Category Archives: Taliban

Ralph Peters Q&A

Posted on by

This is interesting. This retired colonel and author has a fair grip on geopolitical historical reality. I love what he says about Persia.

I also agree with him exactly on the millimetre wave scanner for air travel. It is exactly the wrong solution. Here is the speech to which the video below is the Q&A

I believe it was KitmanTV who was kind enough to lead me to this video today. It has been a wildly busy day with the Geert Wilders trial, actual work for a living etc. so I may have lost track. Sorry if this was recommended by someone else.

Stratfor: The Khost Attack and the Intelligence War Challenge

Posted on by

By George Friedman and Scott Stewart of STRATFOR:

As Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi exited the vehicle that brought him onto Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009, security guards noticed he was behaving strangely. They moved toward al-Balawi and screamed demands that he take his hand out of his pocket, but instead of complying with the officers’ commands, al-Balawi detonated the suicide device he was wearing.

The explosion killed al-Balawi, three security contractors, four CIA officers and the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID) officer who was al-Balawi’s handler. The vehicle shielded several other CIA officers at the scene from the blast. The CIA officers killed included the chief of the base at Khost and an analyst from headquarters who reportedly was the agency’s foremost expert on al Qaeda. The agency’s second-ranking officer in Afghanistan was allegedly among the officers who survived.
Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor from Zarqa (the hometown of deceased al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). Under the alias Abu Dujanah al-Khurasani, he served as an administrator for Al-Hesbah, a popular Internet discussion forum for jihadists. Jordanian officers arrested him in 2007 because of his involvement with radical online forums, which is illegal in Jordan. The GID subsequently approached al-Balawi while he was in a Jordanian prison and recruited him to work as an intelligence asset.
Al-Balawi was sent to Pakistan less than a year ago as part of a joint GID/CIA mission. Under the cover of going to school to receive advanced medical training, al-Balawi established himself in Pakistan and began to reach out to jihadists in the region. Under his al-Khurasani pseudonym, al-Balawai announced in September 2009 in an interview on a jihadist Internet forum that he had officially joined the Afghan Taliban.

A Lucky Break for the TTP

It is unclear if al-Balawi was ever truly repentant. Perhaps he cooperated with the GID at first, but had a change of heart sometime after arriving in Pakistan. Either way, at some point al-Balawi approached the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the main Pakistani Taliban group, and offered to work with it against the CIA and GID. Al-Balawi confirmed this in a video statement recorded with TTP leader Hakeemullah Mehsud and released Jan. 9. This is significant because it means that al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, and not part of some larger, intentional intelligence operation orchestrated by the TTP or another jihadist entity like al Qaeda.
The TTP’s luck held when a group of 13 people gathered to meet al-Balawi upon his arrival at FOB Chapman. This allowed him to detonate his suicide device amid the crowd and create maximum carnage before he was able to be searched for weapons.
In the world of espionage, source meetings are almost always a dangerous activity for both the intelligence officer and the source. There are fears the source could be surveilled and followed to the meeting site, or that the meeting could be raided by host country authorities and the parties arrested. In the case of a terrorist source, the meeting site could be attacked and those involved in the meeting killed. Because of this, the CIA and other intelligence agencies exercise great care while conducting source meetings. Normally they will not bring the source into a CIA station or base. Instead, they will conduct the meeting at a secure, low-profile offsite location
.
Operating in the wilds of Afghanistan is far different from operating out of an embassy in Vienna or Moscow, however. Khost province is Taliban territory, and it offers no refuge from the watching eyes and gunmen of the Taliban and their jihadist allies. Indeed, the province has few places safe enough even for a CIA base. And this is why the CIA base in Khost is located on a military base, FOB Chapman, named for the first American killed in Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion. Normally, an outer ring of Afghan security around the base searches persons entering FOB Chapman, who the U.S. military then searches again at the outer perimeter of the U.S. portion of the base. Al-Balawi, a high-value CIA asset, was allowed to skip these external layers of security to avoid exposing his identity to Afghan troops and U.S. military personnel. Instead, the team of Xe (the company formerly known as Blackwater) security contractors were to search al-Balawi as he arrived at the CIA’s facility.
A Failure to Follow Security Procedures

Had proper security procedures been followed, the attack should only have killed the security contractors, the vehicle driver and perhaps the Jordanian GID officer. But proper security measures were not followed, and several CIA officers rushed out to greet the unscreened Jordanian source. Reports indicate that the source had alerted his Jordanian handler that he had intelligence pertaining to the location of al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri. (There are also reports that al-Balawi had given his handlers highly accurate battle damage assessments on drone strikes in Pakistan, indicating that he had access to high-level jihadist sources.) The prospect of finally receiving such crucial and long-sought information likely explains the presence of the high-profile visitors from CIA headquarters in Langley and the station in Kabul — and their exuberance over receiving such coveted intelligence probably explains their eager rush to meet the source before he had been properly screened.
The attack, the most deadly against CIA personnel since the 1983 Beirut bombing, was clearly avoidable, or at least mitigable. But human intelligence is a risky business, and collecting human intelligence against jihadist groups can be flat-out deadly. The CIA officers in Khost the day of the bombing had grown complacent, and violated a number of security procedures. The attack thus serves as a stark reminder to the rest of the clandestine service of the dangers they face and of the need to adhere to time-tested security procedures.
A better process might have prevented some of the deaths, but it would not have solved the fundamental problem: The CIA had an asset who turned out to be a double agent. When he turned is less important than that he was turned into — assuming he had not always been — a double agent. His mission was to gain the confidence of the CIA as to his bona fides, and then create an event in which large numbers of CIA agents were present, especially the top al Qaeda analyst at the CIA. He knew that high-value targets would be present because he had set the stage for the meeting by dangling vital information before the agency. He went to the meeting to carry out his true mission, which was to deliver a blow against the CIA. He succeeded.
The Obama Strategy’s Weakness

In discussing the core weakness in the Afghan strategy U.S. President Barack Obama has chosen, we identified the basic problem as the intelligence war. We argued that establishing an effective Afghan army would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, because the Americans and their NATO allies lacked knowledge and sophistication in distinguishing friend from foe among those being recruited into the army. This problem is compounded by the fact that there are very few written documents in a country like Afghanistan that could corroborate identities. The Taliban would seed the Afghan army with its own operatives and supporters, potentially exposing the army’s operations to al Qaeda.
This case takes the problem a step further. The United States relied on Jordanian intelligence to turn a jihadist operative into a double agent. They were dependent on the Jordanian handler’s skills at debriefing, vetting and testing the now-double agent. It is now reasonable to assume the agent allowed himself to be doubled in an attempt to gain the trust of the handler. The Jordanians offered the source to the Americans, who obviously grabbed him, and the source passed all the tests to which he was undoubtedly subjected. Yet in the end, his contacts with the Taliban were not designed to provide intelligence to the Americans. The intelligence provided to the Americans was designed to win their trust and set up the suicide bombing. It is therefore difficult to avoid the conclusion that al-Balawi was playing the GID all along and that his willingness to reject his jihadist beliefs was simply an opportunistic strategy for surviving and striking.
Even though encountering al-Balawi was a stroke of luck for the TTP, the group’s exploitation of this lucky break was a very sophisticated operation. The TTP had to provide valuable intelligence to allow al-Balawi to build his credibility. It had to create the clustering of CIA agents by promising extraordinarily valuable intelligence. It then had to provide al-Balawi with an effective suicide device needed for the strike. And it had to do this without being detected by the CIA. Al-Balawi had a credible cover for meeting TTP agents; that was his job. But what al-Balawi told his handlers about his meetings with the TTP, and where he went between meetings, clearly did not indicate to the handlers that he was providing fabricated information or posed a threat.
In handling a double agent, it is necessary to track every step he takes. He cannot be trusted because of his history; the suspicion that he is still loyal to his original cause must always be assumed. Therefore, the most valuable moments in evaluating a double agent are provided by intense scrutiny of his patterns and conduct away from his handlers and new friends. Obviously, if this scrutiny was applied, al-Balawi and his TTP handlers were still able to confuse their observers. If it was not applied, then the CIA was setting itself up for disappointment. Again, such scrutiny is far more difficult to conduct in the Pakistani badlands, where resources to surveil a source are very scarce. In such a case, the intuition and judgment of the agent’s handler are critical, and al-Balawi was obviously able to fool his Jordanian handler.
Given his enthusiastic welcome at FOB Chapman, it would seem al-Balawi was regarded not only as extremely valuable but also as extremely reliable. Whatever process might have been used at the meeting, the central problem was that he was regarded as a highly trusted source when he shouldn’t have been. Whether this happened because the CIA relied entirely on the Jordanian GID for evaluation or because American interrogators and counterintelligence specialists did not have the skills needed to pick up the cues can’t be known. What is known is that the TTP ran circles around the CIA in converting al-Balawi to its uses.
The United States cannot hope to reach any satisfactory solution in Afghanistan unless it can win the intelligence war. But the damage done to the CIA in this attack cannot be underestimated. At least one of the agency’s top analysts on al Qaeda was killed. In an intelligence war, this is the equivalent of sinking an aircraft carrier in a naval war. The United States can’t afford this kind of loss. There will now be endless reviews, shifts in personnel and re-evaluations. In the meantime, the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan will be attempting to exploit the opportunity presented by this disruption.
Casualties happen in war, and casualties are not an argument against war. However, when the center of gravity in a war is intelligence, and an episode like this occurs, the ability to prevail becomes a serious question. We have argued that in any insurgency, the insurgents have a built-in advantage. It is their country and their culture, and they are indistinguishable from everyone else. Keeping them from infiltrating is difficult.
This was a different matter. Al-Balawi was Jordanian; his penetration of the CIA was less like the product of an insurgency than an operation carried out by a national intelligence service. And this is the most troubling aspect of this incident for the United States. The operation was by all accounts a masterful piece of tradecraft beyond the known abilities of a group like the TTP. Even though al-Balawi’s appearance was a lucky break for the TTP, not the result of an intentional, long-term operation, the execution of the operation that arose as a result of that lucky break was skillfully done — and it was good enough to deliver a body blow to the CIA. The Pakistani Taliban would thus appear far more skilled than we would have thought, which is the most important takeaway from this incident, and something to ponder

Terry Glavin: Afghanistan: A Quagmire Of Confidence, Progress And Optimism.

Posted on by
From Terry Glavin’s blog. A word of advice to any0ne interested in the issue of Afghanistan and the NATO mission there. Do not solidify an opinion until you have read Terry Glavin on the subject. I include myself in this admonishon as I myself have changed my views a fair amount after reading Terry.
Eeyore for Vlad:
This latest poll is the now the 14th survey of which I am aware that wholly defies the received wisdom (which is to say the fashionable delusions and popular frenzies) abroad in the rich countries of the world about Afghanistan, and about “what Afghans think.” I am aware of no poll – not one – that supports the self-obsessed and fraudulent “anti-war” opinion in Canada on these subjects, or that does not expose bourgeois “left-wing” opinion to be objectively far-right, reactionary, and in opposition to the hopes and aspirations of the Afghan people.

‘Troops Out Now!’

Sixty-one per cent of the Afghan respondents support the U.S./NATO “surge” of 37,000 troops. Only 25 per cent agree with the American (and Canadian) plan to start withdrawing troops in 18 months, and while 22 per cent say foreign troops should start to pull out sooner, 21 per cent say foreign troops should in fact stay longer, and 29 per cent (the most sensible cohort, in my view) say troop withdrawals should depend on the security situation at the time. More than 70 per cent of Afghans rate the performance of American and other NATO/ISAF troops as excellent, good or fair.

‘Why Do They Hate Us?’

They don’t, so all those drippy Californian society ladies who hold such sway over “progressive” opinion in Canada should avail themselves of their hankies and smelling salts and shut their gobs. Continue Reading →

Why Pakistan is winning ITS war against the Taliban

Posted on by

By way of a forward, I cant help but notice from the picture that perhaps if the Taliban didn’t watch as many cartoons they wouldn’t have such a warped world view. Does anyone in the photo in the story look familiar?

Dumb Donald, Taliban fashion man
Dumb Donald, Taliban fashion man

From The Daily Mail UK:

In Mingora, the city of 250,000 people that was until recently the headquarters of Pakistan’s Swat valley Taliban, the shopping centre is heaving.

‘Bloody Chowk’, the crossroads where the militants used to leave the butchered bodies of their victims every night, is once again merely a mini-roundabout, surrounded by camera and shoe shops.

Further up the valley, a scenically idyllic 100-mile seam of fertility dividing the Northwest Frontier mountains, the girls’ schools that were blown up by the Taliban are reopening, with lessons taking place in tents.

Further up the valley, a scenically idyllic 100-mile seam of fertility dividing the Northwest Frontier mountains, the girls’ schools that were blown up by the Taliban are reopening, with lessons taking place in tents.

PakistaniSuccess: Pakistani army soldiers with captured militants at Lower Dir in the Swat valley

The barbers ordered to stop shaving beards on pain of death are back in business, and Mullah FM, the radio station used by the Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah to broadcast his extremist sermons, is off the air.

Western leaders often insinuate that there is something half-hearted about Pakistan’s struggle against those responsible not only for bringing terror to Swat but providing safe havens for the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, to say nothing of the series of devastating bombings in the big Pakistani cities.

Last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested that some in Pakistan’s government must know the whereabouts of Al Qaeda leaders such as Osama Bin Laden, still said by some to be hiding in the frontier’s tribal areas.

Gordon Brown has repeatedly urged the Pakistanis to ‘do more’, claiming that three-quarters of terrorist plots in Britain have links to Pakistan.

Yet last week he also admitted that, across the Afghan border, some of the territory the British Army took at such terrible cost last summer is already back under Taliban control.

As I walked unmolested through the alleys of Mingora’s bazaar, his comments provoked some uncomfortable thoughts.

First the good news: the Swat example shows that the Taliban are not invincible, and that it is possible to fight a counter-insurgency against them and win.

Unfortunately, however, the very reasons Pakistan appears to be doing quite well, both in Swat and in the current military operation further south in Waziristan, make the prospects of Nato success in Afghanistan more remote.

Moreover, one of the Pakistanis’ evident strengths – a clear strategic focus with operations of limited scope that tackle the enemy one area at a time – is woefully lacking in Afghanistan.

‘You have to recognise the limits of your power. When you try to attain too many objectives simultaneously, you end up attaining nothing,’ General Athar Abbas, the Pakistan army’s chief spokesman, told me.

‘If you don’t have clarity from the beginning, especially about what to do after you capture somewhere, you will run into serious problems – and that is what’s happening across the border.

‘You have to retain your successes, and the only way to do that is with popular support.’

Life in Mingora isn’t yet back to normal: the death and destruction have simply been too great. Fazlullah used to be a chairlift operator and one of the first things the Taliban did was to blow up the Swat valley’s ski facilities.

Skirmishes continue in outlying areas and there is still a curfew. But the progress is unmistakable.

When I last visited Pakistan in June, at the height of the Swat campaign, there were more than two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) living on the scorching plains in camps and relatives’ spare rooms.

But a remarkably efficient army-led transport and reconstruction effort has meant more than 95 per cent of them have been back home for weeks.

More impressive is the fact that despite having been IDPs, and in many cases having once been in favour of the Taliban, few Swat people appear to want them back.

‘When Fazlullah started his broadcasts, he had a lot of support,’ said Shiraz Khan, a local TV cameraman. ‘Not now. Their methods have been exposed.’

One night, he said, he was woken by the shrieks of his next-door neighbour. ‘The Taliban had come to her house and, in front of her and the rest of the family, they were murdering her oldest son and her husband by cutting their throats.’

‘When you see a dead body, its cut-off head lying on its chest, it’s a truly terrible sight,’ said a local professor, who asked not to be named.

‘The people supported the Taliban because they felt the state was not giving them justice. But now they are finished.’

The army is still in Mingora, but responsibility for law and order is back with the police.
‘The community is helping us with information,’ said Qazi Farooq, the district chief.

He said that ‘regular police work’ had led to the capture of dozens of militants, 60 of whom have already been charged in the criminal courts with crimes including murder and blowing up bridges.

In the remoter areas, ‘lashkars’ – tribal militias – have been formed to root out the last Taliban. If only the British Army had encountered similar reactions in Helmand, Afghanistan.

Last Friday, when I visited a new IDP centre established at a cricket ground in Dera Ismail Khan on the South Waziristan border, I heard the main reason why starkly expressed.

The IDPs there come from the same Pathan tribe, the Mehsuds, which is also the main source of the local Taliban.

But having been brutalised in a similar fashion to the people of Swat, several men told me they were ready to work with the army to ensure that its gains were maintained once they went home.

‘The thing is this,’ said Mohammed Qasar, a farmer from the district of Lada. ‘If the army treat us well, we will co-exist with them, because ultimately we are Pakistanis. The soldiers are our people, too.’

And there, alas, is the rub. The new counter-insurgency buzzword for Gordon Brown and Nato’s commanding general in Afghanistan, Stanley McChrystal, is ‘protecting the population’ in order to consolidate gains.

But honorable as that intention may be, no Afghan Pathan will ever describe the British or US troops as ‘our people’. Whatever their avowed policy, Nato troops will always look like occupiers.

In Pakistan, the fact that the army is being deployed inside its own country is a possible source of weakness.

This imposes a delicacy that is often not appreciated: it is, in the words of one general, ‘a pretty big deal’, and in order to rely on public support, it has had to wait until the Taliban’s outrages have become manifest before launching operations.

But having got that backing, it has become a source of strength.

Meanwhile, General Abbas cited a further stupefying sign of Nato’s apparent absence of strategic co-ordination.

In the name of the new ‘protection’ strategy, the US has this autumn been withdrawing from its posts on the Afghan side of the frontier, including those in Paktika, the province next to South Waziristan.

‘It will create a vacuum,’ he said, ‘and if militants escape from Waziristan, what can we do? We cannot fire on them when they cross the border.’

For years, Nato chiefs have accused Pakistan of failing to deal with the Taliban’s safe havens in Pakistani territory. Now, in one of the more bitter ironies of this ever-lengthening war, that role has been reversed.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1227826/Why-Pakistan-winning-ITS-war-Taliban.html#ixzz0WwNRoRSe

POLICE INFILTRATED BY THE TALIBAN ‘AT EVERY LEVEL’

Posted on by

DailyExpress… A BRITISH war hero yesterday warned the Afghan national police had been “infiltrated at virtually every level” by the insurgency

Captain Doug Beattie also claimed that in British-controlled Helmand province Afghan police officers were almost all drug users.

Despite this, the vetting process for police recruits “is not serious”.

He also cited two incidents where Afghan national army soldiers had turned on British troops.

But he said Britain must stick to its policy of training Afghan security forces because it is “our exit strategy”. Capt Beattie won the Military Cross in Afghanistan in 2006 and served with the police both then and last year. He said part of the problem was that the police had not been given the same resources and training as the Afghan army.

But he said: “They are not really police. They are a tribal militia provided by their village.

“They are not controlled by central Government but by local warlords, jihadis and tribal elders. The Government pays them and sometimes elders pass the pay to the police. That’s why police sometimes set up road blocks and extract money from locals – to make ends meet.

“If the government’s paying them they’re reasonably happy. But if they don’t get enough money they’re quite happy to be paid by the insurgency.”

He alleged that a former chief of police in Helmand was caught talking directly to the Taliban on his personal phone on several occasions.

Capt Beattie, who left the Army this year after 27 years’ service, said: “The insurgency has infiltrated the police at virtually every level. Because they are poorly paid they take money from the highest bidder.”

He said drugs were readily available and about 80 per cent of the police in Helmand were “habitual users of cannabis or heroin”.

He told of the Afghan army holding one of his men at gunpoint while they murdered a Taliban prisoner before running off. And a British mentoring team had to be evacuated after paratroopers accidentally killed a child and locals attacked their base.

Captain Beattie is the author of Task Force Helmand (Simon & Schuster), priced £17.99.

Bear kills militants in Kashmir

Posted on by

It sure is nice to be able to post some good news once in awhile.

_46658036_bear226afp BBCNEWS… A bear killed two militants after discovering them in its den in Indian-administered Kashmir, police say.

Two other militants escaped, one of them badly wounded, after the attack in Kulgam district, south of Srinagar.

The militants had assault rifles but were taken by surprise – police found the remains of pudding they had made to eat when the bear attacked.

It is thought to be the first such incident since Muslim separatists took up arms against Indian rule in 1989.

Bodies found

The militants had made their hideout in a cave which was actually the bear’s den, said police officer Farooq Ahmed.

The dead have been identified as Mohammad Amin alias Qaiser, and Bashir Ahmed alias Saifullah.

News of the attack emerged when their injured comrade went to a nearby village for treatment.

“Word spread in the village that Qaiser had been killed by the bear,” another police officer said.

A joint party of the police and army personnel went into the forest and collected the bodies of the two militants.

Police say they also recovered two Kalashnikov assault rifles and some ammunition from the hideout.

Animal attacks

Wildlife experts say the conflict in Kashmir has actually resulted in an increase in the population of bears and leopards.

Following the outbreak of the insurgency people had to hand in their weapons to police – which put a halt to poaching.

As a result, there has been a greater incidence of man-animal conflict, say experts.

There have been many reports of bears and leopards killing or mauling humans in different parts of the Kashmir valley in recent years.

Three years ago, residents of Mandora village near the southern town of Tral, beat a black bear to death which had strayed into the village.

Islamists break Somali port truce

Posted on by

BBCNEWS… Fierce clashes have broken out between two Somali militant Islamist groups near the southern port of Kismayo, breaking a recent ceasefire deal.

An al-Shabab spokesman said his group had fought off an attack from the Hizbul-Islam group, killing some of their fighters.

There has been no independent verification of his claims.

The two groups began fighting over the port at the start of this month, but agreed a truce shortly after.

The militants had ousted government troops from Kismayo last year and agreed to govern the port together.

But al-Shabab named an administration last month which excluded Hizbul-Islam, sparking the fighting.

After a truce for most of this month, al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Hassan Ya’qup said Hizbul-Islam attacked his fighters in Birta, 60km (37 miles) north of Kismayo.

“We repulsed them – they left some dead bodies behind,” he said.

Analysts said it was the first time Hizbul-Islam had been on the offensive in the dispute.

Their members were reported to have fled Kismayo after at least 12 people were killed in fighting at the start of the month.

The country has been wracked by conflict since 1991, when it last had an effective national government.

Islamist militants and warlords control much of southern Somalia, fighting against government troops.

The government, backed by the UN and African Union, controls only small parts of the capital, Mogadishu.

Some three million people – half the population – need food aid, while hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country.

Ottawa’s refusal to take Gitmo inmates irks U.S.

Posted on by

White House puzzled by Canada’s abrupt refusal to accept detainees from Guantanamo prison

Flag-Sticker Toronto Star…GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA–An apparent snub by the Canadian government has dismayed officials on the Obama administration’s task force who are working to resettle dozens of detainees here and close the prison, a high-ranking administration source told the Star.

Various foreign governments have offered refuge to prisoners that the Pentagon has cleared for release, including France, Portugal, Ireland and smaller nations such as Bermuda and Palau. Dozens more are now negotiating with the task force, answering U.S. President Barack Obama’s call for help.

But the official, who has intimate knowledge of the negotiations and who spoke to the Star on the condition he not be named, said Canada abruptly stopped talks earlier this year. He said the task force was surprised to learn of Canada’s decision through a press release.

“I just found it puzzling,” there were no phone calls or diplomatic meetings, the official said. “A public rejection was odd.” Continue Reading →

Toronto 18 ringleader pleads guilty

Posted on by

I think the sentences of other Toronto 18 members [time served and 2 more years in jail] has more to do with these admissions of guilt than say, actual remorse and shame for the crimes of wholesale slaughter they wished for the people of Toronto.

Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. (Stringer/Reuters)

Zakaria Amara, 24, pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. (Stringer/Reuters)

CBCNEWS…Zakaria Amara pleaded guilty Thursday to charges related to the Toronto 18 terrorist plot to set off three fertilizer bombs, two in Toronto and one at an unnamed Ontario military base.

Amara, 24, has been alleged to be one of the ringleaders in the plot to recruit and train extremists to carry out the attacks, which never transpired. He is the fourth adult to admit guilt in the affair.

In a Brampton, Ont., courtroom, Amara pleaded guilty to two counts: knowingly participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group.

Justice Bruce Durno entered convictions against Amara on those counts before proceeding to sentencing. An agreed statement of facts is being read into the court record.

In all, 17 men and youths were arrested in the Toronto area in June 2006 and detained following an investigation by CSIS. An 18th person was arrested in August 2006.

The suspects faced charges including participating in a terrorist group, receiving training from a terrorist group, providing training and intending to cause an explosion that could cause serious bodily harm or death.

CN Tower among targets

The offences allegedly took place between March and June 2006 in Mississauga and a rural township near Orillia, Ont.

The Crown alleges that the group’s potential targets were the CN Tower, the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto CSIS office.

Seven of the 18 people arrested have since had their charges dropped or stayed. Another six are in custody awaiting trial.

Last Friday, Ali Dirie was sentenced to seven years after pleading guilty to taking part in the homegrown terrorist group.

The 26-year-old’s sentence amounts to two years after time served is factored.

In September, Saad Gaya, 21, pleaded guilty to intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group and is to be sentenced next month.

Gaya and Saad Khalid were arrested while unloading bags labelled “ammonium nitrate” from a truck driven by an undercover police officer.

Khalid, 23, pleaded guilty in May and was handed a 14-year prison sentence. He was given seven years’ credit for pre-trial custody and can apply for parole after less than 2½ years.

Last year, a judge found Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, 21, guilty of participating in, and contributing to, a terrorist group.

Although 17 at the time of the offences, he was tried as a youth but received an adult sentence of 2½ years before being released in May in consideration of time served before trial.

Supplying heroin, murder and suicide brings them closer to Allah.

Posted on by

Thursday, October 08, 2009
17 killed in fresh Afghan violence

KABUL: US and Afghan forces killed 17 Taliban and seized 50 tonnes of opium and 1.8 tonnes of heroin in a joint operation in Afghanistan Wednesday, the defence ministry said. In a five-hour operation that began at 11 a.m. the soldiers dropped from helicopters into Kajaki district of Helmand province, he said. “Seventeen Taliban were killed, three were arrested alive,” he said.

Would-be suicide bomber, two accomplices held

PESHAWAR: The police claimed to have arrested a suspected suicide bomber along with two accomplices from Kohat Road here Wednesday. Official sources said the police had received a tip-off that a teenage bomber from tribal area would take possession of his suicide vest somewhere in Badaber and later try to hit a target in Peshawar. The cops intercepted the suspected vehicle and arrested the would-be suicide bomber, Burhan, who is a teenager, and his two accomplices.

Police arrests man whipping Swat girl publicly

Posted on by

I’m sure, even after this arrest, Muslims will continue to claim the video is Indian, anti Pakistan propaganda. 

10-3-2009_50219_lDI KHAN: The man whipping a girl publicly in Swat, as shown in a video footage on media some months ago, has been arrested.

Nine suspects were nabbed from Dera Ismail Khan a few days ago including Amin alias Chhota Aftab, source said. Police said during investigation it was found that he is the same man whipping the Swat girl, as shown in the footage.

He is said to hail from Swat and is not even the relative of the girl he whipped.

Chhota Aftab was shifted from DI Khan eight days ago

Taliban Claims Pakistan U.N. Agency Attack

Posted on by

Militants Say Suicide Bomber Hit World Food Program Because Relief Work Not in “the Interest of Muslims”

In other words if Muslims see the kuffar, the infidel, doing good works it makes them question their hatred for all things Western or American.

CBS NEWS…Taliban militants claimed responsibility Tuesday for the deadly suicide bombing at the U.N. food agency’s heavily fortified compound in Islamabad, saying international relief work in Pakistan was not in “the interest of Muslims.”

The attack, which killed five workers for the World Food Program on Monday, pushed the U.N. to temporarily close its offices in the country and exposed the vulnerability of many international relief agencies working to provide aid to millions of civilians affected by the fight between the government and Islamic militant groups.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik accused the Taliban of carrying out the attack to avenge the Aug. 5 slaying of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone attack.

Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq confirmed his group was behind the bombing in a phone conversation with The Associated Press and lashed out at foreign aid workers here.

“We proudly claim the responsibility for the suicide attack at the U.N. office in Islamabad. We will send more bombers for such attacks,” he said. “The U.N. and other foreign (aid groups) are not working for the interest of Muslims. We are watching their activities. They are infidels.”

He added that the Taliban would not target Muslim relief groups. Continue Reading →

Germany arrests al-Qaeda suspect

Posted on by

BBC News… A German-Turkish citizen is being held in Germany on suspicion of preparing explosive devices and posting al-Qaeda propaganda on the internet, police say.

They said the 24-year-old, named only as Adnan V, was arrested on Thursday.

A small amount of explosives and a suspected detonator were also seized in two police raids in the Frankfurt area.

The suspect was not immediately linked to videos that emerged ahead of last Sunday’s elections threatening al-Qaeda attacks within Germany.

Those videos, made by al-Qaeda’s media production arm, warned of an impending attack within two weeks of the elections if German troops were not withdrawn from Afghanistan.

Germany has some 4,000 troops based in northern Afghanistan.

Some 35 have died and a recent poll showed 55% of Germans wanted a pullout.

The videos prompted heightened security measures in Germany’s tourist spots, airports and main train stations.