World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World.

First in Europe and now in the United States, Muslim groups have petitioned to establish enclaves in which they can uphold and enforce greater compliance to Islamic law. While the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to religious freedom and the prohibition against a state religion, when it comes to the rights of religious enclaves to impose communal rules, the dividing line is more nebulous. Can U.S. enclaves, homeowner associations, and other groups enforce Islamic law?

Such questions are no longer theoretical. While Muslim organizations first established enclaves in Europe,[1] the trend is now crossing the Atlantic. Some Islamist community leaders in the United States are challenging the principles of assimilation and equality once central to the civil rights movement, seeking instead to live according to a separate but equal philosophy. The Gwynnoaks Muslim Residential Development group, for example, has established an informal enclave in Baltimore because, according to John Yahya Cason, director of the Islamic Education and Community Development Initiative, a Baltimore-based Muslim advocacy group, "there was no community in the U.S. that showed the totality of the essential components of Muslim social, economic, and political structure."[2]

Baltimore is not alone. In August 2004, a local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, granted The Islamic Center for Human Excellence authorization to build an internal Islamic enclave to include a mosque, a school, and twenty-two homes.[3] While the imam, Aquil Hamidullah, says his goal is to create "a clean community, free of alcohol, drugs, and free of gangs,"[4] the implications for U.S. jurisprudence of this and other internal enclaves are greater: while the Little Rock enclave might prevent the sale of alcohol, can it punish possession and in what manner? Can it force all women, be they residents or visitors, to don Islamic hijab (headscarf)? Such enclaves raise the fundamental questions of when, how, and to what extent religious practice may supersede the U.S. Constitution.

The Internal Muslim Enclave The internal Muslim enclave proposed by the Islamic Center for Human Excellence in Arkansas represents a new direction for Islam in the United States. The group seeks to transform a loosely organized Muslim population into a tangible community presence. The group has foreign financial support: it falls under the umbrella of a much larger Islamic group, "Islam 4 the World," an organization sponsored by Sharjah, one of the constituent emirates of the United Arab Emirates.[5] While the Islamic Center for Human Excellence has yet to articulate detailed plans for its Little Rock enclave, the group's reliance on foreign funding is troublesome. Past investments by the United Arab Emirates' rulers and institutions have promoted radical interpretations of Islam. [6]

The Islamic Center for Human Excellence may seek to segregate schools and offices by gender. The enclave might also exercise broad control upon commerce within its boundaries—provided the economic restrictions did not discriminate against out-of-state interests or create an undue burden upon interstate commerce. But most critically, the enclave could promulgate every internal law—from enforcing strict religious dress codes to banning alcohol possession and music; it could even enforce limits upon religious and political tolerance. Although such concepts are antithetical to a free society, U.S. democracy allows the internal enclave to function beyond the established boundaries of our constitutional framework. At the very least, the permissible parameters of an Islamist enclave are ill defined.

The greater American Muslim community's unapologetic and public manifestation of belief in a separate but equal ideology does not bode well. In September 2004, the New Jersey branch of the Islamic Circle of North America rented Six Flags Adventure Park in New Jersey for "The Great Muslim Adventure Day." The advertisement announcing the event stated: "The entire park for Muslims only." While legal—and perhaps analogous to corporate or other non-religious groups renting facilities, the advertisement expressly implied a mindset that a proof of faith was required for admission to the park. In his weblog, commentator Daniel Pipes raises a relevant and troubling question about the event: because it is designated for Muslims only, "Need one recite the shahada to enter the fairgrounds?"[7]

While U.S. law might give such Muslims-only events the benefit of the doubt, flexibility may not go both ways. There is precedent of Islamists taking advantage of liberal flexibility to more extreme ends. Canada provides a useful example into how Islamist groups can exploit liberal legal tolerance. In 1991, Ontario, Canada, passed a seemingly innocuous law called the "Arbitration Act."[8] This act permitted commercial, religious, or such other designated arbitrators to settle civil disputes outside the Canadian justice system so long as the result did not contradict Canadian law. Like U.S. authorities are beginning to do now, Canadian legislators decided to give religious groups the benefit of the doubt, assuming that they would still hold national law to be paramount.

In October 2003, under the auspices of the Ontario legislation, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice created Muslim arbitration boards and stated its intent to arbitrate on the basis of Islamic law.[9] A national furor erupted, particularly among Canadian Muslim women's groups that opposed the application of traditional Islamic (Shari‘a) laws that would supersede their far more liberal and egalitarian democratic rights. After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the premier of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, held that religious-based arbitrations "threaten our common ground," and announced, "There will be no Shari‘a law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians."[10] On November 15, 2005, McGuinty's provincial government submitted legislation to amend the arbitration act to abrogate, in effect, all religious arbitration.[11] Requests for Muslim enclaves within larger U.S. communities may signal that U.S. jurisprudence will soon be faced with a similar conundrum. Islamist exceptionalism can abuse the tolerance liberal societies have traditionally extended to interface between religious and secular law.

Prior to the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice demands to impose Shari‘a, the Arbitration Act worked well. Unfortunately for Canadian Jews, the repeal ended state-enforcement of agreements reached by the use of a millennia-old rabbinical court system called beit din (house of law) that had for decades quietly settled marriage, custody, and business disputes. Joel Richler, Ontario region chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress, expressed his lament: "If there have been any problems flowing from any rabbinical court decisions, I'm not aware of them."[12] Canadian Catholics likewise were stopped from being able to annul marriages according to Canon Law and avoid undue entanglement in civil courts. Abuse of the spirit of the law, though, ended up curtailing local liberty. Rather than soften the edge between religion and state, the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice threatened to eliminate it with the imposition of Shari‘a. The Canadian experience demonstrates how flexibility can backfire when all parties do not seek to uphold basic precepts of tolerance. The Little Rock application raises the specter of a parallel situation. While The Islamic Center for Human Excellence may state it wants to create a clean-living community, might the community's extreme interpretation of Shari‘a force a reconsideration of just how much leeway the U.S. government gives religious communities?

As the Muslim community in the United States grows, an increasingly active Islamist lobby has submitted numerous white papers and amicus briefs to legislators and courts arguing for the religious right of Muslims to apply Shari‘a law, particularly in relation to family law disputes.[13] This looming jurisprudential conflict is significant for it raises issues about the rights of community members to marry outside the community, forced marriages, and the minimum age of brides, and whether wives and daughters may enjoy equal inheritance. In cases of non-family law, it raises the question about whether the testimony of women will be considered on par with that of men.

No previous enclave in U.S. history has ever been so vigorously protected by agents of group identity politics or so adamantly defended by legal watchdogs; nor has any previous religious enclave possessed the potency of more than one billion believers around the world. Islamic-only communities may also benefit from the largess provided by billions of petrol dollars to finance growth. The track record of Saudi and other wealthy Persian Gulf donations and charitable efforts are worrisome. There is a direct correlation between Saudi money received and the spread of intolerant practices. In 2004, for example, the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of Al-Haramein Foundation, one of Saudi Arabia's largest nongovernmental organizations, because of its financial links to Al-Qaeda.[14] Additionally, American graduates of Saudi academies advance Wahhabist interpretations of Islam inside the U.S. prison system,[15] and Saudi-subsidized publications promote intolerance inside U.S. mosques.[16]

A Muslim enclave is uniquely perilous because there are few if any internal enclaves that adhere to a polity dedicated to the active abrogation of secular law and the imposition of a supreme religious law. The concept of Shari‘a is so fundamental to Islam, that even today, prominent Muslim jurists argue over whether a Muslim can fully discharge Shari‘a obligations while residing in a non-Muslim territory.[17] Yet, in spite of this apparent conundrum, Muslims have resided peacefully in non-Muslim lands since the seventh century. In the greater context, there may be a breach in the dike for Islamist groups residing in the United States because the Baltimore and Little Rock enclaves must acknowledge the U.S. Constitution as the paramount basis of civil law.

A dissident Islamic sub-community is filled with dichotomous propositions: from the presumed supremacy of Shari‘a-based law over secular law; the melding of religion and polity versus the constitutionally mandated separation of same; to the politics of group and factionalism, versus assimilation and pluralism. To deny the settlement of a Muslim-only community based solely upon prejudices formed after September 11 would be illiberal. But the alternative, opening the door to Islamic enclaves without scrutiny, is as dubious.

The Enclave under U.S. Law Existing U.S. legal precedent, though, may provide some grounds for handling expansive demands for Islamic enclaves. U.S. legal views of internal enclaves derive from the famous 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled the concept of separate but equal to be unconstitutional.[18] While the case revolved around the right of black children to attend white schools, it promulgated a concept that is anathema in today's world of multiculturalism: neither the state nor any constituent group could claim equality through separation.

Enclaves can exist, though. As courts have ruled on issues relating to equality under the law and upon the autonomy of religious practice, two distinctive features of internal U.S. enclaves have taken shape: first, the boundaries of the enclave should be recognized by local inhabitants. Second, the enclave cannot supersede the constitutionally protected rights of the citizens of a state.

Because most rights secured by the constitution are protected only against infringement by government action, the Supreme Court has avoided establishing a bright-line test as to the limits of religious liberty. Any religious group or individual seeking to establish an internal enclave has the right to limit residency, promulgate local rules, and perhaps even collect fees or taxes to support nominal community services.

Such enclaves do not hold final sway over the rights of non-residents, however. In Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Company[19] and Flagg Brothers v. Brooks,[20] the court outlined constitutional protections for private citizens in which any entity, religious or otherwise, exercising governmental authority over private citizens remains subject to the provisions of the First and Fourteenth amendments. In both cases, the court affirmed that citizens of a state retain their right to "due process of law" under the Fourteenth Amendment, even when inside an enclave. These holdings, however, do not prevent enclaves from restricting the individual freedoms of their inhabitants.

The Supreme Court has ruled upon the limits of religious liberty. In Cantwell v. Connecticut, the court outlined the circumstances in which the government could act to restrict religious independence. The court held that the free exercise clause "embraces two concepts—freedom to believe and freedom to act. The first is absolute, but in the nature of things, the second cannot be. Conduct remains subject to regulation for the protection of society."[21]

Christopher L. Eisgruber, professor of law at New York University, explained. He argued that, "the Constitution permits government to nurture ideological sub-communities founded upon premises inconsistent with the constitution's own commitments."[22] He maintained that such dissident sub-communities can provide important "sources of dissent"[23] and asserted that even if an enclave embraced ideals contrary to constitutional ideals, it should still be granted the right to pursue its own vision of good. For example, he wrote:

[Though] it is regrettable that young women in Kiryas Joel [a Satmar Hasidic enclave] will grow up in a starkly sexist culture, and it is regrettable that the Amish children of Yoder will find it very hard to become astronomers or lawyers … it would also be regrettable if the United States were not home to any sub-communities which, like the Satmars or the Amish, rejected principles of justice fundamental to the American regime.[24]

According to Eisgruber, tolerance of the intolerant is fundamental to the freedoms espoused by Western liberal democracy. While Islamists might use such logic to argue for the permissibility of Shari‘a communities, such tolerance has limits. Enclaves do not have carte blanche to act. Both the state and national legislatures must retain control over the extent of accommodation, and there should be no subsidization of the enclave by the government.[25] Such limits ensure that the government can constrain those sub-communities that might espouse more radical, violent, or racist views.[26]

It is usually when the U.S. government moves to uphold the rule of law that most Americans first learn of an internal enclave. Few Americans knew of the philosophy espoused by anti-government activist Randy Weaver until 1992 when the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol and Firearms raided his compound at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, killing Vicki Weaver, their infant son, Sam, and the family dog.[27] Nor did many Americans know about David Koresh and his religious views until a raid the following year on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in which a resulting fire killed fifty adults and twenty-five children under the age of fifteen.[28] While tragic, such events involved cults or political splinter groups. The growth of Muslim enclaves raises the specter of such conflicts occurring on a much larger scale.

While the court has interpreted the establishment clause to empower the government to constrain dissident sub-communities when necessary to protect public safety, it has been wary of addressing legal issues requiring intrusion upon the religious polity. Because the First Amendment provides for religious freedom, the court has confined itself to ruling upon three basic issues: property disputes between national religious hierarchical organizations with affiliated breakaway entities; accommodations under the free exercise clause; and the prohibition against the establishment of a state religion. New challenges, though, may lead to new interpretations.

The Antithesis to Democracy Is concern over internal Muslim enclaves justified? On their face, the fundamental principles of the internal Muslim enclave are no more invidious than any other religious enclave. But ideology matters. Many proponents of an Islamic polity promote an ideology at odds with U.S. constitutional jurisprudence and the prohibition against the establishment of a state-sponsored religion. The refusal to recognize federal law makes Islamist enclaves more akin to Ruby Ridge than to the Hasidic and Amish cases cited by Eisgruber.

Muslim theologians describe Islam not only as a religion but also as a system of state. The Qur'an—viewed by Muslims as the word of God—is replete with instructions about governance. An enclave promoting Islamic mores does not necessarily restrict itself to a social atmosphere but also one of governance. Traditional Islamic law controls the most basic aspects of everyday life and may make any Islamic enclave irreconcilable with the basic presumptions of Western liberal democracy and secular law.

While many American Muslims practice Islam and embrace the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution, others do not. There are consistent attempts by Islamist elements overseas to strengthen their own radical interpretation of Islam at the expense of moderation and tolerance. Saudi donors, for example, have propagated the ideology of Islamism, which seeks to interweave a narrow and often intolerant interpretation of religion into an all-encompassing political ideology. The number of imams and jihadists who have been outspoken in identifying the supremacy of Shari‘a to democracy underlines the incompatibility of Islamism and democracy. The late Saudi theologian, Sheikh Muhammad bin Ibrahim al-Jubair, for example, stated,

Only one ambition is worthy of Islam, to save the world from the curse of democracy: to teach men that they cannot rule themselves on the basis of man-made laws. Mankind has strayed from the path of God, we must return to that path or face certain annihilation.[29]

Prior to Iraq's January 30, 2005 elections, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, released an audiotape in which he declared war upon democracy and denounced its tenets as "the very essence of heresy, polytheism, and error."[30] Nor is Islamist antipathy for democracy limited to popular elections. According to a Saudi publication distributed at a San Diego mosque, "[Democracy is] responsible for all the horrible wars … more than 130 wars with more than 120 million people dead [in the twentieth century alone]; not counting victims of poverty, hunger and disease."[31] Such sentiments reflect a common theme among Islamists: democracy is the antithesis to everything pious and pure in Islam; and, in truth, democracy is the direct and substantial causal effect of Muslim suffering and injustice in the world today.

This does not mean that Islamists are unwilling to use democracy for their ends. But while they accept the trappings of democracy, they continue to reject its principles because the Shari‘a, to them the perfect rule of law, cannot be abrogated or altered by the shifting moods of a secular electorate. Mohamed Elhachmi Hamdi, editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab weekly Al-Mustakillah, explained,

The heart of the matter is that no Islamic state can be legitimate in the eyes of its subjects without obeying the main teachings of the Shari‘a. A secular government might coerce obedience, but Muslims will not abandon their belief that state affairs should be supervised by the just teachings of the holy law.[32]

He could draw from plenty of examples. In 1992, for example, Ali Balhadj, a leader of the Islamic Salvation Front in Algeria, declared, "When we are in power, there will be no more elections because God will be ruling."[33] While mayor of Istanbul, Islamist Turkish politician Recep Tayyip Erdoðan quipped, "For us, democracy is a streetcar. We would go as far as we could, and then get off."[34] As he eviscerates the judiciary, many Turks wonder about his sincerity.[35]

Experience abroad is relevant, as it goes to the heart of the sincerity of proponents of the Little Rock and Baltimore enclaves, an issue compounded by the willingness to accept donations from Persian Gulf financiers.

Conclusion How Muslims reconcile Islamic polity within the confines of Western liberal democracy is an unresolved issue. This process will take years to evolve and is likely to convulse in further violent episodes. Presently, many Muslims reject wholesale the notion of a dominant secular law and instead seek the imposition of a pan-Islamist state under the guidance of Shari‘a. These Islamists view secular modernity and the democratic practices of radical egalitarianism, individual rights, and free exercise of religion as a direct and substantial threat to their belief system, and they are intent on employing violence against the West for the foreseeable future. The remainder and majority of the Muslim world must reject nihilism and engage in widespread debate regarding Islam's role within the world community.

The local planning commission in Little Rock, Arkansas, might proceed with the proposed Muslim enclave, but the Arkansas courts and its legislature should not abdicate its responsibilities to ensure that Western liberal rights and protections remain supreme. The government should monitor both the rhetoric and behavior of these communities. As the Supreme Court stated in Cantwell: the freedom to believe is absolute, but the freedom to act, in the nature of things, cannot be, especially as to the safety and preservation of the American democracy.[36]

David Kennedy Houck is an attorney at Houck O'Brien LLC, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The Crisis of Public Order

The Department of Justice now says that "stranger murders" have become four times as common as family killings, and that the chances of getting away with one exceed 80 percent. Scholars say the nation's murder rate may soon double. The author says we are inviting this "long descending night" of crime by teaching violent young people that "we will do almost anything not to have to act to defend ourselves, our country, or our character as people of decency and strength."
by Adam Walinsky

.....

umbers are useful in politics, because they are more neutral than adjectival speech and because they express magnitude—that is, they can tell us not only that we confront a danger but also what the depth and direction of the danger are. The most important numbers in America deal with violence—not the occasional terrorist violence but the terror of everyday life as it is lived by millions of citizens today, and as it threatens to become for many more of us for the rest of this century and beyond.
During his campaign and since, President Bill Clinton has spoken of a sharp decline in the strength of the nation's police forces. In the 1960s the United States as a whole had 3.3 police officers for every violent crime reported per year. In 1993 it had 3.47 violent crimes reported for every police officer. In relation to the amount of violent crime, then, we have less than one tenth the effective police power of thirty years ago; or, in another formulation, each police officer today must deal with 11.45 times as many violent crimes as his predecessor of years gone by.

