foxnews:US repositions troops in eastern Afghanistan

US repositions troops in eastern Afghanistan

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/28/repositions-troops-eastern-afghanistan/?test=latestnews

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military will start carrying out more counterterrorism missions against insurgents in eastern Afghanistan and work more closely with Pakistani forces in operations against insurgents along the porous and rugged frontier, the U.S. general commanding the region said.

Maj. Gen. John Campbell, commander of NATO coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, said he has been repositioning some of his troops since last August to make them more effective in the region that borders Pakistan. The area has seen an upsurge in violence and is a main route for insurgents infiltrating into Afghanistan from safe havens in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions.

The realignment of troops will allow more force to be used against insurgents and shore up security along a key trade route from Pakistan to the Afghan capital.

"As we realign forces it does give me the ability to provide additional forces in other areas," Campbell said in a weekend interview with The Associated Press.

One of the most significant moves is the reduction of U.S. troops in bases along the remote Pech River Valley — a rugged and mountainous area in Kunar province near the Pakistani border that has seen fierce fighting in recent years.

Campbell said the forward operating bases and remote combat outposts in the valley did not provide the flexibility needed to use the forces more effectively.

"You know there are thousands of mountainous isolated valleys out there where we don't have forces and so I can't be everywhere and I just have to prioritize the resources," he said.

Pech and the neighboring Korangal Valley have been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the nearly 10-year-old Afghan war. U.S. troops pulled out of Korangal just over a year ago, saying that it was not strategically important. Forty-two Americans died in Korangal before the troops pulled out.

"I don't want people to think that we are abandoning Pech, we are not doing that. We are going to be able to go in there a lot more," Campbell said. "I am taking forces that were static at positions ... and providing them the flexibility to be able to do (counterterrorism)-type operations."

The move indicates the U.S.-led military coalition will be further stepping up its counter-terror operations — aimed at killing and capturing militants — ahead of the traditional spring fighting season. Such operations allow NATO forces to target senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.

By shifting resources, the military will still be able to follow the other main part of its strategy — counterinsurgency. The goal is to clear the enemy out of a particular territory, then focus on holding and developing it to win over the local Afghan population.

U.S. troops in the Pech River Valley will be replaced by Afghan army or police forces, many of whom have been partnered with American soldiers in the region. The Afghan army has also been reinforcing its troops in the region, Campbell said.

Residents of Pech have mixed feelings about the reductions. Some fear the area will be overrun by the Taliban, while others say fighting will decrease because the insurgents won't have anyone to fight.

"I don't think that the Afghan army can stand against the Taliban there," said Mohammad Rahman Danish, a former chief administrator in the Pech area.

"It is not only Taliban, we have other groups. Right now the Taliban are calm and they are waiting for U.S. forces to leave from the area. They are not attacking, they are not active, they are not showing movement."

He said the lack of U.S. troops could allow Taliban infiltration into the more populous parts of the province and possibly threaten its capital, Asadabad. The Afghan army, he said, should send a significant number of troops to Pech to make up the shortfall.

Campbell said the bases could easily be reinforced with quick reaction forces if necessary.

Although much of the focus has been on combat activity in the south, the eastern part of the country has seen considerable fighting.

"We have had a lot of tactical successes up here," Campbell said. "The number of enemy that have been taken off the battlefield last year compared to the previous year has almost doubled in killed and detained, so the up-tempo has continued to be very high."

Campbell said he expects more fighting with the arrival of spring.

The realignment of forces began gradually in August when the last combat brigade that was part of President Barack Obama's surge of 30,000 additional troops arrived in the region. Since then, Campbell has moved some of his forces around, or changed the focus of some of his combat brigades to make them more effective in disrupting insurgent lines of communications from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

Much of that effort has gone into four of the 14 provinces under Campbell's command — Laghman, Nangarhar, Kunar and Nuristan.

"The enemy, their goal there probably is to get through to Kabul and we have established really this Kabul security zone there. So part of the insurgent lines of communications that come through that area, we've got to disrupt," Campbell said.

The area is home to a key trade route from the Pakistani city of Peshawar to Kabul which weaves through Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province. Most of Afghanistan's trade from Pakistan and many of NATO's supplies — including fuel — come down that route.

Shifting the forces "gives me more combat power to disrupt, but at the same time able to contain the insurgents by putting more forces into Kunar near the border." Campbell said. "I can do complimentary operations with Pakistan, something they wanted to do, something we wanted to do."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/28/repositions-troops-eastern-afghanistan/#ixzz1FG06Pqkw

nytimes:As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By

As Regimes Fall in Arab World, Al Qaeda Sees History Fly By

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/28/world/middleeast/28qaeda.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

For nearly two decades, the leaders of Al Qaeda have denounced the Arab world’s dictators as heretics and puppets of the West and called for their downfall. Now, people in country after country have risen to topple their leaders — and Al Qaeda has played absolutely no role.

In fact, the motley opposition movements that have appeared so suddenly and proved so powerful have shunned the two central tenets of the Qaeda credo: murderous violence and religious fanaticism. The demonstrators have used force defensively, treated Islam as an afterthought and embraced democracy, which is anathema to Osama bin Laden and his followers.

So for Al Qaeda — and perhaps no less for the American policies that have been built around the threat it poses — the democratic revolutions that have gripped the world’s attention present a crossroads. Will the terrorist network shrivel slowly to irrelevance? Or will it find a way to exploit the chaos produced by political upheaval and the disappointment that will inevitably follow hopes now raised so high?

For many specialists on terrorism and the Middle East, though not all, the past few weeks have the makings of an epochal disaster for Al Qaeda, making the jihadists look like ineffectual bystanders to history while offering young Muslims an appealing alternative to terrorism.

“So far — and I emphasize so far — the score card looks pretty terrible for Al Qaeda,” said Paul R. Pillar, who studied terrorism and the Middle East for nearly three decades at the C.I.A. and is now at Georgetown University. “Democracy is bad news for terrorists. The more peaceful channels people have to express grievances and pursue their goals, the less likely they are to turn to violence.”

If the terrorists network’s leaders hope to seize the moment, they have been slow off the mark. Mr. bin Laden has been silent. His Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, has issued three rambling statements from his presumed hide-out in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region that seemed oddly out of sync with the news, not noting the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose government detained and tortured Mr. Zawahri in the 1980s.

“Knocking off Mubarak has been Zawahri’s goal for more than 20 years, and he was unable to achieve it,” said Brian Fishman, a terrorism expert at the New America Foundation. “Now a nonviolent, nonreligious, pro-democracy movement got rid of him in a matter of weeks. It’s a major problem for Al Qaeda.”

The Arab revolutions, of course, remain very much a work in progress, as the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, orders a bloody defense of Tripoli, and Yemen’s president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, negotiates to cling to power. The breakdown of order could create havens for terrorist cells, at least for a time — a hazard both Colonel Qaddafi and Mr. Saleh have prevented, winning the gratitude of the American government.

“There’s an operational advantage for militants in any place where law enforcement and domestic security are weak and distracted,” said Steven Simon, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of “The Age of Sacred Terror.” But over all, he said, developments in the Arab countries are a strategic defeat for violent jihadism.

“These uprisings have shown that the new generation is not terribly interested in Al Qaeda’s ideology,” Mr. Simon said. He called the Zawahri statements “forlorn, if not pathetic.”

