Iran & the Middle East

• On Saturday, 50 armed Fatah members took over a Palestinian government office in Gaza to demand jobs. On Sunday, masked gunmen stormed the U.N. Club in Gaza City and set off an explosion in the drinking hall.

• On Friday, Gaza policemen took over the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza strip in protest of ongoing violence and the killing of a fellow officer. A group of three Brits, abducted from the crossing on Wednesday were released on Saturday.

• On Sunday, Israel responded to rocket attacks from Gaza with their own artillery strikes, killing two terrorists. The engagement comes as a "ceasefire" from Hamas and Islamic Jihad expired.

• European Union election monitors will span out over Gaza and the West Bank beginning today. The move comes while security concerns remain heightened over a recent string of kidnappings, including an Italian peace activist kidnapped on Sunday for a period of time before being abandoned. Some reports are crediting Palestinian police with freeing the hostage in a raid.

• Mahmoud Abbas is rejecting bids from other Fatah members to withdraw from the coming elections. According to a poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, the ruling Fatah Party has a ten point lead over Hamas in the parliamentary elections.

• Regime Change Iran cites a report in the Turkish Press saying that CIA director Porter Goss informed Ankara that Iran already has nuclear weapons during a recent visit. According to the reports, Goss also raised the issue of Iranian support of al Qaeda.

• Reports out of Iran indicate that 9 Iranian soldiers may have been kidnapped by a Sunni minority group near the border of Pakistan. Jundollah (God's Soldiers) claimed responsibility and told an Arab television station that they wanted the release of 16 members of their group currently jailed.

• Israeli soldiers hunting for wanted members of Islamic Jihad in Samaria, came under fire on Friday and one injury was reported.

• Details have emerged on how Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, a top al Qaeda operative wanted in the 2003 bombings in Istanbul, faked his own death in Fallujah in November 2004. Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara says "The al-Saqa case clearly shows how al-Qaida is taking advantage of fake IDs and porous borders to spread its terror, forcing countries to take more sophisticated measures, like taking fingerprints in the United States, to increase border security."

• Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for Thursday's bombing in Tulkarm that killed an Israeli soldier and two bystanders in the West Bank. In response, the Israeli Army has arrested 10 suspects linked to the bomber.

• Bill Roggio highlights Counterterrorism Efforts in Arabia on the heels of the recent killing of two more wanted terrorists.

America Domestic Security & the America's

• President Bush Friday signed legislation extending key provisions of the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act until February 3. He also signed a $453.3 billion defense spending bill that included a measure banning cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the White House said.

• Sixty-four percent (64%) of Americans believe the National Security Agency (NSA) should be allowed to intercept telephone conversations between terrorism suspects in other countries and people living in the United States. A Rasmussen Reports survey found that just 23% disagree.

• The Justice Department has opened another investigation into leaks of classified information, this time to determine who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The inquiry focuses on disclosures to The New York Times about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, officials said. Michelle Malkin has a roundup of links.

• MSNBC reports that information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.

• In a Weekly Standard column, Ronald Radosh writes that the acquittal on December 6 of Sami al--Arian, a former professor of computer engineering at the University of South Florida, on eight counts relating to terrorism was a setback not only for the Department of Justice and the Bush administration, but also for the struggle against Islamic extremism itself.

• In Arkansas, prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's Office are taking no position on the requested continuance of the trial of a Fayetteville man charged with providing support to a terrorist organization. Arwah Jaber, 33, faces charges of knowingly attempting to provide material support to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, considered by the government to be a terrorist organization.

• Lawyers for Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held as an enemy combatant for 3 1/2 years, said Friday he wants to stay in military custody until the Supreme Court decides whether to hear his challenge to President Bush's power to detain Americans when the nation is at war. The lawyers urged the high court to reject a request filed Wednesday by Solicitor General Paul Clement seeking Padilla's immediate transfer from the custody of the military to law enforcement authorities in Florida.

• A U.S. commander expressed confidence Friday that Canadian and other NATO-led troops will aggressively keep up the fight against insurgents when they take over control of southern Afghanistan from his troops in the spring.

• A man who has been detained for three years on suspicion of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent was denied bail Friday. Mohamed Harkat was arrested at his Ottawa apartment in December 2002 on a security certificate issued by the Canadian government.

• President Alvaro Uribe vowed last week to redouble efforts to wipe out cocaine production in southern Colombia to eliminate the source of wealth for FARC terrorists who killed 29 soldiers in a decisive attack a day earlier.