Title I of the 1994 crime bill intends to add 100,000 police officers nationally by the year 2000. (Most experts believe that far fewer new officers—perhaps 25,000—will actually be hired. For the purposes of this argument, though, let us assume the larger figure.) There are now some 554,000 officers serving on all state and local police forces; 100,000 more would be an increase of 18.4 percent. Rather than having 3.47 times as many violent crimes as police officers, we would have 2.94 times as many; or, each police officer would face not 11.45 times as many violent crimes as his predecessor but 9.7 times as many. All this assumes that the number of violent crimes will not increase over the next several years; if it does, the number of violent crimes relative to police officers will again increase.

If we wished to return to the ratio of police officers to violent crimes which gave many of us peace and security in the 1960s, we would have to add not 100,000 new police officers but about five million. When this number was mentioned to some Department of Justice staffers recently, they giggled; and it is understandable that the idea of such a national mobilization, such tremendous expenditures, should strike them as laughable. However, the American people are already paying out of their own pockets for an additional 1.5 million private police officers, to provide, at least in part, the protection that the public police are unable to furnish.

Private police guard office buildings, shopping malls, apartments. Businesses pay them to patrol certain downtown streets, such as those around New York's Grand Central Station and public library. And they patrol residential areas. Private patrol cars thread the streets of Los Angeles, and more than fifty applications are before the city council to close off streets so as to make those patrols more effective. Across the country much new housing is being built in gated communities, walled off and privately guarded. We are well on the way to having several million police officers, and the next decade will bring us much closer. If current trends continue, however, most of the new officers will be privately paid, available for the protection not of the citizenry as a whole—and certainly not of citizens living in the most violent ghettos and housing projects—but of the commercial and residential enclaves that can afford them. Between these enclaves there will be plenty of room to lose a country.

One Long Descending Night

eople hire police officers because they are afraid—above all of violence. Their fear is occasionally a source of puzzlement and mild disdain in the press, which cannot understand why so many Americans say that crime is the nation's most urgent problem and their own greatest fear. Indeed, all through 1993 official agencies claimed that crime was declining. The FBI said that violent crime in the first six months was down three percent overall, and down eight percent in the Northeast.

For crime to be down even eight percent would mean that a precinct that had had a hundred murders in 1992 had ninety-two in 1993. But nobody came around on New Year's Day of 1993 to give everyone's memory a rinse, obliterating the horrors of the previous year. The effect is not disjunctive but cumulative. By the end of 1993, ninety-two additional people had been murdered.

Many people can also remember years before 1992, in large cities and in small. In 1960, for example, six murders, four rapes, and sixteen robberies were reported in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1990 that city, with a population 14 percent smaller, had thirty-one murders, 168 rapes, and 1,784 robberies: robbery increased more than 100 times, or 10,000 percent, over thirty years. In this perspective a one-year decrease of seven percent would seem less than impressive.

New Haven is not unique. In Milwaukee in 1965 there were twenty-seven murders, thirty-three rapes, and 214 robberies, and in 1990, when the city was smaller, there were 165 murders, 598 rapes, and 4,472 robberies: robbery became twenty-one times as frequent in twenty-five years. New York City in 1951 had 244 murders; every year for more than a decade it has had nearly 2,000 murders. We experience the crime wave not as separate moments in time but as one long descending night. A loved one lost echoes in the heart for decades. Every working police officer knows the murder scene: the shocked family and neighbors, too numb yet to grieve; fear and desolation spreading to the street, the workplace, the school, the home, creating an invisible but indelible network of anguish and loss. We have experienced more than 20,000 such scenes every year for more than a decade, and few of them have been truly forgotten.

The memory of a mugging may fade but does not vanish. Nine percent of those responding to a recent poll in New York Newsday said that they had been mugged or assaulted in the past year. This suggests an annual total for the city of more than 600,000 muggings and assaults (remember also that many people, in poor neighborhoods especially, are assaulted more than once). That would be four times as many robberies and assaults as are reported to the police department. The Department of Justice says that not three quarters but only half of all violent crimes go unreported: it may be that many report as having happened "last year" an incident from more than a year ago.

Nevertheless, these are stunning numbers, especially when some other common crimes are added in. Eight percent of those polled (implying 560,000 New Yorkers) said their houses or apartments had been broken into; 22 percent (1,540,000) said their cars had been broken into. In all, 42 percent (nearly three million New Yorkers)said they had been the victims of crime in 1993. And, of course, about 2,000 were murdered. This is what it means to say that crime in 1993 was down eight percent.

In October of 1994 the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that violent crime had not, after all, declined in 1993 but had risen by 5.6 percent.

Several years ago the Department of Justice estimated that 83 percent of all Americans would be victims of violent crime at least once in their lives. About a quarter would be victims of three or more violent crimes. We are progressing steadily toward the fulfillment of that prediction.

A Twenty-Year Fraud Exposed

ur greatest fear is of violence from a nameless, faceless stranger. Officials have always reassured citizens by stating that the great majority of murders, at any rate, are committed by a relative or an acquaintance of the victim's; a 1993 Department of Justice report said the figure for 1988 was eight out of ten.

Unfortunately, that report described only murders in which the killer was known to prosecutors and an arrest was made. It did not mention that more and more killers remain unknown and at liberty after a full police investigation; every year the police make arrests in a smaller proportion of murder cases. In our largest cities the police now make arrests in fewer than three out of five murder cases. In other words, two out of every five killers are completely untouched by the law.

When a killing is a family tragedy, or takes place between friends or acquaintances, the police make an arrest virtually every time. When the police make an arrest, they say that the crime has been "cleared"; the percentage of crimes for which they make arrests is referred to as the clearance rate. Because murder has historically been a matter principally among families and friends, the homicide clearance rate in the past was often greater than 95 percent, even in the largest cities. As late as 1965 the national homicide clearance rate was 91 percent. However, as crime has spread and changed its character over the past generation, clearance rates have steadily dropped. In the past two years the national homicide clearance rate averaged 65.5 percent. The rate in the sixty-two largest cities is 60.5 percent. In the very largest cities—those with populations over a million—the rate is 58.3 percent.

The missing killers are almost certainly not family members, friends, or neighbors. Rather, they are overwhelmingly strangers to their victims, and their acts are called "stranger murders." Here is the true arithmetic: The 40 percent of killings in which city police departments are unable to identify and arrest perpetrators must overwhelmingly be counted as stranger murders; let us assume that 90 percent of them are committed by killers unknown to the victims. That number is equivalent to 36 percent of the total of all city murders. We know that of the 60 percent of killers the police do succeed in arresting, 20 percent have murdered strangers. That is, they have committed 12 percent of all murders. As best we can count, then, at least 48 percent of city murders are now being committed by killers who are not relatives or acquaintances of the victims.

This simple arithmetic has been available to the government and its experts for years. However, the first government document to acknowledge these facts was the FBI's annual report on crime in the United States for 1993, which was released last December. The FBI now estimates that 53 percent of all homicides are being committed by strangers. For more than two decades, as homicide clearance rates have plummeted, law enforcement agencies have continued to assure the public that four fifths of all killings are the result of personal passions. Thus were we counseled to fear our loved ones above all, to regard the family hearth as the most dangerous place. Now that falsehood has been unmasked:the FBI tells us that actually 12 percent of all homicides take place within the family. Ihave heard no public official anywhere in the United States say a word about any of this.

There is another important aspect to the arithmetic: the odds facing a robber or holdup man as he decides whether to let his victim live. Again, at least 48 percent of city homicides are stranger murders, but only 12 percent of city homicides result in arrest. That is, the odds that a holdup man who kills a stranger will be arrested appear to be one in four. The Department of Justice tells us that of all those who are arrested for murder, 73 percent will be convicted of some crime; and when convicted, the killers of strangers tend to get the heaviest penalties. Nevertheless, the cumulative chances of getting clean away with the murder of a stranger are greater than 80 percent. Street thugs may be smarter than they are usually given credit for being. They do not consult government reports, but they appear to know the facts. New York bodega workers have experienced an increasing incidence of holdups ending in murder even when they have offered no resistance. Killing eliminates the possibility of witness identification.

Murder is the most frightening crime, but is the least common. Much more frequent are robbery and assault. Robbery, the forcible taking of property from the person of the victim, is the crime most likely to be committed by a stranger; 75 percent of victims are robbed by strangers. Aggravated assault, the use of a weapon or other major force with the intention of causing serious bodily harm, is the most common violent crime; 58 percent of aggravated assaults are committed by strangers.

Attacks across racial lines are a special case of crimes by strangers. Most crimes, including 80 percent of violent crimes, are committed by persons of the same race as their victims. However, the experiences of blacks and whites diverge in some respects. In cases involving a lone offender, 56 percent of white and Hispanic robbery victims report that their assailant was white or Hispanic and 40 percent that he was black. When two or more robbers commit the crime, white and Hispanic victims 38 percent of the time report them to be white or Hispanic, 46 percent of the time black, and 10 percent of the time mixed. About eight percent of black victims, in contrast, are robbed by whites or Hispanics, and more than 85 percent by blacks, whether the offenders are alone or in groups. Blacks and whites are robbed equally—75 percent of the time—by strangers, but as these figures indicate, whites are far more likely to be robbed by strangers of a different race.

This result occurs because there are many more white people and many more white victims: 87 percent of all violent crimes are committed against whites and Hispanics. In robberies lone white offenders select white victims 96 percent of the time, and lone black offenders select white victims 62 percent of the time. White rapists select white victims 97 percent of the time; black rapists select white victims 48 percent of the time. Whites committing aggravated assault attack blacks in three percent of cases; blacks commit about half their assaults against whites.

When all violent crimes are taken together, 58 percent of white victims and 54 percent of black victims report that their assailant was a stranger. Citizens of all races who are fearful of random violence have good reason for their concern. Storekeepers, utility workers, police officers, and ordinary citizens out for a carton of milk or a family dinner are all increasingly at risk.

Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 next

more at link...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199507/violent-crime

U.S. reveals face of alleged new terror chief

Thursday, June 15, 2006; Posted: 3:16 p.m. EDT (19:16 GMT)

The U.S. military says this man is Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Image:

What Is This? BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The U.S. military on Thursday revealed for the first time a photo of the man said to be the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

The military said the picture showed Egyptian-born Abu Ayyub al-Masri, a senior al Qaeda in Iraq operative believed to have taken over the terror network after the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last week.

The Defense Intelligence Agency declassified the photograph on Wednesday at the U.S. military's request, said U.S. military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell at a news conference in Baghdad, adding that he had no idea how the DIA got the photo. (Watch why al-Masri is considered the new leader of al Qaeda in Iraq -- 2:08)

Al-Masri "has been a terrorist since about 1982, beginning with his involvement in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which was led by Zawahiri," said Caldwell. Ayman al Zawahiri is al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top deputy.

Caldwell described al-Masri as "an explosives expert, specializing in the construction of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices." He also said al-Masri spent time training with terrorists in Afghanistan starting in 1999.

After U.S. forces ousted Afghanistan's Taliban regime in late 2001, al-Masri began to work with al-Zarqawi in Falluja "and then later became, we think, basically the emir of southern Iraq" for the group, Caldwell said.

Al-Masri's "intimate knowledge" of the terrorist network will help al Qaeda in Iraq "regain some momentum if, in fact, he is the one that assumes the leadership role," Caldwell said.

The military believes al-Masri is also known as Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajer, who was named last week as al-Zarqawi's replacement on a Web site used by al Qaeda in Iraq, Caldwell said.

"We'll continue to do further analysis," Caldwell added, noting that a power struggle may still be under way inside al Qaeda in Iraq.

Caldwell defended the military's release of al-Masri's photograph, saying that "a lot of discussion" occurred on senior levels about whether to release it and "our intent is not to glorify him or make him more important."

A standard $250,000 reward for information leading to al-Masri's death or capture is still in effect and was in force before al-Zarqawi's death caused by a U.S. airstrike last week, said Caldwell.

Iraq reveals 'al Qaeda plans'
Recently seized documents that led to al-Zarqawi's death also revealed the hideouts and names of other al Qaeda in Iraq leaders and could destroy the terror network, Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday.

"Al Qaeda is on the run now in Iraq, and this is the beginning of the end of al Qaeda in Iraq," Mowaffak al-Rubaie told CNN.

The documents, he said, were found on a "thumb drive" memory card with 1 gigabyte of memory and represented "a trove of information ... a treasure of data." The discovery was among many made during an ongoing operation that began before the June 7 airstrike that killed al-Zarqawi.

At an earlier news conference, al-Rubaie cited the documents as saying al Qaeda in Iraq considered its situation in Iraq "bleak" and was planning to exacerbate already hostile tensions between Iran and the United States. (Read English translation)

Such plans included the delivery of threatening messages attributed to Shiite Iranians and the carrying out of attacks under the guise of Iranian collusion, the Iraqi government cited the documents as saying.

Al Qaeda in Iraq also considered planting information that Iran has ties to terror groups, has been in possession of weapons of mass destruction, and is attempting to carry out terror operations in the West, the documents said, according to the Iraqi government.

CNN cannot independently verify the authenticity of the documents.

Iraq violence
Violence across Iraq left 28 people dead and 30 wounded Thursday, police said.

In separate incidents, gunmen killed 10 minibus passengers in western Baquba and a factory worker southwest of the capital, police said. Gunmen were also behind the storming of the Sunni al-Imam Muslim bin Aqil mosque northeast of Tikrit, where they killed four people and wounded 16 others, authorities said.

In southwestern Baghdad, a car bomb exploded outside a bakery around 8 p.m., killing three people and wounding 14, police said.

A pair of roadside bombs struck an Iraqi army patrol in central Tal Afar, killing three Iraqi soldiers and damaging an Iraqi army vehicle, a Mosul police official said.

In addition, seven bullet-riddled bodies were found in various Baghdad neighborhoods on Thursday, in spite of the second day of a security crackdown in the capital, police told CNN. They showed signs of torture and couldn't be immediately identified.

Other developments

The number of U.S. service members killed in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon announced on Thursday. White House spokesman Tony Snow called the number "a sad benchmark," saying, "One of the things the president has said is that these people will not die in vain."

U.S. and Iraqi forces have detained 759 "anti-Iraqi elements" and killed more than 104 in raids carried out since al-Zarqawi's death, said Caldwell, the U.S. military spokesman. Of the 452 operations that were carried out, 143 were conducted by Iraqi forces acting alone, Caldwell said.

CNN's Jennifer Z. Deaton, Mohammed Tawfeeq, John Vause, Cal Perry and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/06/15/iraq.main/

Nuclear scientist is off-limits, Pakistan tells US
From Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Tom Baldwin in Washington

Pakistan has refused US demands to talk to Abdul Qadeer Khan, whose black market network sold nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea

The security ring surrounding Abdul Qadeer Khan’s sprawling mansion at the foot of Margalla hills in Islamabad has visibly tightened in recent weeks.

Uniformed soldiers with machine guns block all access to the property and scrutinise every passing vehicle.

Mr Khan, the "Father" of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, has been under house arrest since February 2004 when he confessed to operating an international bazaar for nuclear technology, and spends his days confined with his Dutch wife, Henny, inside his well-protected home.

The iron front gate is completely covered to ensure that no one sees him taking his evening stroll in his lush green garden. Even his daughter, Ayesha Khan, has been stopped from entering the house and his fleet of antique cars languishes unused.

Pakistani military intelligence officials visit him. A long list of others would like to but are forbidden. That list is headed by the Americans, for Mr Khan is perhaps the only man outside Iran who knows precisely what nuclear technology the Tehran regime has received, and what it plans to do with it.

The United States has repeatedly asked the Pakistani authorities for permission to interrogate him, but is always rebuffed. Pakistan recently announced that its investigation into the whole affair was closed.

Ed Royce, the Republican chairman of the congressional sub-committee on non-proliferation, said: "The A.Q. Khan network has been described as ‘the Wal-Mart of private-sector proliferation’. Its handiwork has helped deliver to us two of the most threatening security challenges we face: North Korea and Iran."

Like other congressmen, Mr Royce expressed deep concern that Mr Khan remained "off-limits to foreign investigators" even though Pakistan receives $700 million (£379 million) in aid from the US was designated a significant ally in the War on Terror. "The US and the international community should expect more from Pakistan’s Government," he said.

A senior Pakistani official said that the US continued to press Islamabad for more information on Mr Khan’s network, "but we have told them in no uncertain terms that he is off-limits".

He insisted that Pakistan had shared all it knew with the US and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as well as putting questions to Mr Khan on behalf of US investigators. Pakistan should be trusted with the investigation and anything else would be violation of national sovereignty, he added.

Mr Khan has confessed to passing nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, claimed last month that his country was conducting research on a more advanced P-2 centrifuge. Mr Khan’s deputy, Buhary Seyed Abu Tahir, has told interrogators that the network probably supplied three samples of the P-2 centrifuges, even though Tehran insists it has only received drawings of the machines.

Documents discovered by the IAEA suggest the Khan network might also have given Iran information about how to make the hemispheres of uranium metal needed for nuclear weapons.

But Washington believes the Khan network may still be active. The US Congress has been told how Swiss police recently foiled a plot to ship 60 tons of specialised aluminum tubes — used for building parts of a centrifuge cascade to enrich uranium — through Europe to Pakistan.

According to Andrew Koch, a defence expert, this involved using a middleman in Britain who was not previously known to be a Khan associate. The tubes, which he said could have ultimately been sent to Khan network customers, were eventually seized in the UAE by government authorities.

