IRAN

• The EU-3 have called of their talks with Iran, as Iran had resumed 'certain nuclear work' as the talks went on - in violation of promises made to the Europeans.

• The Iranians aren't sure why they're talking to the Europeans at all.

• But Ahmadinejad says there will be 'innovations' to solve the crisis.

• Khamenei blames it all on the Euros for 'unilaterally interpreting and violating the Paris Agreement'.

• If Britain is found to have aided the rock-throwing Arab and Kurd protestors, the British ambassador will be expelled.

THE MIDDLE EAST

• 1,110kg of explosives, 30 'tank bombs' and other bomb-making gear was found in the Lebanese town of Zghorta. This is, as the Lebanese Daily Star notes, 'the stronghold of former Interior Minister Suleiman Franjieh, a close aid of Syria'.

• Egyptian police are sweeping the Sinai for terrorists. There have been numerous gun battles, some 650 arrests and two Egyptian police commandos have been killed by an IED.

• The Egyptians have increased security around the Suez Canal.

• Jordanian police have arrested the prime suspect in the Aqaba rocket attack. Several other suspects are being questioned and the police are reporting 'progress'.

• Perhaps related to information gained through interrogation of the above suspects, Jordanian authorities are said to be hunting an al-Qaeda group based in Jordan, Egypt and the PA.

• No source for this one, so consider yourselves warned: four Syrian policeman reported killed in a gunbattle with terrorists planning attacks in Damascus and elsewhere.

• Debka (but no-one else) says that al-Qaeda claimed the murder of a British Jew in Jerusalem.

• Hamas and Islamic Jihad say they've come to an agreement with the PA, whereby they are not disarmed.

• The Popular Resistance Committees, a Gaza-based terror group, are said to have a rocket that could hit Ashkelon.

• Israeli forces killed four Hamas and PIJ terrorists in Tul Karem. The PIJ men were involved in both the Netanya and Tel Aviv bombings of this year, and said to have been planning other attacks. The U.S. urged restraint, and a White House spokesman said 'We always denounce any violence'.

• Syrian al-Qaeda leader Luai Sakra, who claimed to have known about and assisted in the 9/11 attacks, doesn't pray and drinks whiskey.

• A former spokesman for the Great East Islamic Raiders Front has set up a news magazine named Kaide (al-Qaeda in Turkish), praising Osama, supporting the London bombings and generally hating 'Christian-Jewish-Western imperialism'.

• A terrorist killed in a gunbattle in the Turkish town of Trabzon was a Syrian.

IRAQ AND THE GULF

• Al-Sadr has appealed for calm after fighting between the various militias of Sadr and Badr (heh).

• The Italian Red Cross treated terrorists to secure the release of staff held hostage.

• Persecution of Christians has increased since King Fahd died.

• Al-Watan reports that three Saudi terrorists who quit their football team and joined the ranks of jihad were inspired by a fatwa condemning the game.

• Al-Qaeda & the House of Saud: Eternal Enemies or Secret Bedfellows? (PDF).

THE AMERICAS

• An FBI witness in the al-Arian case say that PIJ planned to attack the United States.

• A Jordanian who carried out a suicide bombing in Iraq was denied entry in to the U.S. 20 months ago.

• A Pearl Harbour in space? That's how Secretary Rumsfeld characterised the threat to our satellites.

• The Counterterrorism blog on Radical Indoctrination in the U.S. Prisons.

• Two men have been arrested for involvement in a blast in the University of Arizona.

• Hugo Chavez’s Multi Billion Dollar Effort to Take Over Ecuador.

EUROPE

• The U.K. has announced the list of unacceptable behaviours which may lead to deportation. Note that British citizens, the likes of which carried out the 7/7 and 7/21 bombings, cannot be touched under these guidelines.

• The team tailing the Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes believed he was not a threat.

• The Dutch now agree that Hezbollah's 'political' and 'military' wings are indeed linked.

• ETA's apologist wing, Batasuna, is planning to stage a march.

• A local Chechen terror chief has been killed.

• Jihadis in Kosovo are again burning churches.

• Ingush police believe an officer they killed during a raid drove Shamil Basayev around Ingushetia during the attacks there in June 2004.

WEST ASIA & THE 'STANS

• Indian police are hunting a man named Mehmood who they believe to be responsible for what NDTV refers to as 'the militant attacks in Ayodhya'. I assume he is referring to the attacks on infrastructure (a train, a bridge and a power station, if I remember right), rather than the attack on the Ayodhya temple. The article goes on to say that the attackers were connected to Jaish-e-Mohammed.

• A senior LeT terrorist has been captured in Delhi.

• Pakistani security forces have raided a 'fake madrassa', arresting ten and seizing AK-47s, military equipment and women's clothing.

• Two sisters in Pakistan are alleged to have been trained as suicide bombers by their Lashkar-e-Jhangvi uncle, and reported to have been arrested in early June. But the Pakistanis are denying all knowledge.

• 11 Taliban have been killed in two joint U.S.-Afghan raids. A bomb factory was also captured.

• An Afghan cleric has survived an attempt on his life by Taliban terrorists. The Taliban and A-Q are targeting pro-government clerics across the country.

• The Taliban have promised not to attack polling stations in the upcoming Afghan elections.

• Two Islamic websites have reported that Osama was injured while leading an attack on a Spanish base in Afghanistan. No such assaults have been reported.

AUSTRALASIA AND THE ORIENT

• Has the Myanmar junta been replaced by another junta?

• An Australian minister says that Muslims who reject 'Australian values' should 'clear off'.

• PM Howard said that the government may monitor mosques and Islamic schools.

• Singapore and Australia will increase their co-operation in the anti-terror field.

• MILF and the military in Mindanao are apparently working together to find the 10 Indonesian bombers who entered the country recently.

• The Filipino military is increasing their pressure on JI.

• Another Buddhist teacher has been gunned down in Thailand.

AFRICA

• The other jihad - the spread of radical Islam in Africa.

• The U.S. and U.K. are training border guards in the Horn of Africa, in the expectation that Zarqawi may flee there from Iraq.

• A former AIS chief has supported an Algerian government amnesty for 'rebels'.

• The U.S. will deal with the leaders of the Mauritanian coup.

• A Mauritanian court has rejected requests by the new government to release 23 Islamists.

• Saif al-Islam, Qadhafi's son and increasingly the face of Libya, says that a U.S. embassy will be opened in Tripoli within days.

I wasn't sure whether to include this as a news item, but I had to include it somewhere:

• A Belgian city, having banned wearing the burka, has convicted and fined the first offender. But since the woman is on benefits, the city will almost certainly pick up the 125 Euro fine. One wonders, had there been a prison sentence, whether the city would have provided someone to serve the time for her.

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