Monday Winds of War Briefing
Welcome! Our goal at Winds of Change.NET is to give you one power-packed briefing of insights, news and trends from the global War on Terror that leaves you stimulated, informed, and occasionally amused every Monday & Thursday. Monday's Winds of War briefings are given by Security Watchtower and Peace Like a River.
Top Topics
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for President Bush to be charged with war crimes over the use of depleted uranium shells in Iraq. He further denounced the west for attempting to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and promised to confront the "supporters of the Zionist entity."
* Jihad Watch links to an article saying an Ohio cleric is to be deported for terrorist ties. "Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, was convicted in June 2004 of concealing ties to three groups that the U.S. government classifies as terrorist organizations when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994."
* A Filipino soldier was killed in a shootout with Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Jolo Island, as authorities continue their manhunt for Abu Sayyaf leaders Albader Parad and Umbra Jumdail Gumbahali, both on the terror watch lists of the Philippines and the United States. According to some reports, as many as 30 U.S. advisors are embedded with Filipino counterterrorism units.
Other topics today include: Rafah border crossing opens; King Abdullah ushers in reform; Hezbollah kidnappings; Azerbaijan opposition; GCC moves closer to counterterrorism center; Tehran insists on enrichment; Syria agrees to cooperate with Mehlis; Pakistani convicted in US court over terror ties; debate over Patriot Act; Arrests in Afghanistan; Indonesia anti-terrorism ads; Islamic fundementalism on rise in France; EU-Mediterranean summit; Egyptian elections and violence; and much more.
Iran & the Middle East
* The Rafah border terminal between Egypt and the Gaza Strip opened for the first time without Israeli security since it was established in 1979. Palestinians praised the border opening, a move that some hope will breathe some economic life into Gaza.
* King Abdullah of Jordan has ordered Director of National Security Marouf Bakhit to form a new government aimed at sweeping in reform and launching an all out war against Islamic terrorists. Some rumors point to an "imminent dissolution" of the 110-seat lower house of parliament to pave the way for elections.
* Hezbollah is vowing to continue trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers after a botched attempt last week resulted in the death of three Hezbollah fighters. In southern Beirut, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah says "it is our right to capture Israeli soldiers."
* Two weeks after disputed parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, the opposition movement has been unable to muster any significant response. A combination of the government's security crackdown and lack of leadership and trust among the people has largely kept the Popular Front's impact at a minimum.
* According to a UK Telegraph report, Iran is secretly training Chechen fighters at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran.
* The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) appear one step closer to adopting a Saudi plan to construct a counterterrorism center in Saudi Arabia that would coordinate information and planning.
* Tehran remains firm on their right to enrich uranium inside of Iran, apparently rebuffing plans a Russian compromise to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran that was enriched in Russia. The IAEA withheld referring Iran to the UN Security Council in an effort to allow Russia to resolve the crisis through diplomacy.
* The Syrian government has agreed to allow top officials to be interviewed outside of the country after posing initial opposition to the measure. The United Nations headquarters in Vienna, Austria is reported to be the site where the interviews will take place.
* Yemen has executed Ali Ahmed Jarallah, a hardline Islamic cleric who killed a member of the opposition socialist party in 2002, declaring it part of a jihad against converts to Christianity and infidels.
America Domestic Security & the America's
* US federal jurors on Wednesday convicted a 25-year-old Pakistani of supporting an al Qaeda plot to attack the United States, despite the man's claim that he falsely confessed under the pressure of three days of interrogation by the FBI. Uzair Paracha was convicted of all five counts he faced, including conspiracy and providing material support to al Qaeda, identification fraud and receiving funds for the benefit of al Qaeda.
* Canadian opposition legislators accused the government on Friday of trying to hide the fact that planes used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to transport prisoners for interrogation had landed at Canadian airports. Earlier this week, Ottawa said it was investigating reports that two planes linked to a CIA shell company had flown from Iceland to St. John's in Newfoundland, on Canada's East Coast.