The US State Department will not comment on the case but a senior Western diplomat said that while there was no formal request for direct access to Mr Khan, the US believed the case was far from over. "We still want to know more about his network. There are many questions which have remained unanswered," he said.

The renewed international attention on Mr Khan has put President Musharraf’s Government in an awkward situation because the scientist is still revered by Pakistanis as a national hero whose birthday is celebrated in mosques and whose portrait hangs in public places.

The Pakistani Senate recently backed unanimously a resolution appreciating the contribution of Mr Khan and his associates in developing the country’s nuclear programme and ruled out handing him over to the Americans.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2227215,00.html

UAE is becoming more interesting as time goes by. It is also located in a good location for a New Roman Empire!?!

Life in the fast lane in sizzling Dubai

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Dubai is probably as good a place as any to try to get a fix on what is going on in the Middle East at this time.

Through an old friend, a businessman based here, I had privileged entry to days and evenings of unending discussion of the play of forces that make things happen in finance and politics in this overheated region. Life in Dubai - in the Persian Gulf - takes place at high speed and in a humid desert coastal climate that makes coming out of the air conditioning into the midday sun physically punishing.

Conversation is in Arabic, Farsi (the Persian language), English (the lingua franca), and a mass of the South Asian and Asian languages spoken by the guest workers, the in-principle temporary immigrants who outnumber the natives of the United Arab Emirates by four to one.

The seven member states of the United Arab Emirates are, of course, predominantly Sunni Muslim, like Saudi Arabia, and started their upward financial trajectory with oil, like the Saudi kingdom. The Emirates are ruled by families, in the case of Dubai by the relatively enlightened and benign al-Maktoum family, warriors of the region by tradition.

But the real power over the Emirates can be spotted in a nano-second glance at the map. It is Iran, and it is what happens next in that regional superpower that is of overpowering interest to the Emirates' political and business leaders, native and foreign.

I found it fascinating to probe what they think will happen next, both in Iran and in what they see as the basically light sparring going on between the United States and Iran.

America's next move in the multicornered dance that comprises the Iran nuclear question is of concern in the Persian Gulf primarily in terms of whom an attack would benefit in internal Iranian political sparring. Possible beneficiaries include the ayatollahs, the ubiquitous, provocative president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the big businessmen of Iran, and, lying behind the scenes to a degree, the so-called bazaaris, the smaller businessmen who are also fairly religious.

The Emiratis believe, as far as I can tell, that any Iranian counterstrikes against an American air attack would not be directed primarily at Israel. It is generally believed in the gulf that Iran and Israel have - and have had - an understanding, a remnant, in part, of a loose Persian-Jewish bond in the face of the more numerous Arabs of the area.

The more likely target for Iranian revenge, the Emiratis believe, are the American forces in the area. They don't mean the ones in Iraq. They mean the ones strewn across the Persian Gulf at bases in neighboring Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. U.S. forces have been stationed there since the early 1990s, before 9/11 and the Iraq invasion, presumably protecting oil and prepositioned to do something somewhere in the region.

Dubai itself is simply incredible. The whole concept can be grasped by comprehending that with 100-degree heat outside, it has a 250-foot indoor ski slope.

The people of Dubai, the 1-million-plus natives, I would describe as nonstop, shrewd businessmen and sophisticated analysts and players. They have taken a strip of sand about the size of Rhode Island along a hot coast and turned it in 40 years into an economic dynamo, still definitely on the way up.

They started with offshore oil, discovered in the 1960s, but now Dubai is a heavily leveraged economic powerhouse based on its port, financial services, real estate management and manipulation, and now tourism. Oil now provides only about 6 percent of Dubai's earnings.

It is said that it has no taxes, although it is expensive, and its economic environment is welcoming and encouraging to domestic and foreign investors. Dubai spends a whopping one-third of its budget on education. Its facilities, universally available to young Emirati women and men, are a source of pride that everyone mentions, although a disturbing number of them still seem to want to go to California universities.

Dubai is a family monarchy. No elections. It seems to be run largely by males. Outside-the-family male-female contacts among Emiratis do not seem easy, although evening cell-phone conversations seemed to me to include much such contact.

At least the wealthy of Dubai, despite a propensity to drive SUVs very fast and kill themselves on the highway, seem to still be very attached to some of the pre-globalization traditions.

One of these is camels. At the drop of a dime - or a dirham, the local currency - they will tell you the many virtues of the beast. In particular they consider camel milk, as well as honey from desert flowers, to be essential to good health. They also remain true to Dubai's and the Emirates' seafaring past. They go out in boats and catch and eat fish, somewhat un-Arab behavior.

The other traditional Dubai sport that I encountered with fascination this trip was falconry. Birds are bred or bought, trained, and exercised by the wealthy here. A falcon can cost $150,000 to $200,000.

They perch on a leather glove on your hand, their head and sharp beak covered partially by a leather helmet, restrained by a cord which you hold, while they perhaps are flapping their wings vigorously. The trainer or owner calls the bird, you pull the helmet off, let go of the cord, and the falcon takes off.

If it goes wrong you get clawed or beaked, a messy business. But Dubai's elite and their foolish American friends have to do something to break the tedium of making money and arguing politics.

Dan Simpson, a retired diplomat, is a member of the editorial boards of The Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060614/OPINION04/606140313/0/OPINION02

{last night I posted about needles found on the Calif beach, they had the drug that is given as one shot, if you were caught in a bio-attack, sorry, the name is gone. Note the Texas link below}

TerroristWarning.com Headlines 06/15/2006 # 1

National:

[Virginian-Pilot] VIRGINIA - Man with bomb strapped to his body arrested in Isle of Wight

http://home.hamptonroads.com/stories/story.cfm?story=105980&ran=181285

[BBC] NEVADA - 'Sniper' shoots US judge at court [On 3rd floor standing near window]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5073852.stm

[Staten Island Advance] NEW YORK - 2 caught with suspicious powder in government building

"Pitchapalam Sasayamanie, 40, of Port Richmond, and Jayabalan Rajaratnam, 37, of New Brighton, were arrested for trespassing "

http://www.silive.com/news/advance/index.ssf?/base/news/1150118110130230.xml&coll=1

[WNDU] MICHIGAN - Pipe bomb found in Niles, Michigan [On top of 1000 gallon propane tank, non hoax device]

http://www.wndu.com/news/062006/news_50513.php

[Washington Times] USA - Homeland Security accepts fake ID

"has had the card for four years and has used it again and again to board airliners and enter government buildings, without being turned down once"

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20060612-123713-4122r.htm

[Accuracy in Media] USA - AMERITHRAX - Writer Jeff Stein Exposes FBI

"FBI had the wrong man in the anthrax case and won't admit it"

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/4633_0_2_0_C/

[Burlingtonfreepress.com] VERMONT - Suspicious letter disrupts exams at Missisquoi Valley Union High School [White powder]

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060613/NEWS02/606130308/1007&theme=

[AP] USA - Labs Compete to Make New Nuclear Bomb

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=2070951

[Secrecy News - Blog] NEW YORK - Preparedness for a Dirty Bomb Attack in New York

http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/2006/06/preparedness_for_a_dirty_bomb.html

[Reuters] USA - Experts: Suicide bombs biggest threat to US [TW Editor: The USA can withstand 5000 suicide bomber attacks, be would we easily withstand three strategically placed nuclear weapons? Suicide bombers are much more likely yes, but far less serious a threat.]

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/12481101/

[PipeLineNews.org] USA/IRAQ - Hadji Girl - CAIR Conducts Email Jihad Against Marines

http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cair61306.htm

[DetNews.com / Michelle Malkin] USA - Don't deny motive of Islamic terrorists

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060614/OPINION03/606140309/1008/OPINION01

[AP] USA - Probe finds nation's emergency care system at 'breaking point'

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/14817618.htm

[AM770CHQR] CANADA - White Powder Scare At Northwest Calgary Post Office

"pair then complained about being sick. They've now been quarantined on a city bus"

http://www.770chqr.com/news/news_local.cfm?cat=7428218912&rem=40480&red=80121823aPBIny&wids=410&gi=1&gm=news_local.cfm

[AP] IOWA - Police find bomb in Bettendorf home

"sizable device made with about a pound of black powder and fragmentation particles such as buckshot and shards of metal"

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060614/NEWS/60614009/1001/BUSINESS01

[KWTX] TEXAS - Hepatitis, Anthrax Vaccines Found Lying In The Street

http://www.kwtx.com/home/headlines/3022591.html

[Miami Herald] FLORIDA - Market evacuated due to chemical smell

"someone may have thrown something into the store's ventilation system"

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/14810552.htm

[AP] USA - ICE Arrests About 2,000 Illegal Immigrants

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/14/D8I84S980.html

[Bangor Daily News] USA - Chemical Security

"Thousands of facilities across the country make or use large quantities of hazardous chemicals. Nearly five years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there are no federal rules or security standards for these manufacturing companies, water-treatment plants and refineries"

http://www.bangornews.com/news/templates/?a=135789

[KFSN] CALIFORNIA - Suspicious Device Found at Clovis Community Medical Center [Hoax device]

http://abclocal.go.com/kfsn/story?sectionfiltered=local&id=4271730

[WWMT] MICHIGAN - Courthouse evacuated after suspicious package is found

http://wwmt.com/engine.pl?stationfiltered=wwmt&id=27358&template=breakout_local.html

[WLBT] MISSISSIPPI - White, Powder Substance Found in Mailbox

http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=5032472&nav=2CSf

[WOAI] TEXAS - CPS Sends Cutoff Notice to Over 1,000 San Antonio Soldiers

http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=71830392-DEEB-4814-B964-991B31A3954E

[Conservative Voice - Allan Wall ] USA / MEXICO - Debating U.S. Immigration Policy - In Mexico

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/article/15359.html

[Dont forget to sign up at www.TransitSecurityReport.com for transportation security/terrorism headlines!]

International:

[AP] THAILAND - More than 46 bombs rattle Thailand's restive south, killing 2

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/003200606152013.htm

[YnetNews] MIDDLE EAST - Israel, Egypt Jordan on alert for al-Qaeda attack

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3263449,00.html

[Middle East Online] SAUDI ARABIA - Britain warns of high terror threat in Saudi

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=16716

[The Register] UNITED KINGDOM - UK paper buys smallpox online

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/14/grauniad_buys_smallpox/

[AP] IRAQ - Al-Qaida in Iraq reportedly names new leader

"attributed to Al-Qaida in Iraq said that a militant named Abu Hamza al-Muhajer was the group’s new leader to replace Abu Musab al-Zarqawi"

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13276364/

[Reuters] SUDAN - Gunmen kill nine people in south Sudan attack

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L12763208.htm

[Gulf Times] INDIA - Nuclear-capable missile tested

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=91349&versionfiltered=1&template_id=40&parent_id=22

[UPI] NORTH KOREA - N. Korean missile test plans suspected

"Satellite images lead U.S. intelligence officials to suspect North Korea is about to test an intercontinental ballistic missile"

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060612-070942-7367r

[AP] NEW ZEALAND - NZ Defends Deporting Terrorist Suspect

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/11/AR2006061101108.html

[Sapa-AP] SOMALIA - Somali Islamic militia move on another town

"If militiamen capture Jowhar and consolidate power in Mogadishu, they will control nearly all the major towns in southern Somalia"

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/&articleid=274301

[IsraelNN.com] ISRAEL - Two More Kassam Rockets Launched From Gaza

http://www.israelnn.com/news.php3?id=105282

[Reuters] ISRAEL - Israel kills Hamas militants; rockets hit Israelis

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-06-12T065624Z_01_ALL224951_RTRIDST_0_OZATP-MIDEAST-20060612.XML

[AP] ISRAEL - Israel, Hamas pull Gaza close to war

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/News/International/2006/06/12/1626597-sun.html

[YnetNews] LEBANON - Israeli spying cell busted

"one of the most prominent Israeli cells operating in Lebanon since 1990,"

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3262100,00.html

[The Age] AUSTRALIA - Grape grower 'plotted to bomb winery'

"I want it to look like terrorists have done it," he allegedly said"

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/grape-grower-plotted-to-bomb-winery/2006/06/13/1149964534748.html

[Manila Bulletin] PHILIPPINES - Bomb attack hits Metro anew

http://www.mb.com.ph/MTNN2006061466766.html

[NepalNews.com] NEPAL - Two children injured in bomb explosion

http://www.nepalnews.com/archive/2006/jun/jun13/news03.php

[Jerusalem Post] ISRAEL - Suspicious envelope scare proves to be false alarm

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150191578966&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[PTI] INDIA - AP cops unearth large quantity of explosives

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/002200606131513.htm

[TheParliament.com] EUROPE - EU to agree military response to disaster or terror attacks

http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200606/362a70aa-3ca3-4a14-8cfb-3e083aaef9fb.htm

[AP] GERMANY - Suspected terrorist arrested in Germany

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1103AP_Germany_Terror_Suspect.html

[AP] TURKEY - Bomb injures four in Istanbul

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=2dc448a3-c45f-4d8c-8db6-eb7e207f336a&k=47108

[Independent-Bangladesh] BANGLADESH - Two killed in bomb blast

http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/jun/15/15062006cr.htm

[Jerusalem Post] ISRAEL - Army Radio receives suspicious package

"Envelopes with a suspicious white powder inside arrived at the offices of Army Radio and the Bank of Israel on Thursday, the latest in dozens of such incidents"

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1150355501866&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[Ap] IRAQ - Iraq Announces Info From Al-Zarqawi Raid

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060615/D8I8JAC80.html

[AAP] AUSTRALIA - Pilot hit in eyes with laser beam [www.TransitSecurityReport.com for more transportation security/terrorism headlines!]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,19478147-1702,00.html

[a post for study and research, note the terrorist 007 link and Maximus, both show up]

This article begins to illuminate the wider international web to which
the
Canadian arrests are connected, by identifying actual players.

Notes:

*

While the internet forum in question is never actually named in this
article, other articles have indicated that Younis Tsouli (using the
psuedonym "Irhabi007") ran a forum called "Ikhlas" - and it is likely
that
this is the forum being referred to below

*

It is interesting that this was an __English language__ forum, NOT,
as might have been expected, an Arabic-language forum. Participation
in the
forum was password-protected

*

Identifies Fahim Ahmad and Abdul Shakur (an alias of Steven Vikash
Chand) as Canadian participants in the Forum run by Irhabi007.

*

Identifies the following individuals overseas as participants in the
same forum (date/location of arrest follows in parentheses):

Abu Omar (an alias of Aabid Hussain Khan in the UK, arrested just after
the
Canadians)
Tariq al-Daour (arrested Oct 2005 in the UK on terrorism charges)
Abu Usama El Swede (arrested Oct 2005 in Sweden for his ties to a
Bosnian
bomb plot)
Unnamed member of the Oz-Pendennis group of suspects (arrested in Nov
2005
in Australia)
Sadeequee and Ahmad (arrested in Atlanta, Georgia in March/April 2006)

*

Forum members had extended discussions about Kashmir and the various
Pakistani groups fighting there, with a particular emphasis on LeT

*

Rough timeline for the overlapping investigations/arrests:

13 Aug 2005 - Mohamed and Dirie arrested at Peace Bridge, attempting to
smuggle guns into Canada from the US.

19 Oct 2005 - Swedish national "Maximus" arrested in Sarajevo, Bosnia,
in
connexion with an alleged plot to bomb the British embassy in Sarajevo.
He
was also noted to be a recruiter for the Iraqi insurgency.

21 Oct 2005 - British police arrest Youis Tsouli, al-Dour and Waseem
Mughal
on terrorism charges. Video found in Tsouli's home contained footage
of
notable Washington D.C. landmarks and buildings. British authorities
contend that the video footage was shot by Sadequee and Ahmed

8 Nov 2005 - Australian police arrest 18 men on terrorism charges,
alleging
they scouted targets which included a nuclear reactor

March/April 2006 - Sadeqee and Ahmad are arrested in Atlanta, GA in
connexion with the evidence provided by the British authorities
(Operation
Mazhar) and an investigation by the FBI (Operation Northern Exposure)

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=84d54ba3-0a74-4462-8f
36-2b4dbd47025f&k=86609

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=84d54ba3-0a74-4462-8f3
6-2b4dbd47025f&k=86609

Web forum linked cells

Two Toronto suspects took part in discussions

http://ad.ca.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v6|3405|3|0|%2a|r%3B34845568%3B0-0%3
B0%3B12206575%3B237-250|250%3B16723013|16740908|1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://a
d.ca.doubleclick.net/clk;34827233;13364283;f?http://www.actiondirect.com/mak
eyourmove/index-canada.html

http://ad.ca.doubleclick.net/N3081/jump/npo.com/np/news/story;loc=bigbox;sz
=250x250;ptile=2;kw=ron;kw=np;kw=news;ord=44030416?

Stewart Bell, National Post
Published: Thursday, June 15, 2006

TORONTO - Terror suspects arrested in several countries including
Canada
were members of a password-protected Internet forum where they chatted
and
shared jihadist propaganda, the National Post has learned.

Among those who participated in the English-language on-line forum were
terror suspects who have since been arrested in Canada, the United
Kingdom,
the United States, Australia, Sweden and elsewhere.

They include Fahim Ahmad, one of the 17 arrested by the RCMP in Toronto
on
June 2 in connection with what police say was a series of terrorist
plots in
southern Ontario. He participated in discussions using several
pseudonyms.

The forum and its apparent role as a link between accused terrorists in
Canada and other Western countries were exposed by the SITE Institute,
a
U.S. non-profit group that monitors jihadist Internet activity.

Among the participants in the jihadist forum were a member who used the
pseudonym c4explosive and another who called himself irhabi007 (irhabi
is
Arabic for "terrorist") and who is believed to be Younis Tsouli, 22, a
London man arrested for terrorism last October.

