Monday's Winds of War: 20 Feb 2006

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. Monday's Winds of War briefings are given by Peace Like a River and Security Watchtower.

Top Topics

• Four years after the Taliban regime was toppled, the test of wills threatens to set back the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan, American and Afghan analysts say. Suicide bombings were rare in Afghanistan until last fall, when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began debating a move into southern Afghanistan.

• Iran’s foreign minister meets with European officials Monday amid new diplomatic efforts to end the standoff with the West over Iran’s nuclear program. Manouchehr Mottaki’s talks in Brussels coincide with a visit to Moscow by Iranian negotiators to discuss Russia’s offer to host uranium enrichment for Iran in an effort to ensure that the Islamic republic’s nuclear program cannot be used to develop atomic weapons.

• Iran's hardline spiritual leaders have issued an unprecedented new fatwa, or holy order, sanctioning the use of atomic weapons against its enemies. In yet another sign of Teheran's stiffening resolve on the nuclear issue, influential Muslim clerics have for the first time questioned the theocracy's traditional stance that Sharia law forbade the use of nuclear weapons.

• The leader of a Tacoma, Washington, mosque has been accused of training his followers with guns for holy war. A felon in the witness-protection program testified Feb. 10 that the leader of a Rainier Valley mosque acted as the spiritual core of a group in Seattle, some of whose members trained with guns in preparation for religious war, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.

Other topics today include: Sakka admits funding attacks; Israel sanctions on PA; IDF arrest IJ terrorists; Palestinian parliament convenes; Iranian suicide bombers prepared; US broadcasts in Iran; Iranian propaganda in Europe; al Aqsa commander arrested; Iran demands British withdrawal from Basrah; Lebanese parliament gives Lahoud 1 month; Iranian talks with Russia; Islamic Jihad chief killed near Nablus; Rice presses Syria; Able Danger; Port Security; Jury selection in Moussaoui trial; No bond for Padilla; Islamic charities in the U.S.; LAX warnings; US protests; Russian-Hamas relations; Tensions between Russia & Georgia; Beheadings in Pakistan; More Taliban attacks; Protests in Pakistan; Offensives in Nepal; North Korean camps; Raids in Japan; US embassy in Jakarta stormed; Bombings in Thailand; Italy a target; British-Muslims polled; Embassy in Libya attacked; and much more.

Iran & the Middle East

• Al Qaeda operative Louai Sakka has admitted to funding a series of bombings in Istanbul, Turkey in the middle of November 2003.

• Israel's cabinet has approved sanctions on the Palestinian Authority in response to the takeover of the Palestinian parliament by Hamas. Before Sunday's cabinet meeting, Israel's acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert called the new Hamas-led legislature a "terrorist authority" and said that all funds to it must be stopped.

• The Palestinian parliament opened on Saturday with Hamas at the helm, who named its leader Ismail Haniyeh as the Palestinian Authority’s next prime minister.

• Israeli Defense forces have arrested 10 Islamic Jihad terrorists in Ro'i, southwest of Jenin. A total of 18 suspected terrorists were captured in the raids.

• An Iranian group that claims its members are dedicated to becoming suicide bombers warned the United States and Britain on Saturday that they will strike coalition military bases in Iraq if Tehran's nuclear facilities are attacked. According to reports from the Jerusalem Post, American officials have been quietly probing whether Georgia will be willing to allow Washington to use its military bases and airfields in the event of military action against Iran.

• Kenneth R. Timmerman examines the problems of current American broadcasts into Iran and what needs to be done to correct the problems. The suggestions come as the administration prepares to ask Congress for $ 75 million to boost democracy in Iran.

• According to reports from Friends of a Free Iran, Tehran is widening their propaganda net in Europe through newspaper advertising, satellite broadcasts and other tactics.

• Israel is criticizing the decision of Turkey to invite Hamas leaders to Ankara for talks. Raanan Gissin, a spokesman for the Israeli government, responded by saying “I wonder what the Turkish authorities would think if we were to invite (jailed Kurdish separatist leader) Abdullah Ocalan for talks in Israel?”

• Palestinian Authority sources early on Sunday morning reported that Ahmed Abu-Ras, a senior Fatah al-Aqsa Brigade commander, was apprehended by IDF soldiers in Shechem.

