Iran & the Middle East

• On Friday, Hezbollah gunmen attacked an Israeli military post inside of the contested Shaaba Farms region in northern Israel with small arms fire and rockets. In response, Israeli war planes carried out four raids, firing 12 rockets while drawing anti-aircraft shoulder fired SAM-7 missiles from Hezbollah gunners.

• On Friday, IDF troops arrested two Palestinian teenagers attempting to smuggle suicide bomber belts out of the West Bank city of Nablus to pass along to another group planning to use them attacks in central Israel. The thwarted bombings were the fourth in the last two weeks according to Israeli defense authorities, who believe Syria is seeking to increase the bombings ahead of the Israeli elections.

• The Jordanian military is quietly playing a solid role in the war on terror, with hospitals in both Afghanistan and Iraq serving millions of patients, donations of equipment and training of Iraqi security forces. Visiting the United States, King Abdullah called on Israel and the Palestinians to return to talks.

• A Palestinian man stabbed five Israelis, four of them women, on a bus in central Israel on Saturday, killing one woman. The cowardly attack took place in the city of Petach Tikva.

• In the IAEA resolution referring Iran to the UN Security Council, the atomic watchdog also issues a broader declaration to make the Middle East a nuclear free zone, a move that may bring Israel's non-acknowledged nuclear program into the spotlight. Israel does not in principle oppose a nuclear free Middle East, but demands recognition from Arab states before any such discussions could transpire. On Sunday, senior Hamas member Musa Abu Marzuk described the Palestinian Authority's recognition of Israel as "an error, which can be rectified."

• On Friday night, Israeli fighter jets struck Qassam rocket launchers in the northern Gaza Strip in response to attacks earlier in the day that wounded four Israelis in western Negev. Palestinian terrorist are working to step up the Gaza Qassam terror campaign against Israel.

• Senior Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has declared that Hamas will never recognize the right of Israel's existence, but that a long term truce may be possible. "We will never recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist state that was established on our land," said Meshaal, adding "If you (Israel) are willing to accept the principle of a long-term truce then we will be ready to negotiate with you over the conditions of such a truce."

• European and Iranian leaders exchanged heated comments on Saturday, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel likened the Iranian threat to that of Nazi Germany, saying "we see that there were times when we could have acted differently. For that reason Germany is obliged to intervene at an early stage...to make clear (to Iran) what is O.K. and what isn't."

• An Israeli missile strike on a building in Gaza used by Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade to prepare rocket attacks against Israel, resulted in the death of three Palestinians.

America Domestic Security & the Americas

• A man holding dual citizenship in Lebanon and Canada has been sentenced to five years in U.S. prison after he admitted trying to aid the militant group Hezbollah by sending it night-vision goggles and other equipment. Naji Antoine Abi Khalil, 39, the chairman of a Montreal shipping company, was sentenced Thursday. He pleaded guilty in August to trying to provide material support to Hezbollah, which had been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

• A lawyer for an Ohio trucker who pleaded guilty to plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge has prepared a motion asking a federal judge to throw out the case on the grounds that the government illegally spied on him. Iyman Faris’ challenge is among the first to seek evidence of warrantless electronic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency, a practice that began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Government officials have reportedly credited the practice with uncovering Faris’ terrorist plot and several others.

• U.S. intelligence officials told Congress on Thursday that disclosure of once-classified projects like President Bush's no-warrant eavesdropping program have undermined their work. "The damage has been very severe to our capabilities to carry out our mission," CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee, citing disclosures about a variety of CIA programs that he suggested may have been compromised. Goss said a federal grand jury should be impaneled to determine "who is leaking this information." National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Thursday that the al-Qaida terror network remains the "top concern" of the U.S. intelligence community.

• Despite statements by senior al Qaeda leaders, U.S. intelligence agencies do not have information indicating the group is ready to conduct a major attack, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.

• Ecuador has destroyed a camp allegedly used by Colombia's largest rebel group, the FARC, in its territory. A large amount of weaponry had been found at the site, Defence Minister Oswaldo Jarrin said.