There is evidence that the uprisings have enthralled some jihadists. One Algerian man associated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the network’s North African affiliate, welcomed the uprisings in a weekend interview and said militants were returning from exile to join the battle in Libya, arming themselves from government weapons caches.

“Since the land is in chaos and Qaddafi is helping through his reactions and actions to increase the hatred of the population against him, it will be easier for us to recruit new members,” said the Algerian man, who uses the nom de guerre Abu Salman. He said that Libyans and Tunisians who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan were now considering a return home.

“There is lots of work to do,” he said. “We have to help the people fighting and then build an Islamic state.”

Abu Khaled, a Jordanian jihadist who fought in Iraq with the insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, suggested that Al Qaeda would benefit in the long run from dashed hopes.

“At the end of the day, how much change will there really be in Egypt and other countries?” he asked. “There will be many disappointed demonstrators, and that’s when they will realize what the only alternative is. We are certain that this will all play into our hands.”

Michael Scheuer, author of a new biography of Mr. bin Laden and head of the C.I.A.’s bin Laden unit in the late 1990s, thinks such enthusiasm is more than wishful thinking.

Mr. Scheuer says he believes that Americans, including many experts, have wildly misjudged the uprisings by focusing on the secular, English-speaking, Westernized protesters who are a natural draw for television. Thousands of Islamists have been released from prisons in Egypt alone, and the ouster of Al Qaeda’s enemy, Mr. Mubarak, will help revitalize every stripe of Islamism, including that of Al Qaeda and its allies, he said.

“The talent of an organization is not just leadership, but taking advantage of opportunities,” Mr. Scheuer said. In Al Qaeda and its allies, he said, “We’re looking over all at a more geographically widespread, probably numerically bigger and certainly more influential movement than in 2001.”

If Al Qaeda faces an uncertain moment, so does the Obama administration. For a decade, the United States has been preoccupied with the Muslim world as a source of terrorist violence — one reason both the Bush and Obama administrations had friendly relations with the authoritarian governments now under fire.

It was such a dominant theme of American policy that even Colonel Qaddafi, the quixotic and brutal Libyan leader who President Obama said Saturday should step down, had drawn American praise as a bulwark against jihadists. A cable from the American Embassy in Tripoli briefing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice before a 2008 visit called Libya “a strong partner in the war against terrorism,” noting “excellent” intelligence cooperation and specifically lauding Colonel Qaddafi’s efforts to block the return of Libyan militants from Afghanistan and Iraq and to “blunt the ideological appeal of radical Islam.”

Such perceived dividends of cooperation with the likes of Colonel Qaddafi are now history, and that is a point not lost on the C.I.A., the State Department and the White House. As during the United States’ halting adjustment to the fall of Communist governments from 1989 to 1991, officials are scrambling to balance day-to-day crisis management with consideration of how American policy must adjust for the long term.

“There has to be a major rethinking of how the U.S. engages with that part of the world,” said Christopher Boucek, who studies the Middle East at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “We have to make clear that our security no longer comes at the expense of poor governance and no rights for the people in those countries.

“All of the givens,” Mr. Boucek said, “are gone.”

cbsnews:McCain, Lieberman: U.S. should arm Libyan rebels Clinton says U.S. is ready to aid opposition, is "reaching out" to those trying to organize p

McCain, Lieberman: U.S. should arm Libyan rebels

Clinton says U.S. is ready to aid opposition, is "reaching out" to those trying to organize post-Qaddafi government

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/27/politics/main20036923.shtml?tag=stack

(CBS/AP)

Two senators said today the Obama administration should recognize a provisional government that seems to be taking shape in Libya's eastern half, and offer military aid to rebels seeking to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi.

Also today, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the U.S. is "reaching out" to Libyans trying to organize a post-Qaddafi government and is "ready and prepared to offer any type of assistance."

Clinton told reporters traveling with her to Geneva for a U.N. meeting Monday on Libya that "we are just at the beginning of what will follow Qaddafi."

She didn't say whether the U.S. might provide military aid.

She also didn't mention the provisional government, but just referred to "many different Libyans who are attempting to organize in the East."

Complete coverage: Anger in the Arab world

Speaking in Cairo today, Senator John McCain, R-Ariz., and Senator Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., said that the U.S. should do more to help Libyans fighting to overthrow Qaddafi.

In an interview Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," Lieberman pushed for more forceful action, including imposing a no-fly zone and arming Libyan rebels.

"The world has to do more," he said.

Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," McCain said that a no-fly zone should have been imposed in Libya, which he said would have stopped Libyan forces from attacking their own people.

"They're using air power and helicopters to continue these massacres," he said. "We've got to get tough."

While McCain said the U.S. should recognize a provisional government and offer assistance, he also said he was "not ready" to introduce U.S. ground forces.

"Look, Qaddafi's days are numbered. The question is how many, and how many [people] are going to be massacred before he leaves, one way or another?" he said.

McCain also suggested that anyone fighting for the Qaddafi regime should know they run the risk of finding themselves "on trial at a war-crimes tribunal."

The two lawmakers spoke Sunday from Cairo, where insurgents toppled the government of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak earlier this month.

nytimes:Taliban Bet on Fear Over Brawn as Tactic

Taliban Bet on Fear Over Brawn as Tactic

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/world/asia/27afghanistan.html?scp=1&sq=taliban%20planning%20assassinations&st=cse

KABUL, Afghanistan — This year the spring offensive by the Taliban and other insurgent groups has a new and terrifying face: the insurgents are using suicide bombers who create high casualties to sow terror and are planning an assassination campaign as well, Afghan and American military analysts say.

The insurgents’ deadly bet is that fear will trump anger and that Afghans will lose any faith they had in their government’s security forces and eventually turn to the Taliban.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘If you were the Taliban now, what would you do?’ ” said Gen. Jack Keane, who retired from the Army in 2003 and is now a consultant to Gen. David H. Petraeus, the NATO commander for Afghanistan.

Given the massing of NATO forces in the south, the answer appears to be attack the urban, civilian population, creating widespread insecurity in an effort to reinforce the existing resentment of foreign troops and doubts about President Hamid Karzai’s government.

In less than four weeks, 116 Afghans have died in seven suicide attacks, most recently in Faryab Province on Saturday. Two of the attacks, one in Jalalabad on Feb. 19 and another in Kandahar on Feb. 12, involved multiple assailants and were carefully choreographed and skillfully timed to obtain a high death toll and maximum media coverage. In at least one case, the mission was carefully rehearsed.

This is a striking change from Afghan suicide bombings of just six months ago, in which the bombers exacted few casualties.

These new tactics highlight the challenge of an adaptive insurgency with a reservoir of potential fighters, many of them madrasa students in Pakistan’s tribal areas. They show too the increasingly integrated network of insurgent groups that lend their expertise to one another as well as the difficulties the Afghan government has had in rallying its own people to fight them.

President Karzai has compounded the problem, some Afghan analysts say, by insisting that the Taliban are not to blame for the violence and that they are “upset brothers” rather than mortal enemies.

Underlying the latest attacks are the region’s geopolitics. Both Pakistan and Iran are known to be supporting the Taliban and play out their antagonism to the United States on Afghan soil. “You have to see these attacks in the broader strategic context,” said Haseeb Humayoon, the director of a risk consulting firm here.

