asia, the Middle
> > East, north Africa
> >
> > A telecommunications provider blames the outage on a major cable failure
> >
> > It has caused major disruptions to business, television and phone services
> >
> > Several reports say damaged cable in the Mediterranean could take

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
From CNN's Elham Nakhlawai and Mustafa Al Arab
> >
> > DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) -- Large swathes of Asia, the
> > Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services
> > crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which
> > brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.
> >
> > One major telecommunications provider blamed the outage, which
> > started Wednesday, on a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean.
> >
> > India's Internet bandwidth has been sliced in half, The Associated
> > Press reported, leaving its lucrative outsourcing industry trying to
> > reroute traffic to satellites and other cables through Asia.
> >
> > Reports say that Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United
> > Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain are also experiencing severe problems.
> >
> > Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel -- whose
> > traffic uses a different route -- and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle
> > East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.
> >
> > An official at Egypt's Ministry of Communications and Information
> > Technology, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was believed
> > that a boat's anchor may have caused the problems, although this was
> > unconfirmed, AP reported. He added that it might take up to a week to
> > repair the fault.
> >
> > Rajesh Chharia, president of India's Internet Service Providers'
> > Association, explained that some firms were trying to reroute via
> > Pacific cables and that companies serving the eastern US and the UK
> > were worst affected, AP added.
> >
> > Besides the Internet, the outage caused major disruption to
> > television and phone services, creating chaos for the UAE's public
> > and private sectors.
> >
> > There were contradicting reports on the real cause behind the
> > disruption, but Du, a state-owned Dubai telecom provider, attributed
> > it to an undersea cable cut in the Mediterranean Sea between
> > Alexandria, Egypt and Palermo, Italy.
> >
> > A Du internal memo, obtained by CNN, called the situation in Dubai
> > "critical" and stated that the cable's operators did not know when
> > services would be restored.
> >
> > "This will have a major impact on our voice and Internet service for
> > all the customers," the memo stated. "The network operation team are
> > working with our suppliers overseas to resolve this as soon as possible."
> >
> > The outage led to a rapid collapse of a wide range of public services
> > in a country which proudly promotes itself as technological pioneer.
> >
> > Sources from Emirates Airlines confirmed to CNN Arabic that the
> > outage did not affect its flight schedules -- a statement which
> > assured hundreds of travelers worried after rumors about the
> > possibility of rescheduled flights due to the faults.
> >
> > However, Dnata, a government group in charge of providing air travel
> > services in the Middle East and ground handling services at Dubai
> > International Airport, acknowledged facing problems because of the
> > outage, sources from its technical department confirmed to CNN Arabic.
> >
> > The outage heavily crippled Dubai's business section, which is
> > heavily reliant on electronic means for billions of dollars' worth of
> > transactions daily.
> >
> > Wadah Tahah, the business strategies and development manager for
> > state-owned construction company EMAAR, told CNN Arabic that it was
> > fortunate the outage started Wednesday, when there had been only
> > moderate activity in the UAE markets. He said that softened the blow
> > to business interests.
> >
> > But Tahah warned that if the outage continued, "such a situation
> > could create problems between brokers, companies, and investors due
> > to loss of control."


World Class, Professional, Ethical, and Competent Bug Sweeps, and
> > Wiretap Detection using Sophisticated Laboratory Grade Test Equipment.
> >
> ------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > James M. Atkinson Phone: (978) 546-3803
> > Granite Island Group Fax: (978) 546-9467
> > 127 Eastern Avenue #291 Web: http://www.tscm.com/
> > Gloucester, MA 01931-8008
> >
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > We perform bug sweeps like it's a full contact sport, we take
> no prisoners,
> > and we give no quarter. Our goal is to simply, and completely stop the spy.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

At 08:57 PM 1/31/2008, kondrak wrote:

>They're now claiming it was "fishing trawlers", I'll wait to see where
>the cuts are exactly, if they're close to shore I can buy the fishing story.
>Seems we will have to wait a week is to find out.
>
>James M. Atkinson wrote:
> > Two similar mid span cable cuts... massive service outages,
> > suspicious circumstances.
> >
> > I would suspect that a grapple hook was involved and that someone
> > went fishing for this cable just so that they could cut them to
> > disrupt communications infrastructure.
> >
> > The ideal threat model is would be two boats grappling for one cable,
> > which they cut is two places about a mile apart. The two more boats
> > grappling for the cable on the secondary path(s) which they also cut
> > in two locations separated by about a mile. The "floating" one mile
> > segment that they isolate would then be towed some distance way from
> > the main cable and then dropped back to the sea floor thus leaving a
> > huge gap ensuring the outage lasted months, not days.
> >
> > By targeting both the primary and secondary cables (both sides of the
> > rings) the saboteurs could have completely blinded everything in the area.
> >
> > One major cable outage in a region can be blamed for an accident, two
> > in the same region is highly suspect.
> >
> >
> > -jma

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This brings up the possibility of even deisel powered subs torpedoing Internet cables around the World. How do we protect the cables? Harden them? replicate them with satellites?

