Negative Blogs

• Drone attacks intercept militants based in Pakistan

• Western intelligence agencies confirm plot fears

A plot to launch “commando-style” attacks on Britain, France, and Germany has been intercepted and foiled by drone attacks on militants based in Pakistan, security and intelligence sources said last night.

The plan for suicidal onslaughts similar to the 2008 atrocity in Mumbai – where 166 people were killed in a series of gun and grenade assaults – was disrupted after a combined operation involving US, UK, French and German intelligence agencies, officials said.

British security and intelligence sources, who have been concerned for some time about the possibility of a Mumbai-style attack in Europe, confirmed that they believed a plot was being hatched from Pakistan.

The increased rate of coordinated US drone raids along the border with Afghanistan is believed to be a response to intelligence gathered about the plot. Security sources insisted that attacks in Europe were not imminent.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris, however, has been evacuated twice because of a bomb scare in the past two weeks, a precaution that may have been prompted by the intelligence.

No further evidence of such a plot was provided. Jonathan Evans, the head of MI5, earlier this month spoke publicly about the continuing threat of terror attacks in the UK. In his speech, he suggested that around 50% of the plots identified had links to Pakistan – a decline on previous estimates that suggested the figure was nearer 75%.

The terror group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks was the outlawed, Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In the aftermath of the attack western intelligence agencies gained access to computers seized from the Islamist group which listed other potential targets outside the Indian subcontinent for commando-style terror strikes.

Nine of the gunmen were killed – but a lone survivor gave Indian investigators a full confession that the assault was planned in Pakistan by Lashkar, a militant group that originally began an armed campaign against the Indian army in Kashmir.

US military briefings suggested the latest missile attacks in Pakistan had been coordinated by the CIA and were an unusual example of using drones to pre-empt possible terror plots.

“There are some pretty notable threat streams,” one US military official told the Wall Street Journal, adding that the significance of the threats is still being assessed by counterterrorism experts.

The CIA is believed to have launched at least 20 drone strikes this month in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the region bordering Afghanistan That is the highest monthly total in the past six years, according tofigures from the New America Foundation think tank which monitors drone operations.

Four people were reported killed in the latest raid on Monday by US Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that are operated remotely out of air force bases in the US. A senior al-Qaida leader was among one of those killed in drone raids, Pakistani and US officials said yesterday.

There has also been speculation that some of the attacks may be targeted against the Islamist Haqqani network, a group that has not previously operated outside the region.

The group controls the area in north-western Pakistan where intelligence officials suspect Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

American officials declined to comment on specific plots in Europe or elsewhere but acknowledged that targeted drone strikes in Pakistan were meant to disrupt militant networks planning attacks.

“It shouldn’t surprise anyone that links between plots and those who are orchestrating them lead to decisive American action,” a US official told Reuters.

“The terrorists who are involved are, as everyone should expect, going to be targets. That’s the whole point of all of this.”

By guardian.co.uk

One hundred and sixty-six people were killed in a series of gun and grenade assaults in Mumbai in 2008. Photograph: EPA

Swedish authorities who released a passenger taken into custody after a plane made an emergency landing are trying to find a caller who tipped off police that a man onboard had explosives — an assertion that proved untrue.

The plane — which had 273 people aboard and was flying from Canada to Pakistan — landed Saturday morning after the phone call, authorities said.

The man, in his late 20s, was confronted by authorities in a “very nondramatic fashion” as all passengers filed off the plane and was cooperative, said Stockholm Police spokesman Kjell Lindgren.

“He said that he doesn’t understand anything and that he has no idea what this is all about,” Lindgren said. “He also said that he could not understand why he had been the subject of these accusations.”

After several hours, the Swedish Prosecution Authority issued a statement saying, “The on-call prosecutor has decided not to arrest the man who has been held suspected of bringing explosives onto an airplane. The suspicions against this man are not strong enough to formally arrest him and he is therefore free to leave Sweden.”

The plane was allowed to continue to Pakistan later Saturday.

Lindgren initially said the man was suspected of “preparation of aviation sabotage,” though a search of the aircraft and the individuals yielded no evidence of explosives.

Pakistan International Airlines Flight 782 was heading from Toronto, Canada, to Karachi, Pakistan, when it landed because of “security reasons,” said Sultan Hassan, an airline spokesman.

