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The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

US and Canadian intelligence agencies warned Thursday that Hizbullah attacks on Jewish targets around the world could be imminent. ABC News quoted intelligence officials as saying that Hizbullah had activated sleeper cells in Canada, and that top terror operatives had left Lebanon for the US, Canada and Africa. According to the officials, Hizbullah wants to avenge February's assassination of its operations head Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus, for which the Shi'ite group holds Israel accountable. Israel has repeatedly denied the allegation. There was no reliable intelligence regarding the possible targets of such an attack, the sources told ABC News, adding, however,...

That Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez’ regime is enabling Islamic terrorist organizations to take root in South America is no longer in question. What will the US do? In December 2002 freelance journalist Martin Arostegui published an article in Insight Magazine (“Chavez plans for a terrorist regime”) in which he reported the arrival in Venezuela of Hakim Mamad Ali Diab Fattah, a member of Hizballah. Venezuelan officials received him at the airport. In connection with his presence in the country Arostegui interviewed the former Venezuelan Intelligence Director, General Marcos Ferreira, who said Fattah represented only the tip of the iceberg in...

Unfortunately, Lebanon is facing at the present time a crucial and fatal threat to the core and essence of its existence, its soul of coexistence and freedom. The free world is apparently turning a blind eye to the threat to Lebanon, the land of the historic cedars, the home of the great Phoenicians, and the unique mosaic and multi-cultural country of the Middle East. This tragedy has been unfolding without a decisive deterrent stance from the free world.

June 22, 2008: A new battlefield for the war on terror has developed in Venezuela. There, leftist president Hugo Chavez has not only established close diplomatic relations with Iran (and Cuba, North Korea and radical groups throughout the region), but has allowed Iran to set up operations in South America. Regular commercial flights from Iran to Venezuela (via Syria, to accommodate Hizbollah) carry people, cash and whatever else Iran wants to move. No questions asked, no visas required. Several U.S. counter-terrorism operations have gone to work, trying to find out what Iran is up to, and how to block any...

The Bush administration took action Wednesday against a Venezuelan official and others accused of providing financial support to the Hizbullah terror group. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. [file] Photo: AP , AP Slideshow: Pictures of the week The Treasury Department's action covers Ghazi Nasr al Din, whom the United States identified as a Venezuelan diplomat. The order also targets Fawzi Kan'an and two Venezuelan-based travel agencies - Biblos and Hilal - that he allegedly owns or controls. Kan'an denied the Treasury Department's accusations. "That's pure lies," he told The Associated Press. "What do I have...

(IsraelNN.com) Jews in Canada and Latin America are on the hit list of Hizbullah terrorist cells, according to an ABC television news report, quoting American and Canadian intelligence officials. They said that the terrorist party, headed by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, is seeking revenge for the attack last February on Imad Muginiyeh. Israel has denied involvement n the attack on the Hizbullah mastermind, who was assassinated in a car bomb blast in Damascus. ABC said Hizbullah agents have been conducting surveillance on the Israeli embassy in Ottawa and on Toronto synagogues. "They want to kill as many people as they can,...

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she welcomes a new power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon, even though it increases the power of Hezbollah militants at the expense of US-backed moderates. "Obviously, in any compromise there are compromises," Rice said during a surprise visit to meet Lebanon's new consensus choice for president. The election of former army chief, Michel Suleiman, last month is the clearest sign that Lebanon has stepped back from the brink and that the deal with Iranian-backed Hezbollah is taking hold. But Hezbollah's ascendancy is a bitter pill for the US, which is worried that Iran's influence is...

A Venezuelan journalist is reporting that Hugo Chavez’s government is recruiting young men to train with Hezbollah for the purpose of asymmetrical warfare against the US. Fausta has the translation. Hugo Chavez pretends to cut back on his support of the FARC, when his “dangerous” associations go well beyond the Colombian guerrilla. See the original article and read the whole translation.

JERUSALEM — Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff warned Thursday that the radical Islamic group Hezbollah "makes Al Qaeda look like a minor league team," and poses the greatest threat to national security."Someone described Hezbollah like the A-team of terrorists in terms of capabilities, in terms of range of weapons they have, in terms of internal discipline," Chertoff told FOX News. "To be honest, they make Al Qaeda look like a minor league team. "They have been more disciplined, and they've been in some senses more restrained in the kinds of attacks they carry out ... in recent years, but that's...

