The Role of the Quds Force in the Revolutionary Guard

While the Guard itself is heavily involved in businesses, internal repression and security, the al Quds (Jeruselem) Force is a much small cadre of senior Guard leaders who can call on special Guard units if it needs boots on the ground activities.
According to U.S. and European intelligence friends, the Quds Force is the group that made the decision to allow senior al Qaeda operatives into Iran, as well as Osama bin Laden’s son, Sa’ad. The group also allowed many family member of al Qaeda to exit Afghanistan through Iran in 2001, including at least one of bin Laden’s wives. The Force seems to be the interlocutor between the Iranian military apparatus and al Qaeda, a relationship that has waxed and waned over time.
It is also the Quds Force, which controls Iran’s military acquisitions and determines what military hardware goes to both the Shi’ite militias in Iraq as well as what goes to Hezbollah in Lebanon. This role as the gatekeeper makes targeting the multiple front groups operated by the Force potentially important, depending on the level of intelligence that exists on its financial structure. More...

The Iran Dossier: Iran´s proxy war against the US in Iraq

Cold Encounter Between Turkish President, Commander-In-Chief Abdullah Gul and Generals

On his first day in office the new Turkish President Abdullah Gul attended the graduation ceremony at the Gulhane Military Academy for Medicine and for the first time as president, met with the military commanders. Before Gul entered accompanied by the Chief of Staff it was announced that everybody should stand for the president. President Gul presented the first diploma to the valedictorian, Speaker Toptan to the second-best student, PM Erdogan to the third and Chief of General Staff General Buyukanit to the fourth student. Mainstream Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that while the applause during President Gul’s presentation was weak, there was a loud and long round of applause for General Buyukanit when he got up to present the fourth diploma.
The Chief of Staff did not salute the President in military style when Gul got up to go to the podium, contrary to the custom. The generals looked solemn and thoughtful during the ceremony.

How to Join Al-Qaeda, Form a Jihad Cell, and Select a Western Target

On August 26, Islamist websites posted an item titled "How to Join Al-Qaeda." It is not clear when the item was written; it was produced by the website Al-Thabitoun 'Ala Al-'Ahd, which is affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Egypt and is currently inactive.
The following are excerpts from the item:
"You feel that you want to carry a weapon, fight, and kill the occupiers, and that it is our duty to call for jihad as much as to call for prayer... All that is required is a firm personal decision to fulfill this obligation, and participation in jihad and the resistance...
"Do you really have to meet Osama bin Laden in person in order to become a jihad fighter? Do you have to be recognized by Al-Qaeda as one of its members to become a jihad fighter? If Al-Qaeda commanders should be killed, would the jihad be eliminated?
"The answers to these questions are the following: I don't have to meet Osama bin Laden to become a jihad fighter. Moreover, there is no need to meet even one jihad fighter to become one. Neither do I need recognition from Al-Qaeda...
"As the first step, imagine that Al-Qaeda does not exist and that you are interested [in waging] jihad - what would you do in this case?... If you know any young people - whether one, two, or more - in your area, mosque, or university who are as dedicated and enthusiastic about jihad as you are, come to an understanding with them, and together form a cell whose objective is to help Islam and only Islam...
"At first, your cell should have no more than five members, all absolutely trustworthy... The cell must have a commander and a shura council... The commander must clearly realize that he is Osama bin Laden to the cell members...
More...

Top IDF officers: Terrorist groups have learned our defense systems

Netiv Ha'asara resident Micha Biton told Army Radio on Sunday morning that contrary to what the defense establishment might say, local residents feel that the security barrier does not actually provide much security. "All of us here have warned and spoken about this, that it's just a matter of time, and something has to be done. The defense establishment, however, like a mantra that repeats itself, has told us not to worry, 'it's all under control.' All kinds of people come to us saying that we're not protected - 'You think this wall protects you, but it doesn't,'" Biton said. More...

Israel’s Armed Forces Undermanned, Under-equipped for War

Al Qaeda Dislocates US Security Plan by Genocidal Massacre

This time, Al Qaeda in Iraq selected a tiny, isolated, unprotected community of some 150,000 Yazidi Kurds, persecuted by Sunni and Shiite Muslims alike, as the victims of its barbarity. Tuesday, Aug. 14, within minutes, three oil tankers driven by suicide bombers had murdered at least 500 people, injured more than 1,000 and transformed an ancient indigenous Iraqi sect into a humanitarian problem.
Al Qaeda timed its brutal attack for maximum disruption of the latest American operations in the framework of the US-Iraqi overall Phantom Strike offensive to secure Iraq against insurgents and terrorists. More...