• APM Terminals and the Port Authority of Jamaica are improving their current security systems to allow for better vision of their facilities. "We are adding another 16 cameras to be online within the next couple of months," Peter Ford, general manager of APM Terminals, told The Gleaner at a recent Editors' Forum. He added that further expansion of the security system will see another 16 cameras being installed. "The cameras will be monitored by our experienced operators in the CCTV Centre," he explained. Additional security measures will see the implementation of a biometric identification card that will grant staff members access to certain areas of the port.

• Officials OF the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen in Trinidad say they are determined now more than ever to topple the ruling PNM Government after their leader, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr, was again refused bail. One senior Jamaat official told the Express that the organisation intends to provide the police with independent evidence to corroborate the statements of Vernon Paul, who has accused top PNM officials of being involved in a plot to frame two former UNC government ministers on drug and weapons charges in order win the general elections in 2002.

Russia, Caucasus & Central Asia

• A plot to kill Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili by shooting down his helicopter has been foiled according to Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili. He said a portable Igla anti-aircraft missile and its launcher had been discovered in the Shida Kartli area, close to the border with the breakaway region of South Ossetia and near a regular flight path of Saakashvili’s helicopter.

• While Russian diplomats looked favorably at the win by Hamas in the Palestinian elections and President Vladamir Putin stated his "position towards HAMAS differs from the American and West-European one", behind the scenes Russian military officers are concerned it will promote even greater activism of a radical Islamic movement in the Middle East that can indirectly affect the situation in Central Asia and in the Northern Caucasus.

• Secret services of Kazakhstan and Afghanistan have increased co-operation in combating drug business according to Vladimir Bozhko, the First Deputy Chairman of KNB (Antiterrorist Centre).

• A regional supreme court in Daghestan sentenced Magomed Salikhov to four years in prison for his role in a 1999 car bombing killed 64 Russian officers and their family members at their housing complex in Buinaksk.

• Two militants were arrested in Daghestan on Friday, suspected of carrying out attacks against security forces in the region.

• Six Russian soldiers have been killed since Thursday in fighting in Chechnya, in three different incidents.

• Three explosions hit three small gambling establishments in the city of Vladikavkaz, the capital of the republic of North Ossetia on Thursday, wounding 23 people. Investigators are focusing on several possible motives for the explosions on the premises, which housed slot machines, including terrorism and a turf war among local criminals.

Afghanistan & Southern Asia

• Fourteen successive suicide bomb attacks have shaken the Kandahar region in a way that nearly four years of guerrilla insurgency has not. Afghan officials say they have made strides in the last few days to shut down terror networks that launched these attacks, arresting 20 insurgents this week. But Taliban spokesmen say their suicide attacks have only just begun.

• Taliban insurgents launched four attacks in the southern Afghan province of Helmand on Friday and three policemen and 20 Taliban were killed, the province's deputy governor said. About 200 insurgents were involved in the fighting, and some of them had ambushed police reinforcements going to the scene of the initial clash, said deputy provincial governor Mullah Mir, who was in a police convoy that came under attack.

• A homicide bomber disguised as a woman blew himself up at an army checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan, killing five Afghans and wounding four, police said Thursday.

• Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he would raise security concerns plaguing his insurgency-hit country during a visit to neighbouring Pakistan this month. "Afghanistan, as a nation, wants to live in peace and security," Karzai told reporters on Friday. "Once we are there, with our Pakistani brothers and Pakistani officials, we'll discuss this and find a way to resolve these problems," he said, stressing that his relations with Islamabad were "very good and friendly".

• Strategy Page looks at the issue of tribal politics in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and says "the Afghan government believes that the Pakistani government is behind the support from Pakistan."

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

• In India, intelligence agencies are looking for commonalities in the arrests of six terror suspects from the city in three separate incidents. Top officials, however, admitted that "for Mumbai, the terror threat is now greater than ever before." Also the back-to-back arrests have sparked immediate police response in large parts of the city and its suburbs.

