Iran & the Middle East

• Lebanese authorities searched the computer of Assem Hammoud, wanted in connection with plots to bomb New York city, and discovered the plans for the bomb attack.

• UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is demanding that Israel take action to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza strip. As Israeli efforts to liberate the kidnapped IDF soldier continue, outside pressure from Europe is growing.

• On Saturday Israeli forces in northern Gaza withdrew after heavy fighting left 30 Palestinians dead. Following fresh fighting, the death toll in Gaza has been raised to 41.

• Seven terror suspects linked to al Qaeda have escaped from Malaz prison in Riyadh according to the Saudi Interior Ministry. Among the escapees are six Saudis and one Yemeni. John Burgess at Crossroads Arabia has commentary and a list of those who escaped.

• According to the EU, positive discussions with Iran over their nuclear program has resulted in a second meeting scheduled for this Tuesday, at which time Iran will give a "substantial response" to the international incentive package.

• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States of provoking the Iraqi insurgency and called for foreign terrorists to be prevented from entering Iraq, because it gave coalition troops an excuse to stay. He also complained that "the root of the problems of the Islamic world is the existence of the Zionist regime [Israel]."

• Saudi Debate has an excellent essay on the history of Islamist conflict with the Al-Saud government. Written by Madawi Al-Rasheed, the piece notes that the Bin Laden phenomenon isn't new.

• An article by Chris Zambelis at the Jamestown Foundation highlights the current unrest in Iranian Balochistan. The troubles inside Iran are certainly related to the independence movement next door in Pakistan's Balochistan province, as Balochs live in Iran and Afghanistan. The article refers to Abdulmalak Rigi as the leader of Jundallah. Peace Like A River notes that an Iranian report in April said Rigi was killed, perhaps a bit of false propaganda from the Iranians.

• Nineteen suspected al-Qaida members accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel used by Americans were acquitted by a Yemeni judge on Saturday.

• On Sunday, Israeli airstrikes hit targets across the Gaza strip, wounding at least three Palestinian terrorists and destroying a bridge in northern Gaza. Later in the day, additional strikes struck a group of Palestinians in Gaza city from various factions, killing one.

• The Jordanian public prosecutor is calling for the death penalty for an Iraqi woman charged for her involvement in suicide attacks in Amman last November.

• The Bahrain parliament has become a roadblock in the nations proposed counterinsurgency law, opposing the definition of terrorism used and objecting to the use of capital punishment.

• In an interview in the local Jerusalem weekly Kol Hazman, Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu said his party is putting together a plan that would endorse the creation of a "demilitarized Palestinian entity" with contiguity in the West Bank. The move would reflect a softening of the Likud position.

• Palestinian President Minister Mahmoud Abbas has sent two envoys to Damascus to meet with Hamas leader Kahled Mashaal, in the hopes of solving the case of the kidnapped Israeli soldier. Hamas has said they would release the soldier in exchange for the release of 130 Palestinian prisoners.

• An overwhelming majority of Palestinians support the abduction of IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit and the firing of rockets at Israel, according to a public opinion poll published on Sunday by the Jerusalem Media Communications Center.

• Israeli Defense Forces killed Samer Kandil in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus on Friday. The wanted Palestinian terrorist was involved in several attacks against Israeli targets and collaborated with a number of Palestinian terrorist groups, most predominantly the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

• Daniel McKivergan has commentary on Syrian dissident Ammar Abdulhamid, who says that "after a period of lying low, the Assads are re-emerging as one of the Middle East's chief backers of radical groups - Islamist or ultra-nationalist."

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• Authorities believe a Canadian co-conspirator was involved in the alleged plot to blow up New York tunnels and submerge lower Manhattan under a torrent of flood waters. Canadian police questioned a man they suspect of active involvement in the conspiracy, but he was released because there wasn't enough evidence to hold him beyond the period of interrogation, the Canadian Press has learned.

• Before Assem Hammoud and his associates decided to try to bomb commuter train tunnels beneath New York's Hudson River, they had considered several other targets: the Golden Gate Bridge and the forests of California, and the Brooklyn Bridge, where they would set a huge fire, Lebanese security officials told Newsday.

• Lawmakers on Thursday called the Transportation Security Administration's baggage screening and bomb detection systems inadequate and said failure rates of some programs indicate the potential for dire consequences.

