Meet Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic threat no one knows about

This Sunni pan-Islamic Party, whose goal is to establish a caliphate on the lands "occupied by Zionists", has more than a million members in at least 40 countries, and is becoming increasingly popular in the Arab world. The party, founded in Jerusalem 54 years ago, is now returning to its birthplace, presenting a revived caliphate as a viable solution to the problems of the Muslim world.
Britain has turned into a perfect base for Hizb ut-Tahrir operations abroad, whose goal is radicalization of Muslims all over the world, especially in the Palestinian Authority and in Central Asia. Despite being banned in Russia, Hizb ut-Tahrir is rapidly growing in the country's eastern areas. More than least 50 cells that were distributing radical literature, converting locals and preaching for jihad, were arrested by the Russian secret services in the past two years. Central Asia is another important areas for Hizb ut-Tahrir.
Uzbekistan did not manage to stifle Hizb ut-Tahrir, albeit through no fault of the Uzbek government. According to the state security services, local Hizb ut-Tahrir members received support from Iran. Teheran sheltered fugitive members of the party and assisted "human rights associations" that protested "unlawful arrests" of "Islamic activist" Hizb ut-Tahrir members. In 2004, the Uzbek General Prosecutor's office said that over the previous four years, Iran had created training camps for the party's "activists." More...

Egyptian billionaire 'double agent' found dead in UK

Ashraf Marwan, 63, was alleged to have acted as a secret agent for Israel's Mossad spy agency during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, reportedly with the code name "Babel." He was found dead in an upscale London apartment complex. "It is understood he may have fallen from a balcony, but enquiries into the circumstances surrounding the death do continue," a police spokeswoman said. According to The Times newspaper of London, Marwan offered his services to Israel in 1969 and in the ensuing years provided information on Egypt and the Arab world that senior Israeli ministers would describe as priceless. Israeli public radio said that Marwan, son-in-law of late Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, had spied for Israel and warned of the 1973 Yom Kippur War several hours before it broke out. On October 6, 1973, Egypt and Syria launched attacks on Israel on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar to recover territory lost in the 1967 war. But they were again defeated by Israel. More...

Hamas Fallacies

1. Hamas is not short of cash. Suitcases full of banknotes pass through the Rafah crossing. Hamas’ masked gunmen can be seen every day smartly outfitted in clean black uniforms, brandishing new weapons with no shortage of ammunition and carrying personal gear in top condition.

2. Pouring US and Israeli hopes and investments into the Abbas-Dahlan outfit ended in disaster in Gaza. The Fatah-forces built and trained under the supervision of an American general were utterly humiliated in Gaza.

3. Not only Iran and Syria, but six Arab governments, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, refuse to cut their ties with the Hamas regime or hold back funds. So forget about an Arab boycott of Hamas. Abbas’ main base of residence and personal business is located in Doha.

4. In the key West Bank towns of Greater Nablus, Tulkarm, Qaiqilya, Ramallah, Hebron and East Jerusalem, Hamas is not only popular, but works hand in glove with radical factions of Abbas’ own Fatah al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.

5. Neither Hamas nor its generous sponsors in Tehran and Damascus intend to stop at the Gazan border. When the moment is opportune, they will go for the West Bank too. More...

Russia: Ex - Guantanamo Detainee Killed

Ruslan Odizhev was killed amid gunfire that erupted when agents tried to arrest him and another man in Kabardino-Balkariya, a region near Chechnya that is plagued by violence linked both to crime and to religious tensions.
Odizhev was one of seven Russians released from the detention facility in 2004; his whereabouts recently had been unknown. The FSB did not specify why agents were trying to detain him, but said he was a suspect in the 1999 bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow and Volgodonsk and that he took part in a 2005 insurgent attack on police and government facilities in Nalchik, the capital of Kabardino-Balkariya. That attack left 139 people dead, including 94 militants. More...

Hezbollah preparing for the next war

Since the UN-brokered ceasefire came into force last August 14, the pro-Iran Shiite militia has been steadily gearing itself up for the next round with the same determination and secrecy that have made its reputation. "Immediately after last summer's war Hezbollah began refortifying its positions and working on new ones," said Judith Palmer Harik, author of the book "Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism.”
A Western military observer in the Lebanese capital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah was now redeploying its arms farther north. "They left the (border) zone at once," he said. "Last summer, much to their surprise, they found themselves fighting well in front of their strongest lines because the Israeli army halted near the frontier. "Hezbollah has far stronger positions in the rear, north of the Litani river, that no one knows about and that they are fortifying all the time." More...