Add this type of attack to a Internet Pearl Harbor attack, and we have a problem Huston.

Gerald
Internet Anthropologist

.

French dooms day weapon,,,

French: new anti tank weapon: terrible devastating threat.
Weapon to end all WARS.
Total destruction, unstoppable, French designed and built.
This ability fully explains the French heroic efforts in WWII.
WORTH THE TIME, WATCH

It would be OK for France to sell this to Iran.

Sorry France is talking tough to Iran now, thats a start.
Seriously we salute all the valiant French forces in the Middle East fighting terrorism.

G

.

Military lacking Internet Paradigm

Poke one eye out, his stereo vision just confuses him, and he asks more questions. Limited info is BEST...( white listing )

Limited concept of effective Internet use, they fear the weapon; the Internet which our enemy so embraces.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Big Crackdown in Store for Military Nets?

By Noah Shachtman January 31, 2008 | 7:55:34 PM

There may be proponents of soldier blogging in the top brass. But, unfortunately, they appear to be losing the argument. The info security absolutists are beating the sensible like a goat-skin conga. Federal Computer Week recently reported that the Pentagon was leaning towards white-listing -- " policy that would banish all traffic not proven to be purely official DOD business from its networks," -- as a way to shore up its computer security. (Never mind that such site blocks, arbitrary or poorly placed, keep people ignorant.) SOURCE:

( white listing )

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held the confirmation hearing today, Wednesday, at 11:15a. CNN so far is the only one reporting on it, but to say they "reported" on it is a stretch.

The man nominated to head public diplomacy at the State Department said Wednesday that al Qaeda is doing a better job than the Bush administration in winning friends over the Internet....

"Our enemies are eating our lunch in terms of getting the word out in digital technology," said James Glassman....

http://mountainrunner.us/

http://snipurl.com/1yrek

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Top General: Let Soldiers Blog

By Noah Shachtman January 31, 2008 | 3:21:00 PMCategories: Info War

A leading general and former top military spokesman in Iraq is pleading with the armed services to let troops blog and post to YouTube. Too bad the video site is banned on military nets, and Army rules squeeze military bloggers, hard. Greg Grant notes, politely, that Caldwell's "recommendation that appears to run counter to Pentagon policy."

Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV became an internationally-recognized figure in 2006 and 2007 as the face of the American effort in Iraq. He commanded the 82nd Airborne Division before, and now heads the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth -- one of the Army's main intellectual centers. (Gen. David Petraeus held the job before taking over the Iraq war.)

In a Small Wars Journal blog post, Caldwell says that, in a struggle where perception is often as important as bombs-and-bullets conflict, soldiers ought to be encouraged and equipped to wage that information war on their own. And that means "get[ting] onto blogs and [s]end[ing] their YouTube videos to their friends and family."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Confused paradigm:

Currently a solider blogger needs to get 4 or 5 approvals to post from battle field commanders.
Our most powerful assets in the Info WAR, bound hand ad foot.

An old handicap hunted man in a cave sets the Internet paradigm and "is eating our lunch in terms of getting the word out."

Our military fears the technology our enemy fully embraces and is winning the hearts and minds, Prolonging and extending the GWOT.
I wish al Qaeda would limit their troops on the Internet.

While USA is limiting access to the Internet for the troops.

Our Paradigm Intel indicates the Navy is 6 mo.s to a Year ahead of the other Services.
The Navy is the first to recognize the power and weapon of the Internet for OSINT.
OSINT will be the new I-pod for Intelligence.
Navy seems to be on the right track. NNIC.

Homeland Security has a close second to the Navy's OSINT operation.

Other Services still don't know why they need OSINT nor have they seen the
Internet OSINT paradigm, breath, depth, scope, range and always current.

OSINT is the new force multiplier.
The ENEMY is talking on the Internet, do you have your EARS on?