Hezbollah members could be seen removing mattresses from their encampments around Beirut after talks in Doha, Qatar, resulted in an agreement that for now promises to end the worst violence to grip Lebanon since its 1975-1990 civil war. This latest round left 67 dead. Hezbollah won. Under the deal, the Hezbollah-led opposition will have its long-sought veto power in a new Cabinet of national unity. Obtaining this veto power was Hezbollah's key demand that triggered a year-and-a-half-long crisis as Lebanon struggled to select a new head of state to replace the pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, who finally left office on...

YouTube Videos Are Produced by Al Qaeda and Other Terror Organizations; Videos Show Attacks on U.S. Soldiers, Civilians WASHINGTON – Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., Monday called on Google to remove Internet video content produced by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda. The videos – readily available on YouTube –show assassinations, deaths of U.S. soldiers and civilians, weapons training, incendiary speeches by al-Qaeda leadership, and other material intended to encourage violence against the West. The videos are branded with Al-Qaeda logos – a practice detailed in a recent bipartisan Committee staff report entitled “Violent Islamist Extremism,...

It only took Hizbullah a week to bring the government of Lebanon to its knees. The Saniora government's decision Wednesday to cancel its decisions to ban Hizbullah's independent communications system and sack Hizbullah's agent from his position as chief of security at Beirut Airport constituted its effective acceptance of Hizbullah's preeminent role in Lebanon. What is interesting about Hizbullah's successful overthrow of the elected government in Lebanon is that after his forces defeated their foes, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah ordered his men to retreat to their customary shadows. Why didn't Hizbullah just overthrow the government? Understanding why Hizbullah refused to...

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's government cancelled measures on Wednesday that angered the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement and triggered the worst internal conflict since the country's 1975-90 civil war. ADVERTISEMENT The U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said in a statement after a meeting that it was taking the step in line with a request by the Lebanese army to preserve civil peace and promote an Arab League mediation effort to end Lebanon's 18-month-old political crisis. "The cabinet decided to agree on the suggestion of the army commander ... which includes the cancellation of the two decisions," the statement, read by...

May 14, 2008 -- AS Hezbollah's terror army dismantles Lebanon, the world whistles "Ain't That a Shame." With its heavily funded proxies marching through an Arab democracy's ruins, Iran has arrived on the Mediterranean, outflanking Israel. Syria's surrogates punish Beirut. Lebanon's crippled government cringes at the whims of Hassan Nasrullah, Hezbollah's strongman. Terror rules. And not one civilized country lifts a finger. This doesn't mean that war will be avoided at the "negligible" cost of Lebanese lives and freedom. It just means that the inevitable showdown with Hezbollah will be a bloodier mess when it finally comes.

On Friday, Hezbollah gunmen set fire to the Beirut offices of Future TV, a Lebanese broadcaster. On a purely symbolic level, it was an apt demonstration of where the Party of God stands in relation to the future itself. But that wasn't the worst of what has happened in the past week in Lebanon, where scores of people have been killed in interfactional violence. More ominous was the role of the Lebanese army, avowedly neutral and nominally under civilian control. "An army officer accompanied by members of Hezbollah walked into the station and told us to switch off transmission," an...

DEBKAfile’s military sources report: Hizballah’s advance on two key Lebanese locations Saturday, May 10 had immediate effect on the strategic balance between the Iran-backed Shiite group and Israel. Sidon in the south, Lebanon’s second largest city, which provides Hizballah with control of a continuous coastal strip from its southern Beirut district all the way to Tyre. The second point is on the northern slopes of the Hermon range. After Hizballah seizes control of this enclave and the Syrian 10th and 14th armored divisions step over the border into Lebanon, the two forces can join to form a strong military line...

Across the former green line, the Christian sectors of the capital remained outside the control of Hezbollah, with hundreds of armed youth taking position on the roof tops of tall buildings. Will Nasrallah order an invasion of East Beirut or will he ask his "Christian puppets" to do the job for him? In the Chuf Mountains, south of Beirut, the Druses are besieged: The March 14 Coalition seem to be physically targeted for elimination, unless a third force protects it. Where is the Lebanese Army? Well, its commander made sure his units would not side with the Lebanese Government in...