Iran on anti-racism committee

Despite its numerous calls for Israel's destruction, and repeated denials of the Holocaust, Iran has been selected by the United Nations for a leading position in a committee that will plan the 2009 UN World Conference against Racism.
The planning committee, which will meet for the first time in Geneva on August 27, will be made up of an inner circle of 20 UN member-states, to be headed by Libya. More...

Armed robots to go to war in Iraq

American forces have deployed robots equipped with automatic weapons in Iraq, the first battlefield use of machines capable of waging war by remote control. A US division of British defence company QinetiQ revealed that the 3rd Infantry Division, which is based south of Baghdad, purchased three Talon Sword robots for operations in Iraq. Sword robots are a modified version of track-wheeled bomb disposal devices in use around the world. Soldiers operate the robots with a specially modified laptop, complete with joystick controls and a ’kill button’ that terminates its functions if it goes awry. According to the industry magazine, Defence News the US military has 80 remote controlled armoured robots on order but funding constraints has delayed delivery. More...

Elite IDF Soldiers Refuse Hevron Expulsion Orders

Two officers and 10 soldiers were sentenced to 28 days in an army jail for refusing to participate in the expulsion of Jews from their homes in the former Hevron marketplace.
The original group of 30 soldiers, all hesder yeshiva members of the elite Duchifat combat unit, balked when they were given their orders to replace Border Police officers during the expulsion. They told their commander before boarding an army bus bound for duty in Judea and Samaria that they would refuse to carry out the orders.
In addition to their 28-day sentence in a military jail, the battalion commander, Col. Itai Virov, also demoted the soldiers from serving in a combat unit. The sentences are lighter than the active jail time called for by many left-wing politicians. More...

The Martyrs No One Cares About

By Michelle Malkin - The blood of innocent Christian missionaries spills on Afghan sands. The world watches and yawns. The United Nations offers nothing more than a formal expression of "concern." Where is the global uproar over the human rights abuses unfolding before our eyes?
The Christian missionaries are peaceful believers in Christ on short-term medical and humanitarian missions. Seventeen of the 23 hostages are females. Most of them are nurses who provide social services and relief. Two men, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min and 42-year-old Pastor Bae Hyeong-gyu, have already been shot to death and dumped in the name of Allah. These are true practitioners of a religion of peace, not the hate-mongers with bombs and AK-47s strapped to their chests who slay instead of pray their way to martyrdom.
An estimated 16,000 Korean mission workers risk their lives across the globe -- from Africa to the Middle East, China and North Korea. More...

The Enemy Within: Islamist/Jihadist Websites

One can hardly imagine the growth of radical Islam and its jihadi organizations in recent years without the immense reach, impact and capabilities of the Internet. The threat posed by Islamist websites has recently been demonstrated by three cases: the case of the New Jersey group that planned a terrorist attack on Fort Dix; the planned terrorist attack on JFK; and the attempted car bombings in the UK. According to media reports, the terrorists in all three cases were inspired by jihadist websites. There were also two recent court cases in Britain and Switzerland in which terrorists were convicted of using Internet sites to promote terrorist activities.
The jihadist terrorist organizations utilize the Internet for two main purposes: for operational needs, and for indoctrination and da'wa (propagation of Islam). More...

New Al Qaeda Web Ad Threatens 'Big Surprise'

The Blotter - A new al Qaeda propaganda ad, headlined "Wait for the Big Surprise" and featuring a digitally altered photograph of President George Bush and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf standing in front of a burning White House, was posted on the Internet. The brief clip from al Qaeda's "as Sahab" propaganda arm juxtaposes the doctored photo of Bush and Musharraf along with previously seen images of al Qaeda's top leadership -- Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahri and Adam Gadahn -- as well as a photo of an SUV in a motorcade. There is no additional information provided in the ad, and it closes with the words, "Soon -- God willing," written across the screen and repeated several times.

Why is the American Government Releasing Guantanamo Prisoners?

By Dick Morris - The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Abdullah Mehsud blew himself up at his hide-out in the town of Zhob in southwestern Baluchistan Province in Pakistan, rather than surrender to government forces. But what was he doing commanding Taliban troops in the first place? Mehsud had been captured by American forces in northern Afghanistan in December 2001 and sent to the Guantanamo Detention Center.
The reason he was able to resume his duties as a Taliban commander is because we released him from Guantanamo in March 2004.
Why on earth did we free Mehsud in the first place, permitting him to go back to his day job as a guerilla and terrorist leader? The answer is as obvious as it is depressing: pressure from human rights activists and their journalistic accomplices throughout the world. More...