Gerald
Internet Anthropologist



.

Somebody tell me this is a joke?

What dumbass is running Yemen? G.

Arabia
2008-02-01
Yemen: Al-Qaeda fighting rebels 'at government's request'
(AKI) -Yemeni al-Qaeda cell spokesman Ahmad Mansour has said that the government asked it to fight a Shia rebel group in the North of the country, local newspaper al-Wasat reported. "They [the government] have asked us to fight against the followers of Imam al-Houthi of Saada. In return, Yemeni security forces will ease the persecution of our members," said Mansour.

Mansour added that al-Qaeda members are present in various locations throughout Yemen and have always had contact with the government, through Sheikhs and tribal leaders. "Sheikh Osama bin Laden ordered us not to attack [the government] in the country and to combat only the communists, but the relationship with the government soured after the end of the war with Southern Yemen in 1994." said the al-Qaeda militant. Mansour added that the United States still was their number-one enemy and that attacks against tourists could be carried out.
Source http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1830285308
Posted by Fred
SOURCE:


This just has to be worng a joke?

G
Well been thinking, he has his two enemys fighting each other and he only has to fight what is left. Maybe not so dumb, sure does run against the grain.

.

NEW: 5 Bin Laden letters

Pakistan: US intelligence agents 'uncover Bin Laden letters'



Islamabad, 31 Jan. (AKI) - US secret service agents operating in the remote border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan claim to have found five letters signed by al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, Saudi daily Al-Watan said on Thursday.

Citing unnamed local security sources, the newspaper said that the letters are allegedly handwritten in Arabic and bear Bin Laden's apparent signature and seal.

They appear to have been sent last December to some of Bin Laden's followers in the region.

One of the letters is addressed to the Taliban leader in Afghanistan's volatile southern province of Helmand, Mansoor Dadallah.

In the letter, Bin Laden reportedly offers condolences to Dadallah, the brother of Mullah Dadallah, late Taliban leader in Helmand, who was killed last year in a US air strike.

After his brother's death, Mansoor Dadullah claimed he had received a letter from Bin Laden in an interview with satellite Arabic TV network Al-Jazeera.

Mansoor spent several years in jail and was freed in March 2007 as part of a deal that secured the release of kidnapped Italian reporter Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who had been held by Taliban militants for two weeks.

The letter addressed to Dadullah also urges the Taliban to step up its attacks on NATO troops deployed in the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Al-Watan reported.

Western intelligence agents are currently analysing the letters for evidence of any contact with 14 alleged members of an Islamic fundamentalist group arrested in anti-terror raids in the north-east Spanish city of Barcelona on January 19.

Twelve Pakistani and two Indians allegedly belonging to Jamaat Al-Tabligh wal-Dawa (Society for Propagation and Preaching) were arrested in a series of police raids.

Police said they had found bomb-related material during the raids and that the operation was aimed at breaking up an Islamist terror network.
SOURCE:

al Qaeda's #3 gone, an opportunity.

Head trips: Paradigms


al Qaeda's #3 gone, opportunity.

Abu Laith al-Libi, has been killed.

He was Ayman al Zawahri's best bud, his right hand and possibly the only person to know where
Biny and Zee are hiding.

Now Abu Laith al-Libi was traveling with his best and somebody very stable was left in charge,
someone who would never be a threat to Abu Laith al-Libi.

Not a 'milk toast' but not a Leader/threat either.
He is left floundering around trying to make connections back to Biny et al.

But its going be up to Biny and Zee to pick someone to go and make contact, and must decide who to contact, not an easy decision considering security considerations, who is loyal, not watched, and will keep his mouth shut.

Probably somebody clean. ( No record or prior connection to aQ )
And there is no need to make contact early, not until aQ leadership want to make a statement.

Paradigm Intel suggests aQ is in Afghan, as By'atullah Mahsoud is not coming to the Talibans rescue in Afghan and was fired.

USA is getting close, for aQ to bring that much pressure on the Taliban of Afghan to fire Paki Taliban for not following orders and coming to aQ rescue in Afghan. A huge split in the Taliban.

Gerald


Background noise indicates Gov. Intel working something accross the board, everybody is workig it. LMGURL0
They got it took most of one day though.
.

Taliban Paradigm

( The best analysis I've read on Talban...Paradigm fits..G )


January 31, 2008

Taliban 'resurgence' sign of desperation not increased capability

Ray Robison
An Associated Press report in response to President Bush's recent State of the Union speech argues that while the president was accurate on his statements regarding Afghanistan, he is misleading about the resurgence of the Taliban. It provides a good catalyst for reviewing this "resurgent Taliban" claim which seems to be set in stone in the editorial offices in most major media outlets.

