Iran & the Middle East

• The U.S. Treasury Department has blacklisted one of Iran's biggest banks, alleging that it is used to transfer money to terrorist organizations.

• Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he is ready to begin talks with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to advance peace efforts, and Abbas responded that he is ready for an unconditional meeting.

• On Friday the Israeli Navy ended their blockade of Lebanon, turning over the monitoring of the coastline to the UN.

• The latest public opinion poll in the Palestinian Authority territories shows that some 61 percent of Palestinians support "military operations" inside Israel compared with only 32% who reject such attacks.

• Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Sunday that the plan for a unilateral pullout in the West Bank has "disappeared" due to the fighting in Gaza and Lebanon.

• Victor Comras of the Counterterrorism Blog writes that sanctions against Iran are a necessary step in a difficult situation.

• According to UN-Secretary General Kofi Annan, Syria has promised to deploy a battalion to help patrol its border with Lebanon to stop illegal arms shipments to Hezbollah.

• An exiled former Syrian intelligence officer has claimed that Syrian President Bashar Al Assad and his Lebanese counterpart, Emile Lahoud, ordered the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri.

• Senior U.S. law enforcement officials reportedly told NBC News that the FBI is again actively investigating Mohdar Abdullah, a Yemeni student who has admitted befriending two 9/11 hijackers.
  
• Visiting the United States, former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has called for dialogue between the US and Iran.

• Four French tourists have been kidnapped by armed tribesmen in Yemen. They were reportedly abducted while travelling in a tourist convoy in the south-eastern Shabwa province.

• Egypt has proposed a new approach to securing peace in the Middle East in a deal which would set the borders of a Palestinian state before talks on how to turn the plan into reality.

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• President Bush asserted Thursday that enormous strides have been made in correcting security lapses revealed by the Sept. 11 attacks. It was the third consecutive day of Bush speeches focusing on his war-on-terror record, part of a series of outings that will continue through events commemorating Sept. 11 anniversary and culminating in a Sept. 19 address to the United Nations.

• Five years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, killed 2,973 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and New York, the country's mood is awash in emotions, balancing resolve with vulnerability, a need to remember with a desire to move on. The nation appears united in acknowledging the threat it faces yet divided in how to best combat it. Consumers say they are not confident of the direction of the economy in this unsettled era yet economists say they spend beyond their means.

• Does Senator John Rockefeller stand by his view, even if it means that Saddam Hussein could still be in power if the United States didn't invade? "Yes. [Saddam] wasn't going to attack us. He would've been isolated there," Rockefeller said. "He would have been in control of that country but we wouldn't have depleted our resources preventing us from prosecuting a war on terror which is what this is all about."

• The United States will win the battle against terrorism, but it cannot achieve absolute security against attacks, because that would sacrifice too much freedom and prosperity, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said overnight. Referring to a video released Thursday by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which evoked the memory of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, Mr Chertoff said the country was fighting "an ideology that celebrates the murder of the innocent, ... an indecent ideology.

• The Senate voted unanimously Thursday to devote $200 million to revive a CIA unit dedicated to hunting down Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders as it neared a final vote on a huge Pentagon budget bill.

• A "terribly wrong" television miniseries about events leading to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks blames President Bill Clinton's policies, former Clinton administration officials said in letters demanding that ABC correct it or not air it. But in a statement released Thursday afternoon in apparent response to the growing uproar, ABC said, "No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible." Michele Malkin has more here.

• Did a Kansas City college student help Osama bin Laden start al-Qaida? Federal law enforcement officials think he did. So do private-sector experts on international terrorism. Now, a new book that chronicles the history of al-Qaida portrays former Kansas City resident Mohammed Loay Baizid as a confidant of bin Laden in the early years of the terrorist organization.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Kyrgyz lawmakers approved a new bill that aims at strengthening the powers of the National Security Service (SNB) against terrorists.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov slammed Israel’s arrest of Palestinian ministers and MPs from Hamas, and denied reports that Russia would stop construction on the nuclear reactor in Busheir if Iran were to expel UN IAEA nuclear inspectors.

• Representatives of all five Central Asian states met in Kazakhstan to sign a treaty declaring their region "nuclear-weapons free."

• According to a Russian counterterrorism official, the efforts aimed at finding those responsible for the death of Russian embassy employees in Iraq have brought about certain results.

• Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Friday that certain forces in Russia were implementing three plans to ruin Georgia. Relations between the former Soviet states have been strained in recent months over the presence of Russian peacekeepers in conflict zones involving two self-proclaimed republics in Georgia and other issues.