Pace University: Man throws Koran into toilet. Police throw man in jail

It's now officially a mindcrime in the United States to violate Islamic law. At Pace University, a man has been arrested and will face "hate crime" charges for throwing a Koran into a toilet, after the university caved in to demands from Muslim students.
Stanislav Shmulevich of Brooklyn was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment, both hate crimes, police said. It was unclear if he was a student at the school. A message left at the Shmulevich home was not immediately returned.
The Islamic holy book was found in a toilet at Pace's lower Manhattan campus by a teacher on Oct. 13. A student discovered another book in a toilet on Nov. 21, police said.The school was accused by Muslim students of not taking the incident seriously enough at first. Pace classified the first desecration of the holy book as an act of vandalism, but university officials later reversed themselves and referred the incident to the New York Police Department's hate crimes unit. More...

Iran rebuilds Lebanon to boost Hezbollah

One year after the war with Israel, triggered by Hezbollah's cross-border rocket attacks, Lebanon's roads are still in desperate need of repair. But the task of reconstruction has become doubly important. The rebuilding now taking place across the country is an intensely political race for the support of Lebanon's people. Almost unnoticed by the outside world, Iran has seized the chance to win popular approval.
"From the people of Iran to the people of Lebanon", reads the slogan carried on countless hoarding, all trumpeting achievements like "200 projects" and "510 km of roads". So far, Iran has rebuilt 200 schools, 150 places of worship, 30 clinics and 25 bridges. The official budget for this year is about £60 million.
Hezbollah runs most of the local councils in the areas where the projects operate. Here, construction work is given to local companies - but only those managed by Hezbollah supporters. More...

U.S. Air Force Prepares for War in Cyberspace

The United States Air Force is actively seeking "cyberspace attack scenarios," according to documents posted on a government Web site for contractors. The attack strategies should "disrupt, deny, degrade, destroy or deceive an adversary's information system," according to the Air Force Requests for Information (RFIs) obtained by ABC News. Experts say so much of military logistics are dependent on computer systems that any kind of disruption would give the attacker an advantage.
Earlier this year Estonia claimed that state-sponsored Russian hackers had attacked official Web sites in retaliation for the removal of a Soviet-era monument in its capital, Tallinn. Government e-mail and private online banking had to be shut down temporarily while telecommunications companies and news organizations were also affected. More...

U.S. voices frustrations with Saudis over Iraq

During a high-level meeting in Riyadh in January, Saudi officials confronted a top American envoy with documents that seemed to suggest that Iraq's prime minister could not be trusted. One purported to be an early alert from the prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr warning him to lie low during the coming American troop increase, which was aimed in part at Mr. Sadr's militia. Another document purported to offer proof that Mr. Maliki was an agent of Iran.
The American envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, immediately protested to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, contending that the documents were forged. But, said administration officials who provided an account of the exchange, the Saudis remained skeptical, adding to the deep rift between America's most powerful Sunni Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, and its Shiite neighbor, Iraq.
Now, Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia's counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia. More...

Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime against God and Humanity

Old habits die hard: A yellow cross fixed by German NATO to the door of a Serbian house to show that Christians live there.

Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime against God and Humanity by Iseult Henry. The American Council for Kosovo says this about the book:
At a time when the Western powers -- foremost among them the United States -- prepare what they hope will be an endgame for their predetermined solution to the Serbian question, now comes a searing ray of truth that cuts through the fog of lies in which Kosovo has been shrouded.
While Western policymakers (the U.S., EU, UN, NATO, OSCE, etc.) delude themselves that they are buying the goodwill of the Muslim world by the sacrifice of a small Christian community in Kosovo, the perpetrators know this is yet another step toward Islamic dominance of all Europe. This is a struggle for the soul and future not just for Kosovo, not just for Serbia, but for an entire continent.

Taliban moving closer to Kabul

Recent kidnappings and other attacks indicate the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is moving closer to Kabul. The Christian Science Monitor reported the kidnapping of 23 South Korean aid workers occurred on one of Afghanistan's major highways between Kabul and Kandahar. The insurgency, which resumed in areas bordering Pakistan, is spreading inland. The South Koreans were abducted in Ghazni, which has no border with Pakistan. The Monitor quoted Joanna Nathan, a Kabul-based security analyst for the International Crisis Group, as saying, "Ghazni is important as the gateway to Kabul, and control of that road is very important, both symbolically and practically."