The problem is that these reports mistake the last desperate flailing of the jihad alliance with an actual offensive. In short, though the Taliban can still kick up some dust there is little chance of them rising to a level of influence over the political future of Afghanistan, unless and until they put down their guns and join the peace process.

In his article, Jason Straziuso makes a deft point which I have tried to get across for some time. It is central to understanding what has occurred since the coalition drove out the Taliban:

"With the Taliban evidently resurgent, it has also become obvious that their easy departure in 2001 was more of a strategic retreat than an actual military defeat," wrote Nic Lee, the director of the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office."

When we attacked the Taliban and kicked them out of Afghanistan in 2001, we didn't really defeat them; we just pushed them back into their own support base. Although we did take out some core al Qaeda leadership it wasn't destroyed either. Journalists have not made much of an effort to acknowledge (they should have) that the Taliban was mostly Pakistani in origin anyway with an Afghan face for popular support. The Taliban was formed (at a minimum) by the acquiescence of Benazeer Bhutto to protect Pakistani trade routes through Afghanistan and as a way for the Pakistani government to gain influence over the unstable and internecine warfare between Afghan warlords after they deposed the communist government.

Pushing them off their Afghan base was a tactical victory, but not a strategic one. It can be said that a strategic victory was impossible under the conditions at the time; that as long as they had Pakistan to retreat to, they could never be completely defeated.

This left an obvious way forward for US strategy in the war on terror. Either we went to war with Pakistan, a really bad idea, or we needed to carve the Taliban and al Qaeda into factions so they could render themselves ineffective by killing each other, the Achilles' heel of the jihad movement. I have been writing for months now about signs that the US government embarked upon the later course, noting open source indications of success. It's pretty much out in the open now that it has worked.

Here it is from the horse's mouth: ADNkronos:

Spokesman for the Afghan Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Amarat Islami Afghanistan, or Afghan Taliban, had separated from the Tehrik Taliban Pakistan and its leader Baitullah Mehsud.

And

In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI) from an unknown location, Zabihullah said when the Pakistani Taliban were fighting against the US, and other allied forces who occupied Afghanistan, the two Taliban groups were allies.

But he said since Baitullah and other tribal militants in the border region had started fighting Pakistan's armed forces, the Afghani Taliban had cut all ties and openly disowned them.

In other words, the al Qaeda affiliated Taliban of Pakistan which wants to overthrow Musharraf (and establish an Islamic government) is now split from the Afghanistan based Taliban. It makes sense when you look at it this way. The Afghan Taliban has probably become a more purely Afghan populated Taliban than it was before. This is because when al Qaeda shifted to Pakistan in 2001, the al Qaeda and Taliban core leadership no longer needed the Afghan tribes to secure themselves. So over time, the Pakistan Taliban has lost focus on Afghanistan, whereas the Afghan Taliban still sees it as a fight for their very homes. In Pakistan, the focus is now jihad to take over Pakistan, a political jihad unlike the "defensive jihad" in Afghanistan.

I have also written that al Qaeda, defeated in Iraq, and seeing the coming split of the Taliban support base they thrive in, had no choice but to try and take over the Taliban in Pakistan. They did this by redeploying al Qaeda fighters from Iraq to Pakistan and integrating them into sympathetic Taliban tribes and working with young chieftains to push the more aggressive ones into power over the older chieftains.

This, I wrote, would result in major clashes as al Qaeda started to fight the Pakistani government to take over the tribal areas to secure its' base. And, important political figures in Pakistan (of the MMA) that formerly worked with al Qaeda would not like giving up direct control over the Pakistani jihadis to al Qaeda. Especially after al Qaeda put an MMA leader on a hit-list.

Jane's recognizes it now:

Numerous theories have been put forward to explain Mansour Dadullah's dismissal, but his increasingly close relationship with Al-Qaeda was the real reason, according to a senior foreign official in Afghanistan who spoke to Jane's.

High and mid-level Taliban commanders contacted by Jane's had little respect for Dadullah. Some said he was only promoted in an attempt to safeguard his brother's networks and as a face-saving exercise to mitigate the psychological blow of Mullah Dadullah's death.