A period of relative calm last year in Afghan cities coincided with an easing of tensions between the Afghans and Pakistan over negotiations with the Taliban. Now the Afghans appear to be trying to negotiate with the Taliban on their own, and there is talk of permanent American bases here, which Pakistan and Iran see as a potential loss of their influence.

“Our neighbors interpret that as Afghans’ seeking guarantors of security other than them,” Mr. Humayoon said.

“Both the international military and our own government are distracted,” he added. “Our government is not focusing enough on rallying people against these forces, and the international military coalition has not focused enough on Pakistan.”

American commanders play down the significance of the attacks in terms of the overall fight in Afghanistan, but Afghan security officials say they see a troubling and potentially crippling development. “It’s not that the American surge operations will be affected by this directly,” said a former Afghan security official. Rather, he predicted that the suicide attacks could preoccupy Afghan security leaders, diminishing their ability to contribute to the fight in the south.

The Americans had not expected the suicide bombings on this scale but were bracing for assassination attempts this spring against officials, said Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, NATO’s chief of strategic communications.

The Taliban in the past have been careful not to single out civilians, although civilians are often killed in attacks. At least some Taliban factions seem worried about the latest tactics. Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman for the north and east of the country, said an investigation was under way into the Jalalabad attack, which killed 40 people, nearly half of them civilians.

“We are taking this issue seriously as we have appointed a delegate to assess the civilians casualties,” he said. “We are not happy when there is even one civilian lost.”

Despite such statements, attacks on civilians are clearly on the rise and the sophistication of the suicide bombings has been striking, Admiral Smith said. American and Afghan officials now believe that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group that planned the attacks in Mumbai, India, in 2008, has been working with the Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan. Lashkar-e-Taiba specializes in planning complex suicide attacks.

“The suicide bombings are, we believe, predominantly requested and funded by Haqqani but facilitated by LET and AQ,” said a senior American military official, referring to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Al Qaeda. “The latter groups provide bombers and material in exchange for money. Haqqani chooses targets.”

The bombing of the Kabul Bank branch in Jalalabad used a formula Lashkar-e-Taiba has used elsewhere: multiple attackers, a first bomber to clear the way for the others and the holding of one bomber in reserve to attack the police and medical workers who arrive to help. Other signatures included having a suicide bomber on a cellphone with a handler, as was the case in the Mumbai attacks.

What cannot be ignored, however, is the situation across the border in Pakistan. While American troops have made clear gains in uprooting the Taliban from Kandahar and large areas of Helmand Province, Pakistan has not made similar strides in ousting the Taliban from the tribal areas, according to analysts here. The Haqqani network, among the most brutal, remains anchored in North Waziristan despite a stream of drone strikes by the Central Intelligence Agency.

And in bad news for Afghanistan, a little-noticed peace deal took place late last year between the Haqqani network and Shiite tribes in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan, which opened up a new route for Haqqani agents to enter Afghanistan, American and Afghan intelligence officials said. A number of fighters have been observed crossing the border over the past several weeks, American intelligence officials said.

No one yet seems to have figured out how to deal with the two largest underlying problems: the poor performance of the Afghan government, which makes many of the country’s citizens reluctant to fight for it, and the millions of Pashtuns in the tribal areas who feel they are unrepresented and even discriminated against and are willing to cross the border to fight in Afghanistan.

“You still have two major factors,” General Keane said, “the ineffectiveness of the central government and the Pakistani sanctuaries.”

The situation is strikingly reminiscent of Iraq in 2005, when that country’s cities were gripped by violence, the government was unable to keep the people safe and fighters flowed in from other countries. It took four years to stem that violence, and an influx of troops like the one that Americans have now carried out in Afghanistan. The rash of recent bombings risks undermining the psychological advantage that had come with increased American troop strength in southern Afghanistan.

xinhua:AL chief to run for Egyptian presidency

AL chief to run for Egyptian presidency

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-02/28/c_13752824.htm

CAIRO, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa announced on Sunday his intention to run for Egypt's next presidential election, Egypt's state TV reported.

"I am intending to participate in the next presidential election, and I'll announce this (officially) in suitable time," Moussa, an Egyptian citizen, said in a statement in the Cairo- based headquarter of AL on Saturday,

Earlier this month, Moussa, former Egyptian foreign minister, told Egyptian state media that he would resign from the position as chief of the pan-Arab organization within weeks because he has new plans.

Moussa said in the statement that the next secretary general of Arab League will be an Egyptian.

guardian:Middle East unrest spreads to Oman One protester killed by security forces in Omani town of Sohar, while Bahrain stages peaceful demonstrati

Middle East unrest spreads to Oman

One protester killed by security forces in Omani town of Sohar, while Bahrain stages peaceful demonstration and Saudi intellectuals call on king to relinquish many powers

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/27/middle-east-protests-oman-bahrain

Oman

Riot police have clashed with pro-democracy demonstrators in the seaside town of Sohar, 120 miles (200km) northwest of the capital, Muscat. At least one person was killed as security forces fired teargas and rubber bullets.

Oman's state-run news agency said protesters set fire to cars, houses, a police station and the governor's residence.

It marked the first serious confrontation with protesters seeking to open up the ruling system of Sultan Qaboos bin Said. The sultan has tried to quell the unrest by replacing six cabinet members and boosting the minimum wage by more than 40%.

"We want new faces in the government and we have a long list of social reforms," said Habiba al-Hanay, a 45-year-old civil servant. Omanis are not seeking to oust the country's ruler, al-Hanay said. "We just hope he will hear us and make changes," she added, noting that unemployment is high and education is poor in the country, which only has one university.

Bahrain

Protesters have streamed through Bahrain's diplomatic area and other sites, chanting slogans against the country's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and rejecting his appeals for talks to end the political crisis.

At least three processions paralysed parts of the capital, Manama, with marchers chanting: "No dialogue until the regime is gone." Some marchers claimed more than 200 political prisoners were still being held. No violence was reported.

Bahrain is among the most politically volatile nations in the Gulf – with majority Shi'ites claiming widespread discrimination by the Sunni rulers – and was the first in the region to be hit by the demands for reform sweeping the Arab world.

Shiites, who account for about 70% of the country's 525,000 people, have long complained of discrimination and other abuses by the Sunni dynasty that has ruled for more than two centuries.

Saudi Arabia

More than 100 leading Saudi academics and activists have joined calls made on the internet for King Abdullah to enact sweeping reforms and relinquish many of his powers. Abdullah has tried to fend off the rumblings with a spending spree. His latest concession is to allow government sector workers employed under temporary contracts to be offered permanent jobs with major benefits.

It followed a slew of measures last week under a $36bn (£22bn) package including interest free loans to Saudis for needs such as marriage, starting a business or buying furniture.

A key test may come next month. Social media sites have called for protest rallies in Saudi Arabia on 11 March.

Demonstrations also are planned in Kuwait on 8 March. Last month, Kuwait politicians nearly brought down the prime minister with a no-confidence vote.

foxnews:Obama: Qaddafi Needs to Leave Now

Obama: Qaddafi Needs to Leave Now

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/26/obama-qaddafi-needs-leave/

Speaking out against Muammar al-Qaddafi for the first time, President Obama said on Saturday the Libyan leader needs to "leave now," having lost the legitimacy to rule.