• Columbia's main rebel group has rejected a proposal from European nations to meet with Colombia's government to discuss swapping jailed rebels for hostages, including three Americans. A group of facilitators from France, Switzerland and Spain proposed in mid-December that the two sides meet in a village in southwest Colombia, and demilitarize a 110-square-mile area surrounding the talks. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe accepted the plan.

• A short article at Fayetteville Online looks at how security at Fort Bragg has changed in this day and age of threats of terrorism.

• The Strategy Page looks at "timid terrorists in Trinidad & Tobago". About six percent of the republic's population are Muslims, including a few Islamic radicals.

• In Trinidad, Pamela Elder SC, lead attorney for Yasin Abu Bakr, yesterday argued that the Muslimeen leader had no case to answer. With respect to the terrorism charge Elder argued that the accusation that Bakr made religious or ideological advancements did not make sense since the sermon on zakaat was made to Muslims who already enshrined the belief.

Russia & South/Central Asia

• The Indian space agency and nuclear power plants across southern India were on high security alert Friday following threats of suicide attacks in Bangalore. Police are also urgently investigating a link between the threats and an attack two days earlier on the Indian Institute of Science in the city.

• Leaders of Pakistan's 13,000 madrasas have vowed to defy a government deadline to expel foreign students by December 31, saying the regulations discriminate against religious schools. President Pervez Musharraf required Pakistan's madrasas to expel about 1,800 foreign students after the July 7 bombings in London highlighted the extremist links of some schools.

• Three persons in Jammu, including two Kolkata-based traders, were arrested and a bag containing currency notes of several countries allegedly meant for funding terrorists seized here Saturday night, police said today. Intelligence officials carried out a raid on information that two persons had arrived at Jammu bus stand with a consignment of 'hawala' (laundered) money and arrested Ghulam Ahmed Dar of Pathal Bagh in Pampore, Shabir-ul-din and Ajmail Sheikh (both residents of Kolkata), they said.

• Indian troops on Sunday shot dead a most-wanted terrorist during a gun battle in Kashmir, police said. Ghulam Qadir Mughal, a resident of PoK, was killed when troops raided a terrorist hideout early on Sunday.

• An article by Chris Blackburn for FrontPage Magazine says that Bangladesh is "Osama's new haven", and that the country is "the site of al-Qaeda-run training camps financed by Middle Eastern charities and organisations, including backing from rogue elements within the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence".

• Bangladesh's crack security force said Saturday it had arrested an Islamic militant commander and seized a large cache of explosives in a hunt for those responsible for nationwide blasts. The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) said it arrested 27-year-old Zaiur Rahman, also known as Sagar, in the southwestern town of Khulna and seized explosives in a raid on a student dormitory late yesterday.

• A Toyota Camry with a large amount of explosives in its trunk was seized by police near an international airport in Yekaterinburg, regional center in the Russian Urals. Initial inspection suggested the device consisted of one kilogram of plastic explosives. A detonator was also found.

• Suspected Tamil Tiger rebels shot and injured five policemen in Sri Lanka's restive east on Friday, the military said, as a Norwegian peace envoy prepared to visit the island amid rising fears of a return to civil war.

• Sri Lankan troops and police have detained 900 people in a major house-to-house search in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo, as part of a major hunt for Tamil Tiger rebels, a top police officer told AFP. Large parts of the capital were sealed off for seven hours during the sudden swoop carried out by 2,000 heavily armed soldiers and 2,400 policemen, Colombo's Deputy Inspector-General Pujith Jayasundara said.

• This article looks at a possible connection between Bangalore and terrorism. Officials believe "there could be more such militant students sheltering in the garden City and elsewhere in Karnataka."

• Here are the daily updates from the South Asia Terrorism Portal for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

• The seating of Afghanistan's Parliament after more than three decades on December 19 last caps the democratization process worked out by international officials and anti-Taliban Afghans in Bonn, Germany, in December 2001.

• Four Afghan policemen were killed and seven others were injured when a bomb planted by suspected Taliban militants exploded near a checkpoint, an official said on Friday.

Far East and Southeast Asia

• In the midst of warnings from Japanese police officials that Islamic extremists may try to infiltrate the country, comes the revelation that a member of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a Sunni extremist group outlawed in Pakistan, had entered Japan to start an SSP branch two years ago. The news comes as tensions between Japan and China remain high.