• Iran's foreign minister urged Britain yesterday to pull its troops out of the southern Iraqi city of Basra, saying their presence was destabilising the city. "The Islamic Republic of Iran demands the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra," Manouchehr Mottaki told reporters during a visit to Lebanon.

• Lebanon's parliament has given President Emil Lahoud one month to resign. "Since Lahoud's mandate was imposed on the Lebanese by a Syrian decision in an unconstitutional manner and in opposition to international resolutions...[we] demand an end to this presidency," the coalition said in a statement.

• Two Arab terrorists stabbed a 45-year-old Jewish man in the northern Jerusalem suburb of Ma'aleh Adumim Saturday night. The man remains in serious condition at Hadassah Ein Karem's trauma ward.

• Hamad Abu Sharif, chief of the Al Qods Brigades - the armed branch of Islamic Jihad, was killed near Nablus on Monday by Israeli security forces.

• Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the United States wants to strengthen its sanctions against Syria and is trying to convince other nations to follow suit. "We intend to use the Syrian Accountability Act and use it to its fullest," the top US diplomat told Congress, referring to a 2003 law that allows the US administration to impose sanctions against Syria.

• The Israeli Airforce fired on two Palestinians engaged in terror activity in the Gaza strip on Sunday, and their status remains unknown.

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• An ad campaign known as Midwest Heroes is running in Minnesota. The first ad features veterans who served in Iraq saying that progress is being made in Iraq. The second ad features families who have lost loved ones in Iraq. However, the ads are being attacked with the usual venom from the anti-war Left. The Minnesota DFL called the ads "propaganda." A Star Tribune columnist calls the ads "lies." A WCCO report calls parts of the first ad "not true" and "misleading". KVM reports that KSTP has refused to run the ads. Power Line has closely followed the story.

• The top-secret, military intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" identified Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers, 13 times before the 2001 attacks, according to new information released Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Armed Services and Homeland Security Committees. Strata-Sphere has closely followed the latest hearings.

• Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff is defending the Bush administration's review of an international shipping deal two days after one company in the Port of Miami sued to prevent an Arab-owned firm from taking over port operations.

• Jury selection continues in the case of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. A man who served in the U.S. military in Kuwait and called terrorism "the ultimate crime" was cleared Thursday as a potential member of the jury. He joined 15 others selected for the jury pool the day before, including a Muslim man born in Afghanistan and a Marine Corps lawyer whose boss' office was blown up on Sept. 11, 2001.

• U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke refused to set bond on Friday for accused terrorist Jose Padilla. Padilla's lawyers had challenged his pre-trial detention and requested that the alleged al-Qaida operative be allowed to stay at his mother's Broward County condo under 24-hour house arrest. Public defender Michael Caruso argued that Padilla never trained in a terrorist training camp as the government has alleged and that he is not a danger to the community.

• An Islamic charity director accused by federal prosecutors of having links to Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was resentenced Friday to 10 years in prison -- about a year less than his original sentence. Enaam Arnaout, 42, pleaded guilty to racketeering in 2003, admitting he defrauded donors to his Benevolence International Foundation by diverting some of the money to Islamic military groups in Bosnia and Chechnya.

• The Treasury Department on Sunday ordered U.S. banks to freeze the assets of an Ohio-based group the government claims funnels money to the militant organization Hamas. The organization, KindHearts of Toledo, Ohio, was connected with the Hamas-affiliated Holy Land Foundation and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Global Relief Foundation.

• A New York jazz musician, a Florida doctor and a Maryland medic pleaded not guilty on Friday to a new indictment in an expanding probe of support for terrorism that stems from an FBI sting operation. Lawyers for the three men complained about their prison conditions during the hearing in Manhattan federal court. The three Muslim men, Tarik Shah, 43, Rafiq Sabir, 51, and Mahmud Faruq Brent, 31, prayed with relatives and supporters before pleading not guilty of conspiring to aid terrorist organizations in the Middle East between 2001 and 2005. A fourth defendant, Brooklyn bookstore owner Abdulrahman Farhane, 51, also appeared after pleading not guilty last week to the new indictment, which accuses him of introducing Shah to an FBI informant and agreeing to help transfer funds to buy weapons for use by jihad fighters in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

• The White House on Thursday said it would compromise with Senate Republicans seeking to change the law on eavesdropping to include the government's controversial domestic spying programme. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said he had reached an "agreement in principle" with the administration.