In a White House statement on Obama's telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Obama took his most direct position yet on the escalating violence in Libya.

"The president stated that when a leader's only means of staying in power is to use mass violence against his own people, he has lost the legitimacy to rule and needs to do what is right for his country by leaving now," it said.

Obama's stance comes after he signed an executive order Friday freezing assets held by Qaddafi and four of his children in the United States. The Treasury Department said the sanctions against Qaddafi, three of his sons and a daughter also apply to the Libyan government.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced further sanctions Saturday, revoking visas for senior Libyan officials and their immediate family members. She said future applications from those blacklisted for travel to the United States would be rejected.
Qaddafi "should go without further bloodshed and violence," Clinton said in a separate statement.

Obama has been holding a series of discussions with world leaders about the unrest in Libya. The administration is hoping that the world speaks with a single voice against Qaddafi's violent crackdown on protesters, and the president is sending Clinton to Geneva on Sunday to coordinate with foreign policy chiefs from several countries.

The U.S. tone shifted sharply on Friday after Americans in Libya were evacuated from the country by ferry and a chartered airplane.

Shortly after, Obama signed an executive order outlining financial penalties designed to pressure Qaddafi's government into halting the violence.

Violence in Libya continued to spiral out of control Saturday, as the embattled regime passed out guns to civilian supporters, set up checkpoints and sent armed patrols roving the terrorized capital to try to maintain control of Qaddafi's stronghold and quash dissent as rebels consolidate control elsewhere in the North African nation.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/26/obama-qaddafi-needs-leave/#ixzz1F6vc10UU

foxnews:Taliban Scrambles to Stem Bad Publicity After Civilian 'Massacres'

Taliban Scrambles to Stem Bad Publicity After Civilian 'Massacres'

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/26/taliban-scrambles-stem-bad-publicity-civilian-massacres/#ixzz1F3t0q2NS

KABUL -- Taliban leadership is scrambling to stem the public-relations fallout from recent suicide attacks that killed dozens of Afghan civilians, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The insurgent movement has launched an internal investigation, and some commanders now blame an autonomous faction for the "massacres" of civilians.

This dissension within the Taliban, described by multiple insurgent commanders and officials, illustrates a similar problem faced by the U.S.-led coalition: how to fight a war in which winning over Afghan public opinion matters more than killing your foes.

Taliban commanders said the insurgent movement's unusual effort to distance itself from attacks for which it publicly claimed credit was partially due to the TV broadcast of closed-circuit security camera footage documenting a particularly gruesome killing spree.

The footage, aired this week on private Tolo TV, shows the Feb. 19 attack in which insurgent gunmen and suicide bombers killed at least 38 people in a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad, one of the deadliest strikes ever perpetrated by the Taliban.

The recording, which provoked widespread outrage, shows a young man dressed in an Afghan police uniform casually shooting people at point-blank range with an AK-47 assault rifle. As the first victims crumple to the floor, others begin running for the exits while the gunman continues to carefully pick off some of the men.

A day after the Jalalabad attack, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a government office in northern Afghanistan where people were lining up to obtain identification papers, killing at least 30 people.

The U.S.-led coalition and its Afghan supporters have long maintained that brutality is the hallmark of the insurgency, citing statistics from the U.N. and human-rights groups that show that the Taliban and its allies are responsible for the vast majority of civilian deaths.

Yet ordinary Afghans largely blame the coalition for civilian casualties, arguing that there would not be a war and the deaths that come with it if the U.S.-led coalition had not invaded the country in 2001.

Taliban commanders said that the insurgents' leadership was eager to maintain such public perceptions -- which explains the sudden rush to decry the bloodshed caused by its own fighters.

"These attacks will turn the people against us," said a Taliban commander in eastern Afghanistan. "We will lose our influence among the people if we continue targeting civilian places."

The commander and others blamed the bloodiest of the recent attacks on the Haqqani network, a particularly violent insurgent faction led by Sirajuddin Haqqani. The Haqqanis, who operate autonomously of the Taliban's leadership while recognizing the overall authority of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, are believed by US and Afghan officials to have particularly strong ties to Pakistan's intelligence service.

The Haqqanis, who unlike the mainstream Taliban do not have a spokesman, could not be reached for comment.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/26/taliban-scrambles-stem-bad-publicity-civilian-massacres/#ixzz1F3t85a00

usatoday:Getting tougher, Egyptian troops beat protesters

Getting tougher, Egyptian troops beat protesters

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2011-02-26-egypt-military_N.htm

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian military police beat protesters Saturday to clear them from outside the Cabinet office where they were trying to camp out overnight to press demands for sweeping political reforms and the dismissal of remnants of ousted President Hosni Mubarak's regime.

The clash signaled a tougher line from Egypt's military rulers, who had avoided violently confronting anti-government protesters in the streets while promising to meet their demands for democratic reform and return the country to civilian rule.

The protest movement, however, is growing impatient, and tens of thousands rallied in Cairo's Tahrir Square throughout the day on Friday to keep up the pressure and, in particular, to demand the dismissal of Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq, who was appointed by Mubarak.

About 150 protesters tried to spend the night outside the Cabinet office near Tahrir Square.

• IN LIBYA: Protesters brave violence in Tripoli

After midnight, when a curfew goes into effect, military police moved in to clear them away and beat protesters, some of whom tried to resist, according to Shady Ghazali, a leading youth activist who said he witnessed the clash.

"One man was slapped so hard he bled from his face," Ghazali said.

He and at least four others were detained and taken to a lockup that already held dozens of other protesters who were apparently arrested throughout the day, he said. Some of them showed bruises and other signs of mistreatment, he said.

"The military police is behaving like the state security," Ghazali said, referring to the hated internal security force that Mubarak's regime used to crack down on dissent and which was accused of torture.

Two weeks after Mubarak's Feb. 11 ouster, protesters are pressing the military to speed up reforms and purge the caretaker government of officials appointed by Mubarak.

The Egyptian military took over from Mubarak, but assigned government affairs to a caretaker Cabinet until elections can be held.

Demonstrators also seek the repeal of emergency laws and the release of political prisoners.

Protesters said they will stage large rallies every Friday until their demands are met, but some are skeptical of the military's resolve to fulfill all demands, noting that it benefited from the old regime.

Since Mubarak's fall, the military rulers have disbanded both houses of parliament and promised constitutional reforms that will allow wider participation in elections, to be held within six months. They have also promised to repeal emergency laws that give security forces largely unchecked powers, though only when conditions permit — a caveat that worries protesters.

The military authorities have moved against members of Mubarak's regime, arresting a number of former ministers and prominent businessmen on corruption allegations.

Some two dozen ex-ministers and business leaders are under investigation. Protesters have often mentioned corruption as a key motive behind their movement.

MSNBC: Militants bomb Iraq's largest oil refinery Firefighters battle blaze for five hours after attackers kill four workers

Militants bomb Iraq's largest oil refinery

Firefighters battle blaze for five hours after attackers kill four workers

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41791987/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

BAGHDAD — Militants attacked and shut down Iraq's largest oil refinery on Saturday, killing four workers and setting off bombs that started a raging fire, officials said.

The assailants broke into the Beiji refinery around 3:30 a.m. local time, attacking guards and planting explosives.