• Four people have been killed in the conflict zone between Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia, the commander of the Joint Peacekeeping Force said Friday.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• A suicide car bomber struck a convoy of U.S. military vehicles Friday in downtown Kabul, killing at least 16 people, including two American soldiers, and wounding 29 others. It was the Afghan capital's deadliest suicide attack since the Taliban's 2001 ouster.

• A suicide bomber killed the governor of Afghanistan's southeastern Paktia province on Sunday afternoon as he was leaving his office, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Gov. Abdul Hakim Taniwal's bodyguard and his secretary were also killed when the suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his body while standing next to the governor's car. The blast also wounded three police officers near Taniwal's office in Gardez, the provincial capital, the spokesman said.

• A suicide bombing cell is operating in the Afghan capital with the aim of targeting foreign troops, the U.S. military said Sunday. "Through our intelligence sources we know there's a cell here in Kabul, at least one, whose primary mission is to seek coalition or international troops and hit them with suicide bombs," Col. Tom Collins, the chief U.S. spokesman, said at a news conference in Kabul.

• At night, the forested mountains are on fire from the relentless artillery strikes. By day, gunbattles echo around the valley. Five years after the Sept. 11 attacks on America, the New York-based 10th Mountain Division is still fighting militant supporters of Al Qaida whose leaders, the US military says, hatched their deadliest terror plot in this forsaken corner of eastern Afghanistan.

• Daveed Gartenstein-Ross writes "The past week witnessed one of the most significant recent developments related to the global war on terror -- a development that garnered surprisingly little attention from the media and analysts. As Pakistan's Dawn newspaper explains, the Pakistani government has entered into a peace agreement with the Taliban insurgency that essentially cedes authority in the North Waziristan tribal region to the Taliban and al-Qaeda."

• Pakistani security forces arrested on Saturday an Islamist militant suspect who is wanted for several attacks and smuggling explosives used in bombings in the country's biggest city, a security force spokesman said. The suspect, Mohammad Rizwan, was a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, which the United States has designated a terrorist group, said Captain Fazal Mehmood, a spokesman for paramilitary Pakistan Rangers.

• C.S. Scott points to a report saying "there are hundreds of al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants in the tribal area of North Waziristan."

• A bomb killed at least five people Friday in Pakistan's restive Baluchistan province, police said, blaming supporters of a tribal leader who was recently killed in a government raid.

• A cycle-bomb exploded near a restaurant in Pakistan’s troubled southwestern city of Quetta on Sunday, wounding at least 15 people, police said.

• Taliban leader Mullah Omar is not hiding in Pakistan, a Pakistani military official said, disputing a Friday CNN report that he called "ludicrous." Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said he is "quite certain" Mullah Omar is in Afghanistan. The CNN report, he said, is "baseless."

• When a journalist took his family for lunch recently in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, he was surprised to see two of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards. Writer Hamid Mir — who has interviewed the al-Qaeda chief three times — pretended not to recognise the duo as he enjoyed the meal.

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

• A series of bomb blasts in a Muslim-majority town in western India killed at least 32 people and wounded more than 70, mostly worshippers at Friday prayers, police said. The bombs hit Malegaon town in the western state of Maharashtra as thousands of Muslims gathered at a burial ground for special Friday prayers, police said.

• In India, Police seized around 600 rockets and 12 launchers in Andhra Pradesh after a raid on a Maoist arms depot, a senior police officer said on Friday.

• Militants raided a police station in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing two officers and stealing more than a dozen rifles, police said on Saturday. The attack in the remote mountainous Doda district, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northeast of Jammu, the winter capital of India’s Jammu-Kashmir state, occurred late Friday night.

• Eight persons, including five militants of the banned Hizb-ul-Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-toiba outfits were killed and two policemen injured, while two civilian hostages were rescued from ultras in separate incidents across Jammu and Kashmir since Saturday night.

• Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers told the government on Friday to immediately withdraw from a rebel stronghold it seized this week or face war. The army captured the territory on the southern edge of the strategic Trincomalee harbour in the northeast of the country on Monday after days of artillery battles. It was the first major capture of territory by either side since a 2002 ceasefire.

• Twenty-eight soldiers have been killed and more than 100 wounded during an advance on Tamil Tiger positions, the Sri Lankan army says. An army official said up to 130 rebels may have been killed, although this was denied by the Tamil Tigers.

Far East & Southeast Asia

• Indonesia is urging the United States to allow them access to Jemaah Islamiyah leader Hambali, who is now held at Guantanamo Bay.

• Five years after the 9/11 attacks in the US and the start of the global war on terror, the Southeast Asian terrorist group, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), which aims to create an Islamic caliphate in the region, has been weakened but remains a serious threat.

• The Filipino military continues with an all-out offensive against the Abu Sayyaf Group and Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb experts hiding in the jungles of Sulu on Friday, killing three ASG members and seriously wounding others.