• For the first time, a former Orange County, Calif. teenage rock music fan has revealed his role as a top al Qaeda leader. Adam Gadahn, who disappeared from California seven years ago, appeared unmasked on an al Qaeda tape made public on the internet Friday. As previously reported by ABC News, the FBI had concluded that the masked man was Gadahn based on voice analysis of previous al Qaeda tapes. On Friday's tape, Gadahn is bearded, wearing a turban

• Money transfer companies have delayed or blocked thousands of cash deliveries on suspicion of terrorist connections simply because senders or recipients have names like Mohammed or Ahmed, company officials have said. Dubai-based representatives from Western Union Financial Services, an American company based in Colorado, and Minnesota-based MoneyGram International said their clerks are simply following U.S. Treasury Department guidelines that scrutinize cash flows for terrorist links.

• Canada has said it deported suspected Babbar Khalsa terrorist Bachan Singh Sogi, accused of plotting to assassinate former Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, as he was a ‘serious security risk’.

• A 2003 immigration case that raised questions about Canada's ability to weed out terrorists was hampered by a lack of communication and caused a rift between federal departments, documents obtained by the Toronto Star show.

• Finance Minister Jim Flaherty promised a "relentless" fight against terror financing and money laundering yesterday as he announced new measures to combat the crimes. At a pier overlooking Canada's financial centre, Mr. Flaherty said Toronto had been chosen to host the headquarters of the world anti-money laundering organization known as the Egmont Group.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• Oleg Alborov, the secretary of the South Ossetia security council, was assassinated in a bombing at his house on Sunday. In response, South Ossetia had sealed off approaches to the Georgian-Ossetian border and was tightening entry into the self-proclaimed Republic. Tensions are running high between Georgia and pro-Moscow separatists.

• Chechen Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov vowed to eliminate the militants responsible for ambushing a Russian military convoy last week in an attack that killed six soldiers, and indicated that 50 more militants were prepared to lay down their arms.

• Threatswatch takes a closer look inside of the Beslan attacks that took the lives of 344 citizens, including 186 children.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for more international support to bolster his nation's police force in an effort to curb a recent upsurge in violence. "I'm concerned about the rise in violence in Afghanistan," Karzai told reporters in Tokyo Friday. "We should be looking at two problem areas as reasons for the rise of violence in Afghanistan. One is the weakness of the government institutions, especially the police and particularly in the rural areas," he said.

• Foreign Minister Rangin Spanta called on Pakistan to redouble efforts to prevent terrorist groups from infiltrating into his country through their common border. Speaking at a Washington forum on Thursday, he said Pakistan "can do more" to combat the problem. Asked how Pakistan could help, Spanta said some 80,000 Pakistani soldiers, deployed beyond the so-called Durand line which supposedly separated the two countries, should be more vigilant.

• A soldier from the US-led coalition and eight rebels died in new violence in Afghanistan, officials have said, as Britain mulled sending extra troops after six were killed in a month. The coalition soldier was killed and another wounded on Thursday when rebels attacked a convoy in Helmand province, the US-led coalition said in a statement. It did not give the nationality of either service member. "Coalition forces returned fire, and at least five extremists were killed," it said. The attack was in Baghran Valley in the north of the province.

• On Thursday, gunmen attacked a patrol of U.S.-led soldiers in eastern Afghanistan killing one member of the force. The Afghan Defense Ministry said 12 Taliban and two government soldiers were killed in other clashes in the south and east on Wednesday. Twenty-one insurgents were captured, it said.

• A Canadian soldier has been killed during an assault on a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan as a Peruvian soldier and 21 rebels died in other weekend violence. Most of the rebels were killed in an attack by foreign and Afghan troops on an insurgent stronghold around the Panjwayi area of Kandahar province that began early Saturday and continued into Sunday, a coalition spokeswoman said.

• A coalition officer died Sunday of wounds suffered in fighting near an opium-rich insurgent stronghold, the military said. A coalition patrol found the bodies of 10 militants killed in a coalition airstrike in the same area of Kandahar province's Panjwayi district.