While the dismissal of an ineffective commander is unlikely to weaken the insurgency, it has highlighted divisions within the Taliban. The Taliban is increasingly split between those who follow the old leadership and those who take their cue from Al-Qaeda.

Not only has the Taliban separated into pro-al Qaeda and anti-al Qaeda factions, but it is splitting regionally. Despite Jane's claim that this may not weaken them, it weakens the very Taliban-al Qaeda alliance that attacked the United States on 9/11. And once they are crippled they are susceptible to fighting each other, inter-tribal warfare.

As these groups become isolated, they will fight even harder, fighting for self-preservation rather than ideology. But we should not mistake increased fighting for increased capability. In this case it is only a mark of desperation.

The Taliban is desperate to avoid the inevitable outcome, that once they are fully carved up into small factions fighting along tribal lines, they will have to acquiesce to the legal Afghanistan government. Soon al Qaeda leadership will have to rely on a Taliban with questionable loyalties which makes the environment ripe for a betrayal. Surely, one of these Taliban groups will come to consider al Qaeda leadership as a bargaining chip once their political situation deteriorates.

Posted at 11:24 AM | Email | Permalink

GWOT: Process:

GWOT: Process:

aQ attacked USA 5 times non conus,
USA did react, mildly.
aQ hit NYC.

USA took by force of arms two Middle Eastern countrys.
Set up new governments of and by the ummah.

For 6 years aQ has been biting at the edge of Americas military buzz saw, loosing their teeth and heads.
Taliban have been throwing its best and most precious resource at the USA military, Taliban suicide bombers. In a obscene dance for the Western media...
( Taliban claims responsibility for mosque suicide bombing )

For 6 years USA army has been eating them up.
Taliban in fits of rage kill Muslims, women,children bomb Mosques and market places.

aQ has said this is also an economic war.
Oil $100 bbl, gold $800 oz....
USA is facing recession, inflation and paying all Americans $1000 bonus this year.
aQ has picked the wrong terrain again, they cannot beat USA economically.

World don't miss the PARADIGM.
Attack USA and loose your country, and USA will grind attackers down for at least 6 years
by force of arms any where in the world.


Gerald
Anthropologst
.

PBS The Return of the Taliban 2nd

PBS The Return of the Taliban
First section, 1 thru 4 here.
EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT...

#5)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=33a_1201761818

#6)


#7)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1b_1201763856

g

.

An 'Awakening' Council Version in Pakistan!

This is HUGE news, folks! Eighteen tribes in Orazkai Agency (a "province" in Pakistan) have decided to band together and form an army to rout out the Taliban from their land! And we aren't talking about a few pickup trucks full of dudes here...the initial "rally" for this new Pakistani Awakening Council version was attended by 10,000-15,000 armed men. I figure with 15,000 tribal patriots combing the mountains in search of Taliban, we are going to see a lot of Taliban tail heading north into Afghanistan, hopefully into the arms of awaiting Apaches.
SOURCE:Holger Awakens


g


.

PBS The Return of the Taliban

PBS The Return of the Taliban
SECOND section, 5 thru 7 here.
EXCELLENT, EXCELLENT...

#1)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6f8_1201746144
( no embed ?? )

#2)


#3)
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5f4_1201754930

#4)
....

SECOND section, 5 thru 7 here.

g

.

TALIBAN Suicide bombers learn of the DANCE

TALIBAN Suicide bombers learn of the DANCE...dance you poor dumb bastards, DANCE.


The Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud have the suicde bombers DANCE for the Western Press. Taliban is political, faking religious excuses.

Taliban claims responsibility for mosque suicide bombing



Assalamu Alilkum Wa Rahmatulah Wa Barakatuh
السلام ، الرحمه ، والبركة من الله ان يكون على

Gerald

,

Forum Spy

asked how the bomb detonator
moxxxxxx
01-14-2008,
الرجاء من إلي إلو خبرة في هذا المجال يكتب كيفية عمل صاعق عبوة من العلم بعدم توفر الامكانيات الإننا بالضفة الغربية بس إن شاء الله حندبر حالنا Please wave of the experience in this area how to write action detonator charge of science lack of possibilities Alanna West Bank, but God willing Hndber life