• Australian Prime Minister John Howard reaffirmed his nation's commitment to fighting terrorism Monday during a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

• An Indonesian court has sentenced two Islamic terrorists to jail for their part in last year's Bali bombings. Mohammad Cholily, 28, was found guilty of supplying equipment used in the attacks after studying bomb making with Malaysian Azahari Husin. Dwi Widyarto, 33, was jailed for eight years for helping transfer onto disc a video of Noordin Mohammad Top, the plot's alleged mastermind.

• Robert Pape, a U.S. expert on terrorism at the Univ. of Chicago, says Australia is a likely target for an al-Qaida attack within a year.

• According to Filipino officials, there is a strong possibility that terrorists will attack a major urban center in the southern Philippines this month, but an assault on the capital is unlikely.

Europe

• According to Dick Marty, the head of the Council of Europe investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe, 14 European nations - spanning from Dublin to Berlin to Bucharest - colluded with US intelligence in a "spider's web" of human rights abuses to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities.

• German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said it was premature to talk of negotiations for the release of two Israel Defense Forces soldiers abducted by Hezbollah in July.

• British police were given more time to question nine men arrested last week on allegations of recruiting and training terrorists. The nine are among 14 suspects arrested in raids in London on Sept. 1 on suspicion of organizing terrorist training camps in Britain.

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has sought to boost U.S. ties, rebuked Washington over its secret CIA prisons for high-level al-Qaida terrorists. The existence of such prisons is not compatible with my understanding of the rule of law, Merkel told Deutsche Welle Saturday.

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair Sunday urged worldwide restoration of contact with Hamas, if the Palestinian militants renounce violence and recognize Israel. Speaking on the West Bank, he also called on the Islamist organization to form a unity government with the Palestinian National Authority.

• A Scottish terrorist organization Sunday threatened to poison England's public water supply, endangering hundreds of thousands of lives. The Scottish National Liberation Army, dedicated to Scottish independence, made the threat in an e-mail to The Sunday Times of London office in Glasgow, Scotland.

• Government grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds were handed out to Muslim organizations infiltrated by the July 7 suicide bombers.

Africa

• Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts has indicated on Wednesday that the Islamists are never intending to make a deal with the Somalia federal government led by President Abdulahi Yusuf over non-Islamic constitution. Islamic Courts' first vice chairperson A/Rahman Mohomood Jinikow said, "We will only approve a constitution based on theology, because an Islamic constitution is the only one that serves all of us justly".

• Since the Islamic courts union took over the Somali capital and its surroundings, Ethiopian government's concern grows over a major battle between the Islamic court's militias and its forces what it called Eritrean embroil. There are accusations and counter -accusations between Ethiopian and Eritrean governments meddling into the internal affairs of the anarchic Somalia.

• The United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR) for Refugees today warned that the worsening situation in Sudan's Darfur region threatens to spark another round of massive displacement that could destabilize the entire region and result in a "major catastrophe." R.A. Allen has a good summary of a UN report on the violence in Darfur.

• A ceasefire in Burundi between the government and the last remaining rebel group is due to come into effect. The FNL (National Liberation Forces) had been the only one of Burundi's main Hutu groups to remain outside a five-year-old peace process.

The Global War

• NATO's top commander on Thursday urged allied nations to send reinforcements to southern Afghanistan, where resurgent Taliban militants are inflicting heavy casualties on foreign forces and have captured a remote town for the second time in two months.

• On Friday the United Nations approved a counter-terrorism "plan of action", laying out eight pages of broad goals and measures to prevent terrorist acts, address the conditions that may foster terrorism and help nations build up their capabilities while respecting human rights.

• Former Clinton officials are angry over an ABC special set to air titled "The Path to 9/11", and have launched protests with the Walt Disney Company as a result.

• The 9/11 attacks prompted a clampdown at the nation's airports and a new era of aggravation at security checkpoints. They also accelerated a race to develop better screening technology, research that has advanced with each thwarted terrorism plot.

• According to a new report published by Chatham House, a London-based foreign affairs think-tank, al Qaeda is losing sympathy among the world's Muslim population.

• To an unknowable degree, the Madrid attack and others reflect success in the hunt for the al-Qaida leadership responsible for killing nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania five years ago. A global dragnet against bin Laden's group has been far more effective than most people realize in neutralizing al-Qaida's top command. Osama bin Laden and his top deputy are still at large, but many of their most trusted men are not.

• A team of secret agents from the US, Australia and four other countries to fight al-Qaeda has been based in Paris since 2003, France-Info radio has reported.

• French naval export company Armaris made an offer of three Marlin diesel-electric patrol submarines to Pakistan, a deal that would include MBDA Exocet SM39 missiles.

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