• The deployment of British troops to the restive southern province of Helmand in Afghanistan has "energised" the Taliban, Britain's Defence Secretary Des Browne admitted in an interview. "It is certainly the case that the very act of deployment into the south has energised the opposition, and the scale of the opposition and the nature of that opposition became apparent when we were deploying," he told The Guardian. Six British soldiers have been killed since the troops began moving into Helmand in April and commanders have warned that the Taliban resistance is stronger than expected.

• Suicide bombings appear to be taking root as a form of militant warfare in Afghanistan, with a group of women at the forefront of the expansion of the use in the country of the bloody, largely Iraq-imported technique. The women - numbering around 70 - include widows of Arab and Uzbek fighters killed in clashes with the US military in Afghanistan or with Pakistani forces, sources in Pakistan's North Waziristan region have told Adnkronos International (AKI).

• Afghan officials destroyed more than 40 tons of confiscated narcotics worth an estimated $500 million on Wednesday in a giant bonfire on the outskirts of Kabul.

• Coming after bloody anti-Western riots in May, blasts in Kabul have intensified unease in the city, where many people increasingly worry that the insurgency in the countryside is creeping into what has been a relative oasis since the Taliban's ouster more than four years ago.

• Pakistan's madrassas still host hundreds of foreign students one year after the London bombings sparked a major crackdown, but the pupils insist they are not being schooled in jihad. President Pervez Musharraf pledged to expel all 1,400 non-Pakistanis from the Islamic schools following the revelation that one or more of the suicide attackers attended a seminary before the blasts on July 7, 2005.

• Pakistan has arrested six Islamic militants suspected of planning attacks on an elite polo festival in the Hindu Kush foothills attended by Western diplomats, security officials said. The arrests were made at Shandur in Gilgit district on Thursday, a day before the opening of the three-day festival where Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is also expected to appear.

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

• An article in the Guardian looks at the question of why Balochistan matters. Also, the GoB in Exile blog has an informative article on the port of Gwadar in Balochistan, and why it matters to Pakistan and China.

• A politician and two civilians died and at least 20 others were hurt when suspected Islamic rebels hurled a grenade outside a Muslim shrine in Indian Kashmir, police said. The group had just emerged from visiting the shrine when the rebels lobbed the grenade at them, police said. "Three people were killed and more than 20 others were injured," a police spokesman told AFP by telephone from Kulgam in the south of Indian Kashmir where a revolt has raged against New Delhi's rule since 1989.

• Busting a network of overground modules of Lashker-e-Toiba and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen in Jammu and Kashmir, police uncovered six top terror networks and arrested 33 militants associated with them in the first six months of this year, top intelligence sources said today.

• Two Maoist cadres were shot and killed in southeast Nepal by gunmen believed to be from a rebel faction, police said. "An armed group of people shot dead two Maoist activists while they were returning from a feast at one of the local resident's houses in Saptari district on Wednesday night," a police officer said on Friday.

Far East & Southeast Asia

• East Timor named a new Prime Minister on Saturday, appointing Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta to the position, following months of instability and violence.

• North Korea is demanding that sanctions be lifted against the nation as a precondition for returning to talks aimed at a resolution on Pyongyang's nuclear program. In response, the United States rejected the idea and believes they have the votes in the UN Security Council to pass sanctions, which may come on Monday.

• South Korea has suspended food aid to North Korea in protest over the multiple missile launches carried out by the communist nation last week, and Japan is requesting a U.N. resolution of condemnation. Chinese officials are scheduled to fly this week to Pyongyang for discussions.

• On Saturday the USS Mustin guided-missile destroyer sailed into the port of Yokosuka, home to the Navy's 7th Fleet, with a crew of 300 for permanent assignment to the region. The move comes as Kim Jong Il claims to be bracing for "all out war."

• North Korea's ambassador to Australia, Chon Jae Hong, warned that attempts to halt their missile tests could lead to war, and called the launches "routine military exercises."

• Dan Blumenthal has commentary on North Korea and says it's time to defuse Kim Jong Il, and calls for containment and isolation to bring down the regime in Pyongyang over time.

• Lebanon has agreed to extradite Saleh Jamal to Australia, a member of a group that plotted terror attacks in Sydney on New Years Eve 2003.

Europe

• A Moroccan born, German citizen accused of being an al-Qaeda agent has been arrested in Hamburg. The man, named only as Redouane EH, is accused of having ties to a suspected key 9/11 planner who fled Germany a week before the attacks.