"The refinery has completely stopped," Salahuddin province Governor Ahmed al-Jubouri told Reuters. "It's a big loss for the whole country. All Iraqi cities depend on its production."

A former al-Qaida stronghold, Beiji is about 155 miles north of Baghdad.

The blast sparked a fire that was later brought under control, a police source said. It took about five hours and up to 50 fire trucks to contain the blaze.

The units that were damaged by the attack have a production capacity of around 150,000 barrels per day, a Beiji official said.

"Fixing the damage will take long time. We are not talking about days, the damage is too severe," said the Beiji official, who asked not to be named.

Iraq does not export any oil products as it uses all of its production for power generation and domestic consumption.

The country's capacity to refine fuels like diesel and gasoline has been ravaged by underinvestment, and it has been forced since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to buy imported fuels to meet the growing gap between supply and domestic demand.

Baghdad has signed multi-billion deals with international oil companies to boost output capacity to 12 million barrels a day in seven years, rivaling top oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

But everything depends on whether the OPEC member can secure its vital oilfields, refineries and other infrastructure against insurgents and militia that have plagued the country since the invasion.

Story: Start another war like Iraq? You're nuts, Gates says

Overall violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since the peak of sectarian conflict in 2006-07 but attacks still occur on a daily basis.

The Beiji refinery was previously controlled by al-Qaida militants, who used it to finance the insurgency.

Beiji normally operates at 70 percent of its capacity and produces 11 million liters of gasoline, 7 million liters of benzene and 4.5 million liters of kerosene a day. The refinery was last shut in August for two days due to an electrical fault.

nytimes:Thousands Rally for Reform in Jordan

Thousands Rally for Reform in Jordan

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/middleeast/26jordan.html?ref=world

AMMAN, Jordan — Thousands of people demonstrated peacefully for political reform in Amman, the capital, and in other Jordanian towns on Friday, with opposition forces drawing the largest crowds since the weekly Friday protests began eight weeks ago. The opposition also expanded its demands.

The police estimated the number of protesters in the capital as 6,000, but organizers said that more than 10,000 people had turned out.

Activists from the Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition groups said that the large turnout was a reaction to the violence that erupted last week, when government supporters clashed with a relatively small group of several hundred demonstrators who were calling for political change, injuring eight people. The protesters described being attacked by “thugs” wielding wooden clubs and iron bars.

At the rallies on Friday, Jordanians were calling, among other things, for an end to corruption, more democracy and for a return to the original formulation of the country’s 1952 constitution, without its numerous amendments — a step that would translate into less power for the king.

King Abdullah II of Jordan, a crucial American ally, has been contending with an economic crisis in the country he has reigned over, with sweeping powers, for the last 12 years. The protests represent the first serious challenge to his rule.

Early this month he dismissed his government , replacing the prime minister with Marouf al-Bakhit, who had served before in the post and is a widely considered not to be corrupt.

But opposition activists are calling for a more fundamental constitutional overhaul.

“There has been an increase in the demands we are raising,” said Zaki Saad, head of the political bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The regime is not serious about real reform,” he said, accusing the government of procrastination.

Naher Hattar, a political activist from Jayeen, a new coalition of leftists, unionists and retired generals who organized the first protest on Jan. 7, said, “The main demand now was to go back to the 1952 constitution. This would be a step forward.”

nytimes:Iran Reports a Major Setback at a Nuclear Power Plant

Iran Reports a Major Setback at a Nuclear Power Plant

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/world/middleeast/26nuke.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Iran told atomic inspectors this week that it had run into a serious problem at a newly completed nuclear reactor that was supposed to start feeding electricity into the national grid this month, raising questions about whether the trouble was sabotage, a startup problem, or possibly the beginning of the project’s end.

In a report on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran told inspectors on Wednesday that it was planning to unload nuclear fuel from its Bushehr reactor — the sign of a major upset. For years, Tehran has hailed the reactor as a showcase of its peaceful nuclear intentions and its imminent startup as a sign of quickening progress.

But nuclear experts said the giant reactor, Iran’s first nuclear power plant, now threatens to become a major embarrassment, as engineers remove 163 fuel rods from its core.

Iran gave no reason for the unexpected fuel unloading, but it has previously admitted that the Stuxnet computer worm infected the Bushehr reactor. On Friday, computer experts debated whether Stuxnet was responsible for the surprising development.

Russia, which provided the fuel to Iran, said earlier this month that the worm’s infection of the reactor should be investigated, arguing that it might trigger a nuclear disaster. Other experts said those fears were overblown, but noted that the full workings of the Stuxnet worm remained unclear.

In interviews Friday, nuclear experts said the trouble behind the fuel unloading could range from minor safety issues and operational ineptitude to serious problems that would bring the reactor’s brief operational life to a premature end.

“It could be simple and embarrassing all the way to ‘game over,’ ” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees nuclear reactors in the United States.

Mr. Lochbaum added that having to unload a newly fueled reactor was “not unprecedented, but not an everyday occurrence.” He said it happened perhaps once in every 25 or 30 fuelings. In Canada, he added, a reactor was recently fueled and scrapped after the belated discovery of serious technical problems.

“This could represent a substantial setback to their program,” David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation, said of the problem behind the Bushehr upset.

“It raises questions of whether Iran can operate a modern nuclear reactor safely,” he added. “The stakes are very high. You can have a Chernobyl-style accident with this kind of reactor, and there’s lots of questions about that possibility in the region.”

The new report from the I.A.E.A. — a regular quarterly review of the Iran nuclear program to the agency’s board — gave the reactor unloading only brief mention and devoted its bulk to an unusually toughly worded indictment of Iranian refusals to answer questions about what the inspectors called “possible military dimensions” of its nuclear program.

The report alluded to “new information recently received,” suggesting continuing work toward a nuclear warhead.

But the inspectors provided no details about the new information or how it was received. The I.A.E.A. frequently gets its data from the intelligence agencies of member countries, including the United States, but it also tries to collect data from its own sources.

The report on Friday referred directly to concerns that Iran was working on “the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” But it noted that all of its requests for information had been ignored for years, with Iranian officials arguing that whatever information the agency possessed, it was based on forgeries.

The White House said Friday that the report cast new light on what it called Iran’s covert movement toward nuclear arms.

“The I.A.E.A.’s reports of obstruction and Iran’s failure to cooperate are troubling,” said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. “We will continue to hold Iran accountable to its international nuclear obligations, including by deepening the international pressure on Iran.”

The reactor is located outside the Iranian city of Bushehr on the nation’s Persian Gulf coast. Priced at more than a billion dollars, it is ringed by dozens of antiaircraft guns and large radar stations meant to track approaching jets.

Its tangled history began around 1975 with a West German contract. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the West Germans withdrew. Iraq repeatedly bombed the half-built reactor between 1984 and 1988.

Iran signed a rebuilding accord with Russia in 1995 that should have had the project completed in 1999. But the plan bogged down in long delays.

The United States once opposed the plant. But Washington dropped its objections after Russia agreed to take back the spent rods, removing the possibility that Iran could reprocess them for materials that could fuel nuclear arms.

The loading of uranium fuel into the reactor was initially planned to start soon after its shipment to Bushehr last August, but was delayed by what the Iranians said was a leak in a pool near the central reactor.