"If protecting the honour of our sisters is terrorism, if saving our
lands
from the ravaging of the non-Muslims is terrorism ... if purifying our
holy
lands is terrorism then let the world bare [sic] witness that indeed we
are
terrorists," one posting says.

There are also postings from a member who uses the name Abdul Shakur.
Abdul
Shakur is the alias of Steven Vikash Chand, an Islamic convert who was
among
those arrested in Toronto.

On the forum, Shakur exchanges messages with Abu Omar, an alias used by
Aabid Hussain Khan, a British man charged in the U.K. yesterday with
murder
conspiracy and terrorism.

Abu Omar has several postings concerning an outlawed Pakistani
terrorist
group called Lashkar-e-Tayiba, whom he calls "the best group in
Kashmir" and
who "recruited volunteers to fight for the Taliban. It would be really
sad
if they had left the path of jihad."

Other participants are Tariq Al-Daour, who was arrested in Britain last
fall
on terrorism charges; a man known as Abu-Usama El Swede, who was
arrested in
Sweden for his alleged ties to a Bosnian bomb plot but later released;
and
at least one person tied to a terror plot in Australia.

The postings on the site include al-Qaeda videos and English
translations of
statements by the late al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and
Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's lieutenant. There are also
religious
and ideological tracts that justify the killing of non-Muslims and
other
"infidels."

"It's just ideological jihad," said Rita Katz, director of the SITE
Institute. "It's really more like a propaganda site."

Canadian authorities have indicated their investigation into the
Toronto
group was launched due to suspicious Internet activity. It was unclear
whether they were referring to this particular forum.

The fact that so many members of the same forum have been arrested on
terror-related charges suggests the site has been closely monitored by
authorities internationally.

Terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman said "virtual networks" now play an
important
role in the global jihadist movement, helping participants nurture
their
radical views.

"They know that they're no longer alone and isolated in the sense that
there
are others who think like them and there are others who enable them and
egg
them on," said Mr. Hoffman of the RAND Institute, who wrote the
foreword to
the book Terror on the Internet.

Forums have even more impact when the participants are logging on from
different parts of the world to share their grievances, he said. That
feeds
the impression that there is a global war against Islam.

"If it's geographically diffuse I think that's more important because,
don't
forget, what they're responding to or what they're fighting against is
what
they perceive as a war being waged against Islam and against Muslims
everywhere.

"If you're getting geographically disparate people who think exactly as
you
do, then you're going to believe there is a war everywhere. It's not
just
your own interpretation of your own parochial situation."

Other users of the forum are said to include two Atlanta men who were
arrested on terrorism-related charges earlier this year. Both visited
Toronto last March, and allegedly met with two of those arrested by the
RCMP.

A dozen men and five juveniles are facing terror-related charges
following
Canadian police and intelligence investigations described as the
largest
since the Air India bombings.

The RCMP says the group trained at a rural property north of Toronto,
tried
to acquire guns and an explosive device and plotted attacks, notably
truck
bombings at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service regional
headquarters
near the CN Tower and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The Post revealed last week the array of international connections
between
the Toronto investigations and related counter-terrorism cases in at
least a
half-dozen countries.

The RCMP probe called Project OSage and the CSIS investigation,
Operation
Claymore, are just two of several overlapping investigations that have
resulted in more than 30 arrests worldwide, including an FBI case
called
Operation Northern Exposure.

The arrests began last Aug. 13, when Canadian customs officers caught
two
Toronto men, Yasin Mohamed and Ali Dirie, trying to smuggle
semi-automatic
handguns into Ontario. They have since been charged with smuggling
weapons
for terrorist purposes.

On Oct. 19, Bosnian authorities arrested a Swedish man in Sarajevo
codenamed
Maximus, an alleged recruiter for the Iraq insurgency, on charges he
was
planning a bomb attack.

Two days later, British police arrested three alleged members of the
Mughal
Network, Mr. Tsouli, Mr. Al-Daour and its senior member Waseem Mughal.
Mr.
Tsouli and Mr. Mughal have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy
to
commit murder.

During a search of Mr. Tsouli's home, police seized video images that
showed
landmarks in Washington, D.C. Authorities said they were from a video
filmed
by Georgia residents Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, who
were
later arrested in the U.S.

The British arrests were followed by arrests in Sweden and Denmark. On
Nov.
8, Australian police arrested 18 men they say trained in the Outback,
were
planning terror attacks and had scouted such targets as a nuclear
reactor.

Police said the arrests had prevented a "catastrophic act of terrorism.
Prime Minister John Howard said the terror suspects were driven by
"perverted fanatical Islam."

The forum members have had extended discussions about Kashmir and the
various Pakistani militant groups fighting there, supporting theories
of a
Pakistani connection to various Western terrorist plots.

"To their credit [Lashkar-e-Tayiba] have helped at times the Taliban
and
al-Qaeda," says one posting. But another member named Brother Mujahid
argues
that another group named Jaish-e-Mohammed "have been most supportive of
the
Taliban and al-Qaeda mujahedin."

sbell@nationalpost.com

[a post for study and research]

Spinning Zarqawi - what 3 Al-Q terrorists had to say about Zarqawi's and al A's cooperation with SADDAM

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/334dhoqq.asp

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/334dhoqq.asp

Spinning Zarqawi

What three al Qaeda terrorists had to say about Zarqawi's and al
Qaeda's
cooperation with Saddam.

by Thomas Joscelyn
06/15/2006 12:00:00 AM

NOW THAT ABU MUSAB AL ZARQAWI IS DEAD, perhaps the American press can
also
lay to rest the biggest myth about the mass murderer: that he had
nothing to
do with Saddam's regime prior to the war. It is not clear where this
claim
originated, but it is widely accepted. In the cover story for this
month's
Atlantic Monthly, for example, Mary Anne Weaver writes, "In his address
to
the United Nations making the case for war in Iraq, Powell identified
al-Zarqawi--mistakenly, as it turned out--as the crucial link between
al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime."

Similar statements can be found throughout the coverage of Zarqawi's
barbarous life. But this says more about the desire to keep Saddam's
reign
separated from the rise of al Qaeda in Iraq's terror network than it
does
about the actual facts.

There is abundant evidence that Saddam's regime, at the very least,
tolerated Zarqawi's existence in regime-controlled areas of Iraq prior
to
the war. Moreover, at least three high-level al Qaeda associates have
testified to Saddam's warm welcome for Zarqawi and his associates.

Consider what a top al Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah, told his CIA
interrogators after his capture in March 2002. According to the Senate
Intelligence Report, Zubaydah said "he was not aware of a relationship
between Iraq and al-Qaeda." But, he added that "any relationship would
be
highly compartmented and went on to name al Qaeda members who he
thought had
good contacts with the Iraqis." Zubaydah "indicated that he heard that
an
important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi, and others had
good
relationships with Iraqi intelligence."

Zubaydah's testimony has since been further corroborated by a known al
Qaeda
ideologue, Dr. Muhammad al-Masari. Al-Masari operated the Committee for
the
Defense of Legitimate Rights, a Saudi oppositionist group and al Qaeda
front, out of London for more than decade. He told the editor-in-chief
of
Al-Quds Al-Arabi that Saddam "established contact with the 'Afghan
Arabs' as
early as 2001, believing he would be targeted by the US once the
Taliban was
routed." Furthermore, "Saddam funded Al-Qaeda operatives to move into
Iraq
with the proviso that they would not undermine his regime."

Al-Masari claimed that Saddam's regime actively aided Zarqawi and his
men
prior to the war and fully included them in his plans for a terrorist
insurgency. He said Saddam "saw that Islam would be key to a cohesive
resistance in the event of invasion." Iraqi officers bought "small
plots of
land from farmers in Sunni areas" and they buried "arms and money
caches for
later use by the resistance."

Al-Masari also claimed that "Iraqi army commanders were ordered to
become
practicing Muslims and to adopt the language and spirit of the
jihadis."

Just as Saddam ordered, many of Iraq's senior military and intelligence
personnel joined or aided Zarqawi's jihad. Many of the more prominent
supporters and members of Zarqawi's al Qaeda branch, in fact, came from
the
upper echelon of Saddam's regime. Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri (aka the "King
of
Clubs") and his sons allied with Zarqawi, as did members of Muhammad
Hamza
Zubaydi's (aka the "Queen of Spades") family. Zarqawi's allies included
Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, who was an aide to Saddam's chief of staff
of
intelligence, and some of his more lethal operatives served as officers
in
Saddam's military, including Abu Ali, "Al-Hajji" Thamer Mubarak (whose
sister attempted a martyrdom operation in Jordan), Abu-Ubaidah, and
Abdel
Fatih Isa.

THESE BAATHISTS, and others, have spilled much blood in Zarqawi's name.
Their attacks were among "Zarqawi's" most successful, including an
assault
on the Abu Ghraib prison and the first attack on the U.N.'s
headquarters.

The latter strike was among al Qaeda's earliest, killing Sergio de
Mello,
the U.N.'s special representative in Baghdad, in August 2003.

In addition to Abu Zubaydah and Muhammad al-Masri, a third high-ranking
al
Qaeda associate has explained Saddam's support for al Qaeda prior to
the
war. Hudayfa Azzam, who is the son of one of al Qaeda's earliest and
most
influential leaders, Adullah Azzam, gave an interview with Agence
France
Presse in August 2004 in which he explained Saddam's support for al
Qaeda's
members as they relocated to Iraq:

"Saddam Hussein's regime welcomed them with open arms," Azzam
explained,
"and young al Qaeda members entered Iraq in large numbers, setting up
an
organization to confront the occupation."

Al Qaeda's terrorists
"infiltrated
into Iraq with the help of Kurdish mujahideen from Afghanistan, across
mountains in Iran." Once in Iraq, Saddam "strictly and directly"
controlled
their activities, Azzam added.

Curiously, in all of the coverage of Zarqawi's death there has been no
mention of Abu Zubaydah's, Muhammad al-Masri's, or Hudayfa Azzam's
comments.

This is not entirely surprising. Many of the basic facts surrounding
Zarqawi's early days in Iraq have been muddled by those vested in the
notion
that Saddam's Iraq never supported al Qaeda.

Even when al Qaeda terrorists themselves admit that Saddam offered them
safe
haven and support, their words fall on the mainstream media's deaf
ears.
Thomas Joscelyn is an economist and writer living in New York.

.

http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714&grpId=2420737&grpspId=1600303292&msgId
=80091&stime=1150390568

Why Islam Is In Shambles
Jun 14, 2006
Amil Imani - Persian Journal

Islam is in shambles for a variety of reasons. A major problem with Islam is that there are as many different versions of Islam as there are Islamic pundits and there are legions of them.

Another reason why Islam is in shambles is that it is all things to all people. Even a cursory study of the Qur'an, the immutable word of God, as Muslims see it; the Hadith, the authoritative sayings of the Prophet; and, the Sunna, the Prophet's life conduct, present a body of contradictory and even outright erroneous information. This body of Islamic doctrine enables a person to pick and choose the parts he likes and ignore those he doesn't like. This feature explains why some of the good as well as the most beastly people are Muslims. Amazingly enough, both types justify themselves and their behavior by selectively citing from the Qur'an, the Hadith and the Sunna.

Here is only one example of taking an Islamic teaching as you prefer it. The Qur'an admonishes the believers: Jahedoo fee sabeel-u-llah?make jihad for the cause of God. Literally translated, this phrase directs the believers to exert themselves in service to the cause of God. The catch is in the word "exert." Some Muslims understand it as spiritual exertion. Other Muslims take it as a commandment to exert themselves by the sword. And both can be right because the rest of the Qur'an not only fails to clarify the statement, but adds further substance to each position. It is in cases like this that the pronouncements of the Islamic high divines can sway the balance in favor of one or the other. Unfortunately, not many voices of Islamic authorities are raised on the side of tolerance, peacefulness and other positive teachings of Islam. The most one hears from Islamic apologists are time-worn and banal pronouncements such as "Islam is a religion of peace."

It is a sad fact that generation after generation of Sunni Moftis?highest ranking Sunni clerics?and Ayatollahs?highest ranking Shiite clerics, over the years have indoctrinated their underling clergy as well as the masses with selective teachings that promote intolerance, exclusion and hostility toward non-Muslims?people labeled as heathens, infidels, unbelievers and apostates. Selective choice of the scripture, combined with a siege mentality endemic to the cradle of Islam, the Middle East, generate a fury of hatred that has the potential of devouring the world. If only Muslims could purge the negative aspects of its scripture and practice its positive teachings, the world would become a diverse community of humanity at peace with one another.

The question is: Is that possible or are we headed for the clash of the civilizations?

There are some wonderful statements in the Qur'an. One, for instance, says: The most beloved amongst you in the sight of God is the one who is the most virtuous. Not the rich, not the powerful and not the hateful. The most virtuous is most beloved, it says. Yet the radical Islamists have come to interpret killing and maiming the infidels as great acts of virtue, acts that would make them most beloved by God.

Reforming Islam is unfortunately not a realistic possibility. About the only universal agreement that exists among Islamic authorities is that every word of the Qur'an is the word of God and is not subject to human modification, ever. The 'Hadith' also enjoys a similar sacrosanct standing. And of course, the faithful Muhammad's conduct as recorded in the Sunna is the model to be emulated. Hence, one can pick and choose, but one can not discard or revise any part of the scripture. For this reason a Martin Luther type reformation has not happened and will not likely ever happen within Islam.

Islam's detractors point out numerous absurdities in the Islamic scripture. In fairness to Islam, we can find just as many perceived absurdities in other religious scriptures. Many of the scriptures' absurdities may, in fact, be allegories, metaphors, similes and symbols. Islamic scripture, for instance, records that Muhammad split the moon in half with his sword. Clearly, splitting the moon must be taken symbolically. Some claim that in this case "moon" stood for high ranking religious divines of the time and Muhammad destroyed them by the sword of his new faith. It was the material sword that sallied forth out of the Arabian dessert and forced Islam on people far and wide.

The fact that Islam is a splintered house complicates matters greatly. The faith is divided into Sunni and Shiites sects with numerous sub-sects. The divisions and contentiousness are so profound that members of one sect consider the other Muslims as apostates worthy of death. The division goes back to the time of the Prophet himself. Shiites believe that the enemies of true faith subverted its chain of authority at Muhammad's death. They claim that the Prophet, while on his deathbed, asked for a parchment to dictate his will and to appoint Ali, his cousin and son-in-law, as his successor. The Shiites claim that Omar, an influential disciple and commander of the faith, declined the request saying to the Prophet: hasbena ketab-ul-llah?sufficient unto us is the book of God. Before long, division and infighting started in earnest and continues to this day. Oppression of Shiite minorities in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are only two glaring instances of this longstanding and irreconcilable intra-faith hostility. The Shiite majorities in other lands return the favor to the Sunni minorities, as is the case in Iran. The recent horrific sectarian killings in Iraq represent glaring instances of irreconcilable differences among the various claimants to the mantle of true Islam.

The Bible says, "By their fruits shall ye know them." The fruits of Islam are there for everyone to see for himself. Islam may have given the world some choice fruits. It has assuredly given the world many poisonous fruits as well.

Some claim that Islam is inherently good, the majority of Muslims are good and only a small minority has hijacked the good faith of Muhammad by engaging in acts of intolerance, hatred and violence. The question is: why is it that the good Islam is not ruling in the world and the bad Islam is engulfing it in fire? Human nature is the culprit, in part. We humans are attracted to hate like flies are to honey. Hate is an easy sell. It is appealing and little effort is required to hate. Hate gathers up the person's or the group's frustrations, anxieties, fears, paranoia and many other negative emotions in one handy bundle and hurls it at a convenient target. History is replete with instances of hate energizing the masses into commitment of small and large scale atrocities.

Sell hate and people queue several blocks to buy. Sell love and you will be mostly by your lonely self. Is this a cynical view? No, it is a realistic one. It describes human's lower and primitive nature which must be painstakingly overcome through persistent education and awakening of man's higher nature.

Religious high authorities play a critical role in steering the masses toward or away from hate. The late Pope's public pronouncement, for instance, absolving the Jews as the Christ killers has reduced anti-Semitism among the rank and file Christians. Fatwas?religious decrees?by Islamic Moftis and Ayatollahs carry considerable weight with their respective followers. Sadly, most decrees and adjudications of these high Islamic authorities are exclusionary and even hostile toward the out-groups. These high divines are the suppliers of opinions as well as the teachers of the rank and file clergy who take the same ideas to the masses in villages and cities. Madresehs in Pakistan, schools in Saudi Arabia and Maktabs?religious schools?in Iran, as well as numberless mosques serve as places where the disease of hate can be transmitted with considerable success to the just too willing believers.

This virulent disease of hate of "others," is now leaving its traditional Muslim lands and infecting cities, towns and villages of the larger world. Muslims believe that the earth is Allah's and all of it rightfully belongs to the Muslims. Non-Muslims in any land are simply usurpers and occupiers who must either convert to Islam or give way to the legitimate people?the Muslims.

In Islam's theocracy, religious authority is conferred by an informal consensus of the peer group. One becomes an Ayatollah, for instance, by demonstrating to other ayatollahs his undeviating devotion to the dogma they hold. If one deviates from the accepted line, he is not likely to make a village mullah, much less an Ayatollah. This is a systemic problem that is not amenable to change. It is a pathological theological inbreeding.

Islam or religions in general are sources of energy. The energy can achieve magnificent things or destroy anything. It is up to us to put religion to good use, as people have done for millennia, and to avoid using it as a weapon of death and destruction?again, as people have done so for millennia.

In the Islamic theocracies, everyone pretends publicly his undeviating belief in the faith, as preached and promoted in his locality. If there are any unbelievers, doubters or atheists, they have to hide, not in closets, but in deep subterranean holes. Pressure to be religious is so great that pretending piety is an art form. Yet, much of religious ado is per forma rituals. Admittedly, things are hardly any better in the non-Islamic lands. People, once a week, go to a religious service, repent of their sin, pay up and go back to a life of sin for the next six days in a sinful world.