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Praise be to God Com and phentermine, and Self Injury, We seek refuge with Allah from the evils of ourselves and our evils of dairy God is Mahtd Hadi is not mislead him, and I testify that there is no god but God alone is not a partner, and I testify that Muhammad Abduh, and His Messenger (peace be upon him) .
اللهم رب جبرائيل و ميكائيل و اسرافيل فاطر السماوات والأرض عالم الغيب والشهادة أنت تحكم بين عبادك فيما كانوا فيه يختلفون ، اللهم أهدنا لما اختلف فيه من الحق بإذنك انك تهدي من تشاء إلى صراط مستقيم. Oh God, the Lord of Gabriel and Michael and feared frameworks heavens and the earth, and the unseen world of the certificate you judge between Thy slaves with which they disagree, Oh God what is different when you purchase the right of the Permanent wants a straight path.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

God bless you brother, Saad Al Dzet well


أدامك الله خادماً للإسلام والمسلمين Adamk servant of God of Islam and Muslims

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Request for the destruction of sites
برابط جديد من فضلكم حي علي الجهاد الالكتروني Histocompatibility new Please Come to jihad mail
baxxxxxxxx
01-16-2008,
الرجاء ايضاح ما تريده بالضبط ...اعني هل تريد ايقاف الموقع ام استخدامه وانشاء الله سأرسل لك البرنامج المناسب Please explain exactly what it wants ... I mean you want to stop, or use the site and the establishment of God I will send you the appropriate programme

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

your assistance in penetrating this forum and the site Alinvaki tendentious
لواء الكرامه Brigade dignity
01-01-2008,
هذا هو الرابط This is the link
www.alvoatm.com (http://www.alvoatm.com) Www.alvoatm.com (http://www.alvoatm.com)

www.alvoatm.com/vb (http://www.alvoatm.com/vb) Www.alvoatm.com / vb (http://www.alvoatm.com/vb)

وقدرت أطلع الباسوورد حق لوحة التحكم It estimated briefed Vietnam right of the control panel
وهذا هو الباسوورد This is the Orient
qxxxxxxx


ما أوصيكم أخواني أبغى الموقع ينمسح ويحترق Recommend what my brothers wanted Inmsh site and burn
( Sounds like some form of our old DOS friends.)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

G

.

KEY: Terror Leader Killed in Missile Strike?

By HABIBULLAH KHAN and MARTHA RADDATZ
Jan. 30, 2008

Pakistani intelligence sources say they believe a "high-value" al Qaeda target was killed in a missile strike yesterday in the country's tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

U.S. officials said there was no indication that the target was Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, but one senior official told ABCNews.com the strike was aimed at one particular figure.

"We don't know whether we got him yet, we are sorting through it," the official said, indicating the intended target was a top leader of the terror group.

The official also ruled out as a target American al Qaeda Adam Gadahn, who appeared recently in a propaganda videotape.

"Gadahn may be recognizable to all of you, but he is really not that high up on the food chain in al Qaeda and not that important," the official said.

Pakistani officials initially said that 12 suspected militants had been killed in a midnight strike against a home in a village in North Waziristan, Khushali Torikhel.

Both the Pakistani military and the CIA have used missile attacks in the past to target top al Qaeda leaders.

The CIA uses missiles attached to the unmanned Predator aircraft which fly over Pakistani airspace with tacit Pakistani government approval.

SOURCE:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

MIRAMSHAH, Jan 29: Twelve suspected militants were killed in a missile attack on a house in Mirali tehsil in the troubled North Waziristan tribal region on Monday night, officials and witnesses said.

The missile hit a house in Khushali Torikhel village, about three kilometres off Mirali town.

It landed in the guestrooms and killed the 12 people.

Residents said the two guestrooms of the house were destroyed.
( They knew where the guestrooms were, which rooms to target them...G )

Local tribesmen immediately took the bodies in possession and buried them.

�A loud explosion rocked the area at 11.22pm and the people came out of their homes in panic,� a resident said.

He said that nobody exactly knew the occupants of the household and some foreigners might have been in the house.

The attack caused anger among tribesmen and students staged a protest in Miramshah. They chanted slogans against the government and the United States.

It could not be confirmed if the attack was carried out by the Pakistani security forces, but locals suspected that the missile had been fired from a drone.

The tribesmen warned that the attack could derail the ongoing talks with militants for restoration of peace in the restive region.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/01/30/top2.htm

http://snipurl.com/1ymf4

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Update:
7 Arabs among missile victims



By Our Correspondent


MIRAMSHAH, Jan 30: Militants retrieved and buried on Wednesday the bodies of 12 foreigners who had been killed in a missile attack on a residential compound in the Khushali Toorikhel area of North Waziristan on Monday night.

Local people said the identity of the militants killed in the attack remained unknown but according to unconfirmed reports seven of them were Arabs while the other five from central Asian.