* Several reasons have been given for the US government's decision this week not to include charges of ties to Al Qaeda or the plans to build a "dirty bomb" in its indictment against US citizen Jose Padilla. The New York Times Thursday quoted unnamed current and former government sources say one of those reasons may be that it was unwilling to allow the testimony of the two Al Qaeda members who linked Mr. Padilla to the above plot because the two men may have been "subjected to harsh questioning."
* A former Leduc cinema owner with suspected ties to al-Qaida has been charged in Miami with conspiracy to murder and providing support to terrorists as part of a North American cell. It’s alleged Kassem Daher and Jose Padilla conspired to "murder, maim and kidnap" people in terrorism-related plots overseas.
* Opponents of the USA Patriot Act are taking advantage of a split between the House and Senate to rewrite the law under a ticking clock that voids some contentious provisions by Dec. 31. A proposed deal between the House and Senate fell apart just hours before lawmakers left for the Thanksgiving break. When the session resumes Dec. 12, lawmakers will have 15 working days to reach a compromise.
* Police have arrested a man at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix for making threats of terrorism and for restraining an information desk clerk. Phoenix Police Sgt. Lauri Williams said the man jumped behind a ticket counter, grabbed the clerk and held her hands behind her back while screaming that he was armed and was affiliated with terrorist groups. "He wasn't making sense, he wasn't coherent," Williams said. "The officers believed he was mentally ill. They did not believe his threats were valid."
* Heavily armed police and army officers swooped down on several illegally operated quarries in Trinidad last week arresting 12 men and impounding several pieces of heavy equipment used in the trade. Nine of the 11 quarries were said to be operated by the Jamaat al Muslimeem whose leader Yasin Abu Bakr is currently in jail without bail after being charged with several offences, among them a terrorism charge. The Jamaat-al-Muslimeen has been accused of muscling its way into the industry, at first claiming to have inherited a lease giving them the rights to mine in the midst of a boom in the construction sector which has fueled a demand for aggregate making quarrying a highly lucrative industry.
Russia & South/Central Asia
* An explosive device hit a vehicle carrying NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan's northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, wounding four of them, two seriously, the force said. A police spokesman in the city, Shirjan Burani, said the four wounded soldiers were Swedish but ISAF would not confirm this.
* Friday's Terrorism Update from SATP has several items involving Maosists, as well as items from Bangladesh and Kashmir. Saturday's update is here, and Sunday's update is here.
* Sri Lanka's new President Mahinda Rajapakse has demanded a review of a ceasefire deal with Tamil Tiger rebels. He said the country needed a new peace process that would not tolerate "terrorism" - but added that he was ready for talks.
* U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed a deal between Nepal's Maoist rebels and the main political parties aimed at restoring democracy and urged the insurgents to extend a three-month ceasefire. His comments on Thursday came after Nepal's seven main political parties and the rebels said they had agreed to work together to put an end to the absolute powers of the king, who sacked the government and took control of the country on Feb. 1.
* Nepal's royal government blasted the deal as "unholy". "Basically, the unholy 12-point alliance-Maoist compact frames an agreement to abolish the monarchy through elections to a constituent assembly, with a view to the establishment of a total democracy," a statement said.
* Nepal police seized equipment from a radio station and arrested four journalists and a technician to block the broadcasting of a BBC interview with the Maoist rebel chief, reports said. Gham Raj Luintel, acting station manager of Radio Sagarmatha FM, told AFP two armed police made the arrests without any warrant.
* Court in the central Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod sentenced Friday three members of Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami organization to various jail terms. Criminal proceedings against the group have been instigated in October 2004. 11 people were detained in the region under suspicion of terrorist activity. Police seized grenades and materials that called for the creation of the universal Islamic caliphate and dethronement of non-Islamic governments.
* The latest issue of Chechnya Weekly, from The Jamestown Foundation, has items on the upcoming election in Chechnya, and tanks that fired at Beslan.