Taleban says hostage talks in sensitive phase

Al Qaeda internal power struggle

While Osama bin Laden has been keeping a low profile—he may be ill, U.S. intel officials say—Zawahiri has moved aggressively to take operational control of the group. In so doing, Zawahiri has provoked a potentially serious ideological split within Al Qaeda over whether he is growing too powerful, and has become obsessed with toppling Musharraf.

Zawahiri's personal jihad has angered Al Qaeda's so-called Libyan faction, which intel officials believe may be led by the charismatic Abu Yahya al-Libi, who made a daring escape from an American high-security lockup at Baghram air base in 2005. The Libyan Islamists, along with bin Laden and other senior Qaeda leaders, would love to see Musharraf gone, too. But they fear that Zawahiri is inviting the Pakistani leader's wrath, prematurely opening up another battlefront.

John Arquilla, an intelligence expert at the Naval Postgraduate School who closely follows radical Islamist traffic, calls it "the battle for Al Qaeda's strategic soul. There is a profound strategic debate over whether to focus on overturning the government in Pakistan ... because that puts them in control of a nuclear capacity." More...

Iraq: al-Qaeda stages military parade in Diyala village

Militants linked to al-Qaeda are reported to have staged a military parade in the village of Miqdadiya, in Diyala province north of Baghdad, to demonstrate their viability in the face of a massive US offensive in the area. Despite the presence of 10,000 US and Iraqi troops in the Sunni-dominated province, more than 250 militants took to the streets in a show of force, the news agency, Voices of Iraq, said. The terrorists marched through the al-Muallimin quarter of Miqdadiya, around 50 kilometres from Baaquba, the capital of the province where militants linked to al-Qaeda have been under attack.They reportedly marched in the streets thrusting their weapons in the air and carrying flags with 'Iraqi Islamic State' inscribed on them. More...

Carlos the Jackal sneers at Al-Qaeda’s ‘amateur’ killers

For two decades until his capture in 1994, Carlos the Jackal murdered, bombed and kidnapped his way to infamy, retaining the title of world’s most dangerous terrorist before Osama Bin Laden stole his crown.
But speaking from the Clairvaux prison in northeast France last week he berated terrorist cells said to have targeted Britain, criticising them for plotting to kill ordinary people. In his first telephone interview with a newspaper, the Venezuelan-born Vladimir Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, 57, said he was saddened by any loss of life in London, where he lived as a young man. He also attacked what he called a lack of professionalism in some cells linked to Al-Qaeda. He condemned Al-Qaeda followers without specific targets, saying: “They are not professionals. They’re not organised. They don’t even know how to make proper explosives or proper detonators.” More...

Iran-made bombs in Afghanistan like those Tehran sends to Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon

US Col. Thomas Kelly reported finding four of the explosively-formed projectiles in Herat near the Iranian border and one a month ago in the capital Kabul. He said Taliban insurgents may have access to the device but may not yet know how to use them.
DEBKAfile reveal that the six Spanish peacekeepers killed in South Lebanon last month were not attacked by a suicide bomber but an early version of the armor-piercing EFP disguised as a rock. This model was developed by Hizballah and widely used with deadly effect against Israeli forces maintaining a security belt in South Lebanon in the 1980s.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in June that "substantial" quantities of Iranian weapons are flowing into Afghanistan and that it was difficult to believe the Iranian government was not aware of it.

Intelligence agencies derailed Lal Masjid deal at last minute?

Pakistani intelligence agencies may have played a role in derailing the Lal Masjid deal by jamming the mobile phone of slain radical cleric Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi when he virtually agreed to the demands of negotiators. A key negotiator has suspected the role of the agencies in bringing the last-minute negotiations with Ghazi to a halt. "After the repeated attempts in getting Ghazi on the phone failed, decision-makers decided to start the operation." More...

Egypt's options when it comes to Hamas' control over Gaza

Hamas' control over the Gaza Strip is posing new challenges for Egypt. The least of these challenges is the concern that Hamas' rule over Gaza would benefit Egypt's banned Islamic movements, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas' control over Gaza brings to Egyptian borders two security threats that have been, for years, kept at bay. Hamas' seizure of Gaza is likely to grant Iran additional access to the core of the Middle East. The cornered Hamas is likely to consolidate its alliance with Iran, which would bring the rising tension between Iran, the United States and Israel closer to Egypt. More...