The compound, located about three kilometres south of Mirali town, is owned by Abdus Sattar, a driver, who survived the attack.

A large number of militants had surrounded the site to get the bodies which the later buried in a local graveyard.

�Militants are still keeping the local people away from the place,� a villager told Dawn on phone. He said that unmanned air vehicles had hovered over the area on Wednesday.

The attack is a mystery because it is still not known who had fired the missile.

Some local people claimed that a drone had fired the missile but officials have been keeping quiet.

�I heard the sound of a plane just before the explosion,� said the man who identified himself as Zaheer Gul.

Several places in the North Waziristan have come under attack in the recent past. A house was attacked in Mosaki village in Mirali tehsil in December 2005 in which Al Qaeda�s operational commander Hamza Rabia was killed.

Meanwhile, militants attacked a security base in the Razmak sub-division of North Waziristan on Wednesday.

According to sources, two army soldiers were killed while another was injured in the afternoon attack.

They said that the militants had sneaked into Razmak from the adjacent Makin area where security forces had launched an operation against supporters of Baitullah Mehsud.

http://www.dawn.com/2008/01/31/top1.htm

http://snipurl.com/1yngn

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Al Qaeda Leader Killed in North Waziristan?

Yesterdays airstrike against a purported Taliban safe house in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal agency resulted in 12 killed just as the Taliban and the government are prepared to sign a new peace accord. But the strike may have claimed a high value al Qaeda leader, ABC News reported today.

Pakistani intelligence sources say they believe a "high-value" al Qaeda target was killed in a missile strike yesterday in the country's tribal region bordering Afghanistan. U.S. officials said there was no indication that the target was Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, but one senior official told ABCNews.com the strike was aimed at one particular figure. "We don't know whether we got him yet, we are sorting through it," the official said, indicating the intended target was a top leader of the terror group.

While the Internet is abuzz with the possibility of Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri being killed, the likelihood, as ABC News noted, is low. A series of airstrikes in the tribal areas from earlier 2006 onward has yielded only two mid-level a Qaeda operatives: Imam Asad, the chief trainer of the Black Guard, and Mohsin Matawalli Atwa, one of the architects of the 1998 attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Eastern Africa.

Anonymous Pakistani intelligence officials have misled the U.S. officials about the deaths of high value al Qaeda targets in the past. The Pakistanis claimed six senior al Qaeda operatives were killed in a strike in January 2006. These leaders were: Midhat Mursi al Sayid Umar (Abu Khabab), al Qaeda's WMD expert; Abdul Rahman al Maghribi, Zawahiri's son-in-law and an al Qaeda commander; Abu Obaidah al Masri, the Kunar, Afghanistan operations chief; Marwan al Suri, the Waziristan operations chief; Khalid Habib, the commander of southeastern Afghanistan commander; and Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, a member of al Qaeda's military committee. The Washington Post reported almost two years later that they had, in fact, survived the attack. Abd al Hadi al Iraqi was captured while trying to enter Iraq in April 2007.

I noted yesterday that the strike may have been designed to derail the new peace talks, as happened in October 2006 in Bajaur agency. At that time, the government was negotiating with Faqir Mohammed and his local Taliban forces in Bajaur. The government leveled a Taliban training camp at the Chingai madrassa, killing more than 80 Taliban. The peace talks with the Taliban in Bajaur were sabotaged, but a deal was cut six months later in March 2007.

Posted by Bill Roggio on January 30, 2008 08:07 PM | Permalink

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

UPDATE:

Abu Laith al-Libi

The website, ekhlaas.org, said Libi had "fallen as a martyr", the Reuters news agency reports.

US intelligence agencies have been investigating reports that a top al-Qaeda figure was killed in the Afghan-Pakistan border area this week.

It follows a missile attack in Pakistan's North Waziristan area in which 12 militants were reported killed.