• Security experts released their third warning in as many years Friday that passengers in line in lobbies and on sidewalks at Los Angeles International Airport are vulnerable to luggage or car bomb attacks. They also recommended, for the second time, that airlines add ticket agents and the federal Transportation Security Administration hire more screeners to speed travelers to secure gate areas.

• American Muslims in New York and Los Angeles say the violent protests over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad are against the teachings of Islam. The New York Muslim Leadership Council held a peaceful rally yesterday in front of the Danish Consulate. About 300 people held a peaceful protest in front of the Danish Consulate in Westwood, California.

• Michelle Malkin highlights the New Black Panther Party's protest at the Danish Embassy in Washington D.C.

• Colombia has launched bombing raids on a nature reserve where a coca eradication programme has come under repeated attack by left-wing rebels. The air force said it had bombed several rebel bases inside La Macarena. On Wednesday, suspected Farc rebels killed six police officers involved in an operation to destroy illegal coca leaf plantations in the area.

• Thomas Jocelyn higlights a press release from Congressman Dan Burton, Chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere which reads in part (PDF): "I am very concerned that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Communist Dictator Fidel Castro of Cuba, along with other Latin American leaders are reaching out to known Islamic terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and cozying-up to renowned terrorist-sponsoring nations like Iran and North Korea. Any alliance between terrorist-sponsoring nations and leftist leaders in Latin America will be viewed as a serious and direct threat to the national security of the United States." Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has warned that he could cut off oil supplies to the US, and has been increasing ties of energy cooperation with Iran, Russia, and China.

• Bank of America Corp., the second largest U.S. bank, is close to settling an investigation of money laundering from South America, according to Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. Bank of America moved about $2 billion through New York branches from clients in South America, Morgenthau said. Most of the transfers were made for a Uruguayan company, which operates near the borders of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. The area is a hub of illegal activity, including drug and arms trafficking, that funds Islamic terror groups, according to a 2003 Library of Congress study.

• In Trinidad, the son of Imam Hassan Ali was murdered on Friday. Ali is an imam attached to the Jamaat al Muslimeen. Ali believes the "G Unit" gang may be responsible.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Russian President Vladamir Putin created a National Counterterrorism Committee (NAK), a new government body tasked with coordinating all federal-level antiterrorism policies and operations. The committee will be headed by Federal Security Service Director Nikolai Patrushev (FSB) and includes members such as Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Sergei Lebedev, the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

• The Russian government has said it will only sell weapons to the Palestinians with Israel's approval. The remarks, by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, come a day after Chief of the General Staff Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said Russia may supply arms to the PNA after talks in Moscow with leaders of Hamas.

• A total of 450 terrorist attacks were prevented in Russia last year, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev said at an expanded session of the ministry’s board in Moscow on Friday. “Search operations helped prevent 450 terrorist attacks [on Russian territory], of them 290 in the Chechen republic,” the Interfax news agency quoted the minister as saying said.

• The future of the two foreign military bases in Kyrgyzstan became clearer this week. During a visit by a Russian delegation, a military official said the Russian base at Kant will be there "forever." Meanwhile, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev was quoted by a Russian newspaper on 15 February as saying the U.S.-led coalition can remain at the Manas base as long as there are still security problems in Afghanistan, and as long as the United States agrees to pay 100 times more than it has been asked to previously.

• Russia and its military bases have been named the main threat to Georgia by the country’s council of advisers, Interfax news agency reported. “The main threats to Georgia are zones of conflict and instability threat from the North. Russian military bases based in Georgia also pose certain threats. We hope that in following months real steps will be made to decrease this threat,” the Chief of General Staff of Georgia Levan Nickoleishvili said. Georgia believes in 2008 it will receive a full invitation to join NATO, and are positioning themselves to do such.

• The Russian state Duma adopted a statement on Friday, calling on the country's authorities to do everything in their power to maintain security in the North Caucasus following an escalation of tensions in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• Afghan television broadcast what it said was exclusive footage of men murdered, some of them beheaded, in Pakistan because they were against the extremist Taliban and Al-Qaeda movements. The images broadcast on the evening news bulletin of private Tolo television station showed the decapitated heads of three men being held up in front of a crowd of onlookers.

• A gas pipeline has been blown up in Pakistan's troubled southern province of Balochistan, officials say. An official said the blast in Pirkoh early on Thursday would disrupt gas supplies to some parts of the country.