Perhaps there is a way out of the present impasse with Islam. Iran's President Ahmadinejad has invited President George W. Bush, albeit in a convoluted eighteen page epistle, to embrace Islam. Ahmadinejad seems to think that Bush is the most powerful man in the world. He must have concluded that if Bush were to embrace Islam, the masses of infidels would follow his example.

Let us for a moment accept Ahmadinejad's summon. Question: Which sect of Islam and which one of its numberless sub-sects should we join? Beside the two major branches of Sunnis and Shiite, there are dozens and dozens of sub-sects, and schools, each of which is mortally convinced they represent the only true Islam. Ahmadinejad's own brand of Islam is alien to the majority of even the Shiites. He is reportedly a devout member of a remodeled and secretive hate-based Hojjatieh which is presently operating under the guise of the Haghani sect under the leadership of a most close-minded fanatical leader?Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.

Further complications present themselves. Space limitation does not allow presenting all of them here. Only one should suffice for now. One of the issues Muslims, worldwide, are in general agreement on is the status of women. It places women squarely under the thumb of men. It says in the Quran: Alrejaalo qawaamoon al-alnesa?men are rulers over women. Women of non-Islamic world have valiantly worked to attain a degree of equality with men. They are not likely to barter their hard-earned rights for the privilege of becoming head-to-toe covered second class citizens, deprived of education and opportunities. We, non-Muslim men, are not going to leave our emancipated, fully participating and contributing members of our society behind and subjugate ourselves to a barbaric set of Shriah laws which were enacted by stone-age mentality.

In conclusion, Islam is not only divided, it is shattered. It is in shambles, long past fixing itself, much less ruling the rest of the world. It is time that Muslims, those who consider themselves good and peaceful, as well as those who want us to accept their ideology of barbarism at the point of the sword, to take the fateful step and join the free and emancipated family of humanity. There is no going back. Barbarism is in our past.

---
Amil Imani is an Iranian born, pro-democracy activist who resides in the United States of America. Imani is a poet, writer, literary translator, novelist and an essayist who has been writing and speaking out for the struggling people of his native land, Iran. He maintains a website at www.amilimani.com.

http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_16169.shtml

[a post for study and research]

http://jewishworldreview.com/michael/ledeen061506.php3

Omar, Bravo! A very bad week for Iran

By Michael Ledeen

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com

| The mullahs have had a lot of bad
news in
recent days - news with a particularly sinister aura, in fact. So
sinister
that they must be asking themselves what they have done to incur the
Divine
wrath.

I kid you not.

First is the loss of one of their terrorist stars, Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, the
deus ex machina of the terror war against us in Iraq. Not only does
that
deprive the mullahs of a prime instrument for generating civil war -
his
constant incitement to the Sunnis to rise up against the Shiites was
the
cutting edge of their three-year program to turn major Iraqi ethnic and
religious groups against one another - but it is a serious blow to
recruitment throughout the terror network. It is as bad for them as the
beheading videos were good. Potential jihadis want to do the beheading,
not
suffer the consequences of 500-pound bombs. The quick Iranian
deception,
pretending they were pleased at the death of Zarqawi, shouldn't fool
anybody. They have lost a basic building block of the terror structure.

Second is the worldwide campaign against terror cells, many of which
were
linked to Zarqawi, or to Iran itself. Some of the Canadians now in jail
in
Ontario had been in contact with Zarqawi, and the cell in Sarajevo had
longstanding ties to Tehran.

Third is this ominous line from al-Reuters on the occasion of President
Bush's jaunt to Baghdad:

BAGHDAD, June 13 - U.S. President George W. Bush told Iraqi Prime
Minister
Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad on Tuesday Iran's "interference" in Iraq must
end,
said Iraqi government sources who attended the talks.

Can it be that, at long last, we are going to take steps against the
mullahs
to save the lives of our fighters and the Iraqi civilians who have been
targeted by the terrorists who are armed and manipulated by the
Iranians and
the Syrians? Faster, please.

But that is nothing compared to the clear message from On High on the
soccer
fields of Germany. No, I'm not talking about the demonstrations against
President Ahmadinejad, I'm talking about the Mexican victory over Iran
in
the first round of the World Cup.

With the game tied 1-1, a Mexican player named Omar

http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com/06/en/w/player/214007_BRAVO_Omar.html

Bravo
scored for Mexico, which went on to win 3-1. That name, Omar Bravo,
sends
chills down the spines of the mullahs. "Bravo" is a universal plaudit,
enthusiastic praise for the person to whom the "bravo" is directed. And
Omar? Well...Omar is the most hated name in the Shiite lexicon, the
symbol
of the forces of evil, the incarnation of satanic influence on earth.

And why? Because after the death of the Prophet, Mohammed's son in law,
Ali
(the husband of Mohammed's daughter Fatima) was fighting to become the
leader of all Muslims. Ali lost out to Omar Bakr and to Omar, his close
adviser and successor as Caliph. To this day, the Shiites believe that
Abu
Bakr and Omar usurped Ali's rightful inheritance as ruler of Islam. Not
only
that, but during the succession struggle Omar burst into Ali's house,
crushing the pregnant Fatima behind the door, leading to the stillbirth
of
her son. And although Ali formally accepted the elevation of Abu Bakr,
and
then Omar, the Shiites still speak of Omar with intense hatred. In Iran
today, one of the harshest things you can say about another person is
Iaanat
be'Omar, cursed by Omar.

To a devout Shiite of the sort that governs Iran today, the defeat of
the
Iranian national team by somebody named Omar Bravo cannot be easily
dismissed as a random event. It cannot possibly be a coincidence (it is
hard
for Iranians to believe that anything is a coincidence), and it is most
certainly a terrible augury. Many Iranians will interpret it as a
message to
the mullahs: just as Ali was defeated by Omar, so your doom has been
signaled by a modern Omar. And that "bravo," can it be an accident? No
way.

As I said, tough times for the mullahs. Very tough.

[a post for study and research]

Iran, Syria Sign Defense Agreement

By FARHAD POULADI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, TEHRAN
06/15/06

www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1872085&C=mideast

Defense ministers from close allies Iran and Syria on June 15 signed an
agreement for military cooperation against what they called the "common
threats" presented by Israel and the United States.

In a joint press conference, Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad
Najjar and visiting Syrian counterpart Hassan Turkmani said their talks
had
been aimed at consolidating their defense efforts and strengthening
support
for one another.

"Our cooperation is based on a strategic pact and unity against common
threats. We can have a common front against Israel's threats," Turkmani
told
reporters after two intensive rounds of talks with Najjar.

"Our cooperation with the Iranians against Israeli threats is nothing
secret
and we regularly consult about this with our friends," he said.

Before the press conference, Iran's defense ministry said the two sides
"stressed strengthening mutual ties and the necessity to preserve peace
and
stability in the region."

The defense ministry statement also said they discussed "ridding the
region
of weapons of mass destruction," in an apparent reference to the widely
held
belief that Israel possesses nuclear warheads.

The United States has led opposition to Iran's nuclear program, which
Tehran
insists is aimed at civilian energy purposes but which Washington
suspects
is a cover for atomic weapons-making.

U.S. President George W. Bush has advocated diplomacy to resolve the
international row over Iran's aims but has also said "all options are
on the
table" if Iran refuses to halt sensitive uranium enrichment work.

Washington has included Syria in its so-called axis of evil that also
comprises Iran and North Korea, citing these nations as "supporters of
terrorism."

Asked about U.S. threats against Damascus and Tehran, both top defense
ministers brushed off the importance of such threats.

"This is nothing new, we will resist these threats," the Syrian defense
minister said.

However, Turkmani dismissed the possibility of hosting an Iranian
military
base on Syrian soil.

"The language of a (foreign) military base in our country is alien to
us. I
want to say that it is not on the agenda," he added.

The Iranian defense minister said: "U.S. threats are a kind of
psychological
operation. It is not new. With unity among the region's nations, these
threats will not prevail."

Although the two refused to give specifics about the agreement for
military
cooperation, Najjar said Iran "considers Syria's security its own
security,
and we consider our defense capabilities to be those of Syria."

Najjar also shrugged off reports that Iran could pose a threat to the
region.

"Iran is ready to sign a non-aggression pact with regional countries,"
he
said.

"Our military warfare equipment is based on deterrent policies and
strategy.
Enemies should know about our capabilities and should not even think
about
an assault against us," he said in response to a question about the
optimization process going on for the medium range Shahab-3 missile.

Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,280
miles),
capable of hitting arch-enemy Israel and U.S. bases across the Middle
East.

Najjar added that the Syrian side has purchased some Iranian military
equipment, but did not elaborate on the purchased items and did not say
whether the purchases were made as part of the June 15 agreement.

Turkmani started an official visit to Tehran on June 11.

During his trip, Turkmani has also met with President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad,
the Islamic republic's military chiefs and visited Iranian military
factories in Isfahan and Tehran.

[Keep in mind that these posts have urls buried in the stories]

15.06.2006
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA staff
Russian FSB chief praised cooperation at the annual summit of chiefs of special services and law enforcement agencies

The FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev
The FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev
Russian Federal Security Service is to form a unified databank of terrorist organizations and persons related to terrorism, FSB Director Nikolay Patrushev told foreign colleagues in Kazan. Chiefs of foreign special services and law enforcement agencies came to Tatarstan's capital Kazan for an international annual summit. Delegations from 75 secret services from 51 states and two international organizations are taking part in the meeting. "We plan to form a unified databank of terrorist organizations and persons related to terrorism in order to reduce this threat to world civilization”, he said, Interfax reported. Information will be exchanged and common approaches to the anti- terrorist fight will be defined with chiefs of security services and law enforcement agencies of the FSB's foreign partners, he said. Patrushev has pointed to a global trend toward the expansion of religious extremism.
"We are continuing to notice a trend toward the escalation of religious extremism and radicalism based on the extremely dangerous ideology of intolerance and confrontation of Muslim and Christian values and also powerful financial and material support of international terrorist organizations”, Patrushev said at a conference. "The role of international antiterrorist interaction, primarily among special services and law enforcement agencies, is growing as never before", he added. Federal Security Service Director also said Islamic states need international support in their fight against terrorism. "Islamic states are suffering from terrorism first hand. Thus, they are interested in taking part in the anti-terrorist effort and should enjoy international support. There is a certain disagreement between states, and some of them are unable to take part in the elaboration of common anti-terrorist approaches although they wish to do so," Patrushev said. To his mind, the annual meetings of the heads of secret services and law enforcement bodies of partner countries of the Russian FSB already yield specific results. He noted that the international forums in this format had been held over the past five years so as to hammer out agreed mechanisms of countering the common threat – terrorism. “We have already reached definite results in our work, which have been embodied in successful measures to ensure security of major international events, including the Summer and Winter Olympic Games in 2004 and 2005, the APEC summit in Pusan and others”, Patrushev said. “The number of forum participants rises with every passing year. Delegations of secret services of Algeria, Morocco and Malaysia participate in the forum for the first time. These countries have been attacked by terrorists several times and have experience in struggle against this evil,” the FSB director emphasized. The present meeting is the first one with the participation of Arab countries.
Patrushev underlined that “Russia’s stand on strengthening the coordinating role of the UN remains intact in countering global challenges and threats, above all terrorism”. He expressed confidence that practical implementation of UN documents, including the Security Council resolution, aimed at introducing criminal responsibility for inciting terrorism, will promote further consolidation of efforts of the international community.
“We intend, in future too, strive for general discussion and recognition of the illegal nature of terrorism in all its manifestations and for inevitability of punishments for terrorist crimes,” the FSB chief stressed, Itar-Tass reported.

Russia's President called on the international community to help free Russian diplomats
Russia's President called on the international community to help free Russian diplomats kidnapped in Iraq. To remind, one Russian diplomat was killed and four others kidnapped when unidentified gunmen attacked the Russian embassy in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, June 3. The kidnappers have yet to make ransom or other demands for the hostages' freedom. "I am counting on assistance from all our friends”, Putin told journalists at a summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) heads of state in Shanghai, RIAN reported. "We are continuing to work on the problem, and cooperating with the Iraqi authorities, and with our friends in neighboring states". A senior Russian lawmaker, Mikhail Margelov, said earlier that Russia was using all its connections with the Iraqi government and major political parties to secure their release, and urged all Iraqis who remembered Russian aid to the country to help in the search. But Margelov, who heads the committee on international affairs in the upper house of Russia's parliament, said the kidnapping should not affect friendly relations between Russia and Iraq, as the diplomats had been abducted by "international terrorists". The Organization of the Islamic Conference, which has condemned the kidnapping as a crime against humanity and Islam, has pledged assistance in getting the diplomats released. President Putin also said he hoped SCO bodies could be employed in dealing with such incidents. All the Russian secret services are currently acting in Iraq to find the diplomats. Russian media blamed the US for the abduction

Russian Federal Drug Control Service to open offices abroad
The Russian Federal Drug Control Service (FDCS) will open a number of offices abroad to step up cooperative efforts against drug trafficking, primarily that from Afghanistan, Gen. Alexander Fyodorov, a deputy director of the agency, told Interfax. "Preparatory work for opening first FDCS representation offices in eight countries, including Afghanistan, a number of Central Asian countries, Austria, and the US, is nearing completion”, Fyodorov said. In line with the Russian leadership's decision, the FDCS can have 50 representatives abroad, he said. As AIA reported previously, at the end of March 2006 President Putin signed a resolution allowing the Russian drugs authority to have offices abroad, to "carry out their responsibilities as part of Russia's diplomatic mission without being official diplomatic staff". As analysts note, there is a possibility that the anti-drug service will be used as a cover for intelligence operations abroad.

FSB General fired from the Russian customs
Deputy head of the Russian customs service was fired today by the decision of the Russian Premier Mikhail Fradkov, local media reported. General Nikolay Volobuev, who previously served in the KGB and FSB, was released from his duty. Local analysts connect his retiring with the wave of recent dismissals of the Russian officials in security and law enforcing structures, connected to corruption cases.

Russian FSB claims killing militants in North Caucasus
Three gunmen including an alleged notorious militant were killed during an operation in the Ingushetia region in Russia's North Caucasus republic bordering on Chechnya early Thursday, local FSB said. "One of the gunmen has been identified as Adam Nalgiyev, 31, a deputy of a field commander [nicknamed] Magas", a Federal Security Service officer said. The officer said Nalgiyev had led a militant group during a 2004 raid into Ingushetia from neighboring Chechnya. He also shot police officers and took part in other terrorist attacks on the region, the officer said, including an attack on FSB officers, the killing of an OMON special police force commander and three children, and the assassination of a local administration official, RIAN reported. A group of militants was surrounded in a forested area near the village of Ali-Yurt outside Nazran, Ingushetia's largest city, early Wednesday. The operation to apprehend the suspected militants involved police, army officers, and aircraft.

Georgian ex-KGB chief's party to stage a protest rally
The women’s organization of the Georgian opposition Justice Party of supporters of Igor Georgadze, former KGB chief of Georgia, is to stage a protest rally against the violence at the Parliament of Georgia on Thursday. The slogan of participants of the rally will be Mothers Against War and Violence, Prime-News was told by representatives of the Party. According to them, the rally is aimed against the war in Iraq and possible engagement of Georgia in the increasing tension between the USA and Iran. Participants of the rally will also demand peaceful resolution of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The rally will also be dedicated to prevention of wilful actions of the so-called “death brigades”, whose illegal operations have already brought toll to death of approximate 50 young people.

SCO Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure head speaks of the future plans

Vyacheslav Kasymov (photo: Uzreport)
Vyacheslav Kasymov
Former KGB officer, currently Director of the RATS Executive Committee (in the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization) Vyacheslav Kasymov spoke to BVV Business Report about some of the results of the structure's activity and the plans for the short future. "During the period of 2005-2006 over 260 terrorist attacks were prevented on the territory of SCO member-states, scores of major leaders of terrorist structures were identified or eliminated. The Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure works in three directions: information-analytical support of the activity of competent agencies; coordinating-analytical activity involving the search of terrorists and organization of specific anti-terrorist actions; as well as administrative-legal activity. In general, the results of the work carried out by the anti-terrorist structure during the period from the Forum in Astana to the Summit in Shanghai illustrate that thanks to the preventive measures implemented by the competent agencies, the situation on the territory of SCO member-states remains stable, and what is even more important, it is predictable", he said.
To his mind, "the level of interaction between the special services to be sufficient to ensure the stability in the whole region covered by the SCO mandate". "RATS headquarters was established to coordinate the activity of the special services of SCO member-states on 17 June 2004. In this context, I would like to note that for the first time anti-terrorist military exercises have recently been held on the territory of Tajikistan, Kyrygzstan and Uzbekistan. At the final phase of these exercises, a special training operation was organized on the territory of Uzbekistan on neutralization of the group of terrorists in Tashkent region. According to the scenario of the exercise terrorist attacks were planned on the important life support objects of the region surrounding the capital, and the terrorists strived to create a direct threat to Tashkent city. In general, the actions of the special divisions were assessed as high both in searching and liquidation of the group… Today we are facing a threat of drug trafficking from the territory of Afghanistan. This business is operated by the terrorist organizations, which use the income to finance their activity. In particular, Talibans, which are closely related to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, and Al-Qaeda. The April 2006 meeting of the competent agencies of SCO member-states in Beijing was dedicated to the discussion of this threat. We are planning to conduct exercises with participation of Chinese and Kazakh special forces this year on the territory of Kazakhstan and Sinjan-Uygur autonomous district of China", Kasymov stated.

