Military Analysts are reporting today that the government of Afghanistan is ‘enraged’ over the discovery by Afghan Secret Police of a top secret British Military computer memory stick revealing the United Kingdoms plan to train over 2,000 Taliban rebel fighters and provide them with a base of operations.
SECRET British plans for a Taleban training camp in southern Afghanistan are behind a spectacular diplomatic spat that has seen Anglo-Afghan relations plummet to an almost unprecedented low.
Afghan officials claim the camp for 2,000 fighters was part of a top-secret deal to make the insurgents swap sides.
The plans were discovered on a computer memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.
 BBC News | Scotsman, United Kingdom - He said it will be replaced as the command unit of British forces by the 16 Air Assault Brigade, which includes around 1300 Scots soldiers. ... Scots regiment bound for Afghanistan is 331 under strength 1000 troops going to Afghanistan |
Helium, MA -
by Michael Allen Carvell Al Qaeda is growing stronger As a unit and a force in Iraq going through training and brain washing in Iran and our ally Pakistan. ...
 TopNews | Al-Qaeda Commander Moved Freely in Pakistan Washington Post, United States - 3 -- A Libyan al-Qaeda commander who was killed last week in northwestern Pakistan had lived there for years and, despite a $200000 US bounty on his head, ... Libyans advance in Al Qaeda network Al-Libi moved freely in Peshawar PAKISTAN: Senior al Qaeda leader 'killed in missile strike' - 04 ... |
 AFP | Al-Qaeda improving ability to attack US: US intelligence AFP - WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US intelligence community warned Tuesday of the threat of terrorist attack against the United States as Al-Qaeda improves its ability ... |
 Washington Post | Intelligence Chief Cites Qaeda Threat to US New York Times, United States - By MARK MAZZETTI WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda is gaining in strength from its refuge in Pakistan and is steadily improving its ability to recruit, ... CIA used waterboarding on three Al-Qaeda detainees: chief We waterboarded al-Qaeda operatives: CIA US confirms waterboarding use |
 PRESS TV | Pakistan taken to task over al-Qaeda Asia Times Online, Hong Kong - By Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - With key improvements in the security situation in Iraq during 2007, al-Qaeda - and particularly its central leadership based in ... Al Qaeda is improving ability to attack within the United States ... Top Threats for 2008: A Lot Like Top Threats for 2007 US sees Russia, China, OPEC financial threat |
 ABC News | Al Qaeda's New Recruits? Children, US Military Says ABC News - By CLARISSA WARD and KRISTA KJELLMAN A video showing children with their faces covered and carrying AK-47s and RPGs proves children are al Qaeda's new ... |
| Al-Qaeda Denies Tourist Attack In Yemen Jawa Report, TX - Al-Fida was a high ranking member of the Taliban and there's video of him sitting next to UBL. He negotiated on behalf of al-Qaeda with Yemeni President ... |
 Adnkronos International Italia | Terrorism: Bin Laden son named al-Qaeda heir Adnkronos International Italia, Italy - (AKI) - Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's youngest son Hamza is being groomed to take over from his father as leader of the terror network, ... |
Makfax, Macedonia -
US and Iraqi military forces released videos seized in a raid on an Al-Qaeda base in Iraq, showing Al-Qaeda fighters while training young children as gunmen ...
 Boston Globe | Al-Qaeda suspects killed in raids NEWS.com.au, Australia - FIFTEEN suspected militants were killed in raids by US forces on the possible hideout of a senior al-Qaeda in Iraq leader in the restive province of Diyala ... Civilian deaths eyed US Raid on Al-Qaeda in Iraq Leaves Nine Iraqi Civilians Dead US raid kills Iraqi civilians |
 Student Operated Press | US Qaeda strategy fatally flawed: analysts AFP - PARIS (AFP) — In its ideological struggle against Al-Qaeda, American anti-terrorist strategy too often overlooks the basic tenets of the renowned Chinese ... The vanishing election issue: foreign policy |
U.S. sees Russia, China and OPEC financial threat
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is worried that Russia, China and OPEC oil-producing countries could use their growing financial clout to advance political goals, the top U.S. spy chief told Congress on Tuesday.