SPECIAL REPORT: The key to solving the sectarian clashes between Hezbollah fighters and Sunni Muslim gunmen loyal to the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in the Lebanese capital Beirut can only be found in the context of a larger Middle East solution involving Lebanon's two powerful neighbors; Israel and Syria.

Excerpt - BEIRUT, May 9 (Reuters) - Hezbollah gunmen took control of large areas of Beirut on Friday in a third day of fighting between the pro-Iranian group and fighters loyal to the U.S.-backed governing coalition. Security sources said at least 10 people had been killed and 20 wounded. The thud of exploding grenades and crackle of automatic gunfire echoed overnight in the worst internal strife since the 1975-90 civil war. Gunmen loyal to Hezbollah forced the pro-government Future News television off the air on Friday, said a senior official at the Beirut station. Future News is owned by Saad...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) is intentionally concealing information about Hezbollah activities south of the Litani River in Lebanon to avoid conflict with the group, senior sources in Jerusalem have said. In the last six months there have been at least four cases in which UNIFIL soldiers identified armed Hezbollah operatives, but did nothing and did not submit full reports on the incidents to the UN Security Council. The Israel Defense Forces and the Foreign Ministry are reportedly very angry about UNIFIL's actions in recent months, especially about the fact that its commander, Major General Claudio Graziano,...

Two years after the Second Lebanon War, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah organization has bolstered its recruitment efforts at an unprecedented rate in preparation for a fresh war with Israel, The Guardian reported Sunday. The report quoted an unnamed Hezbollah fighter as saying: "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah [Hezbollah chief] commands us" to attack. According to the report, the Islamist group has of late been sending "hundreds, if not thousands" of recruits to training camps in Lebanon, Syria and Iran in ancticipation of conflict with Israel. Advertisement "The villages in the south are...

WASHINGTON, April 18, 2008 – Twenty-five years after terrorists detonated a massive car bomb, killing 52 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, President Bush urged unity in condemning terrorism he said continues to threaten the United States. President and Nancy Reagan file by the flag-draped caskets of victims of the April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon in an April 23, 1983 file photo. Photo courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential Library   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Islamic Jihad Organization, today known as the terrorist group Hizballah, launched the April 18, 1983, attack...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top two U.S. officials in Iraq accused Iran, Syria and Lebanon's Hezbollah Tuesday of fueling recent fighting in Baghdad, saying Tehran and Damascus were pursuing a "Lebanization strategy" in Iraq. "The hand of Iran was very clear in recent weeks," U.S. commander in Iraq, Army Gen. David Petraeus, said at a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Iran denies U.S. charges that it is stoking violence in Iraq and instead blames the bloodshed on the presence of 160,000 U.S. troops. But Petraeus told lawmakers that Iran's Qods Force and Hezbollah were funding, training, arming and...

The London based Arabic publication, al-Quds al-Arabi, reported Tuesday that Syria is delaying the publication of its report on the assassination of Hizbullah leader Imad Mugniyah, which was scheduled for Sunday, due to tension and fears generated in both Syria and Lebanon by the wide-scale Home Front Command drill taking place in Israel. Publication of this report, senior Damascus officials have indicated, could do serious damage to Syria as it would expose the involvement of Arab intelligence officials, as well as that of Syrian, Palestinian and Lebanese personnel in the Mugniyah assassination. Lebanese sources close to Hizbullah noted that Syrian...

(IsraelNN.com) Security services suspect that former MK Azmi Bishara, a fugitive living abroad accused of providing aid to Hizbullah, is intent on recruiting agents for the Lebanese terrorist group among Israeli Arabs. In recent days, agents of the General Security Services (GSS) invited activist members of the Balad party from Wadi Ara to the agency's offices and warned them against contact with Bishara. Balad was led by Bishara until his flight from the country in 2007. A member of the Arab Coordinating Committee, Ashraf Kortam, was also questioned by security services about his relationship with Bishara. He was asked to...

The security measures on aircraft belonging to Israeli airlines and around them during takeoffs and arrivals abroad have been significantly boosted over the past few days for fear that Hizbullah would act on its promise to avenge the February assassination of its top commander Imad Mugniyah. The number of armed security guards on some of the flights to several destinations has been increased, as was the number of guards surrounding the plane after the landing and before the takeoff. "The threat is extremely concrete, and there is no choice but to do everything possible," a source involved in aviation security...