FBI: Iraqis Being Smuggled Across the Rio Grande

The FBI is investigating an alleged human smuggling operation based in Chaparral, N.M., that agents say is bringing "Iraqis and other Middle Eastern" individuals across the Rio Grande from Mexico. The FBI report, issued last week, says the smuggling organization "used to smuggle Mexicans, but decided to smuggle Iraqi or other Middle Eastern individuals because it was more lucrative." Each individual would be charged a fee of $20,000 to $25,000, according to the report. The people to be smuggled would "gather at a house on the Mexican side of the border" and then cross the Rio Grande into the U.S., the report says. "Unidentified individuals would then transport them to train stations in El Paso, Texas or Belen, New Mexico".Until recently, the United States has kept its doors all but shut to the estimated two million refugees fleeing the violence in Iraq. More...

Usama Bin Laden appears in new video, officials probe authenticity

He himself said ‘By Him in Whose Hands my life is!I would love to attack and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred, then attack again and be martyred.’

Those are the words of Osama Bin Laden in a short clip from a longer As Sahab video obtained by LauraMansfield.com. In the clip, 50 seconds long, Bin Laden says:

The seal of the prophets and all messengers (reference to Prophet Mohammed), prayers and peace be upon him, wished this status. So be alert, be wise and think.What is this status that the best of mankind wished for himself? He wished to be a martyr. He wished upon himself this status. Happy is the one who was chosen by god as a martyr.

The remainder of the video includes various clips showing jihadist fighters reading their final wills, as well as statements from new Al Qaeda in Afghanistan commander Abu Yazid.

Bin Laden’s deputy behind the Red Mosque bloodbath

Al-Qaeda´s leadership secretly directed the Islamic militants whose armed revolt at the Red Mosque in Islamabad ended last week with more than 100 deaths after it was stormed by the Pakistan army.
According to senior intelligence officials, the troops who finally took control discovered letters from Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. They were written to Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz, the brothers who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah.
Government sources said up to 18 foreign fighters --including Uzbeks, Egyptians and several Afghans-- had arrived weeks before the final shootout and set up firing ranges to teach students, including children, how to handle weapons. More...

Signal to Attack? Worries Over Latest al Qaeda Tape

Fearing a possible coded signal to attack, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are studying an unusual pattern of words in the latest audiotape from al Qaeda's No. 2 man, Ayman al Zawahri.
On the tape, posted on the Internet Wednesday, Zawahri repeats one phrase three times at the end of his message: Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.
A new FBI analysis of al Qaeda messages, obtained by the Blotter on ABCNews.com, warns that "continued messages that convey their strategic intent to strike the U.S. homeland and U.S. interests worldwide should not be discounted as merely deceptive noise."
Intelligence analysts are also investigating technical clues that Zawahri's most recent audio message was phoned in via computer phone, using voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

Afghan civilian deaths 'inflated'

The Afghan government and Nato have said publicly that figures for civilian casualties after military action are often exaggerated or fabricated.
Lt-Col Maria Carl gave a press conference alongside the Afghan defence ministry spokesman, Gen Zahir Azimi. Lt-Col Carl said accounts of civilian casualties after military engagements often turned out to be inflated or completely fabricated. She gave recent examples, including village elders' accounts of more than 100 civilian deaths in western Afghanistan a few days ago. Lt-Col Carl said it was now clear that no civilians had died there, saying that in fact foreign and Afghan forces had moved villagers to safety. Gen Azimi from the defence ministry said the Taleban regularly forced villagers to phone media outlets with inflated figures, threatening to behead them if they did not do so. More...

Iraq's Al Qaeda threatens to attack Iran

The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq has given Iran a two-month ultimatum to stop meddling in Iraqi affairs or face all-out war, according to an audiotape posted on the Internet Monday. "We give ... the leaders of Iran a period of two months to stop all forms of support to the rejectionists of Iraq, and stop direct and indirect interference in the affairs of the Islamic state," said a voice attributed to the group's leader Abu Omar Al Baghdadi. The term rejectionists is used by Sunni militant groups to refer to Shiites. "Otherwise, expect a fierce war that will annihilate you, which we have been preparing for over the past four years and just waiting to issue the orders to wage the campaign," the voice said. The tape was posted on a Web site usually used by Islamist militant groups but its authenticity could not be verified. The Islamic State of Iraq is an alliance of Sunni groups led by Al Qaeda in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite Prime Minister Nuri Al Maliki warned late June that Al Qaeda extremists in Iraq had "wide-ranging and dangerous plans" to destabilize neighboring countries. More...