Uzreport brought some data on SCO RATS: Its staff consists of 30 people, including 7 specialists from Russia and China each, 6 from Kazakhstan, 5 from Uzbekistan, 3 from Kyrgyzstan, and 2 from Tajikistan. The financing is share-based: Russia and China – 25% each; Kazakhstan – 21%; Uzbekistan – 15%; Kyrgyzstan – 9%, and Tajikistan 6%.

Vyacheslav Kasymov's short biographical note. He graduated from Tashkent Institute of the Engineers of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanisation, and the Higher School of the USSR State Security Committee. Has worked with KGB and National Security Service (NSS) from 1980 through 2004. In 1991-1996, headed the NSS Department. In April 1996 was appointed to the post of the NSS Deputy Chairman. Received several awards and military rank of General-Major. In January 2004 appointed to the post of the Director of the Executive Committee of the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) by the decision of the Heads of SCO member-states.

Moldovan special forces officers arrested in Transdnestrian capital
Arrest of four officers of the Moldovan Interior Ministry on June was absolutely illegal, Moldovan Interior Minister Georgy Papuk has told the press on June 15, REGNUM reports. All of them are officers of a joint investigation group that is entrusted to provide for law and order in the Security Zone as well as in the whole region, the minister announced. “This is a provocation by local secret services and, first of all, by the so-called State Security Ministry (MGB). We call upon the Transdnestrian authorities to free the police officers”, Papuk is quoted as saying.
Georgy Papuk stressed that the security ministry mentioned by him systematically and for many years had been carrying out unlawful activities and particularly kidnapping. “Not long ago, in the Ukrainian Izmail citizen of Moldova Vladimir Gorbov was abducted. There have been recently over 160 unlawful detentions of police officers only”, the minister stressed. He addressed the Transdnestr authorities urging to cease “legal chaos and come to constructive cooperation in fighting crime”. Earlier, Transdnestr MGB officials announced that insisting on the MGB involvement in abduction of Moldovan citizen Vladimir Gorbov, Information and Security Service of the Republic of Moldova was trying to save its provocateur on the staff, who in early ‘90s participated in preparing and carrying out terror attacks, contract killings and drug trafficking in the territories of Transdnestr and Ukraine.

Romanian Social Democrat ask for communist police history clarifications
Romanian Social Democratic Senator Razvan Theodorescu yesterday asked the head of the National Council for the Study of Securitate Archives (CNSAS), Claudiu Secasiu, to look into the information circulated in relation to his alleged collaboration with the former communist secret police, Bucharest Daily News reports. A report in central daily Romania libera said that Theodorescu's name appeared on a list of people whose Securitate files were burned in 1991 in order to hide their ties with the secret police of the communist rule. Theodorescu threatened to sue the newspaper unless it "produces all the evidence it has" about the matter within 30 days. In his letter to Secasiu, the Social Democratic senator said he was never a collaborator or informant of the Securitate. The only ties he had with the communist police were the memos in which he criticized the communist rule's policies, according to the letter. When asked whether he checked the file the newspaper was referring to before it was burned, Theodorescu said he never had the curiosity. "I was afraid I would find in it statements from people close to me”, he said. The senator added that, given that he was minister of Culture and has had a seat in Parliament for years, the information about his communist past was checked several times.

AI: Existence of secret prisons in Poland and Romania hard to prove
Amnesty International (AI) senior adviser Anne Fitzgerald said it is hard to prove if there were CIA secret prisons in Romania and Poland because if they indeed existed, they were moved. "If governments in these countries do not collaborate more rigorously with euro parliamentarians Dick Marty and Claudio Fava, it will be very difficult to obtain information about something that no longer exists”, Fitzgerald said, Bucharest Daily News reports. While Dick Marty is the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly rapporteur, Fava is a substitute in the European Parliament's sub commission on human rights. Fitzgerald said it is in Poland and Romania's interest for this subject to be clarified "once and for all." When asked how she comments the fact that the Romanian Parliament will publish a report that says there is no proof against Romania in the CIA scandal, the AI official said the results need to be sent to rapporteurs Marty and Fava. "We greet any investigation of this type; if the Romanian authorities publish these results, then they should be willing to offer access to the same sources to Dick Marty and Claudio Fava”, for the investigation to be continued by the Council of Europe and by the European Parliament. "I believe it is in Romania's interest to do this”, Fitzgerald added.

Polish Cardinal apologized for agents of the Communist era secret service
Polish Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz has apologized to all people who have suffered as a result of collaboration with Communist era secret service by some members of the Polish clergy, Polish Radio reported. During his homily at Corpus Christi celebrations in Krakow, the cardinal asked the victims of these shameful acts not to turn away from the Church. He assured the apology contained strong commitment to unveil the truth about this infamous collaboration with the Communists, but the whole truth, as cardinal Dziwisz stressed. Records of the National Remembrance Institute suggest that some one tenth of Poland’s Catholic clergy had been entangled in activity controlled by the secret service in the country’s post war Communist period. It was a time when every Polish priest, starting from his seminary years, had a personal file in the Interior Ministry which closely monitored all activities of the Church and its people. The present hierarchy has declared its willingness to reveal the archive records, but under strict Church supervision. Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, who is among the strongest advocates of such an approach, is the Metropolitan of Krakow and former personal secretary to the late John Paul II.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=919

14.06.2006
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA staff
Pro-Russian NGO in Ukraine stormed SBU's headquarters

SBU logo
SBU logo
Activists of the Eurasian Youth Union – EYU - nongovernmental Russian organizations with a branch in Ukraine, stormed Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) headquarters. They were protesting their leader's banishing from Ukraine. Ten attackers were detained, including local branch head, Alexander Medinsky. As AIA reported previously, the head of the Russian Eurasian Youth Union Pavel Zarifullin was detained at the Kiev Borispol Airport by the SBU. According to Ukrainian media, he arrived to Kiev on June 9 to organize a series of protest actions of his NGO in Feodosia, Nikolayev, and other Ukrainian cities. The protest actions were supposed to be directed against the proposed NATO and US joint military exercises. Earlier Zarifullin and his co-head Valeriy Korovin said at a press conference in Moscow that they announce a creation of people’s insurgent army to resist the US occupation of Crimea. After performing a thorough check, the Ukrainian security handed Zarifullin a paper on exclusion him from the country and deporting him back to Russia. After that the activist of EYU in Ukraine organized a protest outside the SBU building in Kiev. The manifestation ended with a storming of the headquarters.

Ukrainian Security Service's website advertised "erotic services"
Ukrainian Security Service's (SBU) website for unknown reason advertised "erotic services", local media reported. As it was noticed by the website visitors, an illustration in one of the reports on apprehending jealous husband who tried to blew up a plane on May 23, was actually a link to other website of erotic encounters and pornographic images. The picture was removed from the website after the information became public. As it was noted also the picture was letting the owners of the porn website to see the number of the people visiting SBU's site. As AIA reported previously, Konstantin Boiko, the chief of the SBU Special Telecommunication Systems and Information Protection Department, said that the Ukrainian segment of the Internet should be adjusted in order to prevent threats to the national security of the country. "If there will be a precedent, we would be made responsible for the consequences, and already after that all of us shall equally come to understanding that the Internet should be regulated", Boiko told at the end of May to the weekly "Vlastj deneg". In particular, the issue of licensing of activity on the Internet should be defined," noted Boiko.

Notorious Russian gangsters hit squad was GRU trained
Notorious Russian gangsters hit squad consisted of highly trained GRU officers and former employees of other secret services, Russian media reports, quoting Moascow's prosecutor's office. As it turned out during the investigation of the ill-famed "Orekhovo-Medvedko" gang, it had an "elite" group of three killers - two of which were former GRU officers. They used the best technologies to track and murder their "marks" - mostly rival gangsters. One of the heads and organizers of the gang was ex-KGB officer.

Russian FSB: Islamic militants supported from the Middle East
Russian FSB branch in Karachaevo-Cherkessiya claims that local Islamic militants are supported from the Middle East. On April 27,2006 a large group of militants was destroyed and documents which were found on them proved that they were paid for terrorist acts from abroad, local media reported.

Russian FSB fights a million hacking attacks annually
Russian FSB annually fights a million hacking attacks against official state websites, Russian media reports. Chief of the communications security center of the FSB Viktor Gorbachev said that the number is getting higher and higher every year. One of the main threats are so-called "mass attacks", when several thousands attempts of hacking are committed in several hours, he said. As an example he brought an attempt of the group of US based hackers to break into the Russian Emergency Control Ministry on April 22 this year. In March a group of Chinese hackers attacked secret services' websites for 12 hours. Hackers have made several high-profile attacks on Russian web sites in the last year, including one on Russia's first 24-hour English-language television channel, Russia Today, less than two months after it began broadcasting. The channel was temporarily forced off the air in December after hackers tried to break into its computer network. In the past two years in Russia, databases containing the information of MTS cell phone users, pension fund beneficiaries and Central Bank transactions have been hacked into and sold on the black market.

Russian court officers' service to became secret service
Russian Justice department proposes to turn the Federal court officers service into a secret service, granting it powers to recruit secret agents and conduct undercover operations, local media reported. Its officers will have almost all the rights as other secret services, except of the right to conduct phones taping and infiltrating houses of the suspects. These tasks will be conducted by the FSB. The name of the Service will also change into the Service of State Executors.

Antiterrorist equipment and techniques at display in Krasnoyarsk
Security services of the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk (the third largest city in Siberia) participate in the specialized forum "Modern security systems", local media reported. Over 30 Russian companies participate in the forum, which is combined with a public display of antiterrorist equipment and techniques. Representatives of the local FSB ran a small drill, showing the guests "liberation of hostages from the airport".

Afghani police chiefs smuggled drugs with the help of Russian secret services
Afghani police chiefs smuggled drugs with the help of Russian secret services and Tajik military, PakTribune reports. Several Afghani police commanders from Takhar Province near Afghan-Tajik border, former mujahideen chiefs, were taped during conversations on their drug trafficking activities. For example, "Commander Nasir" in the border district gives an inside picture of how some of the bigger police commanders - both in Afghanistan and in neighboring Tajikistan - punish drug-trafficking competitors to burnish their law-enforcement credentials, or take bribes from those willing to pay for favorable treatment. "When I was a big smuggler, I had relations with the Tajik officers on the other side of the border. But my competitor has relations with the Russian KGB," he says. "His people have damaged my business a lot. Once I lost $500,000 of heroin, another time $600,000, another time $700,000, another time $900,000, another time $1.1 million because of his people", Nasir said, PakTribune wrote.
To remind, AIA already reported several times on the involvement of the Tajik and Russian officers in drug trafficking from Afghanistan. In August 2005 spokesman for the Russian federal antidrug service Vasily Rogozin said that "drug trafficking has considerably grown since Tajik border guards assumed control of the Tajik-Afghan border in mid-2005,". He added that some Russian experts stayed in Tajikistan to help local border guards. Obviously, they helped them in a very "special way", as over 60 Tajik law enforcement officers were detained in November last year for drug trafficking.

Estonian Greens complain on Security Police tracing and mail cover
Estonian Greens movement has announced that the country's Security Police (KAPO) has been collecting information on their activity. The Greens are claiming that the KAPO watched electronic correspondence of the delegates of the annual assembly of the European wildlife management organizations held in Tartu, and has made some inquiries about the delegates to hotels, writes PM Online. The Greens have been revolted by the KAPO actions; the representatives of the organizations on the environment preservation from 26 countries who have gathered in Tartu have sent an open reference on the KAPO activities to the so-called Special commission of the Estonian Parliament, the European Parliament and the Security Police of Estonia itself. According to the board member of the Estonian Greens movement Peepa Mardiste, before the annual assembly the Greens have met with the KAPO representatives who have shown them the event's agenda that was possible to learn only from the electronic correspondence of the organizers. We also were informed by the hotel, that the KAPO has made inquiry about the delegates", says Mardiste. According to him, the KAPO was interested in the activity of the Greens even earlier. "They are interested in radical defenders of the environment and the "Greenpeace" activists, but we are not engaged in any illegal activity," Mardiste says. We want the KAPO to spend the tax payers money not for shadowing free associations and would concentrate on the important risks influencing the state security".

New info on Romanian Conservative leader's Securitate file published
The file on Romanian Conservative Party chief Dan Voiculescu's relations with the former secret police is being checked by the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, the council's spokesman, Cazimir Ionescu, announced, Bucharest Daily News reports. Ionescu said new information had emerged in Voiculescu's file but refused to give further details. However, Voiculescu once again stated that he was never a Securitate officer and there was no new information in his file. He claimed to have read a copy of it and said he did not come across anything that could incriminate him as a Securitate officer. However, Ionescu said Voiculescu had been informed about the new information. The CNSAS decided to initiate an urgent investigation of Voiculescu's Securitate file after the latter was appointed deputy prime minister by his party and asked for allegations regarding his collaboration with the Securitate to be cleared.
"I ask the CNSAS members to declassify absolutely all possible documents, to investigate all the way, so this tension is solved and this aspect is cleared once and for all," said Voiculescu, adding that he expected to receive a letter from the CNSAS absolving him of collaboration with the former political police. When asked about the contents of his Securitate file, Voiculescu said there was nothing in it that said he had collaborated with the Securitate. One example he gave was that while he was a student, a Securitate agent had written in his report that he wanted to ask Voiculescu if any of his hokey teammates intended to stay back in Prague, where they were playing a match. "Why is it may fault that he intended to ask me?" Voiculescu wondered. The PC chief said he had asked Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu and President Traian Basescu not to approve his appointment as deputy prime minister till the CNSAS announced the results of their investigation.
The CNSAS representative said the new file in Voiculescu's case came from the intelligence service, SRI. However, he could say if the file confirmed Securitate collaboration. Ionescu said the dialogue with Voiculescu will go on and did exclude the possibility of hearing from him again.

Several European lawmakers want Romania and Poland removed from CIA prisons report
Several European lawmakers do not want Romania and Poland mentioned in the final report of the investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe, according to EU Observer. Currently the report of the EP commission and the one issued last week by the Council of Europe mention Romania and Poland as possible detention sites for CIA prisoners, although both governments have denied it.
The Independence/Democracy group within the European Parliament asked dropping Romania and Poland from the final report because most of the group's lawmakers are Polish, the EU Observer writes. The commission on Monday night adopted the preliminary report, which is meant to be submitted next month to the EP plenum. However, most lawmakers on Monday approved the report condemning what it called mounting evidence of U.S. human rights abuses, and accused the CIA of using fictitious airlines to transfer terror suspects to countries where they could be tortured. The European Parliament's six-month inquiry into reports of CIA secret prisons and flights in Europe found that detainees were transferred to countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Afghanistan.
The report was approved by 25 votes against 14, with seven abstentions, a week after Swiss senator Dick Marty, investigating the allegations on behalf of the Council of Europe, concluded that 14 European nations colluded with U.S. intelligence in a "spider's web" of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities.

Czech Republic does not help CIA
The Czech Republic is not among the European countries who helped CIA intelligence agency in the programme of transport of prisoners of war suspected of terrorism, according to a report which the Amnesty International (AI) sent CTK. Unlike in the previous reports, the Czech Republic is not mentioned as one of the countries cooperating with CIA. AI reports about six cases of illegal transport of detainees, in which allegedly Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Germany, Italy, Macedonia, Sweden and Turkey took an active part. The AI report said that without any trial, the captives were transported by planes to prisons in other countries and allegedly were tortured there. According to the earlier information by AI, three planes with captives suspected of terrorism aboard landed 20 times in Prague. Czech authorities and the counter-intelligence service said they knew nothing about such stop-overs. The case of stop-overs by CIA planes with captives aboard has already been discussed for eighteen months.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=918

13.06.2006
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA staff
Notorious KGB chief and Soviet leader forged his biography

The KGB chief Yuri Andropov
KGB chief and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov
Notorious KGB chief and Soviet leader Yuri Andropov forged his biography to climb the communist party's ladder, Russian edition Itogi reports. Recently declassified secret files of Andropov showed that he "adapted" his biography to the demands of the Bolshevik times – he made himself a son of an Ossetian proletarian, while he was actually from a rich bourgeoisie family, probably with Jewish roots. At the beginning Andropov, according to the files, was not very accurate while inventing his family's "proletarian" past. He was questioned at least four times in the thirties because of the discrepancies in several forms he filled. Each and every time he managed to fool commissions that checked his background. The final version of his biography stated that he was the son of a railway official and was probably born in Nagutskoye, Stavropol Guberniya, Imperial Russia. But as the top secret archives showed, Andropov was born in wealthy Jewish family – Feinstein or Flekenstein in Moscow. His father, most probably died fighting in the ranks of the so-called "White Army", which battled the Bolsheviks. His family, which allegedly arrived in Russian from Finland, may have been dealing in dimonds and suffered from

Andropov's mother Evgenia (photo: "Andropov and KGB" by Sergey Chertoprud, 2004)
Andropov's mother
"pogroms" during the WW I. One of the most interesting details is that Andropov (whose real name was Grigory and not Yuri), was born several hundred metres far from the Lubianka – Soviet secret police headquarters in Moscow, Itogi reports.
Reference file:
Andropov was born in 1914. In 1951 and joined the Communist party secretariat. In 1954, he became the Soviet Ambassador to Hungary. Andropov was one of those responsible for the Soviet decision to invade Hungary during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Later he headed the Department for Liaison with Socialist Countries (1957-1967) and was promoted to the Central Committee Secretariat in 1962, succeeding Mikhail Suslov, and in 1967 he was appointed head of the KGB. In 1973 Andropov became a full member of the Politburo, although he did not resign as head of the KGB until 1982. A few days after Leonid Brezhnev's death (November 10, 1982), Andropov was the surprise appointment to General Secretary over Konstantin Chernenko. He was the first head of the KGB to become General Secretary. His appointment was received in the West with apprehension, in view of his roles in the KGB and in Hungary. In foreign policy he achieved little — the war continued in Afghanistan. Andropov's rule was also marked by the deterioration of relations with the United States. Andropov died of kidney failure on February 9, 1984, after several months of failing health. He is buried in Moscow, in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Russian senator from Kalmykia claims FSB framed him
The Russian Supreme Court will rule on whether or not the activities of Levon Chakhmakhchian, member of the Federation Council from Kalmykia, can be qualified as criminal. "The Supreme Court has scheduled the consideration of the plea from the Prosecutor General's Office for June 16," the senator's lawyer Boris Kuznetsov told Interfax. As AIA reported, FSB agents found 300,000 dollars in the Chakhmakhchian’s case during a secret operation. The banknotes where found during checks made by security agents into facts of bribery practiced by some senior officials for withholding certain facts found out during inspections made by the Russian Audit Chamber. Chakhmakhchian claims that he was framed by the FSB.