* A report from PINR looks at the closer relationship between Russia and Uzbekistan. A mutual security pact formalizes Uzbekistan's shifting foreign policy. The last US flight left a base in Uzbekistan a week ago.
* Sweden's king and prime minister expressed sorrow on Saturday after the country's first peacekeeper was killed in Afghanistan, but the government said it still planned to boost its force in the country. The soldier, serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), died after a bomb attack on Friday.
* The Afghan national army has arrested six people driving cars packed with explosives into Kabul, the defense ministry spokesman has told the BBC. The governor of the eastern Nangarhar province has said he was the target of a failed suicide attack. And four Afghan policemen who were feared abducted are now back at base.
* Certain Middle East-based international non-governmental organisations operating in Bangladesh are still untouched despite months-old intelligence confirmation of their financing Islamist militant outfits.
* An update from CDI last week summarizes news and analysis about the events in Afghanistan and the U.S. war on terrorism in the surrounding region in the month of October.
* One man was killed and three others wounded Sunday in a bomb attack in southwest Bangladesh, said police, who ruled out a link to Islamic groups that have launched a series of such attacks since August. A bus attendant was seriously injured when a suspected member of a Maoist group hurled a bomb at him in Alamdanga, about 200km from the capital Dhaka, police superintendent Mohammad Sarwar said.
* An article in the Autumn issue of Parameters, the US Army War College quarterly, entitled Afghanistan Four Years On: An Assessment, looks at reasons for guarded optimism and new areas of concern.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Indonesian authorities are filming documentaries for television featuring testimony from several individuals involved in the 2002 bombings in Bali, followed by Islamic clerics rebuffing terrorism, in the hopes of fighting the spread of extremism in the nation.
* The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is urging the Filipino government and members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to return to resume negotiations and called for the removal of the "terrorist" label on the CPP, saying it "shows that the government is not serious in talking peace."
* North Korea is criticizing CNN for their airing of a tape smuggled out of the reclusive nation that shows a public execution, calling it "full of sheer lies" and saying the showing was instigated by the U.S. government as part of a psychological campaign to overthrow the regime.
* According to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, the next round of six party talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program will begin in January.
Europe
* A recent study by the Center for Intelligence Research in Paris shows a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in the French workplace, and more alarming that Islamic networks are trying to establish a presence in "firms involved in sectors such as security, cargo, armored cars, courier services and transportation."
* Authorities in Sarejevo arrested a Bosnian man with ties to four terror suspects previously detained, and charged him with "unlawful trade in military equipment and weapons."
* Queen Elizabeth spoke at the opening of the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting in Malta, and urged nations to stand united against the threats of terror. Leaders at the three day summit will discuss ways to "increase tolerance in order to fight extremism."
* German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is voicing concerns over allegations that CIA flights with terror suspects may have passed through Frankfurt airport. The German newspaper Berliner Zeitung reported that CIA flights had used European airports 15 times this year.
* Leaders from the EU and Mediterranean states gathered in Barcelona, Spain for a two day summit that included the topics of terrorism, democracy, immigration, and globalization. In addition to the 25 EU members, Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian authority and Lebanon were all represented.
Africa
* Police in Alexandria, Egypt, arrested 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, a day before another round of parliamentary election voting, a spokesman for the officially banned but usually tolerated Islamist group said. The arrests coincided with controversy over an investigation conducted by judges supervising the elections, which found that officially announced results in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour differed from their own vote count.
* Egyptian police detained over 140 Muslim Brotherhood supporters and restricted voting on Saturday, day four of elections in which Islamists have made a strong showing, the Brotherhood and witnesses said. In the Nile Delta village of Hayatim, men armed with machetes and clubs attacked Muslim Brotherhood organisers outside polling stations, helping to frighten off people who wanted to vote in the parliamentary elections, according to witnesses and election monitors.
* A commentator at Al Ahram Weekly asks what the Muslim Brotherhood's success at the polls means.