In October, Iranian officials said the Stuxnet worm had infected the reactor complex, but they played down the issue. Mohammad Ahmadian, an Iranian Atomic Energy Organization official, said the affected computers had been “inspected and cleaned up.”

Later in October, as the fueling at last got under way, after three decades of delay, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, called the Bushehr reactor “the most exceptional power plant in the world.”

In December, he predicted that the plant would be connected to the national power grid by Feb. 19. “This phase,” he said, according to The Tehran Times, “is the most important operational work of the plant.”

In an interview on Friday, a European diplomat familiar with Iran’s nuclear program called the fueling problem a major setback, even if the technical cause proves to be less than monumental.

“It’s clearly a significant setback to the startup of the reactor,” said the diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the diplomatic delicacy of the matter.

He said that engineers at Bushehr had identified a technical failure, but were struggling to understand its cause.

“It’s too early to know,” the diplomat said. “I’m sure the Iranians are studying that question quite desperately.”

foxnes:Alleged Texas Jihad Plot Underscores Threat of Lone Wolf Terrorists Inside U.S.

Alleged Texas Jihad Plot Underscores Threat of Lone Wolf Terrorists Inside U.S.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/25/alleged-texas-jihad-plot-underscores-threat-lone-wolf-terrorists-inside/#ixzz1F3RiC9xs

The next wave of Al Qaeda recruits are born or educated right in the United States. Most are just old enough to remember 9/11, yet a decade a later they are turning their back on the United States.

The threat posed by this new generation of terrorists was underscored this week by the case of Khalid Aldawsari, a 20-year-old Saudi national who came to the United States legally in 2008 to attend college in Texas. Now he is accused of plotting to bomb a series of U.S. targets, including the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush.

What is striking about the Aldawsari case is that he wasn't arrested in an FBI sting operation. Law enforcement sources were quick to point out that a central tip came from a chemical supplier who said he was suspicious about the amount of phenol Aldawsari wanted to buy.

Authorities allege that Aldawsari was a “lone wolf,” not working with others and apparently not connected to or receiving direction from an overseas terrorist network.

The threat from so-called lone wolf operators was the subject of a recent intelligence assessment obtained by Fox News as part of an on-going investigation into the American born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is said to be an operational planner for Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen. The assessment, titled “Evolution of the Terrorist Threat to the United States,” clearly says the threat is more diversified than ever before.

While there is no way to know how many lone wolf operators are inside the U.S., the threat has evolved since 9/11.

In simple terms, there are now three threat streams. The first originates in the tribal areas of Pakistan with the remaining Al Qaeda leadership, also known in intelligence circles as Al Qaeda core. U.S. officials says they are diminished by the CIA drone campaign, but they still try to launch large-scale attacks.

The second comes from Al Qaeda affiliates, like Awlaki’s group in Yemen. This is the group said to be behind the attempted Christmas Day underwear bomber, as well as the failed cargo jet bomb plot in October 2010.

And the third is the homegrown or self-radicalized operative.

“The United States now faces a diversified threat from a number of violent 'jihadist' groups that are aligned ideologically with, but not necessarily directed by al-Qa’ida (AQ) in Pakistan,” The internal DHS assessment says.

“These individuals identified with the ideas and goals of the global violent jihadist movement, but lacked direct guidance and instructions from the leadership from a formal terrorist network,” the assessment continued, referring to a half dozen recent lone wolf cases. “Given recent activity by Al Qaeda and its affiliates, we have to operate under the premise that other operatives are in the country and could advance plotting with little or no warning.”

In the Aldawsari case, court documents allege that he was inspired by Usama Bin Laden in the wake of 9/11 before he was a teenager. He allegedly wanted to create an Al Qaeda branch in the U.S.

As the case unfolds, more is likely to be revealed about his motivations and whether he, too, was inspired by the American cleric Awlaki, linked to more than a dozen cases in the U.S.

The new generation, especially those inspired by Awlaki’s brand of hate, often can be called digital jihadists -- Al Qaeda 2.0. They seek the radical message on the Web. They even find training. But most of all, they find like-minded individuals who reinforce their radical views through social networking sites. It gives them the courage to act.

The lone wolf scenario is seen by many counterterrorism officials as one of the most concerning. The larger the plot, the more individuals who are involved, the more likely it is to find a lead and unravel the operation.

If a suspect is not e-mailing or phoning anyone to develop the plot, it can be virtually impossible to thwart. In the Texas case, it is alleged that the suspect slipped up as he was gathering the remaining components to make IEDs.

Aldawsari pleaded not guilty on Friday. His lawyer, Rob Hobson, issued a statement Friday that reads in part:

“This is not Alice in Wonderland where the Queen said 'first the punishment then the trial.' This is America, where everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence, due process, effective representation of counsel and a fair trial.

"I request that everyone take a step back and allow the legal proceedings to unfold in a timely and orderly fashion. The eyes of the world are on this case and the treatment of this accused person. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to show the world how truly fair our legal system is; even to those who are accused of trying to harm our country.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/25/alleged-texas-jihad-plot-underscores-threat-lone-wolf-terrorists-inside/#ixzz1F3RpoJNX

nytimes:Pakistani Agency Demands Data on C.I.A. Contractors

Pakistani Agency Demands Data on C.I.A. Contractors

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s chief spy agency has demanded an accounting by the Central Intelligence Agency of all its contractors working in Pakistan, a fallout from the arrest last month of an American involved in surveillance of militant groups, a senior Pakistani intelligence official said Friday.

Angered that the American, Raymond A. Davis, worked as a contractor in Pakistan on covert C.I.A. operations without the knowledge of the Pakistanis, the spy agency estimated that there were “scores” more such contractors “working behind our backs,” said the official, who requested anonymity in order to speak candidly about a delicate matter between the two countries.

In a slight softening of the Pakistani stance since Mr. Davis’s arrest, the official said that the American and Pakistani intelligence agencies needed to continue cooperation, and that Pakistan was prepared to put the episode in the past if the C.I.A. stopped treating its Pakistani counterparts as inferior.

“Treat us as allies, not as satellites,” said the official of the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or I.S.I. “Respect, equality and trust are needed.”

George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, said the American spy agency’s ties to the I.S.I. “have been strong over the years, and when there are issues to sort out, we work through them.”

“That’s the sign of a healthy partnership,” Mr. Little said.

The arrest and detention of Mr. Davis, 36, after he shot and killed two motorcyclists in the city of Lahore, soured already testy relations between two governments that are supposed to have a common front in the fight against terrorism.

The top American and Pakistani military leaders, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and the leader of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met this week in Oman, where the Davis case was discussed. .

According to a report by a former head of the Pakistani Army, Gen. Jehangir Karamat, who runs a research and analysis center based in Lahore, both sides agreed to try to “arrest the downhill descent.”

Even so, the Pakistani intelligence community was divided over how quickly to settle the Davis case and how much to extract from the C.I.A., said a Pakistani official with intimate knowledge of the situation, who declined to be named because of the delicacy of the issue.

At a minimum, the I.S.I. wants an accounting of all the contractors who work for the C.I.A. in roles that have not been defined to Pakistan, and a general rewriting of the rules of engagement by the C.I.A. in Pakistan, the official said.