While Western counter-terrorism officials told the BBC they believed Libi to be dead, they would not discuss how he was killed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7220823.stm

http://snipurl.com/1yor4

Hat Tip: Howie at jawa

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Forum spy update:

The informed source that «Abu Zuhri Libyan» (whose real name is Ali Ammar Reguii, born 1972)

A source who spoke to «life» requirement to remain anonymous, leading to significantly «Islamic Fighting Group» Gaffar Dernawi allegedly killed with «Abu Zuhri» and more than ten others in the missile raid in the area of Mir Ali in North Waziristan. وقال إن الدرناوي كان «مسؤول محطة المقاتلة» في إيران، وانتقل إلى أفغانستان قبل نحو ثمانية شهور فقط، بعدما تقرر دمج «المقاتلة» في تنظيم «القاعدة»، وهو أمر أعلنه «أبو الليث» في شريط فيديو مع الدكتور أيمن الظواهري في صيف العام الماضي. He said that was Dernawi «official station fighter» in Iran, and moved to Afghanistan eight months ago only, now decided to merge «fighter» in the organization «Qaeda», which was announced «Abu Zuhri» in a video with Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri in the summer past.

It seems that Dernawi is the man referred to by the media as Pakistani «Vice Abu Zuhri» who was killed in Mir Ali, among a group of at least seven Arabs and six from Central Asia. ونقلت وكالة «أسوشيتد برس»، أمس، عن مصدرين في الاستخبارات الباكستانية قولهما إن «أبو الليث» قُتل عندما كان يحاول استخدام هاتف يعمل بالأقمار الاصطناعية ويدخل إلى الشبكة العنكبوتية العالمية (الانترنت) في منزل قيادي قبلي متشدد يدعى «عبدالستار». The news agency «Associated Press» yesterday, the sources in the Pakistani intelligence as saying that «Abu Zuhri» killed when he tried to use satellite phone works and enters the World Wide Web (Internet) at the home of a leading tribal hard-liner named «Abdul Sattar».

Gerald

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


From Al-Ekhlaas:
About the martyrdom of the leader struggling

Sheikh / Abu Zuhri Libyan - accepted by God in the martyrs --

( He was not a Martyrs, to call him a martyrs insults all real martyrs, he was a criminal, ordering the deaths of Muslims, women, children, bombing Mosques and market places.. Taliban claims responsibility for mosque suicide bombing G )

(Do not think those killed in the name of Allah dead, but alive with their Lord, well) Al Omran 169
( He is burning in HELL, BIH..G )

Praise be to God and then thank God, thank God for what had estimated, and thank God chosen by the Nation of Islam superior honour Jihad in the process and then raising and collecting people's hearts and make them hands on the good and supported his support.

Among those Sheikh Mufdhal gallant and heroic and brave Americans Sheikh / Abu Zuhri Qasimi Libyan which bled the nation of Islam to the news of his martyrdom with a group of brothers on the wealthy Pakistan Muslim - her God out of apostate and his clique -.

We hemorrhage of the nation as news of the martyrdom of Sheikh am happy eternity including Sheikh and earned the certificate in the name of Allah, and I am saddened by the loss and that the only legacy left over Sheikh would not only Ahja Bali and burn the enemies of religion and creed, in detail, the path of brothers who joined the march of jihad, and how supervised the preparation camps, and how the rational and plans almost to the enemy and the most sophisticated manipulations, and led the battles of glory and your parents strongholds of the infidels and weakens the resolve of its soldiers, even elevated as a martyr, God seems AD.

We say to the nation and the army of the infidels Red nation does not die, I only killed, and killing our guide on the health of our approach, and Vkdotna Mchaikhna killed in the first grade fixed Sabrin impetus saying of the poet:


We are not Stubs bleeding Klomna *** but our feet towing blood

The Mchaikhna and our leaders are always in the first row of such great benefit of the Muslim nation, and they like to follow the best science work, or fail on the need of God, and are not supporting their nation, I heard horror Lahee'ah or PC to fight with their soldiers and their men, and live with the pain and walk on their bodies and their blood achieved victory, God willing.

Also call upon all brothers to jihad and urged his family not to publish any news reaches them not confirm or dissemination formally by the competent authorities of this, especially regarding the leaders and elders, and their responsibilities in order to march Jihad, and any news not sponsored hand official saying from the information known is contested credibility even prove the contrary, up from Concerned stress this, do not be with the enemy against us.

God said: ( BURN N HELL )

(If came to them is the fear of security or if Rdoh broadcasting by the Prophet and the first of them is to learn who Istnbtonh whom it not Fadlallah mercy to you and ye little devil women) 83


I am God and to Him we return I


The womb COLLEGE father, Sheikh Al Qassimi and accepted by the brothers in the group of martyrs


Dawn Information Center

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


Ayman al Zawahri's best bud.
Are ya celebrating ?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thats one REWARD DOWN, $200,000.00 usd....GONE
REWARD: report terrorist in Secret


BIH

GERALD

Thanks for the tip.


.