• Suspected Taleban militants have killed one policeman and wounded four others in an attack in southern Afghanistan, officials say. An official told reporters that some militants also appeared to have been killed in the fighting in Nimroz province on Wednesday.

• As NATO troops replace U.S. forces on southern Afghanistan's battlefields, insurgents are waging a suicide bombing campaign that appears aimed at shaking the alliance's public support in Europe and Canada.

• President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has handed over extensive intelligence dossiers to Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf detailing how suicide bombers who attack targets in Afghanistan are being recruited, trained and equipped in Pakistan. Although Mr Karzai stopped short of accusing Pakistan's military regime of perpetrating the attacks, he said the US and Britain would be "stepping up pressure on Islamabad" to take action to stop the attacks, as British troops soon deploy in southern Afghanistan.

• Pakistani police have detained the leader of an Islamic group to prevent him from leading fresh protests against the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed. Another 125 people who were protesting in Multan, in the province of Punjab, were also arrested as part of a ban on rallies in eastern Pakistan. At least five people were killed this week in Pakistan when the cartoon-related protests turned violent.

• Security forces on Friday seized heavy weapons and munitions destined for Islamic militants in a northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan, the Pakistan army said. The seizure included 122 mortar bombs, 37 rockets, different types of fuses and cartridges and an unspecified number of mortars near the tribal town of Darra Adamkhel, about 27 miles south of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier province the army said in a statement.

• A team of Tamil Tiger rebels has left for Geneva for crucial talks with Sri Lanka's government, officials say. The meeting on 22-23 February will be the first face-to-face talks at such a high level for nearly three years.

• Nepal's armed forces have launched a major offensive against Maoist rebels in the south-western mountainous region, authorities in Nepal have said. Officials said army helicopters were mounting bombing raids on the Palpa and Nawalparasi districts.

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

Far East & Southeast Asia

• As recently as 2003, the North Korean cheer squad was the wildly successful showpiece of the regime's self-marketing to South Korea. Unfortunately, the regime learned that some of them were talking about what they saw in the South. This report comes via a newly arrived refugee from one of the camps in North Korea.

• Japanese authorities have raided the offices of two more firms on suspicion of illegally selling North Korea equipment that could be used in the production of biological weapons. The raids on Friday followed one earlier in the week of similar nature.

• Australian Prime Minister John Howard spoke out on Sunday about the challenges that Muslims posed to Australia's immigration system. "I do think there is this particular complication because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society, and that is a difficulty," said Howard. "You can't find any equivalent in Italian, or Greek, or Lebanese, or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad, but that is the major problem."

• Hundreds of Muslims protesting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad tried to storm the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta on Sunday, smashing the windows of a guard post but failing to push through the gates.

• Police in Indonesia have arrested two people and seized some 3,000 detonators and fuses on the island of Borneo. The detonators were found in the town of Nunukan as they were being transferred from a boat that arrived from Malaysia to an Indonesian ferry.

• Two Al Qaida-linked Indonesian terrorists who masterminded the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people are believed to be coddled by splinter groups of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said yesterday. Col. Gaudencio Pangilinan, head of the AFP Counter-Intelligence Group, reported to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in yesterday’s Command Conference in Malacañang that Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb experts Umar Patek and Dulmatin are either in Basilan or in Jolo.

• A bomb exploded in southern Thailand on Friday, wounding at least 11 police officers who were responding to a shooting before being ambushed in Narathiwat province. There is also evidence that terrorists are importing weapons and tactics from Iraq and Afghanistan into Thailand. Defense analyst Jeff Moore says over the past year, the separatists have undergone "a remarkable transformation. It's unique...I've never seen anything like it before in an insurgency."

• The trial of Joseph Thomas (aka Jihad Jack) got underway in Victoria, Australia on Thursday and Friday. Thomas travelled to Afghanistan and attended an al Qaeda training camp before being ordered back to Australia to prepare an attack that would "bring down the Australian government."

• According to Benjamin Defensor, Chairman of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum’s Anti-Terrorism Task Force, airports in the Philippines are vulnerable to shoulder fired missiles.

• A bomb exploded on the southern Philippine island of Jolo on Saturday, just outside of an army base where 250 U.S. troops are scheduled to begin annual exercises on Monday. Twenty people were wounded and one died in the blast, which targeted a karaoke bar.