Mr. Davis, who appeared in handcuffs on Friday for a hearing in a closed courtroom at the jail where he is being held in Lahore, faces possible murder charges.

The Obama administration insists that Mr. Davis has diplomatic immunity and should be released. The Pakistani government has left the determination on diplomatic immunity to the Foreign Office and a hearing before the Lahore High Court on March 14.

Some senior Pakistani intelligence officers were unwilling to have Mr. Davis released under almost any circumstances, said the official with knowledge of the split in the intelligence community.

He said others wanted to use the Davis case as a bargaining chip to get the withdrawal of a civil lawsuit filed in Brooklyn last year that implicates the I.S.I. chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, in the November 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

The demand for the C.I.A. to acknowledge the number of contractors in Pakistan was driven by the suspicion that the American spy service had slipped many such secret operatives into Pakistan in the past six months, the senior I.S.I. official said.

The increase occurred after a directive last July by the Pakistani civilian government, which is often at odds with the I.S.I., to its Washington embassy to expedite visas without supervision from the I.S.I. or the Ministry of Interior, the senior I.S.I. official said.

The behavior of people like Mr. Davis is deeply embarrassing to the I.S.I. because it makes the agency “look like fools” in the eyes of the anti-American Pakistani public, the I.S.I. official said.

The Davis case made it hard to explain to Pakistanis why the I.S.I. was cooperating with Washington, he said.

The clampdown on American contractors by the Pakistani authorities appeared to be under way Friday with the arrest of an American citizen, Aaron Mark DeHaven, in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

The Peshawar police said Mr. DeHaven was detained because he had overstayed his business visa after his request for an extension last October was turned down.

There was no immediate accusation that Mr. DeHaven worked for the American government, a security official in Peshawar said. But the arrest of Mr. DeHaven, who is married to a Pakistani woman, appears to be a signal that the Pakistani authorities have decided to expel Americans they have doubts about.

The security official said Mr. DeHaven owned a firm, Catalyst Services in Peshawar, that rented houses for Americans in the city.

The American Embassy in Islamabad said in a statement that it did not have details about Mr. DeHaven but was arranging consular access for him through the Pakistani government.

During his first months in Pakistan in early 2010, Mr. Davis, the contractor for the C.I.A., was attached to the American Consulate in Peshawar and lived in a house with other Americans in an upscale neighborhood, according to Pakistani officials.

At the 20-minute court hearing on Friday, Mr. Davis told the judge he would not take part in the proceedings because he had diplomatic immunity, Pakistani officials told reporters later.

He refused to sign the charge sheet presented to him, the officials said.

The Obama administration insists that Mr. Davis acted in self-defense when the two motorcyclists tried to rob him while he was driving on a busy road in Lahore.

In the charge sheet, the Pakistani police said Mr. Davis shot the motorcyclists multiple times from inside his car, and then stepped from the car and continued shooting with his Glock pistol. Mr. Davis then drove from the scene and was arrested several miles away, the police said.

At Friday Prayer in mosques in Lahore and in Islamabad, the capital, anti-American sermons, in some cases laced with references to Mr. Davis, were common.

Hafiz Saeed, the founder of the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which Mr. Davis is believed to have been conducting surveillance on, said the American was “a spy, committing terrorism, helping in drone attacks.”

Banners reading “Hang Davis” and “No immunity to Davis” were strung across the road adjacent to Mr. Saeed’s headquarters.

politico:Feds spy on reporter in leak probe

Feds spy on reporter in leak probe

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50168.html

Federal investigators trying to find out who leaked information about a CIA attempt to disrupt Iran’s nuclear program obtained a New York Times reporter’s three private credit reports, examined his personal bank records and obtained information about his phone calls and travel, according to a new court filing.

The scope and intrusiveness of the government’s efforts to uncover reporter James Risen’s sources surfaced Thursday in the criminal case of Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer facing federal criminal charges for allegedly disclosing classified information. Sterling is accused of giving Risen details about what Risen describes as the CIA’s plan to give Iran faulty nuclear blueprints, hoping to temporarily thwart the regime’s ambitions to build an atomic bomb.

In a motion filed in federal court in Alexandria, Sterling’s defense lawyers, Ed MacMahon Jr. and Barry Pollack, reveal that the prosecution has turned over “various telephone records showing calls made by the author James Risen. It has provided three credit reports—Equifax, TransUnion and Experian—for Mr. Risen. It has produced Mr. Risen’s credit card and bank records and certain records of his airline travel.”

The revelation alarmed First Amendment advocates, particularly in light of Justice Department rules requiring the attorney general to sign off on subpoenas directed to members of the media and on requests for their phone records. And Risen told POLITICO that the disclosures, while not shocking, made him feel “like a target of spying.”

“We’ve argued that I was a victim of harassment by the government. This seems to bolster that,” Risen said. “Maybe I should ask them what my credit score is.”

Sterling’s attorneys and a Justice Department spokeswoman declined POLITICO’s request for comment.

The government’s interest in Risen’s sources for his 2006 book, “State of War,” has been known since 2008. In particular, investigators have zeroed in on a chapter which details what Risen describes as a botched CIA effort to trip up Iran’s nuclear program. The scheme involved using a Russian defector to deliver the faulty blueprints to the Iranians, but the defector blew the CIA’s plot by alerting the Iranians to the flaws — negating the value of the program, and perhaps even advancing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Risen was twice subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to testify about his sources, but the first grand jury dissolved before a judge acted on Risen’s motion to quash the subpoena. Last year, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema sided with Risen and quashed the second subpoena, though details of her reasoning haven’t been made public.

Soon after that decision, Sterling was indicted.

First Amendment advocates said the Justice Department’s use of business records to find out about Risen’s sources was troubling. Those records, they argue, could potentially expose a wide array of Risen’s sources and confidential contacts — information that might fall beyond the initial investigation that led to Sterling’s indictment.

“To me, in many ways, it’s worse than a direct subpoena,” said Jane Kirtley, a University of Minnesota law professor and former director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “Third-party subpoenas are really, really invidious…. Even if it is targeted, even if they’re trying to just look at the relevant stuff, they’re inevitably going to get material that exposes other things.”

Kirtley also said journalists often aren’t notified when the government asks telecom companies, banks or other service providers for their records.

Asked how journalists could credibly complain about such techniques when most also refuse more direct demands for information about their sources, Kirtley said reporters who become the focus of determined investigators face a “Hobson’s choice.”

“It’s the same thing as if the cops go to someone’s office with a search warrant and say, ‘Give us the information we want and we won’t tear the place apart,’” she said. “If you say ‘tear the place apart,’ all kinds of confidential information that you don’t think the police should have is going to end up in their hands.”

Lawyers tracking the case believed that both former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who was part of the Bush administration, and current Attorney General Eric Holder gave the go-ahead to subpoena Risen. Under Justice Department rules, the attorney general must approve a subpoena for a journalist and grant permission to obtain “telephone toll records of a member of the news media.”

It’s unclear whether the records investigators obtained about Risen’s phone calls came from his billing records or from records of incoming calls to Sterling or others. The Justice Department guidelines for investigations affecting journalists don’t appear to address travel, bank or credit card records.

Risen said the government never notified him that they were seeking his phone records. But he said he got an inkling in 2008 that investigators had collected some information about his calls.