* Director General of Nigeria Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Uche Okeke, said last week that the nation's Muslim population combined with close ties with the United States of America makes the country prime target of terrorists attack. He said this fear is made more rife by the possible tendency of the terrorists to draw followers to their fold from the perceived fanatical Islamists among Nigerian Muslims.
The Global War
* The Commander of NATO's disaster relief team in Pakistan, Air Commodore Andrew Walton, says the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has no plans to establish permanent bases in Pakistan. He rejected the impression that the US forces were operating in Pakistan under the guise of the NATO team. He said the reports suggesting that NATO forces were in Pakistan to contain China had no basis at all, and ruled out the possibility of NATO setting up an observatory in Pakistan.
* Britain and Pakistan have been cooperating in "extensive operations" since the July 7 bombings in London, aimed at cutting back the transit of terrorists between the two nations.
* Despite protests from Washington, Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono will travel to Venezuela next week to sign a $ 1.5 billion contract for Madrid to sell military patrol boats and transport planes to Venezuela.
* A scientific method that has been used to track the source of illegal drugs, explosives, counterfeit bills and biological warfare agents may have some new uses: detecting rapidly growing cancers and studying obesity and eating disorders.
* Bruce Schneier, who has written several books on security and is the founder of Counterpane Internet Security, told ZDNet UK that officials claiming terrorists pose a serious danger to computer networks are guilty of directing attention away from the threat faced from criminals. "I think that the terrorist threat is overhyped, and the criminal threat is underhyped," Schneier said Tuesday. "I hear people talk about the risks to critical infrastructure from cyberterrorism, but the risks come primarily from criminals. It's just criminals at the moment aren't as 'sexy' as terrorists."
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.
Top Topics
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for President Bush to be charged with war crimes over the use of depleted uranium shells in Iraq. He further denounced the west for attempting to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions and promised to confront the "supporters of the Zionist entity."
* Jihad Watch links to an article saying an Ohio cleric is to be deported for terrorist ties. "Imam Fawaz Damra, the spiritual leader of Ohio's largest mosque, was convicted in June 2004 of concealing ties to three groups that the U.S. government classifies as terrorist organizations when he applied for U.S. citizenship in 1994."
* A Filipino soldier was killed in a shootout with Abu Sayyaf gunmen on Jolo Island, as authorities continue their manhunt for Abu Sayyaf leaders Albader Parad and Umbra Jumdail Gumbahali, both on the terror watch lists of the Philippines and the United States. According to some reports, as many as 30 U.S. advisors are embedded with Filipino counterterrorism units.
Other topics today include: Rafah border crossing opens; King Abdullah ushers in reform; Hezbollah kidnappings; Azerbaijan opposition; GCC moves closer to counterterrorism center; Tehran insists on enrichment; Syria agrees to cooperate with Mehlis; Pakistani convicted in US court over terror ties; debate over Patriot Act; Arrests in Afghanistan; Indonesia anti-terrorism ads; Islamic fundementalism on rise in France; EU-Mediterranean summit; Egyptian elections and violence; and much more.
Iran & the Middle East
* The Rafah border terminal between Egypt and the Gaza Strip opened for the first time without Israeli security since it was established in 1979. Palestinians praised the border opening, a move that some hope will breathe some economic life into Gaza.
* King Abdullah of Jordan has ordered Director of National Security Marouf Bakhit to form a new government aimed at sweeping in reform and launching an all out war against Islamic terrorists. Some rumors point to an "imminent dissolution" of the 110-seat lower house of parliament to pave the way for elections.
* Hezbollah is vowing to continue trying to kidnap Israeli soldiers after a botched attempt last week resulted in the death of three Hezbollah fighters. In southern Beirut, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah says "it is our right to capture Israeli soldiers."
* Two weeks after disputed parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, the opposition movement has been unable to muster any significant response. A combination of the government's security crackdown and lack of leadership and trust among the people has largely kept the Popular Front's impact at a minimum.