Ukraine's state treasury to control security services' money
Ukraine's Finance Ministry plans to finish soon transferring to the state treasury of control over security services' money. SBU, Interior Ministry, Intelligence Service and State Customs Service's accounts will be under treasury's control to prevent misuse of resources, local media reported.

Kazakh KNB chief: Special unit “Arystan” cleansed
The head of the Kazakh KNB Amangeldi Shabdarbaev finished cleansing the command staff of the “Arystan” special elite unit. In an interview to the Kazakhstan's daily Megapolis, KNB head, who was appointed to the office 100 days ago, told of his activity. Following serious deep check of the unit after its five officers murdered a leading Kazakh oppositionist Altynbek Sarsenbayev, the head of the KNB discovered a number of problems with its commanding staff. A reform in the unit replaced over 20 commanding officers, who were fired without a right to join the force later. A new head of the elite unit was appointed “a skilled reserve officer with a field-work background ”, but his name remains secret.
He also said the KNB is changing slightly terms of receiving new recruits, giving priority to the educated persons. Shabdarbaev also touched the issue of corruption of the state structures, noting that KNB is dealing with this threat to society. He brought examples of recent arrests of the officials in various, including security structures. Shabdarbaev denied rumors of alleged Chechen separatists' "resting bases" in Kazakhstan and said that cooperation on security issues with Russia is on the highest level.

The OSCE may observe trial of the KNB officers accused of murder
The OSCE considers it necessary to send its observers to a trial on the case of assassination of a famous politician Sarsenbayev and his aides by the KNB special unit officers. Christian Strohal, Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, has stated this at an OSCE conference on promoting tolerance, inter-cultural, inter-religious and inter-ethnic understanding, in Almaty, Kazakhstan Today reported. The case on assassination of Altynbek Sarsenbayev and his aides Vasily Zhuravlev and Baurzhan Baibosyn will be considered in Almaty regional court in Taldykorgan. The trial will start on 14 June under the chairmanship of judge Lukmat Merekenov. The trial proceeding will be open.

Basentsi Azoyan (photo: Panarmenian.Net)
Basentsi Azoyan

Armenian military intelligence chief passed away
59-year-old chief of the intelligence department of the Armenian armed forces general staff, major general Basentsi Azoyan passed away, Armenian Defense Minister’s Spokesman, colonel Seyran Shahsuvaryan told Panarmenian.Net. A graduate of the KGB’s Institute, in 1974-1995 Basentsi Azoyan occupied high posts in the national security system. In 1980-1982 he was detached to Iran and in 1983-1986 to Afghanistan. Since 1995 Basentsi Azoyan has served for the Armenian armed forces. He was decorated with the orders for Military Service, Marshal Baghramyan, Andranik Ozanyan, Garegin Njdeh, the order for Strengthening Partnership and the order for Irreproachable Service as well as with the USSR medals and orders. Azoyan will be buried in the Yerablur pantheon.

Poland opens inquiry into 1981 John Paul II death plot
Investigators in Poland said Monday they have opened an inquiry into a suspected plot behind an assassination attempt on late Polish-born Pope John Paul II in 1981. "The inquiry is not into the attack itself but into a plot by communist (secret) services," said Ewa Koj of Poland's National Remembrance Institute (IPN), which is charged with prosecuting Communist and Nazi crimes.
Koj, head of the IPN's investigative department in the southern city of Katowice, told the PAP news agency the inquiry aimed to probe suspected involvement by several countries in planning the assassination attempt on the pope. The IPN has previously said that it does not have direct proof that Polish Communist-era secret police took part in the attack.

Romanian government’s secretary says he was not a Securitate agent
The delegate minister for the coordination of the Romania’s government's General Secretary's Office, Radu Stroe, said yesterday that the document which was handed to him by President Traian Basescu during the his official appointment ceremony included information about a recent formal discussion he had with the president and some other political leaders. Thus, Stroe rejected the rumors saying the document was about an alleged connection he has had with the former communist secret police, the Securitate.
"Despite the speculation concerning that document, it did not comprise information that is a threat for me and my political career. On the contrary, the document includes information in accordance with my political statements and actions concerning an issue much debated by the media in the recent days," said Stroe, Bucharest Daily News reported.
The minister pointed out that the piece of paper illustrates the way in which the head of state likes to approach certain delicate issues.
Stroe also explained that he has never been involved with the Securitate and that the secret police were the ones who monitored his moves, adding that the reason for which he chose not to reveal the information in the document is that as a head of the commission controlling the activity of the Intelligence Service he has learned to be prudent when it comes to information that might be labeled as classified.

EU parliamentarian: Romanian officials knew about CIA flights
The head of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament (ALDE), Graham Watson, said in an interview with Deutsche Welle that there are suspicions that Romanian officials knew about the CIA flights, despite the strong denials Romanian authorities have sent. "I suspect that there are people in the intelligence services and people in the former government who know about these actions and who have not yet given explanations," said Watson, adding that one of the current Romanian government's main objectives is to ask serious questions to people in the former government and to heads of the intelligence services. Watson's statement follows the report made public by the head of the Council of Europe investigation, Dick Marty, who said there were corroborated facts strengthening the presumption that landing points in Romania and Poland were detainee drop-off points for CIA prisoners. Watson urged the members of the parliamentary commission responsible for the investigation of the alleged CIA prison on Romanian territory to do their job. The head of the commission, Norica Nicolai, has denied the accusations brought by Dick Marty's report and said it makes allegations without evidence.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=917

12.06.2006
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA staff
Day of Russia goes under tight security as terrorist acts possible

Celebrations of the Russia's Day (photo: Reuters)
Celebrations of the Russia's Day
Secret and security services of Russia are on full alert as the country celebrates its Independence Day. On this day, in 1990, the Russian parliament formally declared its sovereignty. The holiday has been officially recognized since 1991 when it was established by Boris Yeltsin, who was the president of the Russian Federation at the time. The holiday was renamed as Russia's Day in 2002, when it was included as a holiday in the new Labor Code. More than 200000 law enforcement officers ensure security of Russian citizens during the celebrations, a senior Interior Ministry official said Monday, RIAN quoted. Alexander Chekalin, first deputy interior minister, said police patrol and quick-response units had been strengthened all around the country, especially in places of mass gathering of people, including airports, railway stations, and at high security facilities. The police said traffic in the center of Moscow had been restricted for the duration of the festivities. There are fears of possible terrorist acts during the celebrations, as it happened during other holidays in various places in Russia. For example, on May 9, 2004 Ahmad Kadyrov, pro-Russian President of Chechnya was killed. In May this year Russian FSB and Anti-terrorist center reported averting tens of terrorist acts in different regions during the celebrations of the May 1 and Easter. As AIA reported previously, FSB officials fear activization of the Chechen separatists. There are forecasts of increasing of their activity in summer, as their leaders - Shamil Basaev and Movladi Udugov pronounced of "transferring military activities over the Volga river" and possible actions in the large Russian cities.

Russian FSB: Ukrainian Foreign Ministry heads are on the US payroll
Russian FSB sources said to the Novii Region Russian edition that Ukrainian Foreign Ministry heads are on the US payroll. The newspaper cites the sources saying that Pentagon have already transferred money to the personal accounts of Ukrainian officials in the US banks, but they will have an access to it when Ukraine will join NATO. The newspaper also cites unnamed Ukrainian expert and Belarus diplomat, who confirmed this version of the Russian secret service.

Russian FSB destroyed militant's base in Ingushetia
A militant's base discovered during a sweep operation in a forest outside village of Yandare in Ingushetia (Northern Caucasus) early on Sunday morning has been destroyed, a spokesman for the local branch of the Federal Security Service told Interfax. "A silver-colored VAZ-21114 car was found on the base. The car might have been used during the latest crimes in Ingushetia", he said. The militants apparently left the base shortly before the arrival of security units, he added. A radio receiver, ammunition, household stuff, medicines, food supplies, and other belongings were found at the base, the spokesman said. Ingush special operations police commander Musa Nalgiyev, his small children, bodyguard and driver were killed in the village of Karabulak early on Friday morning. Senior local official Galina Gubina was also shot dead in a nearly simultaneous attack in the village of Ordzhonikidzevskaya.

Azerbaijani secret services deported political leader of Iranian Azerbaijanis
Leader of the South Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement (SANAM) Mahmoudali Chohraganli was deported from Baku by the local secret services. He was sent to Dubai and further to the USA. Head of the SANAM's Europe bureau in Turkey Mahmoud Bilgin told APA that at the night of the 9th of June-the fifth day of his stay in Turkey, Chohraganli was deported by the local secret services to Baku from Istanbul. He was offered several countries to leave for, but he decided to go to Azerbaijan. After 10-hour-stay at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport, the SANAM leader was also deported by the Azerbaijani confidential bodies. Bilgin regretted for such negligence towards the SANAM leader but he hoped for permanent support from Turkey and Azerbaijan. "South Azerbaijani Turks have always considered Turkey and Azerbaijan as their supporters. However, we could not have thought that our supporters will fear of the Persian regime in the period when Iran is collapsing. We call on these states to back their southern brothers. However, let them not to think that South Azerbaijani Turks will not be able to determine their fortune without their support. We believe the power and will of struggle of 35 million South Azerbaijani Turks," Bilgin underlined. It is considered that deportations of the SANAM leader were made under Iranian pressure.

China calls for more security services' cooperation in the SCO framework
All member-states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) support the strengthening of cooperation of security services and resistance to terrorism, Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Li Huei has said.
"At present China as well as other SCO countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, China, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) are targets of the plans of international terrorists. Therefore it is a common aspiration of SCO member-states to strengthen cooperation in security and resistance to terrorism, extremism and separatism," he told a Monday briefing dealing with the summit beginning in Shanghai on June 15, Interfax reported.
He said that the anti-terrorist exercises held in the SCO framework on both a bilateral and multilateral basis are an important component of this resistance and that the practice will continue. "SCO exercises serve to strengthen peace and stability in the region and throughout SCO and they are not directed against third countries or organizations," he said.
As Russian media reports, SCO countries started combining common list of the wanted perpetrators, extremists and terrorists, for joint activities aimed at their apprehension. The list will be based on the one created by SCO's antiterrorist regional staff – RATS. The common list will provide all the SCO members' security services with extensive data on possible terrorist activity and that will assist in predicting and preventing of hostile activities.

Central Asian states' secret services join forces against militants
Secret services of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan joined forces to search for the militants from the gang that attacked Kyrgyz Batken region on May 12. The gang, which consisted of natives of these countries, killed five Kyrgyz security officers. Five gang members managed to escape and became wanted in all of the abovementioned states. So it was decided that the secret services will seek them jointly, local media reported.

Bulgarian ex-spy apologizes to Serbs
Georgi Koritarov, former agent of the Bulgarian secret service Darzhavna Sigurnost (DS), and at present one of the most popular journalists in Bulgaria, asked Serbs for forgiveness. "I apologize to the citizens of Serbia for having worked for the Bulgarian intelligence services on their territory. I contacted many people, some of whom are popular politicians at present, but my actions did not do anyone harm”, Koritarov said in an interview with the Serbian newspaper Blic. Revealing of Koritarov's name as DS agent last week by the Bulgarian Interior Minister Rumen Petkov was largely discussed by the Bulgarian media. “I know how that happened. Being a popular journalist, I often criticized the Interior Minister blaming him for not being able to tackle with corruption. They probably thought that I would ask them not to announce data about my past. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, my life is independent”, Koritarov said. It all happened in 1977, when Koritarov got out of the obligatory military service by means of a forged diagnosis about epilepsy. The secret services learnt about that and made him work for them. Koritarov’s first task was to observe the work of a lecturer in Serbian studies in the Sofia University, where he studied. Later, Koritarov joined a youth organization. He often traveled to former Yugoslavia working as an interpreter. “One of the leading figures then was Predrag Bulatovic, who is now a leader of the opposition in Montenegro. The secret services told me to keep him under observation”, Koritarov said. He did not point to other names saying he did not want other people to have problems because of his past. Koritarov left the services in 1984. “They had great demands, which I could not fulfill”, the Bulgarian journalist told the Blic. He added that he hopes he would preserve his colleagues and personal friends in Serbia, who were not linked to his past. “I apologize if I have insulted anyone”, Koritarov said, FOCUS reported.

Bulgarian media top chair: Declassifying State Security agency archives is manipulative
Declassifying of the files from archives of the former State Security agency (DS) in Bulgaria is manipulative, Georgi Lozanov, the Chair of the Bulgarian media coalition said in an interview for FOCUS News Agency. “Selecting separate persons, which throws doubt that you wanted to tell part of the truth. There may be no guarantee”, he said. Lozanov has even calculated a formula, which explains the debate surrounding the opening of the classified files of State Security: (Will + Connoisseurship + Civil control) / Time = Justice.

New Romanian law helps former president escape accusations
The head of the Institute for the Study of the Communism's Crimes (ISCC), Marius Oprea, said the new law of the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) will help former President Ion Iliescu escape accusations of having collaborated with the Securitate. Oprea expressed his indignation that a simple informer of the former secret police is subject of public criticism while Iliescu will get away, according to the new law, Bucharest Daily News reported.
The ISCC head said Iliescu was a prime secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and he was the one approving the recruitment of informers of the Securitate. In addition, he used to decide for some party members to be followed or to have their homes bugged.
"Party members could be recruited as informers by the Securitate only with the approval of the prime secretary, who was Ion Iliescu. (...) Why should the one giving these approvals get away? I don't understand why a bloody informer needs to be subject of public opprobrium, while Ion Iliescu to be just fine?" wondered Oprea. He explained that the new law will not find Ion Iliescu an informer because he was in a higher position. "Ion Iliescu was an activist his whole life, since he was in high school until now," said Oprea, who is also a state advisor on security matters.

Trial of former Czech StB officers postponed indefinitely
The Prague City Court today postponed indefinitely the hearing of the case of the almost 50-year-old murder that was allegedly committed by two Communist secret police (StB) officers who sent a parcel with explosive to then Strasbourg governor Andre Tremeaud, that killed his wife. Of the two accused, Milan Michel, 79, alone turned up at the court. "To continue the hearing would mean an attempted murder," his lawyer Cestmir Kubat said. In the past, Kubat defended many former StB members, including Alois Grebenicek, the father of Miroslav Grebenicek, a former chairman of the Communist party (KSCM) which is a member of the Czech Parliament, CTK reported.
Kuban insisted on the postponement of the hearing due to his client's bad health condition who, he said, has the right to live. "Mrs Tremeaud only had the right to live," state attorney Martin Omelka objected. The laywer of Stanislav Tomes, the second defendant, said that although Tomes was interested in the case he was ill at present. The court has therefore decided to review the health condition of both defendants and then decide how it will continue the proceedings.
If found guilty, Michel and Tomes face up to 15 years in prison.
According to the police, the suspects expected the lethal parcel, which they passed off for a box of cigars, to be unwrapped by Tremeaud at a reception during the session of the European Community of Coal and Steel, which was also attended by several leading French politicians. However, it was opened by Henriette, Tremeaud's wife, only three days later. She died from injuries she received in the explosion. The prosecution of Michel and Tomes was proposed by the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of Crimes of Communism (UDV) which has been dealing with the case since 1996.
The StB's participation in the Strasbourg explosion was disclosed by Ladislav Bittman, a former StB officer who emigrated to the USA in 1968, in his book The Deception Game that appeared in 1972.
Bittman lives under a new name in the USA and teaches at Boston University. According to him, the bomb attack was to be the culmination of a disinformation campaign masterminded by the Soviet secret service KGB with the aim to arouse an impression that neo-Nazism was being activated in Germany.
The extensive campaign aimed to thwart the German-French reconciliation process and the emergence of the European Community.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=916

[This is hot off the press for today, what do you make of the beginning, about Iran??]

16.06.2006
Eurasian Secret Services Daily Review
AIA staff
Iranian Intelligence to pressure on Iranian refugees and dissidents abroad

ranian Minister of Intelligence and Security Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejeie
Iranian Minister of Intelligence and Security
Following the recent uprisings in the northern provinces and demonstrations across the country, which the Iranian secret services has attributed protests to "foreign elements", Tehran decided to "strike back". As local sources reported, the Minister of Intelligence and Security Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ezhei expressed fear that “the enemy is trying to sow divisions among the people and their government.” He claimed that “a number of the instigators of the unrests are located over the borders and we have begun to make them lose hope in their tactics. Through the Foreign Ministry, we are in contact with the governments of countries where these people are residing or have fled to or from where they are being directed. We have tried to convince these countries to hand them over to the Islamic Republic or at least restrict their activities”. But it is insufficient to his mind, so the Iranian secret services will start acting abroad to oppress "instigators". Mostly it applies to the Iranians in Azerbaijan and leaders of the Iranian Azerbaijanis abroad, local sources report.
As AIA previously reported, Tehran's secret services recently have boosted their work in the countries of the Southern Caucasus and Central Asia. The regional activity of Tehran's secret services concerns mainly the South-Caucasian and Central-Asian politics of the USA. From the point of view of confidential information, Iranian representatives pay most attention to the regional contacts of the Americans in political and military sphere, in particular – to the Pentagon, CIA, and NATO officials' visits to the countries of the region. The Iranians also have a particular interest in all contacts of the employees of the local US embassies, and in the activity of US academic circles and humanitarian foundations. Iranian special services' primary purpose is to collect information about possible use of the states in the region for military, intelligence, and propaganda activity of the USA against the Ayatollahs' regime.