Such economic matters joined terrorism, nuclear proliferation and computer-network vulnerabilities as top U.S. security threats described by National Director of Intelligence Michael McConnell in an annual assessment.McConnell said U.S. intelligence agencies had "concerns about the financial capabilities of Russia, China and OPEC countries and the potential use of their market access to exert financial leverage to political ends."Russia, bolstered in part by oil revenues, was positioning itself to control an energy supply and transportation network from Europe to East Asia, and the Russian military had begun to reverse a long decline, he told the Senate Intelligence Committee.
A pre-election attack on Iran remains a possibility
By Leon Hadar
Since the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was issued at the end of the last year, much of the reporting and analysis in the MSM has been promoting the conventional wisdom in Washington: That a U.S. attack on Iran is now “out.”The Bush Administration had been warning that it might use its military power to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But with U.S. intelligence agencies making it clear that Iran wasn’t developing nuclear weapons, the administration had suddenly lost its casus belli.
U.S. fears Qaeda is extending its reach
By Brian Knowlton and Mark Mazzetti
WASHINGTON: Al Qaeda is gaining strength and steadily improving its abilities to recruit, train and position operatives to mount attacks inside the United States, the top U.S. intelligence official told a Senate panel on Tuesday.
The official, Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, told lawmakers that both Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remained in control of the terror group and that Al Qaeda was improving "the last key aspect of its ability to attack the U.S." - the recruiting of jihadis to attack American targets.More Western recruits, he said, were traveling to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for training.
Intel Chief: Pakistan-Based al-Qaeda Biggest Threat
by Jim Lobe
With key improvements in the security situation in Iraq during 2007, al-Qaeda – and particularly its central leadership based in border regions of Pakistan – continues to pose the most significant threats to the United States, both at home and abroad, according to the director of national intelligence (DNI), retired Adm. J. Michael McConnell.And while the group has suffered major setbacks, particularly in Iraq, during the past year, it has successfully maintained its unity and is improving its ability to attack the United States itself, in part by identifying, training, and positioning Westerners capable of carrying out such an attack, according to McConnell, who presented the intelligence community's "annual threat assessment" before the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.
Pakistan-based Taliban pose global risk, thinktank warns
Richard Norton-Taylor
Taliban groups based in Pakistan could pose a significant international threat and become a leading terrorist group, analysts at a leading thinktank warned today."They have the potential to turn a local threat into a transnational threat," Nigel Inkster, senior risk analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies told a London press conference.
Referring to Baitullah Mehsood, described as leader of Taliban in Pakistan, he added: "There is some evidence they were involved with the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and that they have dispatched terrorists to a number of locations including Spain and the United Kingdom."
Fun and games with terrorist threats
Back in August, when the Bush administration wanted to pressure Congress into passing "The Protect America Act" -- which vested in the President vast, new warrantless eavesdropping powers to spy on Americans -- they sent out Mike McConnell days before the August recess to tell everyone in Congress that they better pass the bill before they leave or The Terrorists would kill us all and the blood would be on the hands of Congress for failing to give the President what he wanted:Congressional, administration and intelligence officials last week described the events leading up to the approval of this surveillance, including a remarkable series of confrontations that ended with McConnell and the White House outmaneuvering the Democratic-controlled Congress, partly by capitalizing on fresh reports of a growing terrorism threat. . . .
Inside al-Qaeda Meetup Groups
by William H. Huff
All sorts of organized as well as random "meetup groups" happen all over the world all the time. People meet to discuss their needs, plans, goals, dreams, hobbies, politics, religion, problems, friends, enemies, prospects, safety, security, jobs, money, diets, health, war, peace, life, death, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and so forth. They may even review American foreign policy in their own humble way. While it may be difficult to imagine what goes on inside of al-Qaeda [especially if it doesn’t exist] it may not be as hard as you think, to make a list of goals that any real meetup group in Afghanistan or Iraq might have in common with a meetup group in the USA or anywhere else. Those two nations have been invaded and occupied. Is it so strange that pockets of resistance are encountered from time to time?
