IRAQ BRIEFING * Al-Qaeda military commander Saif al-Adel, who was last seen "in custody" in Iran, has apparently traveled into Iraq to assist Zarqawi in the insurgency. Most people generally consider "in custody" to exclude being allowed to leave country in order to spearhead an insurgency, especially given as it looks like al-Adel's brought friends this time around. * The US now has a murky picture of the Iraqi insurgency as well as the various groups operating inside of it. Fred Pruitt and I identify the groups involved and Fred has his own take on the situation. * Contrary to previous reports it appears that the trial of Saddam Hussein is still 2 years away, with the first defendants to face the Iraqi tribunal for crimes against humanity being none other than some of his own former lieutenants. * The influential Iraqi Shi'ite leader Ayatollah Sistani is drawing up alternate plans in the event that the UN decides that direct elections are impossible in the country. * Iraqi police have arrested the suspected assassins of Aquila al-Hashimi, a female member of the Governing Council who was killed while driving to her home in Baghdad. * Now that Saddam is in US custody, Egyptian journal editor Dr. Osama al-Ghazali Harb has some thoughts as to why it was Americans, not fellow Arabs, who brought the tyrant down. * US administrator Paul Bremer is threatening to veto any interim Iraqi constitution that cites Islam as the chief source of law. * A quiet mass migration is redrawing Iraq's demographics as Arabs who were settled in Iraqi Kurdistan under Saddam Hussein's "Arabization" campaign head back to their homelands in the south. * Regional Baathist leader Mohammed Zimam Abdul-Razaq has surrendered to US forces in western Baghdad. His capture leaves only 10 members of the "Deck of Cards" still at large, and don't forget to take a look at the visual version of "Ba'ath Poker." IRAN REPORTS * As the election crisis in Iran continues, Ayatollah Khamenei is urging high turn-out, as are President Khatami and the Iranian student organizations. Iran is also slamming the EU for its condemnation of the upcoming elections and refusing to accept the MPs resignations. * In the wake of the electoral crisis, Iranian dissident Hashem Aghajari is calling for an end to reform and is urging passive resistance against the Islamic Republic. * The Iranian groups General Staff for the Glorification of Martyrs of the Islamic World and the 15th of Khordad Foundation are continuing to call for the death of Salman Rushdie. * Meanwhile, Western diplomats have decided that the inevitable hardliner victory in the upcoming elections will make diplomacy easier with the Islamic Republic. It also seems that Supreme National Security Chief Hassan Rowhani is the new favorite to win the presidential elections in 2005, assuming Khatami survives to the end of the year. * The US is becoming increasingly wary of what is starting to look a lot like Iranian imperialism (which is what it would be called if a Western nation were doing this) with regard to Iraq. USA HOMELAND SECURITY BRIEFING * National Intelligence Council chairman Robert Hutchings is reporting that al-Qaeda has deployed a hijacking team in the US as well that several airline plots have been disrupted - a likely reference to recent flight decisions and terror alerts. * Accused Virginia Laskhar-e-Taiba member Khwaja Mahmood Hasan is testifying that he and 2 other accused LeT members tried to fight with the Taliban after 9/11. Another accused LeT member is also saying that the group wanted them to carry out a special mission in the US. * Released Guantanamo detainees are rejoining al-Qaeda, according to the New York Daily News. * FBI director Robert Mueller is reporting about the possibility of an al-Qaeda cell operating out of eastern Tennessee and perhaps even the University of Tennessee, where Glenn Reynolds teaches. And lest one scoff at this claim, it might do well to keep in mind that the head of al-Qaeda's post-9/11 operations in the US based his operations not out of Detroit but rather Peoria. THE WIDER WAR * Al-Qaeda's second generation leadership appears to be taking an increasing lead in planning attacks, with Abu Musab Zarqawi, Abu Walid, and Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin being the apparent foremost amongst them. * Under the leadership of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Taliban are planning a spring offensive on Afghanistan. So far, he seems to be targeting aid workers, shopkeepers as well as mining roads and frightening rural voters, leading to the assessment that the group has been reduced to cowardly attacks. * 7 Algerian police officers have been killed by the al-Qaeda affiliate GSPC. * Saudi authorities have killed a terrorist in Riyadh - did they? * Former Chechen president Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was assassinated in a car bombing likely orchestrated by the Russian government. Judging from the bio, he was hardly a pleasant individual. * Georgian president Saakashvili is calling Wahhabism a threat and admitting the presence the ideology in his country, a rather pleasant shift from his predecessor. * 5 Taliban have been arrested in Mauritania, of all places. This would seem to strengthen earlier accounts of al-Qaeda relocating to West Africa, as well as this account of Gambia being the subject of an al-Qaeda terror plot. * The Art of Peace offers some thoughts to the practice of collective punishment as it relates to tribal societies. * We try to end on a lighter note if possible. While the end of the universe isn't generally consider such, this actually strikes me as quite interesting.