• The case against nine terrorist suspects accused of plotting to bomb sites across Sydney with materials similar to those used in last July's London bombings, has been adjourned in a Sydney court.

• The Philippine army tightened security on Sunday after finding an explosive device in its top military academy, one of the alleged targets in a plot to overthrow and possibly kill the president, military sources said. The device, loaded with 5 lbs (about 2 kg) of TNT, was found late on Saturday hidden in a clutch bag near the parade ground at the Philippine Military Academy, where President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was meant to attend an annual reunion this weekend.

Europe

• More than 15,000 people joined an angry but peaceful protest in central London on Saturday against the Prophet Muhammad cartoons that have infuriated many in the Muslim world.

• A Swedish court charged a Russian researcher at an agricultural genetics laboratory in Sweden with spying for a foreign power on Friday, and the chief prosecutor said the suspect had put the armed forces at risk.

• Britain's anti-terrorism chief has said that it was likely to take police 50 years to get on top of Al Qaeda's comprehensive terror strategy. Speaking at a conference at central London's military think-tank, the Royal United Services Institute, Peter Clarke, head of the Metropolitan Police's anti-terrorist branch, revealed that police were "still learning" about the nature of the Al Qaeda threat and how to deal with it.

• Spain's public prosecutor urged a court on Thursday to overturn an alleged al Qaeda leader's conviction for conspiring with the September 11 plotters, calling the evidence weak and unconvincing. If the Supreme Court agrees with the prosecutor, it would mean that a high-profile trial of 24 alleged al Qaeda members in Spain last year had failed to convict anyone in connection with the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities.

• A Spanish court on Friday ordered the release of two Syrians convicted of belonging to al-Qaida, but withdrew their passports and requested police surveillance of them while another court considers an appeal against their convictions. The National Court's order raised to four the number of men who were convicted of terrorism in a major trial that ended in September but have now been released under a legal technicality.

• Italy's intelligence services warned in their six-monthly report to parliament that the country is again the potential target of a terrorist attack by Islamic radicals - especially in the period between the current Torino Winter Games and the 9-10 April general election. In the 56th report concerning investigations carried out in the second semester of 2005, the intelligence services also noted "the progressive shift of radical activities outside places of worship."

• The French police arrested late Thursday night most of the members of the gang that abducted, tortured and murdered Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Jew from Paris. Hundreds of SWAT officers raided apartments in Bagneux and arrested 12 people. Another suspect was arrested in Belgium.

• In a post at Threats Watch, Dan Darling writes "The results of a recent ICM poll indicating that 20% of British Muslims sympathize with "the feelings and motives" of the al-Qaeda suicide bombers who carried out the 7/7 bombings as well as that 40% believe that sha'riah should be introduced in predominantly Muslim areas of Britain are rightfully disturbing, but they must also be understood within the context in which the most extreme elements of Islam have emerged in the United Kingdom."

Africa

• Thirteen Eritreans employed by the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Eritrea have been detained by local authorities and another 30 are in hiding for fear of being arrested, the United Nations said on Tuesday. "While we have protested this, the government of Eritrea still has not given us any official reason for these detentions," U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The arrests have taken place at a time of worsening diplomatic ties between Eritrea and the United Nations over the implementation of a peace agreement ending the northeast African nation's 1998-2000 border war with Ethiopia.

• Eleven people were killed and an Italian consulate was burned in Libya on Friday night during protests to denounce the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed, sources in Libya said. There also was a "high number" of injuries, said an official with the Italian Embassy in Tripoli.

• Battles are being in won in the fight against terrorism financing as countries improve cooperation and tighten systems to identify money transfers, a top official in South Africa said on Thursday. "We have noticed that terrorist organisations are trying to change their way of financing," Alain Damais, the executive secretary of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said.

• President Bush signaled a new American commitment on Friday to addressing the crisis in Darfur, saying he would support an expanded role by NATO to shore up a failing African peacekeeping mission there. Bush also said he favored doubling the number of peacekeepers operating in Darfur under United Nations control, as proposed by the Security Council last month.

• Armed militants carried out a wave of attacks across Nigeria's troubled Niger delta on Saturday, blowing up oil and gas pipelines and seizing nine foreign oil workers. In an e-mail to The Associated Press, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed responsibility for the attacks and for kidnapping the oil workers from a boat belonging to U.S. oil service firm Wilbros.