A senior Israeli army intelligence officer told a parliamentary oversight committee on Tuesday that Lebanon's Hizballah terrorist militia has significantly advanced his preparedness for renewed open conflict with Israel in recent months. The officer was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as saying that while the UN resolution that ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War was supposed to push Hizballah out of range of northern Israel, the group has redeployed most of its forces, including medium-range ballistic missiles, south of the Litani River. Another result of the previous war that was supposed to blunt the Hizballah threat was the injection of...

At the National Theatre, a new play by the former radical playwright Howard Brenton, Never So Good, paints a surprisingly sympathetic portrait of the Sixties Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who as a young man opposed Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler. Chamberlain's claim that he could talk Germany out of war and produce "peace for our time" is, of course, a byword for craven weakness and earns only contempt. But in the very week the play opened, a second Chamberlain was revealed in the form of our Defence Secretary, Des Browne. In an interview on Saturday, Mr Browne said he thought...

"The one who killed our commander must be punished. The killers must be punished and they will be punished, God willing," Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Monday. In a televised address in Beirut to mark 40 days since the slaying of Hizbullah terror chief Imad Mughniyeh, Nasrallah drew cheers from the crowd saying, "We will choose the time, place and manner of punishment." Mughniyeh was killed in a car bombing in Damascus, in February. Hizbullah and Iran have accused Israel of the assassination. Israel has denied involvement. "We feel Mughniyeh's presence more than ever. Our brothers have found nothing...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The deadly attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem Thursday was planned by an operation with purported ties to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group in Lebanon, Palestinian militant sources in Gaza said. The information that the group Free Men of Galilee planned the attack was provided to CNN amid news reports that Hamas, the Palestinian movement that runs Gaza, claimed responsibility. But sources within the Hamas military wing specifically denied to CNN any involvement in the attack. Other Palestinian militant sources said Hamas leaders in the West Bank and Gaza are not claiming responsibility for the attack....

London (CNSNews.com) - Hundreds of anti-war activists attending a meeting here on Thursday night were told that their activism was appreciated by the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah. With the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq fast approaching, the British Stop the War Coalition is preparing for a massive demonstration in London on March 15. As part of the run-up, the coalition sponsored an evening with various speakers, including Ibrahim Moussawi, the editor of Al Intiqad, a Lebanese newspaper linked to Hizballah. In a short speech occasionally interrupted by applause and cheers, Moussawi told his audience that it was the...

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Hezbollah on Friday rejected the deployment of U.S. warships off Lebanon, calling it a threat to the country that will not affect the militant group. "We are facing an American threat against Lebanon," Hezbollah legislator Hassan Fadlallah said. "It is clear this threat and intimidation will not affect us."

PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday said that he does not rule out returning to the path of armed "resistance" against Israel and took pride in the fact that he had been the first to fire on Israel and that his organization had trained Hizbullah. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "I had the honor to fire the first shot." Photo: AP In an interview with the Jordanian daily al-Dustur, Abbas said that he was opposed to an armed struggle against Israel - for the time being. "At this present juncture, I am opposed to the armed struggle because we can't...

Syrian officials are reported to have detained suspects said to be connected or involved in the killing of Imad Moghaniyah, a senior commander of Hezbollah, in Damascus on Tuesday. According to the state-run Al Watan newspaper, "suspects of various Arab nationalities have been arrested". [bold emphasis, mine]

Late Tuesday night in Damascus, Imad Mugniyah, senior terrorist of Hezbollah, was killed in a car bomb explosion. It was a fitting death for a founding father of Islamic terrorism, a man who himself had built many bombs. If you had not heard of Mugniyah before, there is a good reason. Terror chieftains like Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri seek the limelight with their frequent and widely disseminated diatribes. Not Mugniyah. Until recently, only a handful of photos of him were publicly available, and he never gave interviews. Instead, he was something of a ghost, confined to the...

The defense establishment is concerned Hezbollah may use an explosives-laden unmanned aerial vehicle to attack a civilian or military target in northern or central Israel in retaliation for last week's assassination of it terror chief. The Israel Air Force has been placed on alert for such a possibility. To date, Hezbollah has dispatched five Iranian-made drones against Israel, three of them during the Second Lebanon War in August 2006. Two were shot down by the air force, and one crashed. The drones were loaded with dozens of kilograms of high-grade explosives and apparently had been intended to crash in the...