* According to a UK Telegraph report, Iran is secretly training Chechen fighters at the Revolutionary Guards' Imam Ali training camp, located close to Tajrish Square in Teheran.
* The six nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) appear one step closer to adopting a Saudi plan to construct a counterterrorism center in Saudi Arabia that would coordinate information and planning.
* Tehran remains firm on their right to enrich uranium inside of Iran, apparently rebuffing plans a Russian compromise to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran that was enriched in Russia. The IAEA withheld referring Iran to the UN Security Council in an effort to allow Russia to resolve the crisis through diplomacy.
* The Syrian government has agreed to allow top officials to be interviewed outside of the country after posing initial opposition to the measure. The United Nations headquarters in Vienna, Austria is reported to be the site where the interviews will take place.
* Yemen has executed Ali Ahmed Jarallah, a hardline Islamic cleric who killed a member of the opposition socialist party in 2002, declaring it part of a jihad against converts to Christianity and infidels.
America Domestic Security & the America's
* US federal jurors on Wednesday convicted a 25-year-old Pakistani of supporting an al Qaeda plot to attack the United States, despite the man's claim that he falsely confessed under the pressure of three days of interrogation by the FBI. Uzair Paracha was convicted of all five counts he faced, including conspiracy and providing material support to al Qaeda, identification fraud and receiving funds for the benefit of al Qaeda.
* Canadian opposition legislators accused the government on Friday of trying to hide the fact that planes used by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to transport prisoners for interrogation had landed at Canadian airports. Earlier this week, Ottawa said it was investigating reports that two planes linked to a CIA shell company had flown from Iceland to St. John's in Newfoundland, on Canada's East Coast.
* Several reasons have been given for the US government's decision this week not to include charges of ties to Al Qaeda or the plans to build a "dirty bomb" in its indictment against US citizen Jose Padilla. The New York Times Thursday quoted unnamed current and former government sources say one of those reasons may be that it was unwilling to allow the testimony of the two Al Qaeda members who linked Mr. Padilla to the above plot because the two men may have been "subjected to harsh questioning."
* A former Leduc cinema owner with suspected ties to al-Qaida has been charged in Miami with conspiracy to murder and providing support to terrorists as part of a North American cell. It’s alleged Kassem Daher and Jose Padilla conspired to "murder, maim and kidnap" people in terrorism-related plots overseas.
* Opponents of the USA Patriot Act are taking advantage of a split between the House and Senate to rewrite the law under a ticking clock that voids some contentious provisions by Dec. 31. A proposed deal between the House and Senate fell apart just hours before lawmakers left for the Thanksgiving break. When the session resumes Dec. 12, lawmakers will have 15 working days to reach a compromise.
* Police have arrested a man at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix for making threats of terrorism and for restraining an information desk clerk. Phoenix Police Sgt. Lauri Williams said the man jumped behind a ticket counter, grabbed the clerk and held her hands behind her back while screaming that he was armed and was affiliated with terrorist groups. "He wasn't making sense, he wasn't coherent," Williams said. "The officers believed he was mentally ill. They did not believe his threats were valid."
* Heavily armed police and army officers swooped down on several illegally operated quarries in Trinidad last week arresting 12 men and impounding several pieces of heavy equipment used in the trade. Nine of the 11 quarries were said to be operated by the Jamaat al Muslimeem whose leader Yasin Abu Bakr is currently in jail without bail after being charged with several offences, among them a terrorism charge. The Jamaat-al-Muslimeen has been accused of muscling its way into the industry, at first claiming to have inherited a lease giving them the rights to mine in the midst of a boom in the construction sector which has fueled a demand for aggregate making quarrying a highly lucrative industry.
Russia & South/Central Asia
* An explosive device hit a vehicle carrying NATO-led peacekeepers in Afghanistan's northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif on Friday, wounding four of them, two seriously, the force said. A police spokesman in the city, Shirjan Burani, said the four wounded soldiers were Swedish but ISAF would not confirm this.