• A U.S. drive to deepen anti-terror ties with North African nations needs to be balanced by greater concern for democracy and human rights in order to gain wide political acceptability in the region, analysts say. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, visiting Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco this month, heaped lavish praise on their cooperation in Washington's "war on terror" on his first tour of the strategic energy-rich region on Europe's southern flank. But local ears strained to catch any mention of good governance. It was left to Rumsfeld's aides to voice U.S. hopes for internal reforms in the three countries, tightly governed states struggling with a variety of social and economic strains.

• As the United States grapples with its policy toward Africa, vast ungoverned territories in North Africa are being increasingly used by terrorists groups for training and criminal organizations for smuggling, a top military official said Thursday. But because of sanctions and legal restrictions, the United States is limited in what pressure and inducements it can bring to bear on the situation.

• A U.S. Navy officer testified in a Kenyan court Friday against 10 Somali men accused of piracy, saying U.S. sailors detained the suspects after firing warning shots that forced their vessel to stop. Lt. Lucas Michael Grant told the court that the U.S. sailors, who are part of an anti-terrorism task force based in Djibouti, detained the 10 Somalis on Jan. 22 in an operation involving U.S. military helicopters and a warship that fired several warning shots.

• Sixteen people were killed and 11 churches were burned Saturday in Nigeria as part of the continuing violence over cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammed. Demonstrations and skirmishes broke out Saturday in the Muslim-dominated northern Nigerian cities of Maiduguri and Katsina. The cities also have significant Christian populations. Maiduguri bore the brunt of Saturday's violence. Fifteen people were killed, 11 churches were burned and 115 people were arrested there.

• Two U.S. Marine CH-53E choppers crashed in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Djibouti, while conducting night time exercises on Saturday. Two crewmen were immediately rescued, while the other 12 sadly perished.

The Global War

• Denmark temporarily shut its embassy in Islamabad and Pakistan recalled its envoy from Copenhagen as fresh protests against cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed sparked a diplomatic row. An Islamic cleric added fuel to the fire on Friday by offering a one-million-dollar reward and a car for anyone who killed the cartoonists behind the drawings, first published in a Danish newspaper in September. Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets for a fifth straight day in Pakistan, with police firing tear gas and waving batons at protesters in the southern city of Karachi and the central city of Multan.

• The United States has signed two new agreements to combat terrorism and crime in international waters and to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, Robert Holmes Tuttle, signed on behalf of the United States two treaties augmenting the U.N. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA), according to a February 17 State Department announcement. The new agreements, negotiated over a three-year period, will create a new international framework for boarding vessels and for interdiction of dangerous individuals and deadly cargos. The United States is urging other SUA parties to sign and ratify the two new protocols as soon as possible.

• The United States has announced that $ 5 million in grants to Syrian pro-democracy groups will be issued in an effort to accelerate the work of reformers in the region.

• The Palestinian Authority has agreed to return $ 50 million in aid to the United States, following a request by Washington, who didn't want the money going to a terrorist organization (Hamas) that supports the removal of another nation from the face of the map.

• The United States lags dangerously behind al Qaeda and other enemies in getting out information in the digital media age and must update its old-fashioned methods, according to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Modernization is crucial to winning the hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide who are bombarded with negative images of the West, Rumsfeld told the Council on Foreign Relations. The Pentagon chief said today's weapons of war included e-mail, Blackberries, instant messaging, digital cameras and Web logs, or blogs.

• The United Nations has concluded that the United States should shut Guantanamo Bay, an idea Kirk Sowell strongly rebukes.

• The CTC at West Point has a report (available here in PDF) that "Salafi jihadists have developed stand-alone web browser software." The software only goes to one site, that of Salafi ideologue Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi.

• Pakistan's long denial of terrorist camps on its territory is coming apart in the face of evidence gathered by the US in a case aimed at prosecuting extremists who allegedly planned to attack targets in California. The US government plans to show satellite photographs of the Pakistani camps with a department of defence expert explaining their significance in the trial of a terror suspect Hamid Hayat, assistant US Attorney Laura Ferris told jurors in her opening remarks. Hayat, 23, a U.S-born resident of Lodi in California, is accused of twice attending camps near Rawalpindi, the military garrison town outside Islamabad, run by the Lashkar e Taiba with intent to wage holy war against the US. Federal prosecutors said Hayat attended terrorist training camps in Pakistan and returned "awaiting orders" to stage attacks in the United States.

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