'Hamas coup was coordinated with Iran'

The Palestinian Authority intelligence chief on Sunday accused Iran of close involvement in Hamas violent takeover of Gaza, saying Teheran funded the group and trained hundreds of their gunmen. The intelligence chief, Tawfiq Tirawi, said the battle for Gaza earlier this month was carefully orchestrated. "It was a joint program with Iran," he said.
On Saturday, Hamas hardliner Mahmoud Zahar was quoted as telling a German news magazine that he had personally carried $42 million in cash from Iran across the Gaza-Egypt border. More...

The Threat to Lebanon - Joseph Hitti

Recapture of the Philadelphi Route Is Proposed to stop the Hamas Horror Show from Moving forward

More and more Israeli commentators are frankly admitting that Israel’s pull-out from Gaza in the summer of 2005 was an open invitation to the forces of radical Islam to set up house in the defenseless territory. A former Israeli national security adviser Gen (ret.) Giora Eiland argues now that the influx of tons of smuggled weapons and explosives into Gaza Strip must be halted at any price. There is a real danger of Hamas importing reinforcements from Syria and Lebanon for its next offensive. Egypt will, as usual, stand aside. Eiland was the only defense official at the time to oppose disengagement as a recipe for bringing Iran and al Qaeda to Israel’s borders. Having been proved correct, he now proposes to limit the damage by recapturing the Philadelphi route and the southern outskirts of Palestinian Rafah, flatten the houses there and evict 15,000-20,000 people. This option would give Israel the chance to start combating Hamas at a point from which the IDF enjoys a position of strength. The Philadelphi route offers that point. More...

The Pakistan Connection

The little-noticed arrests of three men allegedly planning U.S. attacks renews questions about the country’s tolerance of terrorists. The international media barely noticed when Pakistani authorities recently picked up three foreign jihadis, including two German passport holders, in the remote town of Taftan near the Iranian border. But the arrests are being taken seriously by Western intelligence agencies.
The suspects were allegedly carrying sophisticated satellite phones and traveling through a lawless region known as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism.
the suspects may have been planning to cross into Iran on their way to Western Europe —or even the United States—to act as potential “muscle” in possible terror attacks.The remote border areas of Pakistan—not Iraq—remain the prime point of origin for terror threats to Western countries, U.S. officials say. More...

Growing Iran-Saudi ties

Iran's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Mohammad Hosseini said on Tuesday that enemies of Islam are not happy with growing trend of bilateral ties between the two countries. Hosseini was speaking in a meeting with Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayif bin Abdul-Aziz as he pointed to conspiracies hatched by enemies. "There are hands at work to inculcate wrong and incorrect news to distress minds of regional states about the Islamic Republic of Iran.
He added Iran and Saudi Arabia have enjoyed growing ties during recent months, saying, "The two countries have enormous cultural and historical potentials and commonalties which can lead to establishment of tranquility and strengthening of the Islamic world." Hosseini stated that a recent visit by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Riyadh opened a new chapter in mutual relations, stressing, "Continued Iran-Saudi ties will be in the best interest of the Islamic world." More..

Digital terrorism

Digital Terrorism and Hate 2007 is the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s newly released ninth annual, interactive report exposing terrorism and hate on the Internet. Highlights include powerful terrorist videos that recruit young people into the horrific culture of death and Hate on Demand -- two flash movies tracing the evolution of how hate and terror groups have manipulated and leveraged the web to promote their agendas.
The Wiesenthal Center is distributing this unique, timely and impactful interactive report to government leaders, elected officials, law enforcement anti-terrorist agencies, community and web activists and the media.

Nuclear reactor secrets revealed

Instructions on how to build a nuclear reactor have been revealed from five sealed envelopes that have lain hidden for almost 70 years. The documents were sent to the UK's Royal Society for safekeeping by James Chadwick, discoverer of the neutron, during World War II. He felt their contents, which described cutting-edge science, were far too sensitive to publish at the time. The documents detail experiments on nuclear fission, covering the components needed to make a nuclear reactor, how to create plutonium from uranium, and methods to stabilise nuclear chain reactions. More...

