BRUSSELS -- Police and security services are on a heightened state of alert to prevent a terror attack in Brussels, local media reported Friday.
This follows reports that Belgian police on Thursday night detained fourteen people who were suspected of planning to free by force Tunisian Nizar Trabelsi, who is currently serving a ten-year-prison sentence for planning an attack on a military base which houses American soldiers in Belgium.
Police and security services have been placed on a heightened state of alert to thwart any terror attacks, said the media reports. However, Belgium's Interior Ministry has reassured the population that there is no reason to panic.
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1869878&Language=en
Saudi nabs militants planning attacks during haj
December 22, 2007
RIYADH - Saudi security forces have arrested al Qaeda militants suspected of planning to mount attacks during the current Muslim haj pilgrimage, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Friday. The television quoted an unnamed security official as saying the suspects aimed to cause "security confusion" during the pilgrimage, in which more than 2 million Muslims are taking part.
They were arrested in various cities in the kingdom days before the start of the pilgrimage on Monday, the official was quoted as saying. The report did not say how many were being held.
Excerpted
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front on Friday said that an Egyptian national who was arrested on suspicion of having ties with al-Qaeda is not a member of the separatist group. Radio reports quoted MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu as denying even knowing Mohamad Said, who was arrested early Wednesday morning after police found a number of explosive devices and bomb-making materials inside his apartment in Cotabato City.
Kabalu also said they have no idea how Said, known by his aliases Mohamad Sayed and Abu Hussien, got a hold of a copy of the MILF booklet that police recovered from him. Aside from the booklet, several explosive devices were also confiscated from the Egyptian national. But Said denied owning any of the seized items.
He is currently being subjected to a tactical investigation by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Police, reports said. Police also said they have yet to determine whether Said has any links to the Jema’ah Islamiyah, the al-Qaeda arm in Southeast Asia. Said reportedly told investigators that he previously stayed in the country for two years before going back to his homeland. He also claimed that when the arrest happened, he has just gone back from Egypt to teach Islam in Cotabato City.
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/73801/Egyptian-explosive-expert-not-our-member---MILF
Khan offered nukes to Syrians
December 21, 2007
VIENNA: Syria received a letter purportedly written by the head of the same nuclear black market that supplied Iran and Libya with its atomic technology but did not respond, President Bashar Assad said in comments published yesterday.
Mr Assad's comments appeared to be the first time that a senior Syrian official had linked the country to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the top Pakistani scientist who was exposed in 2004 as the head of an international black market in nuclear technology.
Excerpted
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22955653-2703,00.html
Ping to Oorang’s post no. 874 regarding Brussel’s alert.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1933472/posts?page=874#874
Armed assailants hijacked a FedEx delivery truck Friday when they assaulted the driver at a traffic signal in downtown New York City.
Police said the assailants forced the driver into another vehicle and he was later found about 1:30 a.m. in Brooklyn, WNBC-TV in New York reported Friday.
Two assailants threatened the driver, who was en route to the FedEx facility in Newark, N.J., police told the television station.
Neither the driver nor the police had knowledge of the 18-wheel delivery truck's cargo.
Hundreds of live snakes found on plane
VIETNAMESE airport officials have discovered a cargo of 700 live snakes on a Thai Airways flight from Indonesia.
"The snakes were alive when they were found in the cargo," a quarantine officer at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport said.
"Seven hundred snakes were later destroyed when no one claimed ownership."
The reptiles were found on December 19 in a container that arrived on flight TG 682 from Indonesia.
Armed assailants hijacked a FedEx delivery truck Friday when they assaulted the driver at a traffic signal in downtown New York City.
Police said the assailants forced the driver into another vehicle and he was later found about 1:30 a.m. in Brooklyn, WNBC-TV in New York reported Friday.
Two assailants threatened the driver, who was en route to the FedEx facility in Newark, N.J., police told the television station.
Neither the driver nor the police had knowledge of the 18-wheel delivery truck's cargo.
Hundreds of live snakes found on plane
VIETNAMESE airport officials have discovered a cargo of 700 live snakes on a Thai Airways flight from Indonesia.
"The snakes were alive when they were found in the cargo," a quarantine officer at Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport said.
"Seven hundred snakes were later destroyed when no one claimed ownership."
The reptiles were found on December 19 in a container that arrived on flight TG 682 from Indonesia.