• The Philippine National Police had an up and down year in 2005, mixed with achievements in their counterterrorism campaign as well as mistakes and setbacks.

• A group of international ceasefire monitors are investigating claims that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has broken the four-year old agreement by recruiting new members and training rebels.

• Authorities in Saipan are hunting for a former special forces member of the Filipino military, who later became a member of Abu Sayyaf, after his conviction of assault and the filing of deportation papers.

• Zachary Abuza offers a brief recap of 2005 in Southeast Asia, saying "while there was some progress in combating terrorism in Southeast Asia in 2005, a number of low intensity conflicts continued to flare, and have the potential to escalate in 2006. Core grievances have gone unaddressed while the governments continued to focus their efforts on decapitating organizations."

• The U.S. embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, closed on Saturday until further notice, due to security threats amid warnings of potential attacks in the region over the holidays.

• Siegfried Hecker, former director of the US Government's top-secret Los Alamos laboratory, says that North Korea is working to restart a reactor that would produce enough plutonium to make 10 nuclear weapons a year.

Europe

• Al-Fateh, a children's magazine produced by the Palestinian terror group Hamas, calls on Muslim children to liberate the city called Asbilia in the heart of Spain.

• Slobodan Davidovic, a former member of a Serb paramilitary police unit called Scorpions, was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a Croatian court for his involvement in war crimes in the Balkans during the 1990s and torturing Croatian soldiers in a makeshift prison in 1991.

• Spain's high court handed down a 100-year prison sentence for Diego Ugarte, a member of the Basque separatist group ETA, indicted for the 2000 bombing in Vitoria that killed Socialist deputy Fernando Buesa.

• Leaders of the radical Islamic group al-Muhajiroun are condemning anti-terror raids targeting members of the group and threatening to retaliate against British authorities. In the past the group has called for the overthrow of the British government and have ties to Palestinian terrorist groups.

• A Spanish judge has ruled that six al Qaeda suspects detained several weeks ago were to be held indefinitely. The group is suspected of recruiting Muslims to send to Chechnya, Kashmir and Iraq.

• The story of French national Lionel Dumont is symbolic of the role and potential threat posed by western converts to Islam, a target recruiting group for al Qaeda. Of some concern is a trend of European women converting to Islam.

• In Britain, changes as part of the Serious and Organized Crime Act of 2005 have been enacted, giving police officers broader power to arrest suspects by removing the distinction between arrestable and non-arrestable offenses.

Africa

• A first group of United Nation peacekeepers from Mozambique has left Burundi as part of a phased withdrawal of troops that will end in December next year. Burundi is struggling to recover from the ethnically driven conflict that erupted in 1993 with the assassination of its first democratically elected president, a Hutu, by members of the minority Tutsi-dominated military.

• An article by Francis Crupi in the Winter issue of Parameters argues the US should robustly support Pan-African organizations. Crupi writes "A stable and prosperous Africa provides the conditions for political and economic growth and counters the incidence of "failed states" which can serve as terrorist breeding grounds such as in the Sudan".

• Veteran Sudanese Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi says his country has become weak and occupied by foreigners. He said there were now so many foreign armies in Sudan it could no longer be considered independent.

• Some companies that operate freighters or fishing vessels in pirate infested waters, such as those off Somalia, have begun to take steps to enhance ship security. Both passive and active anti-piracy measures have been seen in use. The World Food Programme has resorted to alternative ways of shipping relief food from the Mombasa Port to thousands of hunger-stricken people in Somalia because of the piracy.

The Global War

• An article in the January 2006 issue of National Defense says the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security are seeking to homogenize the equipment that military units and local first responders employ to detect and neutralize toxic agents.

• According to reports, as many as 26 Sudanese refugees were killed when Egyptian police used water cannons and other methods in an effort to remove them from their location in Cairo. Human Rights activist are calling for an investigation into the incident.

• Pope Benedict XVI warned Sunday that terrorism, nihilism and "fanatic fundamentalism" threatened world peace, and he called on individuals, governments and institutions to work together to combat them. Benedict made the appeal during a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica to mark New Year's Day, which the Roman Catholic Church celebrates annually as its World Day of Peace.

• A former CIA counterterrorism officer who tracked Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Afghanistan says the U.S. spy agency could need a decade to build up its clandestine service for the U.S. war on terrorism.

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