• At least 17 policemen and three soldiers have been killed in attacks by militants in Nepal's western Palpa district. The army said that the rebels launched raids on armed forces and government posts in the town of Tansen.

• Tribesmen have blown up a gas pipeline in Pakistan's troubled southern province of Balochistan, officials say. Armed militants also fired more than 200 rockets at a major base belonging to the Pakistani security forces in the area, they said.

• A bomb ripped through a passenger bus in a province of southwestern Pakistan wracked by growing tribal unrest, killing at least 13 people Sunday and wounding 20 others, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, which will deepen concerns over Baluchistan, where violence between tribal militants and security forces has escalated recently in remote areas of the province.

• A land mine ripped through a police vehicle, killing six officers and wounding four in the latest of a wave of attacks that have rocked southern Afghanistan, officials said Sunday.

• More than 170 Taliban and other Islamist fighters have surrendered as part of a government amnesty scheme, vowing to lay down arms and work to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan, officials said. The men travelled from various provinces from across Afghanistan to Kabul for a ceremony at which their surrender was announced by the head of the government's reconciliation commission, Sebghattullah Mujaddadi.

• A guerrilla group in Sri Lanka has threatened to attack troops because of the government's "crackdown" on Tamil civilians in the north and the east. The People's Army, which has claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in the island in December, made the announcement on a Tamil website.

• In Bangladesh, Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr Khondokar Mosharraf Hossain has informed the House that the government took short and long-term measures to curb terrorism, especially the bomb attacks in the country. He said under the short-term measures, a total of 597 people were arrested in 214 cases. Of the cases, charge sheets against 121 were submitted and seven cases sent to speedy trial tribunals. Also, police already arrested two members of "majlish-e-sura", the highest policy-making body of Jama''atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), two zone commanders, eight district commanders and 17 members of "ehsar sura" besides recovering a huge quantity of arms and ammunition.

Far East & Southeast Asia

• Islamic militants in Thailand are carrying out a murderous insurgency in the southern provinces that border Malaysia, with much of their campaign of terror and intimidation aimed at other Muslims.

• Islamic Gunmen attacked a group of Christian families on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines, killing at least six. The attacks took place in the town of Patikul, a hotbed of Abu Sayyaf activity.

• According to Indonesian authorities, wanted Jemaah Islamiah terrorist Noordin M. Top is still hiding in Central Java. Deputy national police spokesman Brigadier-General Anton Bahrul Alam also announced that police had arrested 12 suspects for their involvement in last year's October 1 suicide bombings on restaurants in Bali, which killed 20 people.

• In Jakarta, Indonesian Muslims threw eggs at the Danish embassy and burned the Danish flag, while verbally condemning the European nation for the cartoon depicting Mohammed as a terrorist. The reaction in Australia and New Zealand was equally as interesting.

Europe

• Islamic extremists are using Norway as a base for terrorist operations overseas, but the head of Norway's security police claims they're being watched. Jorn Holme, head of the police security agency PST, claims Norwegian authorities "have control" over terror cells believed to be operating in Norway. "We believe we have control," Jorn Holme, who heads the equivalent of Norway's national security agency (Politiets sikkerhetstjeneste, PST), told newspaper Dagbladet on Friday. "But as with any other country's security police, we can't make any guarantees."

• The UK should expect more suicide bombings, the independent reviewer of the terrorism laws has warned. Lord Carlile, who has access to sensitive intelligence reports, says there is a "real and present danger of shocking terrorism acts".

• German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier made an appeal broadcast on the Al Jazeera television station on Friday calling on Iraqi kidnappers to free two German engineers threatened with death. Steinmeier said earlier on Friday he had no news to report and declined to give any details of Germany's efforts to free the two men or of its assessment of a film in which the kidnappers said they would kill the men in 72 hours if their demands were not met.