Hamas Completes Gaza Takover, Fatah Men Flee to Egypt

Hamas continued its campaign of destroying Fatah in Gaza and killings its leading officials. Hamas terrorists fired mortar shells and rockets at the three remaining Fatah compounds in Gaza City – those of the PA’s Preventive Security Service, Intelligence Service and the Presidential Guard, as well as Fatah chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s main compound. Hamas said it was in control of the Preventative Security compound and would be holding Friday's Islamic prayers in Abbas's former office. In Rafiah, Hamas blew up the Fatah headquarters and declared it had taken over the town. Fatah was beaten so badly that Egyptian reports said 40 PA officers broke through the Gaza-Egypt border fence and fled to Sinai for safety. The Hamas-affiliated Popular Resistance Committee announced Thursday that it had taken control of the border to prevent weapons smuggling (to Fatah) and mass emigration by local Gazans. More...

Hamas to convert Palestinian Security HQ into mosque

Hamas victory could be an opportunity for Israel - By Calev Ben-Dor

Al-Qaeda targets France

Nicolas Sarkozy faces a new challenge to the security of his nation from some old foes: Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda movement. One of Al Qaeda's top priorities in the last year has been to create a franchise in Algeria to serve as a node for jihad in North Africa and throughout the Maghrebi diaspora in Western Europe. Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, negotiated with the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat for two years or more on the terms and conditions for having the group join the movement. But Zawahiri has made clear that it is France that's the major target. In announcing Al Qaeda's new Maghrebi franchise on Sept. 11, 2006, Zawahiri declared that it would be "a source of chagrin, frustration and sadness for the apostates [of the regime in Algeria], the treacherous sons of France," and he urged the group to become "a bone in the throat of the American and French crusaders."According to media reports, in February 2005, for example, the French domestic intelligence agency estimated that the group had about 5,000 sympathizers and militants in France, centered on 500 hard-core individuals. More...

Al-Qaeda's new African alliance

FBI's Mueller: Al-Qaeda Has Intent to Use Nuclear Weapons

Security experts meet on preventing nuclear terrorism

Suspected al-Qaida bombers toppled the towering minarets of Samarra's revered Shiite shrine

The attack stoked fears of an upsurge in intra-Muslim violence. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government rushed to contain Shiite wrath against Sunnis, clamping a curfew on Baghdad and asking for U.S. troop reinforcements in Samarra, 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of here, and for a heightened U.S. military alert in the capital.
But sketchy reports of sectarian strife began to come in: Police told of at least four Sunni mosques in Baghdad and south of here attacked by arsonists and bombers, and of a smaller Shiite shrine bombed north of here. More...

Iran: Porn movie producers to get death penalty under new law

The Iranian parliament Wednesday gave the final green light to a law declaring producers of porn videos and films as "the earth's corrupt" and thus applying to them the capital punishment under the Islamic Republic's interpretation of Sharia law. Under the new law, anyone distributing pornographic material can be sentenced to a fine of up to 16,000 euros while owners of a porn video or film risk up to 76 lashings. More...

Civil War in Gaza

More than 100 Arabs killed by Arabs in last three days, mortar shells at Abu Mazen's office, and a rocket at Hamas PM Haniye's home, what has until now been known as "violence" is now widely being called, even in Gaza, all-out civil war. The fighting in Gaza is now in its latest and most severe round since it broke out well over a year ago. More...

In Saudi Arabia, a view from behind the veil

Megan K. Stack - The hem of my heavy Islamic cloak trailed over floors that glistened like ice. I walked faster, my eyes fixed on a familiar, green icon. I hadn't seen a Starbucks in months, but there it was, tucked into a corner of a fancy shopping mall in the Saudi capital. After all those bitter little cups of sludgy Arabic coffee, here at last was an improbable snippet of home — caffeinated, comforting, American.I wandered into the shop, filling my lungs with the rich wafts of coffee. The man behind the counter gave me a bemused look; his eyes flickered. More...

Tehran's Secret 'Department 9000'

President Bush said last week he expects a "bloody" summer in Iraq. What he didn't say is that a growing covert war between the United States and Iran may be one reason the conflict is escalating. U.S. intelligence has identified the principal unit behind Tehran's efforts to supply Shia insurgent cells in Iraq. It is a supersecret group called Department 9000, which is part of the elite Quds Force of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. More...