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert plans to declare the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, Eldad Regev and Udi Goldwasser, dead. Olmert was in Germany last week, and the Germans are the chief mediators between Israel and Hezbollah on this issue. The likelihood that they are dead increases with every day that goes by with no sign of life from them. Israeli security sources confirmed last night that the intelligence community is reassessing the kidnapped soldiers' situation and is likely to make "difficult decisions" on the matter in the coming weeks. But Israel is...

"The blood of our slain commander will lead to Israel's demise," said the Hizballah leader, Hassan Nasrallah in a diatribe broadcast at the funeral of the group’s military commander Imad Mughniyeh Thursday, Feb. 18. “I say for the whole world to hear that our war will extend everywhere without restraints. The LebanonLebanon WarWar is not over; there is no ceasefire.”

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Lebanon's Hezbollah has appointed a successor to its senior guerrilla commander Imad Moughniyah who was assassinated in Syria this week, a Lebanese security source said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT The source said the appointment was made hours after the announcement of Moughniyah's death in a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday. He did not identify the successor who would now command Hezbollah's formidable and well-armed guerrilla army.A joint investigation into the bombing by Syrians, Iranians and Hezbollah was well under way and suspects had been arrested in the Syrian capital, the source said.Hezbollah and its main backer Iran...

Yesterday's assassination of arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was welcome news in Washington, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv, and, albeit quietly, Beirut and Baghdad. For Hizballah and Damascus, however, the loss of Mughniyeh -- who was a brilliant military tactician, a key contact to Tehran, and a successful political leader -- is a severe blow to their ongoing activities and operations. Early Life Imad Fayez Mughniyeh, also known as Hajj Radwan, was reportedly born in south Lebanon in 1962 and became a sniper in Yasser Arafat's forces in 1976. He has been implicated in some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks of the...

Mughniyah Imad Mughniyah has reportedly gone to his virgins. I say “reportedly” because you never really know with him. He has changed his appearance in the past, even, I am told, his fingerprints, and is altogether capable of feigning his death. As Tom Jocelyn has tirelessly reported, he was in cahoots with al Qaeda, and moved between Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Iraq. I have long believed he was the key Iranian operative in Iraq, and his documented contacts with Zarqawi show that. No surprise that he was in Damascus when destiny apparently claimed him. Hezbollah was a joint Iranian-Syrian operation...

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Reservist Military Intelligence officers tell Ynet of Imad Mugniyah's prowess as terrorist mastermind. Former Mossad chief Danny Yatom: One of most dangerous terrorists ever. "Hizbullah lost its most important operative in the organization in recent years," a reservist Military Intelligence officer told Ynet on Wednesday in reference to the killing of senior Hizbullah military commander Imad Mugniyah in an explosion in Damascus. "He was an expert in carrying out terrorist attacks and at the same time, he was an expert in maintaining a low profile and knowing, for 20 years, how to evade the many that tried to get him,"...

DAMASCUS BLAST ON TUESDAY KILLED SENIOR HEZBOLLAH MILITARY COMMANDER - LEBANESE POLITICAL SOURCE

Is the U.S. Failing in Afghanistan? It was malice in wonderland at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday as Bush Administration envoys insisted things are getting better in Afghanistan, while angry lawmakers from both parties cited facts and figures showing just the opposite. Even the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Richard Lugar, found the Administration's claims wanting. "I'm not sure that we have a plan for Afghanistan," he said. Long seen as the "forgotten war" eclipsed by Iraq in U.S. priorities, Afghanistan is in the Washington spotlight this week with the release of three independent reports concluding...

Hezbollah has managed to deploy large numbers of Katyusha rockets and antitank missiles in southern Lebanon, senior Israel Defense Forces officials have told Haaretz. These weapons in Shi'ite villages have been undetected by UN observers, the officials say.

DETROIT – Nada Nadim Prouty, a 37-year-old Lebanese national and resident of Vienna, Va., pleaded guilty today in the Eastern District of Michigan to charges of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship, which she later used to gain employment at the FBI and CIA; accessing a federal computer system to unlawfully query information about her relatives and the terrorist organization Hizballah; and conspiracy to defraud the United States. The announcement was made today by Stephen J. Murphy, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan; Kenneth L. Wainstein, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; Willie T. Hulon, Executive Assistant Director of the...