* Friday's Terrorism Update from SATP has several items involving Maosists, as well as items from Bangladesh and Kashmir. Saturday's update is here, and Sunday's update is here.
* Sri Lanka's new President Mahinda Rajapakse has demanded a review of a ceasefire deal with Tamil Tiger rebels. He said the country needed a new peace process that would not tolerate "terrorism" - but added that he was ready for talks.
* U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has welcomed a deal between Nepal's Maoist rebels and the main political parties aimed at restoring democracy and urged the insurgents to extend a three-month ceasefire. His comments on Thursday came after Nepal's seven main political parties and the rebels said they had agreed to work together to put an end to the absolute powers of the king, who sacked the government and took control of the country on Feb. 1.
* Nepal's royal government blasted the deal as "unholy". "Basically, the unholy 12-point alliance-Maoist compact frames an agreement to abolish the monarchy through elections to a constituent assembly, with a view to the establishment of a total democracy," a statement said.
* Nepal police seized equipment from a radio station and arrested four journalists and a technician to block the broadcasting of a BBC interview with the Maoist rebel chief, reports said. Gham Raj Luintel, acting station manager of Radio Sagarmatha FM, told AFP two armed police made the arrests without any warrant.
* Court in the central Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod sentenced Friday three members of Hizb al-Tahrir al-Islami organization to various jail terms. Criminal proceedings against the group have been instigated in October 2004. 11 people were detained in the region under suspicion of terrorist activity. Police seized grenades and materials that called for the creation of the universal Islamic caliphate and dethronement of non-Islamic governments.
* The latest issue of Chechnya Weekly, from The Jamestown Foundation, has items on the upcoming election in Chechnya, and tanks that fired at Beslan.
* A report from PINR looks at the closer relationship between Russia and Uzbekistan. A mutual security pact formalizes Uzbekistan's shifting foreign policy. The last US flight left a base in Uzbekistan a week ago.
* Sweden's king and prime minister expressed sorrow on Saturday after the country's first peacekeeper was killed in Afghanistan, but the government said it still planned to boost its force in the country. The soldier, serving with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), died after a bomb attack on Friday.
* The Afghan national army has arrested six people driving cars packed with explosives into Kabul, the defense ministry spokesman has told the BBC. The governor of the eastern Nangarhar province has said he was the target of a failed suicide attack. And four Afghan policemen who were feared abducted are now back at base.
* Certain Middle East-based international non-governmental organisations operating in Bangladesh are still untouched despite months-old intelligence confirmation of their financing Islamist militant outfits.
* An update from CDI last week summarizes news and analysis about the events in Afghanistan and the U.S. war on terrorism in the surrounding region in the month of October.
* One man was killed and three others wounded Sunday in a bomb attack in southwest Bangladesh, said police, who ruled out a link to Islamic groups that have launched a series of such attacks since August. A bus attendant was seriously injured when a suspected member of a Maoist group hurled a bomb at him in Alamdanga, about 200km from the capital Dhaka, police superintendent Mohammad Sarwar said.
* An article in the Autumn issue of Parameters, the US Army War College quarterly, entitled Afghanistan Four Years On: An Assessment, looks at reasons for guarded optimism and new areas of concern.
Far East & Southeast Asia
* Indonesian authorities are filming documentaries for television featuring testimony from several individuals involved in the 2002 bombings in Bali, followed by Islamic clerics rebuffing terrorism, in the hopes of fighting the spread of extremism in the nation.
* The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is urging the Filipino government and members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to return to resume negotiations and called for the removal of the "terrorist" label on the CPP, saying it "shows that the government is not serious in talking peace."
* North Korea is criticizing CNN for their airing of a tape smuggled out of the reclusive nation that shows a public execution, calling it "full of sheer lies" and saying the showing was instigated by the U.S. government as part of a psychological campaign to overthrow the regime.
* According to Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, the next round of six party talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program will begin in January.