• Daniel Drezner links to a Daily Telegraph article saying "that the defeat of Tony Blair's proposed Racial and Religious Hatred Bill was in part due to defections from his Labor party -- and in part due to [an episode of] The West Wing."

• Spain's top law enforcement official said Thursday he removed a key prosecutor from his job for failing to obey orders in important cases, including one involving al-Qaida suspects due to be released from jail soon because of a backlog in the courts.

• The Netherlands will send an extra 1,400 troops to southern Afghanistan, after parliament ended six months of wrangling to approve the deployment. Despite opposition from one of three parties in the ruling coalition, most MPs supported the plan, including those from the main opposition Labour party.

• A Newsweek article says "British authorities had at least two of the terrorists who bombed London last July 7 under surveillance in 2004."

• A group of more than 400 Muslims in London protested the Danish cartoons in a rally that included a sign stating "Britain you will pay - 7/7 is on its way" and featured a child adorned in a hat stating "I love al Qaeda."

Africa

• A US-drafted Security Council statement calls for U.N. peacekeepers to be sent to Sudan’s troubled Darfur region and asks United Nations to draw up plans for an eventual takeover from an African Union force. The statement, circulated for discussion to Security Council members on Thursday by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, would be the first step toward authorizing a larger force in Darfur But the statement, which needs approval from all council members, has not yet received agreement from Qatar, the only Arab nation in the 15-member body and China, a close ally of Khartoum, council envoys said.

• The international community should commit to ending arms sales to Africa in 2006, a senior U.N. official said Feb. 2, while urging Africans to lead a pacifist movement across their continent. ”There’s one slogan I would like to suggest for 2006: No arms sales for Africa for 2006. Zero arms sales — not an embargo, not a sanction, a voluntary cessation of all arms sales to Africa,” said Dennis McNamara, the U.N. special advisor on internal displacement.

• The United Nations urged the warring parties from Sudan’s Darfur region on Saturday to stop the conflict from spreading into neighbouring Chad, which has 200,000 Darfur refugees on its territory. The top U.N. envoy in Sudan, Jan Pronk, also rebuked the parties for escalating fighting in Darfur, to the detriment of peace talks in the Nigerian capital Abuja between the Sudanese government and two rebel movements. Pronk described an increasingly chaotic situation in Darfur, where rival rebel factions, bandits, pro-government militias and unidentified gunmen kill, rape and loot with impunity.

• Douglas Farah, who in the past has written on al Qaeda's ties to the African diamond trade, highlights Nigerian drug gangs expanding into the Afghan Heroin trade.

• A court in South Africa has sided with a Muslim group and banned the controversial cartoon of Mohammed, currently at the heart of the conflict between Europe and the Muslim world. The ruling was denounced by the media as "pre-publication censorship." South Africa was also one of five nations to abstain from voting to refer Iran to the Security Council.

• Militias based in Sudan's western Darfur region are carrying out almost daily cross-border raids on villages in neighbouring Chad, says a rights group. The report said most of the victims in Chad, as in Darfur, came from African ethnic groups and that the Arab civilians living in the same area were not harmed.

The Global War

• In Congressional testimony, U.S. Intelligence chief John Negroponte cited Iran, al Qaeda and North Korea as the top threats and defended the NSA wiretapping program currently used by the Bush administration.

• The United Nations nuclear agency reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council on Saturday, signaling growing worldwide unease about the nature and intent of Iran's nuclear program, and concern that it might be military. Iran responded Saturday by announcing that it would resume "commercial-scale uranium enrichment" and halt snap checks of its nuclear facilities by U.N. inspectors.

• The Pentagon will ask the U.S. Congress for expanded authority to train and equip indigenous forces across different parts of the world in order to combat the spread of terrorism and maintain security, a senior official responsible for the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) said.

• A paper from the INSS (available here in PDF) entitled Restructuring Special Operations
  Forces for Emerging Threats says Special Forces are vital for combating terrorism and the proliferation of WMDs, but that "neither Washington nor U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) is organized for optimal use" of Special Forces.

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