“We heard from several people who had been forced to testify to the grand jury that prosecutors had shown them phone records between me and those people—not the content of calls but the records of calls,” he said. “As a result of what they told us, my lawyers filed a motion with the court as asking how the Justice Department got these phone records and whether or not they had gotten my phone records.”

“We wanted the court to help us decide whether they had abided by the attorney general’s guidelines,” Risen said. “We never got an answer from the court or the government.”

The new defense filings also offer the first official confirmation that Risen’s work was the focus of the investigation that led to the charges against Sterling. In addition to the phone, travel and financial records, Sterling’s defense said the prosecution handed over a copy of the cover of Risen’s book along with receipts and shipping records showing it was sold in Virginia.

While those familiar with the case immediately concluded that Sterling was a source for Risen, the journalist who got classified information from Sterling was referred to simply as “Author A” in the indictment, and was not named. Justice Department policy generally bars naming unindicted individuals in an indictment.

From 2004 to 2006, the New York Times fought a court battle to keep federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald from obtaining the telephone records of Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon. Fitzgerald wanted the information to help find out who leaked information that tipped off Islamic charities about federal raids on their offices.

A district judge ruled in the Times’ favor, but a federal appellate court overturned that decision. Fitzgerald ultimately obtained the records when the Supreme Court declined to step in; no one was ever charged for the leak.

Sterling’s indictment suggests that Risen urged the Times to publish details about the CIA’s attempt to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but Times editors declined after senior U.S. government officials warned that the disclosure could harm national security and endanger the life of the Russian intermediary. The information later appeared in Risen’s book.

The new details about the FBI’s investigation of Risen came in a motion that called on the government to provide more details about what specific information Sterling allegedly disclosed. Sterling's lawyers also filed a series of other motions challenging several counts of the indictment as duplicative. Some also sought to punish Sterling for acts he did not commit, such as Risen’s publication of the book, the defense argued.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50168.html#ixzz1F0d0iCiq

foxnews:Alleged Saudi Bomb Plotter Pleads Not Guilty in Texas Court

Alleged Saudi Bomb Plotter Pleads Not Guilty in Texas Court

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/25/prosecutors-saudi-man-planned-attack-years/#ixzz1Ezx7S85u

LUBBOCK, Texas -- The Saudi college student who allegedly planned to bomb a series of U.S. targets, including the Dallas home of former President George W. Bush, pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, 20, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine if convicted of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

In his private journal, the chemical engineering student wrote that he was planning an attack in the United States for years, even before coming to the U.S. on a scholarship, according to court documents released Thursday. He said he was influenced by Osama bin Laden's speeches and that he bemoaned the plight of Muslims.

"After mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for jihad," or holy war, Aldawsari wrote in the journal, according to the documents filed by prosecutors.

A federal public defender in Lubbock, David Sloan, said he would be at Friday's court appearance in case U.S. Magistrate Nancy Koenig needed to appoint him to represent Aldawsari.

Aldawsari was arrested Wednesday on a charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Aldawsari was expected to appear in federal court Friday, two days after his arrest on a charge of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

"As we lay out in this affidavit, there were a range of targets being contemplated," Robert Casey, the FBI special agent in charge of the case, said. "I can't speak to his state of mind or the priority in his mind of any of the range of targets we think we discovered."

In e-mails Aldawsari apparently sent to himself, he listed 12 reservoir dams in Colorado and California; the documents did not state their exact locations. He also wrote an e-mail that mentioned "Tyrant's House" with the address of Bush's home.

The FBI's affidavit said Aldawsari considered using infant dolls to hide explosives and was possibly targeting a nightclub with a backpack filled with explosives.

Aldawsari was using several e-mail accounts. One e-mail message traced to him described instructions to convert a cell phone into a remote detonator. A second listed the names and home addresses of three American citizens who had previously served in the U.S. military and had been stationed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Aldawsari also described a plan in his journal that involved leaving car bombs in different places during rush hour in New York City and remotely detonating them.
Aldawsari, who entered the U.S. legally in 2008 on a student visa, studied chemical engineering at Texas Tech University until January before transferring to a nearby college to study business.

The White House said President Barack Obama was notified about the alleged plot before Aldawsari's arrest.

It was not immediately clear whether Aldawsari had hired a lawyer. Telephone numbers that Aldawsari had provided to others were not working Thursday. No one answered the buzzer or a knock on the door at the address listed as Aldawsari's apartment near the Texas Tech campus.

The case outlined in court documents was significant because it suggests that radicalized foreigners can live quietly in the U.S. without raising suspicions from neighbors, classmates, teachers or others. But it also showed how quickly U.S. law enforcement can move when tipped that a terrorist plot may be unfolding.

"We think we have neutralized any other threats or imminent harm surrounding the actions that he's charged with, but the investigation is continuing," Casey said.

Aldawsari wrote that he was planning an attack even before coming to the U.S. on a scholarship, the court documents say. He said he was influenced by bin Laden's speeches and he bemoaned the plight of Muslims.

Federal authorities said they learned of the plot after a chemical company, Carolina Biological Supply of Burlington, North Carolina, reported $435 in suspicious orders by Aldawsari to the FBI on Feb. 1.

Separately, Con-way Freight, the shipping company, notified Lubbock police and the FBI the same day with similar suspicions because it appeared the order wasn't intended for commercial use. Within weeks, federal agents had traced Aldawsari's other online purchases, discovered extremist posts he made on the Internet and secretly searched his apartment, computer and e-mail accounts and read his diary, according to court records.

Neighbors in Lubbock said they didn't remember seeing Aldawsari but noticed an unusual number of people in the hallway the day of his arrest.

"That's so scary," said Sally Dierschke, a 21-year-old senior at Texas Tech. "That's my neighbor. ... Of course, I'm scared."

Ahmid Obaidan, a senior at Tennessee State University who also is from Saudi Arabia, met Aldawsari in Nashville, Tennessee, when Aldawsari was studying at an English language center at Vanderbilt University.

"He was quiet. I thought he was a good guy," Obaidan said.

The FBI said the North Carolina company reported the attempts to purchase 1.3 gallons (4.9 liters) of phenol, a chemical that can be used to make the explosive trinitrophenol, also known as TNP, or picric acid. Aldawsari falsely told the supplier he was associated with a university and wanted the phenol for "off-campus, personal research," according to court records. Frustrated by questions, Aldawsari canceled his order and later e-mailed himself instructions for producing phenol, the documents say.

TNP, the chemical explosive that Aldawsari was suspected of trying to make, has approximately the same destructive power as TNT. FBI bomb experts said the amounts in the Aldawsari case would have yielded almost 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) of explosive. That's about the same amount used per bomb in the London subway attacks that killed scores of people in July 2005.

Prosecutors said that in December, he bought 30 liters of concentrated nitric acid for about $450 from QualiChem Technologies in Georgia, and three gallons of concentrated sulfuric acid that are combined to make TNP. The FBI later found the chemicals in Aldawsari's apartment as well as beakers, flasks, wiring, a Hazmat suit and clocks.

A Saudi industrial company, which was not identified in court documents, was paying Aldawsari's tuition and living expenses in the U.S.

Casey declined to go into why the arrest occurred when it did.

"We just felt it was the right time," he said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/25/prosecutors-saudi-man-planned-attack-years/#ixzz1EzxF3NZD