Tajik security services investigate a series of explosions in the capital
Tajik security services are checking into a series of explosions in Dushanbe, which took place yesterday's night and one explosion at the gas pipeline. Three explosions rocked the capital of Tajikistan - by the Iranian embassy, 100 meters from the country's Parliament, near a charitable foundation run by the leader of an Islamist party, and near the Constitutional Court. No one was injured, though explosions caused minor structural damage. A terrorist attack has not been ruled out by the secret services. In a separate incident, a gas pipeline exploded early Friday 20 kilometers outside Dushanbe, leaving central regions of Tajikistan without gas. Fire-fighters needed five hours to bring the flames under control.

Russian scientist accused of espionage claims he is not guilty
Russian scientist Oscar Kaibyshev, a former director of the Institute for Metal Superplasticity Problems, accused of espionage for South Korea, claims he is not guilty, Russian media reported. Supreme Court of the Volga republic of Bashkortostan started reviewing his case. As defense claims, many evidence in case is irrelevant or was obtained by the FSB illegally. For example, South Korean citizens were searched and questioned illegally, without a warrant and without a decent translation.But the court dismissed most of the applications against the evidence. As AIA reported previously, the espionage trial of a Russian scientist has been previously adjourned in January after the defendant complained of feeling unwell. Kaibyshev, 66, stands accused of passing dual-use technology to South Korea The trial of the scientist from Ufa, 1,500 km southeast of Moscow, is being held behind closed doors as the Russian FSB claims that top-secret information will appear in the case. The case against Kaibyshev, who faces 10 years in prison if convicted, was initiated after FSB officers detained last year a South Korean delegation that was leaving Russia with 500 pages of technical documentation and several compact discs containing technical data from Kaibyshev's institute. The institute said the confiscated data focused on years of collaboration between the institute and the tire maker ASA, a subsidiary of Seoul-based Hankook Tire. Kaibyshev said that the firm was using superplastic technology in designs for high-pressure tires. The technology is apparently able to stretch titanium alloy to improve its mechanical properties, but FSB experts said the technical data provided to South Korean experts could be used to produce missiles and weapons.

Russian FSB to run drill in Novosibirsk
On Friday night Russian FSB will run an antiterrorist drill in Novosibirsk (Russia's third largest city) metro, local media reported. The drill will include releasing hostages captured by the terrorists in the underground. All the local special and security services will participate in the training.

Russian FSB forming special medical service
Russian FSB forming joint special medical service for the country's secret services, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported. Each service has today its internal medical structure, as the employees of such bodies need "special" treatment and health control. Of course, all the data on their medical condition and treatment is highly classified. The head of the FSB and the Russian President recently urged to develop the special medical services. They will be soon combined into one joint structure.

Lithuanian members of parliament curious about new prime minister's youth interest in KGB
The former Minister of Transport and Communications and Finance Zigmantas Balcytis, who has been the Acting Prime Minister of Lithuania since June 1, was proposed on June 15 by the country's President Valdas Adamkus, to the post of the Prime Minister. During the following debate on the candidacy of Balcytis at the Lithuanian Seym (parliament) the members of parliament were interested most of all in the details of the contender's biography. As the correspondent of the Regnum news agency reports from Vilnius, they questioned Zigmantas Balcytis about his activities as a head of a unit of the Komsomol (the Communist Youth Union) under the Soviets. The members of parliament also wanted to clear out whether the information was true that in his youth Balcytis even wanted to join the KGB, but was rejected because of bad health. Balcytis denied the information, announcing he failed to hold a leader's position in the Komsomol and added that he was an instructor-controller there and was in charge of financial flows. As for the KGB, he declared that had never aspired joining the security service. I was really turned down on account of poor health, well, not from the KGB, but from an aviation school," Balcytis is quotyed by the Regnum as saying.

Latvian President blocked publishing of the "KGB sacks"
Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga blocked parliament's decision to publish the names of nearly 4500 suspected Soviet secret police informants, Novonews reported. To her mind the files in the notorious "KGB sacks" are too fragmentary and mixed, while nobody knows who are the people in the files – informants or victims of the KGB. As AIA reported last week, Latvia's parliament approved a bill to publish the names in the state newspaper Vestnesis on November 1. The date was picked to steer clear of any political influence on upcoming parliamentary elections in October. When the Soviet intelligence service left Latvia, most files showing who worked with the KGB, and who they informed on, were taken back to Moscow. Those left contain mainly the names of agents active in 1991, when they were recruited and by whom, according to officials overseeing the files. With the publishing of the names, an accompanying statement would explain that the role of those identified was unclear, and that they could have been coerced into working with the KGB or be completely innocent.
Two years ago, Vike-Freiberga sent a similar bill back to parliament for reconsideration, saying it did not stipulate who would have access to the files and how they would be used. Her veto can be overridden in Parliament with a two-thirds majority vote.

CIA has had a staff in Bulgaria – the most active on the Balkans
“CIA has had a staff in Sofia for a few years already. It was established around the embassy”, Serbian military analyst Milovan Drecun told FOCUS News Agency. He said he referred to people working for the intelligence services. According to the analyst, the CIA’s staff is one the most active ones on the Balkans. “As reports said, it will become more influential, because the USA will deploy military bases in Bulgaria and the intelligence should defend them from the activities of extremists, Milovan Drecun said. Also, he said that Bulgarian secret services are performing certain activities, connected to the region by order of the US services. Drecun grounded his claims on his reliable sources from the leadership of the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and KFOR. According to him, the Bulgarian services are very active on the Balkans and have strong presence in Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. FOCUS reminds that Drecun told the Montenegrin newspaper Dan that a CIA staff in charge of the Balkans had functioned for years in Sofia. The leader of the Montenegrin opposition Predrag Bulatovic had been observed at its order.

A scandal in Romanian politics connected with Securitate's collaborator – the head of the coalition
Sources within the Romanian authority in charge of granting access to files of former communist intelligence services, or CNSAS, Friday said the members of the authority concluded unanimously the head of ruling coalition Conservative Party Dan Voiculescu was a collaborator of the former secret services. If they are not contested, CNSAS decisions become final and are published in the Official Gazette within 15 days, unless the persons found to have collaborated with the communist secret services step down from their public posts.
Last week, the Conservative Party, or PC, nominated Voiculescu for the state minister post left vacant by businessman and PC member George Copos, who resigned early June citing his disapproval of the new Fiscal Code draft approved by the Government.
Voiculescu said he planned to take the state minister seat. He asked CNSAS to run a check of his past, as the law required.
On Thursday, Voiculescu said he would appeal in court any decision that implies he was a collaborator during the communist regime.
On Friday, the president of PC's executive board, Sabin Cutas, said if CNSAS' conclusion, which was reached after a six-hour meeting Thursday, finds Voiculescu did indeed collaborate with the former secret services, than he would resign his seat in the Senate, Mediaform reports.
As Bucharest Daily News reported, after being heard on Tuesday by the CNSAS, Voiculescu admitted that two new files had appeared out of the blue and asked the intelligence agency to explain why it kept them secret for 16 years. "I officially ask intelligence chief Radu Timofte to explain publicly why the documents sent to CNSAS now were absurdly kept secret for 16 years and to specify when the agency had discovered these files," said Voiculescu, adding that the agency should immediately send to CNSAS any other documents they may have on him.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=920

From the Iran part, from 2005.

http://www.axisglobe.com/article.asp?article=201

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011843.php

June 15, 2006

Fitzgerald: Obey those Infidel laws/

Jihad Watch Board Vice President Hugh Fitzgerald comments on the
slippery

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/011839.php

Sistani fatwa:

In the various Muslim websites of the "Ask Mr. Fatwa" or
www.islam-online
type, one of the Most Frequently Asked Questions from Muslims living in
the
Lands of the Infidels is: "Do I have to obey the laws of these
Infidels"?

The answer given, very gingerly, is: "You may obey any laws of the
Infidels
that do not contradict Islam."

The clear implication is that you have no duty to obey the laws of the
Infidel nation-state in which you have been allowed to settle or in
which
you live, none at all, if those laws somehow are seen to contradict
Islam.

And this, of course, is how those Muslim websites, in English, give
advice
now, after having become well aware that Infidels are monitoring them.
Since
all Muslim groups are keenly aware of the need to watch out for those
pesky
prying Infidels, they do not go on to spell out all the ways in which
Infidel laws -- manmade laws, laws that are made without reference to
Allah,
the sole source of authority, of legal and political and every other
kind of
legitimacy for a Believer -- are flatly contradicted by the Shari'a.

Nor is it only a question of laws, of the kind that regulate some areas
of
behavior through norms and sanctions. Islam offers a Complete
Regulation of
Life. It goes far beyond what any non-Muslim legal system does.

Furthermore, outside the hearing and viewing of those Infidels, another
attitude and other kinds of advice are given by at least some clerics.
The
hukm (not fatwa, I was recently reminded) against Rushdie is a clear
call to
commit murder, as a righteous and rewardable act, by a Muslim or
Muslims in
the Lands of the Infidels. That has the full weight of Muslim (Shi'a)
authority.

Many Muslims appear to regard the Lands of the Infidels as, by right,
theirs
-- they need only wait, and wait, for the right demographic changes.
Bruce
Bawer describes a Muslim cleric in Norway telling his followers that
they
could steal as they wished from the Infidels, for this was not theft --
it
was helping themselves to the Jizyah that they had every right to
demand.
That attitude, that it is licit, even admirable, to take the property,
or
have one's way with the women, of the Infidels, is certainly reflected
in
the criminal statistics in every single European country, where Muslim
crime
kicks the beam. If 70% of the rapes in Scandinavian countries are
committed
by Muslims who make up 2-3% of the population, is one not entitled to
draw
certain conclusions? If 50% or more of the prisoners in France are
Muslim
when they make up 10% of the population, yet Islam supposedly offers
them
those family values and stability that Muslim groups like to talk about
when
pretending they have something, anything, in common with
"conservatives"
(see the sly appeal, for example, by the young Turk -- not Young Turk--
Mustafa Akyol), are we supposed not to notice?

What is most telling, what is most amazing, what must never be
forgotten,
about the Sistani fatwa is that Muslims living in the West are being
told,
in the view of uncomprehending and misreporting Infidels, by a cleric
living
in Iraq, that they may, that they should, obey the laws of Canada if
they
live in Canada, but only insofar as Muslim values are "not ridiculed."
This
is really a milder, clever version of the statement to be found every
day at
Muslim websites in answer to queries from Muslims Who Want to Know:
"You may
obey the laws of the Infidel land in which you happen to live [seldom
is the
particular country specified -- why should it be? What does that
distinction
matter to Muslims?] as long as those laws do not contradict Islam in
any
way." Al-Sistani's formulation -- you should obey the local laws of the
local Infidels [in this case those of Canada] "insofar as Islamic
values are
not ridiculed" is softer in expression, with possibly just a little
leeway
in that phrase "Islamic values" rather than the flat-out appeal to the
Shari'a.

But here we are. 2006, and in Canada, some are pleased that a cleric
who
lists as "unclean" or "najis" at his official website "blood, spit,
excrement, semen and Infidels" should be hailed for his "moderation"
and his
generous concession. How nice of him to tell Canadian Muslims who
follow his
views that they should, whenever "Islamic values are not ridiculed,"
take
the trouble to obey those Infidel laws, of that Infidel state of
Canada.

No doubt Canadians should be grateful to Al-Sistani. How nice of him,
and
how nice of those Muslims in Canada who will heed him, and try to obey
those
laws -- just so long, of course, "Islamic values are not ridiculed."
And
that formulation, of course, depends on just how thin-skinned and quick
to
take offense Muslims are -- we saw the mass riots and boycotts and
threats
of murdering every single Dane, the reaction to the publication of
twelve
largely anodyne cartoons. What else might be taken to offend or violate
or
"ridicule" Islamic values?

At least Sistani did not say, as Muslim clerics and individual Muslims
have
said (in Norway as mentioned above and elsewhere), that they are
entitled to
take property from the Infidels as Jizyah due them. At least he did not
say
they could do what they wished with those Western women, whose dress
apparently makes some Muslims conclude that they deserve what they get
(see
the "Lebanese" -- i.e. Lebanese Muslim -- gang rapes in Sydney a few
years
ago).

Worse and still worse.

Posted by Robert at June 15, 2006 09:27 AM | Print this entry

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2006/06/011843print.html

| Email

http://www.jihadwatch.org/cgi-bin/mt-popupemail.cgi?entry_id=11843

this
entry

Thanks to granny for this post of hope...

QUICKLY! FILL YOUR LAMPS!

Mark Mallett

I RECENTLY met with a group of other Catholic leaders
and missionaries in Western Canada. During our first
night of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, a couple
of us were suddenly overcome with a deep sense of
grief. The words came to my heart,

“The Holy Spirit is grieved over ingratitude for the
wounds of Jesus.”

Then a week or so later, a colleague of mine who was
not present with us wrote saying, “For a few days I
have had the sense that the Holy Spirit is brooding,
like brooding over creation, as if we are at some
turning point, or at the beginning of something big,
some shift in the way the Lord is doing things. Like
we now see through a glass darkly, but soon we will
see more clearly. Almost a heavyness, like the Spirit
has weight!”

Perhaps this sense of change on the horizon is why I
continue to hear in my heart the words, “Quickly! Fill
your lamps!” It’s from the story of the ten virgins
who go out to meet the bridegroom (Matt 25:1-13).

The ten virgins represent those who are baptized. Five
of the virgins (whom Jesus calls “wise”) bring oil for
their lamps; the other five bring no oil, and thus are
called “foolish.” Ah! Christ warns us: to be baptized
is not necessarily enough. It is not enough to say,
“Lord, Lord…” Jesus says, “Only the one who does the
will of my Father” will enter heaven (Matt 7:21).

James tells us, “What good is it, my brothers, if
someone says he has faith but does not have works?”
(2:14) “Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one
of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”
(Matt 25:40). Indeed, one who is baptized is born
again. But if he does not respond to this Grace—if he
returns to the deeds of darkness—he is like one who is
stillborn.

Thus, the oil in the lamps is L O V E.

But one might be tempted to despair at this moment:
“What if I have spent my life in sinfulness,
selfishness, and laziness? I have hardly any good
works! Is it too late to fill my lamp?”

Jesus answers this in another parable where a
landowner pays the same day’s wage to laborers who
started at dawn, and to those who began working at the
end of the day at 5 o’ clock. When the former
complained, the landowner said, “Are you envious
because I am generous?” (Matt 20:1-16)

The only time it is too late… is when it is too late:
when your lungs have ceased filling and your heart has
stopped pumping. Just before dying from crucifixion,
the repentant thief was told by Christ, “Today you
will be with me in paradise” (Lk 23:43). In another
parable, the tax collector who was “greedy, dishonest,
and adulterous…went home justified” because of his
confession: “O God, be merciful to me a sinner” (Lk
18:13). Salvation came to the house of Zacchaeus who
simply caught the glance of Jesus (Lk 19:2-9). And the
prodigal son was embraced by his father on the boy’s
way to ask forgiveness (Lk 15:11-32).

At the heart of each of these “last minute”
conversions is faith—not good works.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and
this not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not
from works, so no one may boast. —Ephesians 2:8

But it is equally clear that this faith moved each
recipient to repentance; that is, they made a choice
to leave behind their old life and pursue the moral
life which following Christ implies. They were moved
by love. Their lamps were filled to overflowing with
the love which God had poured into them (Rom 5:5). And
thus, because “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pt
4:8), they were truly saved.

The generosity of God’s mercy is breathtaking.

But so is His justice. These examples, I believe,
refer more to pagans, and not the baptized. We who
have heard the Gospels, who have the Sacraments at our
fingertips, who have taste and seen that the Lord is
good… what is our excuse?

You have lost the love you had at first... Remember
then how you accepted and heard; keep it, and repent.
If you are not watchful, I will come like a thief, and
you will never know at what hour I will come upon you.
—Rev 2:2:4, 3:3

To us especially the words of James applies: “a person
is justified by works and not by faith alone” (2:24).

I know your works; I know that you are neither cold
nor hot... So, because you are lukewarm... I will spit
you out of my mouth." —Rev. 3:15-16

Faith without works is dead. —Ja 2:26

Jesus follows this warning in Revelations saying, “For
you say, “I am rich and affluent and have no need of
anything” (3:17). In the parable of the virgins, it
says they all fell asleep. Could this be, perhaps, the
sleep that affluence and riches have brought upon the
European and Western churches in particular? “Realize
how far you have fallen”! (2:5)

In the parable of the virgins, midnight did not
signify the immediate coming of Christ; there was
still a short period of delay. I believe this may be
the period which we are entering (however long that
period lasts). What is clear, is that those “virgins”
who prepared for the trial beforehand, were the ones
who made it to the wedding feast.

Hear again the words of John Paul II:

“Be not afraid! Open wide your hearts to Jesus
Christ!”

NOW is the time to get on our knees, to empty our
hearts of all sin, and let them be filled again with
the love of God—giving that love to our neighbour…
that our lamps will not be found empty.

For the clock may be about to strike midnight.

Oh, that today you would hear his voice, 'Harden not
your hearts... —Heb 3:7

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.