• The Terrorism Research Center has released its commentary on the anniversary of the 7 July 2005 bombings in London, that were certainly carried out at the directive of al Qaeda elements in Pakistan or Afghanistan, despite earlier reports from British authorities and the media.

• John Reid, the British Home Secretary, is set to launch a new warning system designed to inform the public about the official assessment of current threats from terrorist groups. According to the Telegraph, the new system will have five stages and will be posted on the Home Office and MI5 websites with advice to the public on what action to take.

• In a 302-219 vote in the European Union parliament, a resolution passed demanding that European banks and governments disclose what they know about the U.S. program to track and monitor the transfer of funds by terrorists. Several weeks ago some of the details of the program appeared in a New York Times article.

• Sergio Chiamparino, the Mayor of the Italian city of Turin, received a package bomb in the mail from an anarchist group at his office on Friday.

• Friday marked the one year anniversary of the London subway bombings that killed 52 people and injured 800 more, as a somber nation remembered the victims. Also see commentary from James Robbins on the video al Qaeda released to mark the day, and commentary from Amir Taheri at Asharq Alawsat.

• A speech by an extremist Muslim cleric praising the London bombers and mocking victims of the attacks has been posted on the internet to mark the anniversary of the July 7 attacks.

• Bosnian Muslims will mark the 11th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre on Tuesday, when the remains of 505 people killed by Serb forces arrive for burial.

• Baron Bodissey at Gates of Vienna is highlighting comments made by Danish foreign minister Per Stig Møller, who warns against radical Islam and says we "must never underestimate a totalitarian movement in the making."

Africa

• A Dutchman abducted on Thursday in Nigeria's violent oil-producing Niger Delta is in good health but his kidnappers' demands are not yet known, a spokesperson for Bayelsa state in the delta said on Friday.

• A leading Mogadishu sheikh said on Friday Muslims who do not pray five times a day should be put to death -- the latest sign of a fast-emerging hardline face to Somalia's newly-powerful Islamists. The sheikh's statement -- which he confirmed to Reuters after it was broadcast on local media -- caused consternation among residents and will fuel foreign fears the Islamists are planning a hardline Taliban-style rule.

• An article from the PINR looks at the increasingly polarized situation in Somalia.

• Gunmen killed a journalist in Democratic Republic of Congo early on Saturday, a day after foreign donors called on the government to guarantee press freedoms ahead of historic elections this month. A local media watchdog said independent journalist Mwamba Bapuwa, who had recently criticized the government and survived a previous attack several months ago, was shot at his home by unidentified intruders who took his mobile phone. The killing comes amid growing fears of a crackdown on the media as Democratic Republic of Congo prepares to hold its first free elections in four decades on July 30.

• Islamist militia fighters ambushed fighters loyal to defeated Somali warlords in Mogadishu early on Sunday in a heavy firefight that killed at least 12 people. Gulf News places the number killed at 20.

• The Islamic militiamen controlling the Somali capital broke up a wedding celebration because a band was playing and women and men were socializing together, witnesses said Saturday, describing the latest crackdown by a group feared to be installing Taliban-style rule in this African nation.

The Global War

• On Friday, President Bush said the hunt for Osama bin Laden was still on, denying the pursuit of the al Qaeda leader was less important after the CIA disbanded its bin Laden unit.

• India test-fired its nuclear-capable Agni III missile Sunday for the first time, the Defense Ministry said. The launch took place at India's main missile testing center in the eastern state of Orissa, Defense Ministry spokesman Sitanshu Kar told the Associated Press.

• Regime Change Iran is carrying the story of UN weapons inspector Chris Charlier, a Belgian scientist who apparently was taken off the Iranian file at the request of Iran. Curt at Flopping Aces notes that the Washington Post is also reporting on the story.

• Kim Priestap at Wizbang has commentary on an article in the UK Sunday Times by Michael Portillo, who says "we must call it Islamic terrorism."

• This week Russia will host their first G8 conference in Moscow, with the agenda expected to include discussions on energy issues, North Korea's missile launches, and Iran's nuclear defiance. Meanwhile, Iran is warning the G-8 against making any decisions on Iran's nuclear program without consulting Teheran first.

• The Saddam-Osama Connection: The Terrorist Testimony

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