Winds of War: March 24/05

Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Thursday's Winds of War briefings are given by me, Colt, of Eurabian Times.

TOP TOPICS

• Al-Quds al-Arabi says Alistair Crook set up a meeting between Hamas, Hezbollah and PIJ representatives and U.S. notables in Beirut. This would fit with this, a State Department official telling journalists that Hezbollah disarming is "an issue that should be decided by the Lebanese government".

• The Arab world will show solidarity with Syria against further foreign intervention at the Algiers conference. Another bomb in a Christian neighbourhood has killed three people. More on that from Publius Pundit.

• New terrorist training camps are springing up in Iraq, and evidence suggests the trainees include foreigners. But Iraqi and U.S. forces are killing them now.

• Al-Qaeda has released a new document, charmingly titled The Management of Barbarism.

Other Topics Today Include: enrichment to restart; Khamenei: death to America; Shihab-3 breakthrough; Irangeles; Knesset vote on referendum; Britain's Berlin Wall; Hamas martyr week; Abdullah says Hezbollah & Syria help terrorists; Turkish media supports Assad; Medhi murders; 50,000 Iraqi troops ready; A-Q scuba bombers; Panama as a base of operations; UK courts jihadis; GCHQ warns of electronic attack; Dutch MPs "captive"; exposure of jihadis attacked by Belgian gov't, Muslims; Karachi protest against Musharraf; Indonesia to outlaw JI; North Korea says they've built more nukes; teenage bombmaker caught; GSPC threatens, seethes; U.S. official shot in Darfur; and much more.

IRAN

• Uranium enrichment is to start up - again.

• The mullahs even want developed countries to help them out with their nuclear program.

• Iran has decided to build a secret nuclear university.

• The IAEA asked the U.S. to give Iran a security guarantee.

• The U.S. says no.

• Ali Khamenei says: Death to America should be said before reading any chapter of the Koran. He's even ready to battle to the death. I guess he needs more trade incentives.

• Iran has achieved a breakthrough in the Shihab-3 project. ME Newsline also reports that the U.S. and Israel are co-operating in building an anti-missile screen.

• Most Americans agree that Iran is a threat, but 69% would oppose invasion and 64% would oppose bombing.

• An Iranian reformist says U.S. pressure to stop the nuclear program boosts Islamists.

• Irangeles - a huge ex-pat community of Iranians, and a source of intelligence for U.S. security agencies.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• The Knesset will vote on a referendum on retreat next Monday.

• The British consulate in Jerusalem is building an apartheid wall around the compound, separating farmers from their land.

• It's Hamas martyr week!.

• King Abdullah of Jordan says that Syria and Hezbollah are encouraging attacks on Israel, but Jordan is making great efforts to stop jihadis getting in to Iraq.

• After four Israeli soldiers were shot and wounded in Ramallah, the IDF neglected to set up a roadblock between Ramallah and Jericho. Or, to re-phrase, the checkpoint was removed as part of the Jericho handover. Which means the terrorists can not only escape to a PLO controlled town, but enlist in their 'police force'.

• Tul Karem has been handed over to the PLO.

• The PLO says: one gun per terrorist (wink). Hamas says: sure (wink).

• Turkey's media is expressing solidarity with Syria.

• Turkish Hezbollah is back.

THE GULF

• The Carnival of the Liberated is up. Of particular interest (in a bad way) are the murder-sprees of the resurgent Medhi army.

• Eight A-Q terrorists in Yemen have admitted to planning to attack Western embassies.

• The Iraqi army has 50,000 capable troops. Debka reports that the Iraqi army has just won their first unassisted victory in Mosul.

• Qatar says they doubt the authenticity of a message from the 'Levant Army', who claimed the Doha theatre bombing.

THE AMERICAS

• Who's funding the terrorists? Annie Jacobsen says we are.

• Newsweek looks at the threat of A-Q scuba divers.

• 103 members of MS-13 have been arrested across the U.S..

• An gun runner who acquired .50 calibre sniper rifles for the KLA. He is shocked at how easy it is to buy guns such as these in the U.S., and a former ATF official agrees.

• Deroy Murdock has a (brief) look at Canada's handling of terrorism, and what it might mean for the United States.

• Al-Qaeda might be making Panama in to a base of operations.

EUROPE

• Just what the hell is going on in Spain?

• Britain's ambassador to Israel says the U.K. is trying to convince the E.U. to freeze Hezbollah funds.

• The U.K. is courting jihadis. Not al-Qaeda, just Jamaat-i-Islami affiliates and the Muslim Brotherhood.

• A Spanish national believed involved in 3/11 has been arrested in the U.K. on an extradition warrant issued by the Spanish government.

• Not news per se, but an Israeli diplomat had an interesting exchange with an old MI6 hand.

• A former GCHQ head says there is real concern about an electronic al-Qaeda attack on Britain.

• Geert Wilders is living in a prison cell. Ayaan Hirsi Ali sleeps at a naval base. Wilders has this to say: The people who threaten us are walking around free and we are the captives..

• Dominique de Villepin and French Muslim leaders have set up a 'Foundation for Islam'. It won't recieve any public money, but will rely on private donations. Financial transparency will be assured by the state-owned Caisse des Depots et Consignations bank.

• The journalist mentioned last week who went undercover in Brussels is under attack by the Belgian authorities and Muslims.

ASIA & AUSTRALASIA

• Tens of thousands of Pakistani Islamists have rallied in (you guessed it) Karachi against President Musharraf.

• Indonesia is going to outlaw JI. The country's anti-terror chief said this would help them arrest terrorists. The Bali bombing was 2 1/2 years ago.

• Malaysia is quietly releasing a half-dozen terrorists. Rest easy, though. A financier of the Bali bombing has "shown remorse over his past actions and militant-like views." Phew!

• North Korea says they've built more nuclear weapons to combat a U.S. invasion.

• Bombs and explosives have been discovered by Filipino authorities, following the arrest of an Abu Sayyaf-linked bombmaker.

• A teenaged bomb-maker and -trainer of Abu Sayyaf, and linked to JI, has been arrested.

• An eight-year old suicide bomber? The police say unknown militants threw a grenade at an army camp, but it went in to the school compound (?), but a defence spokesman says the grenade was in the child's school-bag. Six children were injured.

AFRICA

• The GSPC is threatening the 'apostate rulers' of Algeria with the usual bloodthirsty stuff, for coming under the influence of the 'Ziono-Christian alliance'.

• A U.S. official has been shot in Darfur. State says it's too early to say whether she was shot because she was an American.

• A British diplomat says the U.K. will help implement a peace deal in southern Sudan.

TRANSNATIONAL

• Kofi Annan says we must define terrorism. The definition he favours is: any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or noncombatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act."

And to finish: The Babe Theory of Political Movements.

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