PC brigade ban pin-ups on RAF jets - in case they offend women and Muslims

Nose art enjoyed another surge in popularity during the 1991 and 2003 Gulf Wars, when risque images appeared on many British warplanes. But the decision to ban the images followed a visit by glamour models to southern Afghanistan before Christmas. During the trip they signed paintings of themselves on RAF aircraft. Commanders decided the images were sexist and insisted there was no place for them in the modern armed forces. There was also concern that they could cause offence in a muslim country where until 2001 all women were forced to wear the head-to-toe burkha in public. More...

Ismail Khan in Shindand

While Herat province is the only one in Afghanistan to have uninterrupted power supply, electricity is not available in Shindand. The legendary Afghan warrior against the Soviet resistance, Ismail Khan, a Tajik, was ousted as governor of Herat and as a token gesture made minister of energy. He now makes sure that his Pashtun adversary in Shindand is kept in the dark.

"Every time our opponents, especially Ismail Khan, spread stories that Shindand is full of Pakistanis and Chechens - but with no evidence - NATO carries out a bombardment, and those who are killed are Afghans”, says Haji Nasru, the strongman of the Shindand district. More...

Iran forces the issue in Afganistán

Iraq: Al-Qaeda being squeezed in the capital

A fierce battle between local Sunni residents and al-Qaeda insurgents in an outlying Baghdad neighbourhood this week is evidence that moves to isolate the terror group by other Sunnis are taking hold even in the capital. According to a detailed report on the Washington Post on Friday a battle this week in the western Amiriyah area has claimed at least 28 lives. It quoted the local mayor Mohammed Abdul Khaliq as saying that residents, alienated by the indiscriminate violence of its fellow Sunnis, rose up to force al-Qaeda out.The microcosm mirrors what is happening in the western provinces, especially al-Anbar and Diyala, where Sunni tribes have united in an anti-Qaeda alliance. "I think this is going to be the end of the al-Qaeda presence here," mayor Abdul Khaliq told the Washington Post. He said that the fierce fighting Wednesday and Thursday began over accusations that al-Qaeda in Iraq had executed Sunnis without reason.

Taliban uses weapons made in China, Iran

Sophisticated new weapons, including Chinese anti-aircraft missiles as well as items made in Iran, are reaching Taliban forces in Afghanistan, according to government officials and other sources. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said during a visit to Kabul yesterday that there was no evidence as yet that Tehran government officials are involved in shipping weapons to the country for use against U.S. and NATO forces. He did not comment on the appearance in the country of Chinese anti-aircraft weapons, evidence of which was provided to The Washington Times. A set of photographs was provided depicting Taliban insurgents showing off new supplies of Chinese-made HN-5 shoulder-fired missiles. The weapons, similar in design to Russian Strela-2 missiles and in use with China's People's Liberation Army since the early 1990s, are limited in range, speed and altitude, but effective against helicopters and low-flying airplanes.

Document: Iran Caught Red-Handed Shipping Arms to Taliban

Striking at the Taliban's Heart

The Right Fight

Jacob Laksin - Few today are receptive to the idea of a “war on terror.” From a war-weary public, to a political commentariat impatient with such supposedly simple-minded slogans, the country seems determined to move beyond the notion that the fighting underway in Iraq is in any significant way connected to the global terrorist threat to national security. So it is to President Bush’s credit that he used his commencement address at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy this week to reacquaint a disaffected nation with a stubborn fact: Iraq remains the central theater in the fight against al-Qaeda and its jihadist brethren. More...

Turkey seizes Iranian arms in Syria-bound train

Turkish authorities seized weapons hidden among construction materials on a Syria-bound train from Iran after Kurdish guerrillas bombed and derailed the train. The cargo was discovered when authorities checked containers on the train, which was attacked by separatist Kurdish guerrillas on May 25 near the town of Genc in southeastern Bingol province, Prosecutor Ismail Sari told reporters Wednesday. The bomb attack derailed seven of the train's cars, Sari said. Authorities were investigating the incident, and would also check cargo on the rest of the train, he said.
The Iranian Embassy issued a statement Wednesday denying that the weapons belonged to Iran, and said the allegations were being made "by circles" aiming to disrupt Turkey's close relations with Iran.