Europe
* A recent study by the Center for Intelligence Research in Paris shows a rise in Islamic fundamentalism in the French workplace, and more alarming that Islamic networks are trying to establish a presence in "firms involved in sectors such as security, cargo, armored cars, courier services and transportation."
* Authorities in Sarejevo arrested a Bosnian man with ties to four terror suspects previously detained, and charged him with "unlawful trade in military equipment and weapons."
* Queen Elizabeth spoke at the opening of the Commonwealth Head of Governments Meeting in Malta, and urged nations to stand united against the threats of terror. Leaders at the three day summit will discuss ways to "increase tolerance in order to fight extremism."
* German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier is voicing concerns over allegations that CIA flights with terror suspects may have passed through Frankfurt airport. The German newspaper Berliner Zeitung reported that CIA flights had used European airports 15 times this year.
* Leaders from the EU and Mediterranean states gathered in Barcelona, Spain for a two day summit that included the topics of terrorism, democracy, immigration, and globalization. In addition to the 25 EU members, Turkey, Israel, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the Palestinian authority and Lebanon were all represented.
Africa
* Police in Alexandria, Egypt, arrested 16 members of the Muslim Brotherhood on Friday, a day before another round of parliamentary election voting, a spokesman for the officially banned but usually tolerated Islamist group said. The arrests coincided with controversy over an investigation conducted by judges supervising the elections, which found that officially announced results in the Nile Delta city of Damanhour differed from their own vote count.
* Egyptian police detained over 140 Muslim Brotherhood supporters and restricted voting on Saturday, day four of elections in which Islamists have made a strong showing, the Brotherhood and witnesses said. In the Nile Delta village of Hayatim, men armed with machetes and clubs attacked Muslim Brotherhood organisers outside polling stations, helping to frighten off people who wanted to vote in the parliamentary elections, according to witnesses and election monitors.
* A commentator at Al Ahram Weekly asks what the Muslim Brotherhood's success at the polls means.
* Director General of Nigeria Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Uche Okeke, said last week that the nation's Muslim population combined with close ties with the United States of America makes the country prime target of terrorists attack. He said this fear is made more rife by the possible tendency of the terrorists to draw followers to their fold from the perceived fanatical Islamists among Nigerian Muslims.
The Global War
* The Commander of NATO's disaster relief team in Pakistan, Air Commodore Andrew Walton, says the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has no plans to establish permanent bases in Pakistan. He rejected the impression that the US forces were operating in Pakistan under the guise of the NATO team. He said the reports suggesting that NATO forces were in Pakistan to contain China had no basis at all, and ruled out the possibility of NATO setting up an observatory in Pakistan.
* Britain and Pakistan have been cooperating in "extensive operations" since the July 7 bombings in London, aimed at cutting back the transit of terrorists between the two nations.
* Despite protests from Washington, Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono will travel to Venezuela next week to sign a $ 1.5 billion contract for Madrid to sell military patrol boats and transport planes to Venezuela.
* A scientific method that has been used to track the source of illegal drugs, explosives, counterfeit bills and biological warfare agents may have some new uses: detecting rapidly growing cancers and studying obesity and eating disorders.
* Bruce Schneier, who has written several books on security and is the founder of Counterpane Internet Security, told ZDNet UK that officials claiming terrorists pose a serious danger to computer networks are guilty of directing attention away from the threat faced from criminals. "I think that the terrorist threat is overhyped, and the criminal threat is underhyped," Schneier said Tuesday. "I hear people talk about the risks to critical infrastructure from cyberterrorism, but the risks come primarily from criminals. It's just criminals at the moment aren't as 'sexy' as terrorists."
Thanks for reading! If you found something here you want to blog about yourself (and we hope you do), all we ask is that you do as we do and offer a Hat Tip hyperlink to today's "Winds of War". If you think we missed something important, use the Comments section to let us know. For ongoing tips, email "MondayWindsOfWar", over here @windsofchange.net.
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