Extra firepower sent to Afghanistan as UK digs in
A fresh British force with extra firepower is to be sent to Afghanistan as the US intensifies pressure on other European allies in an increasingly urgent attempt to prevent the country from collapsing into civil war. In what is being described as a "critical week" for Nato's role in Afghanistan, the British move, due to be announced today, shows that the government is prepared to maintain a significant military presence there despite severe pressure on its already overstretched army.All three regular battalions of the Parachute Regiment will provide the backbone of 16 Air Assault Brigade when it takes over from the existing UK infantry brigade based in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, in April, defence officials said.
Top Officer Calls U.S. Forces 'Stressed'
WASHINGTON (AP) - The military's top uniformed officer says U.S. forces are ``significantly stressed'' by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan while simultaneously trying to stem the tide of violent extremism elsewhere.``The pace of ongoing operations has prevented our forces from fully training for the full spectrum of operations and impacts our ability to be ready to counter future threats,'' Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in testimony prepared for delivery Wednesday.
US admits waterboarding terror suspects
Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators after the Bush administration admitted for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects.In congressional testimony, CIA director Michael Hayden became the first administration official to publicly acknowledge the agency used waterboarding on detainees following the September 11 2001, terrorist attacks.Waterboarding involves strapping a suspect down and pouring water over his cloth-covered face to create the sensation of drowning. It has been traced back hundreds of years, to the Spanish Inquisition, and is condemned by nations around the world.
Former Guantánamo prisoner asks U.S. to review its founding ideals
Adel Hassan Hamad, who is suing the US government, claims that American values of freedom and democracy have been shaken.
By Scott Baldauf | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Reporter Scott Baldauf discusses his conversation with two Sudanese men who were detained by the US at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Khartoum, Sudan - It took US Army interrogators at Guantánamo Bay five years to reach the conclusion that Adel Hassan Hamad was exactly who he claimed to be: a hospital administrator in Pakistan. On Dec. 11, 2007, they put him back on a military cargo plane, hooded and handcuffed, and sent him back to his home to Sudan.Now Mr. Hamad says he'll sue the US government for compensation for those lost years – years where his family became impoverished and one daughter became sick and died. But he says it's not just about the money. He wants the US to return to what it used to be, a beacon of freedom."We don't want animosity, we just want to respect America again," says Hamad, speaking in English phrases he learned while in prison. "The American conscience and the American people need to return to the great concepts established by the Founding Fathers, of freedom, democracy, equality, and justice. All these values and even the justice system are being shaken, played with."
Prince Andrew angers Palace with US attack
By Andrew Pierce
The Duke of York has angered the Queen and senior politicians with his extraordinary attack on the White House on the eve of his trade mission to the United States.Downing Street and the Foreign Office were also dismayed by the timing of his comments so close to the Super Tuesday primaries.The duke's criticism, in a newspaper interview, of President Bush's post-war strategy for Iraq demolished the protocol that members of the Royal Family refrain from public comment on sensitive international and political issues.
Annan's hotel room 'bugged'
The Kenyan peace talks are in tatters after it was discovered that Kofi Annan's hotel room in Nairobi has been bugged.Independent Newspapers has learnt from multiple reliable, impartial sources - both in Kenya and abroad - that the former UN Secretary General's business and personal conversations were being intercepted during the ongoing negotiations after a thorough search was carried out on his Serena Hotel room on Tuesday evening. For how long the room has been planted or by whom is unclear."Kofi's security aides found the device yesterday," one source explained, while the talks were in session. Annan is said to be "livid", but it is not yet known how he intends to act on Tuesday night's revelations or whether he will walk away from the already troubled negotiations.
Fears for ex-SAS officer Simon Mann in jail over Africa ‘coup plot’
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
The attorney-general of Equatorial Guinea refused yesterday to affirm that a former SAS officer accused of plotting to overthrow his government would be treated humanely in the country’s most notorious prison.José Oló Obono was appearing before a panel of law lords seeking a damages action against Simon Mann and his alleged plot instigators.
Mr Mann, who served with the SAS in the late 1970s, is feared to have been transferred from a Zimbabwean prison to the Black Beach jail in Equatorial Guinea, in breach of a pending application in Harare to stop his extradition. Although the details remain sketchy, it appears that he arrived on Saturday.
============================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment