Female suicide bomber kills 6 in Chechenya

DW-Welle:

A female suicide bomber blew herself up on Wednesday in an attack on a police car in the main street of Chechnya’s capital Grozny. News agencies reported that six people were wounded.

“The woman went up to a traffic police car in which there were several people and detonated her explosives,” Chechnya’s deputy health minister Rukman Bartiyev told the ITAR-TASS news agency. “The number of victims and wounded is being specified,” he added. The charred remains of the woman’s head and other body parts were found at the scene, the Interfax news agency reported.

FBI discovers AQ plot in Denver

 

The FBI thinks it has uncovered a cross-state terror cell with Al-Qaeda links in Denver. Arrests were made in the case in New York. Apparently the suspect drove cross-country to Queens, New York with documents and bomb making plans. He allegedly met with some nefarious characters in New York. The FBI citing wiretaps, decided it was time to move in on the suspects.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, known as ‘Naji’ in his mosque, hails from eastern Afghanistan and is currently residing in Aurora. Apparently he remains under surveilance by FBI operatives, though he maintains his innocence. Fellow mosque members say that Zazi was apolitical and a devout Muslim.

…The FBI and Department of Homeland Security this week issued tips to ‘authorities’ nationwide for indicators of homemade bomb-makers using Hydorgen Peroxide-based explosives and warning them to be on the look-out for foul odors, people with chemical burns, and industrial sized fans. The warning coincided with the arrests and seizures in New York.

FBI says al-Qaeda cell in Denver

The accused, Zazi, has denied having something to do with AQ. Anyway, FBI has announced he was arrested when he allegedly was going to meet some more terrorists freedom fighters.

Experts consider that NYC underground is still very vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

Chávez also wants a nuclear program

Of course, he insists it’s a peaceful nuclear program, the same that Iran says, country with which Chávez signed recently an agreement to begin a “peaceful nuclear program”. But at the same time, he adds that he has bought several “little rockets from Russia”. It’s very doubtful those rockets were bought for “peaceful purposes” too…

Al Qaeda fugitive reported killed in Somalia (U)

Fears of an increasing AQ presence in the country grow:

U.S. Special Operations forces aboard helicopters attacked a convoy said to contain a top Al Qaeda fugitive. U.S. and Somali officials confirmed Tuesday that the man was killed, and Islamist insurgents vowed to seek revenge.
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a Kenyan citizen, was wanted for questioning in connection with the car bombing of a beach resort in Kenya and the near-simultaneous attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. Ten Kenyans and three Israelis were killed in the blast at the hotel. The missiles missed the airliner.

SOMALIA: Al Qaeda fugitive reported killed — chicagotribune.com

Al Shabab has already announced they will avenge this killing.

Anyway, has this something to do with the plot to kill Hillary Clinton? It’s probable, although there is no official communication US state or from any US agency.

Related: AQ leader’s death a blow to Somali group, FOX News. One more primary U.S. target, Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, is still believed to be in the country, with a $5 million bounty on his head. Mohammed was indicted for the 1998 bombings and has been on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists since its inception. Mohammed has repeatedly eluded authorities’ efforts to kill or capture him and is reported to be Al Qaeda’s leading figure in east Africa.

(U) Commando raid in Somalia is latest in covert operations across the Globe, LWJ.

Syria could be operating more “nuclear sites

Syria may be operating more nuclear sites, apart from the reactor at Deir Azour which was bombed by Israel on September 6, 2007 in what came to be known as Operation Orchard, former U.S. envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Gregory Schulte told Channel 10 Thursday evening.”

More here.

What was Mr Blair’s role in Megrahi’s release?

The Independent had an article some days ago about this that is interesting reading:

MPs are set to demand the minutes of an extraordinary cloak-and-dagger summit in London between British, American and Libyan spies held three days before Mr Blair announced that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was surrendering his weapons of mass destruction programme.

At the time of the secret meeting in December 2003 at the private Travellers Club in Pall Mall, London – for decades the favourite haunt of spies – Libyan officials were pressing for negotiations on the status of Megrahi, who was nearly three years into his life sentence at a Scottish jail.

 Was Mehgrahi’s release mentioned on that particular meeting? Perhaps 2003 seems somewhat far away but it would help us to understand the actual role of the three parties here.

Before:
Lybian Govt paid doctors to secure Megrahi’s release
Who really freed Megrahi?
UK Ministers release letters about Lockerbie deal.
Lockerbie bomber on show at Gadhafi’s 40th anniversary celebrations.
Lybia’s Gadhaffi: the forgotten story of his links to terror.
Brown denies deal for Megrahi.
Jack Straw’s letter on Megrahi’s release
Scotland denies any oil deal in Mehgrahi case.
US offered money to stop Mehgrahi’s release.
Lockerbie bomber’s release: an oil deal.
On Lockerbie bomber’s release: an oil deal?
Gadhaffi’s son asks why so angry about Lockerbie bomber’s release.
More details on Lockerbie bomber’s health asked.
Victims from Lockerbie bomber against Gadhafi’s visit to NJ.

German general fully support airstrike

German general backs officer in Afghan airstrike

Germany’s top military commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday he stood “fully behind” the German commander who called in a U.S. airstrike on fuel trucks hijacked by Taliban that killed civilians as well as insurgents.

Brig. Gen. Joerg Vollmer insisted in a phone interview with The Associated Press that Germany’s relations remain good with its NATO allies, including the United States, even after the U.S. military criticized the German officer who requested the attack in northern Kunduz province.

An Afghan official appointed by President Hamid Karzai to examine Friday’s attack said his best estimate of the death toll was 82, including at least 45 armed militants. (Problem here: how to discover who are terrorists and who are civilians, when no terrorist wears an identification?).

The top NATO and U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, has pledged a full investigation.

…Insurgents have stepped up attacks in Kunduz, a province dominated by Pashtuns — the largest Afghan ethnic group from which the Taliban garner their support and recruits. Some analysts say that insurgents have been able to operate with relative freedom because of the German military’s policy to make the security of its own troops its top priority.

Vollmer hinted that operations like Friday’s airstrike — the first German-led action in seven years to cause significant militant deaths — could become more frequent in future.

…Vollmer blamed the tense security situation in Kunduz on the lack of Afghan police, the influx of former refugees returning from Pakistan and Iran, and efforts by militant groups to protect lucrative smuggling and extortion rackets from government interference.

To send more troops or not to send them: that is the Afghan question

That is the central question the NYT wants to answer in this article:

In deploying 68,000 American troops there by year’s end, President Obama has called Afghanistan “a war of necessity” to prevent the Taliban from recreating for Al Qaeda the sanctuary that the terrorist group had in the 1990s.
….In interviews, most counterterrorism experts said they believed the troops were needed to drive out Taliban fighters from territory they have steadily reclaimed in recent years. But critics on both the right and the left say that if the real goal is to prevent terrorist attacks on the United States, there may be alternatives to a large ground force in Afghanistan. They say Al Qaeda can be held at bay using intensive intelligence, Predator drones, cruise missiles, raids by Special Operations commandos, and even payments to warlords to deny haven to Al Qaeda.
…But most specialists on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency, both inside and outside the government, say the threat of terrorism cannot be confronted from a comfortable distance, such as by airstrikes or proxy forces alone. While it may take years to transform Afghanistan into a place that is hostile to Al Qaeda, they say, it may be the only way to keep the United States safe in the long term. Many agree with the classified strategy for a troop buildup that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, has presented to Mr. Obama and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in recent days. 

NATO troops free reporter, while Afghan translator and UK soldier are killed

NYT reporter freed; Afghan aide killed in rescue – Yahoo! News

British commandos freed a New York Times reporter in an early Wednesday raid on a Taliban hide-out in northern Afghanistan. The journalist’s Afghan translator and one of the troops were killed in the rescue, officials said. 

Reporter Stephen Farrell was taken hostage Saturday along with his translator in the northern province of Kunduz when they went to cover a German-ordered airstrike of two hijacked fuel tankers. The bombing, carried out by U.S. jets, caused a number of civilian casualties.

A UK soldier was also killed. He is believed to be a paratrooper. Another two civilians were killed in the cross-fire (What were doing several civilians on a cross-fire there?).

About the Kunduz mission, Angela Merkel has defended the raid, while underlining she deeply regreted any civilian lifes lost after German actions. The difficulty in separating Talibans from civilians makes it,  in turn, very difficult to know how many of each were killed.

Before:
German Defense Minister on Afghan NATO’s air strike.
Scores killed after NATO air strike on tanks of petrol, hijacked by Afghan Taliban.

Kirkuk blast kills 7

Among others killed there are a woman and a child. A high-ranking police official said the car was parked in a courtyard of a house when the bomb went off and so, it appeared the bomb may have gone off prematurely, as the car was being prepared for use in an attack.