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Crisis File, November 22, 2006
OSINT - Powered Offsite Daily Report
Philippines says seizes lunch-box bombs in south
more - Philippine security forces seized several improvised bombs hidden inside thermos and lunch boxes in a hideout abandoned by Muslim militants on a remote southwestern island, an army spokesman said on Tuesday. Major Eugene Batara said experts defused the crude bombs minutes after soldiers stormed a cluster of thatched...
US, EU oppose atomic aid for Iran at tense IAEA meet
more - Vienna: Western powers urged the UN nuclear agency on Monday to deny Iran's request for help with a plant that could yield plutonium for atom bombs, but Washington voiced no objection to seven other projects presented by Tehran. The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation governing board has repeatedly asked not to pursue the Arak heavy water reactor project...
US says Iran probably has biological warfare weapons
more - Geneva: Iran probably has germ warfare weapons, North Korea may have developed them and Syria could have carried out research into such banned weaponry, the United States told an arms control conference yesterday. Addressing the opening session of the sixth review conference of the Convention on Biological Weapons (BWC), US delegation head John C. Rood said those countries were of particular concern given their 'support for terrorism'...
Italian Spy Chief Out; Investigated In Abduction
more - An Italian spy chief lost his job Monday as government investigators continued to probe his role in the kidnapping of a Muslim cleric by the CIA more than three years ago. Nicolo Pollari, director of the military intelligence agency known as Sismi, was removed from his position by the government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi as part of a broader shake-up of the country's spy services...
This is How Iraq Can Be Saved
more - Disintegration of the Soviet Empire and Yugoslavia at the end of the cold war underlined the historical fact that the artificial states always need a coercive authority to keep them from unraveling. And now Iraq is going to prove that there cannot be any exception to the rule. Free of Saddam Hussein's autocratic rule, Shiites, Kurds and the Sunnis that have been coerced to live together as a nation since 1920 are doing everything within their power...
Holland Nears Vote On Burqa Ban
more - Last week Melanie Philips the author of "Londinistan, How Britain is Creating a Terror State Within" told an audience at the Middle East Forum that "wearing the niqab and burka was a political act used by Muslims to show that they did not want to integrate or intend to observe our laws by sending a message that their loyalty is only to Allah."...
Top Shiite cleric dies in Iran
more - Iraq's top Shiite clerics announced on Monday the death of Iran-based Grand Ayatollah Jawad Tabrizi. He was 82. Tabrizi, a prominent religious leader for many Shiites worldwide, died Monday in the Iranian holy city of Qom some 130 kilometers (82 miles) south of the capital Tehran, the clerics said in statements released by their offices in Najaf.
Russia: Reaction to Chinese Effort to Blind US Satellite with Powerful Laser
more - General of the Army Aleksey Moskovskiy, Deputy Minister of Defense, stated, in early November, that, as a result of the fulfillment of the State Arms Program for the Period 2007-2015, the strategic nuclear forces will be renewed by 50 percent. He thinks that the "effect of deterrence will be considerably increased". Meanwhile, the Israeli newspaper, "Haaretz", expressed concern about a Chinese-American space incident...
Iran cleric offers reward for Azeri writer's death
more - An Iranian cleric has offered his house as a reward to anyone who kills an Azeri writer he says insulted the Prophet Mohammad, the Fars News Agency reported. Last week, an Azeri court jailed journalist Rafika Tagi, who wrote an article in Azerbaijan's Senet newspaper illustrated by cartoons of the Prophet. The cartoons were originally published in Denmark and caused an outcry in the Muslim world earlier this year...
Rome's Ciampino airport closed for bomb threat
more - Rome's Ciampino airport was closed Tuesday for a bomb threat, an Italian
news report said. The airport, which mainly operates low-cost airlines,
was closed shortly before 9 a.m. (0800GMT) after officials received an
anonymous phone call saying that an explosive device was on a cargo plane,
the ANSA news agency
reported...
Philippines Terror Groups Linked to Drug Trade
more - Philippine and United States authorities have linked terrorist groups in the southern Philippines, such as the Abu Sayyaf, to illegal drug trading in south east Asia. Our reporter Shirley Escalante says that drug enforcement officials in the southern Philippines believe the trade is a new strategy of terrorist groups to raise money to fund their activities...
Thai prime minister says southern insurgents raise money through restaurants in Malaysia
more - Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said Tuesday that Islamic insurgents in southern Thailand raise funds through a network of restaurants and food stalls in neighboring Malaysia that collects donations and extortion money. Surayud said the funding network operates under the name Tom Yam Koong, which is also the name for a spicy shrimp soup that is a staple of Thai cuisine...
Gadhafi: U.N. Darfur Force Is Ruse to Grab Sudan's Oil
more - Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi Sunday accused the West of trying to grab Sudan's oil wealth with its plan to send U.N. troops to Darfur and urged Khartoum to reject them. "Western countries and America are not busying themselves out of sympathy for the Sudanese people or for Africa but for oil and for the return of colonialism to the African continent," he said...
Merger of North African al-Qaeda Terrorists
more - Al-Qaeda has instructed the Algerian terror formation the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) to take under its command other groups such as Morocco's Islamic Combat Group, several extremist Tunisian groups and Libya's Islamic Group, forming a single terror network for North Africa and Europe, Catalan daily El Periodico reports, citing unnamed Spanish anti-terror intelligence sources...
Hizbullah Deputy Admits Iran Funding Hizbullah
more - Hizbullah number two man Sheikh Naim Kassem admitted Tuesday that Iran is providing major funding for the Islamist group. Kassem told the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper that Iran recently gave Hizbullah $300 million to cover the damages suffered by the Islamist group during its month-long war with Israel last summer...
Al-Qaeda's number two in Yemen to be freed
more - Al-Qaeda's number two man in Yemen is expected to be released within a month, despite the fact the Criminal Court of Appeals just supported the initial ruling that sentenced Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal Abu Assem to 37 months in jail, said Yemeni authorities. According to the judgment issued by Judge Sa'eed al-Qata'a, insufficient evidence was presented by the prosecution...
Poisoned spy 'had death threats'
more - Alexander Litvinenko is being treated in a London hospital. A friend of a former Russian spy seriously ill in a London hospital said both had received e-mail threats days before his poisoning. Italian Mario Scaramella told a Rome press conference that he met Alexander Litvinenko the day he fell ill. Toxicologist Professor John Henry earlier said that ex-KGB agent Mr Litvinenko may have been poisoned with a radioactive substance...