A spokesman for the Yemeni embassy in Washington says his country will not extradite wanted terrorism suspect Jaber Elbaneh to the United States.
"Jaber Elbaneh is a Yemeni Citizen and the constitution bars the extraditions of Yemeni Citizens to face foreign courts," Mohammed Albasha, spokesman for Yemen's embassy in Washington, wrote in an e-mail to the Buffalo (N.Y.) News. FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said the e-mail is the first indication of the Yemeni government's intention in the Elbaneh case.
Elbaneh, a former resident of Lackawanna, N.Y., is wanted on charges he traveled to Afghanistan with five other Lackawanna men and trained with the al-Qaida terrorist network. Albasha said Elbaneh would not be returned because Yemen does not have an extradition treaty with the United States. However, he said Elbaneh, who surrendered to Yemen authorities would "be trialed" for unspecified "terrorist and criminal violent activities."
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2007/06/01/yemen_terror_suspect_will_not_go_to_us/7899/
Thousands gather in Pakistan to hear Taliban speeches
Saturday June 2, 2007
KILLI NALAI, Pakistan - More than 10,000 pro-Taliban supporters rallied near the Afghan border in southwest Pakistan Friday to hear a tape by the brother of slain Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah.
Slogans of "long live (Taliban supremo) Mullah Omar, (Al-Qaeda chief) Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban movement," rang out at the charged gathering in Killi Nalai, a village in Baluchistan province, an AFP photographer said.
The fiery voice recording was said to be of Mullah Mansoor Dadullah, who has replaced his brother as military commander after he was killed about three weeks ago by NATO-led forces in southern Afghanistan. "We will never forget the blood of our martyrs and will complete Dadullah's mission of expelling the infidels and their lackeys from our motherland," he said on the tape. "It is the responsibility of every Muslim to join jihad (holy war)."
Excerpted
http://au.news.yahoo.com/070601/19/13mz8.html
Bosnia-Herzegovina: New Book Investigates Presence Of Al-Qaeda
Friday, June 1, 2007
Six men -- all foreign-born Muslims -- were arrested in May in the United States, accused of involvement in a terrorist plot to attack soldiers at Fort Dix, a U.S. Army training center in New Jersey. Four of the suspects are ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, while one is from Jordan and one is from Turkey.
The arrests served again to focus attention on the issue of Islamic terrorists allegedly using the former Yugoslavia as a base of operations, as well as the impact of their radical views on the region's historically moderate form of Islam. Vlado Azinovic is a senior editor with RFE/RL's South Slavic and Albanian Languages Service. Azinovic explores these issues in his new book, "Al-Qaeda In Bosnia-Herzegovina: Myth Or Present Danger?" "The research for this book was prompted by a series of media reports and research papers that in recent years claimed that Bosnia was, and still is, a staging area and safe haven for Islamic terrorists traveling between the Middle East and Europe," says Azinovic. "My book arose out of a desire to investigate the validity of these claims."
Azinovic says he decided to focus on several key questions:
What is Al-Qaeda and the ideology behind it?
Does Al-Qaeda enjoy any support in Bosnia?
If so, how did it get there?
Are Bosnian Muslims being recruited to fight its cause?
He says his research established that, as of 1992, Bosnia had, indeed, become a meeting point for members of militant groups who had arrived either from training camps in Afghanistan or from Western Europe, where they had been recruited in mosques and Islamic centers. These militants felt that genocide was taking place in Bosnia and that a new jihad was required. Once they reached Bosnia, they became mujahedin and adopted new identities.
Excerpted
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/06/d6b723a8-5eef-4807-8aba-dcb57d100af8.html
Istanbul, 1 June 2007 - Turkish police have arrested eight al-Qaeda suspects in the capital Ankara. The sweep which comes after another 11 suspects were picked up Wednesday in the Sultanbeyli and Fatih districts of Istanbul. The operation follows last week's warning from Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, a man identifying himself as the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, who posed threats to Turkey. Police have seized 3 guns and some of the suspects are claimed to provide al-Qaeda operatives with fake passports.
Al-Yazid, in a tape aired on Al Jazeera accused Turkey of handing Abdel Hadi al-Iraqi, an operative selected to lead the organisaton in Iraq, over to the US and said Turkey would be targeted by jihadists. According to Selahattin Karahan an attorney from the law Office that represented al-Qaeda members in Turkey, al-Iraqi had entered Turkey with a false passport and then after he applied for a refugee status he was handed over to CIA.
Tensions has been high in Turkey since a suicide bomber killed six people and injured scores more last week in an attack on a shopping mall in Ankara. Police have detained several suspected members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). group. In November 2003 Istanbul was struck by a series of bombings claimed by a cell of al-Qaeda. More than 60 were killed in those attacks, which targeted two synagogues, the HSBC bank’s headquarters in Turkey and the British Consulate General.
http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=