The plane landed at Arlanda airport in Stockholm, Sweden, at 7:30 a.m. (1:30 a.m. ET) Saturday after a woman calling from a pay phone in Canada tipped off police that a man on the plane had explosives, police spokesman Janne Hedlund said.

Canadian authorities contacted the plane while it was in Swedish airspace, Hedlund said.

The man is from Pakistan and has a Canadian passport, Hedlund said.

The investigation is still ongoing, but is now focused on the caller in Canada, Lindgren said.

By cnn.com

Sept. 25: Two anti-terrorist policemen, center, secure one of the passengers as a Pakistan International Airlines Boeing 777 is evacuated at Stockholm Arlanda International airport. The aircraft was en route from Toronto to Karachi, when Canadian authorities received a tip-off that a passenger could be carrying explosives and the plane was diverted to Stockholm. Swedish police detained a man described as a Canadian citizen of Pakistani origin aboard the plane, but a bomb squad that searched the plane found nothing suspicious on board.

Al-Qaida’s North Africa branch claimed responsibility in an audio message broadcast Tuesday for kidnapping five French nationals that disappeared in the deserts of Niger last week.

Seven foreign workers were kidnapped from a uranium mine operated by the French company Areva in Niger Thursday and were last seen heading toward the neighboring countries of Mali and Algeria with about 30 captors before vanishing in the vast desert.

“The men were able to attack the mine of Arlit in Niger which is considered one the most important sources of uranium that France has been stealing from for decades,” said the excerpt purported to be from al-Qaida in the North Africa that was broadcast on Al-Jazeera news channel.

The message said fighters from the group overcame security in the area and kidnapped “five French nuclear experts” and said it would issue its demands to the French government “shortly.”

“We also warn them from doing anything stupid,” it added.

In July, AQIM said it executed a 78-year-old French aid worker it had taken hostage three months before, saying the killing was in retaliation for the deaths of six al-Qaida members in a French-backed military operation against the group.

There was no way to authenticate the message, but in the past al-Qaida and its affiliates have claimed responsibility for operations through messages sent to Al-Jazeera.

Those abducted from Arlit mining town include five French nationals, one from Togo and one from Madagascar. One of the men taken worked for Areva, along with his wife, and the others were employees of a subcontractor called Satom.

Al-Qaida’s affiliate in North Africa operates in the vast desert region from Mauritania to Chad. The group grew out of an Algerian insurgency movement that officially joined with the terrorist network in 2006.

Areva, a leading global nuclear manufacturer, gets much of its uranium from Niger. Aid groups say almost half of Niger’s population desperately needs food and up to one in six children suffers from acute malnutrition.

By kansascity.com

This undated photo provided by French nuclear manufacturer Areva shows the uranium mine of Arlit, northern Niger. French soldiers operating out of a hotel in Niger's capital and using reconnaissance flights over the Sahara searched Monday Sept. 20, 2010 for seven foreign workers who were kidnapped near a French-operated uranium mine and seemingly swallowed by the vast desert. Armed assailants kidnapped last week seven people near the uranium mining town of Arlit, in northern Niger.

Clashes between police and alleged militants left six more people dead Friday in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, even as stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140 only a day ago.

Thursday’s bombing near the central market of Vladikavkaz, the capital of the North Ossetia republic, was the most serious attack in Russia since the March subway bombings in Moscow that killed 40 people.

Russia’s ethnically diverse North Caucasus region has been gripped by violence stemming from two separatist wars in Chechnya and fueled by poverty, rampant official corruption and alleged extrajudicial killings, kidnappings and torture by law enforcement officials.

In the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan, the Interior Ministry said police on Friday killed four suspected militants who opened fire after a raid on a home in the village of Makhargi. The agency also said police were also trying to negotiate with three militants blockaded in a house in Derbent, near the border with Azerbaijan.

A Dagestani policeman and a prison warden were also shot to death in separate attacks, ministry officials said Friday.

The Vladikavkaz market was cordoned off Friday and investigators combed the site for clues about the bombing. Flags flew at half-staff throughout the city.

A North Ossetia health official said 107 of the wounded were in local hospitals and 11 severely injured victims had been flown to Moscow, according to state news agency ITAR-Tass.

Thursday’s blast was so powerful that glass in nearby buildings shattered. The area was cleaned of blood and shreds of clothing but twisted wrecks of several cars still littered the street.

A few blocks away, weeping relatives and neighbors mourned two bombing victims: 54-year-old Yaselin Mamedova and 18-month-old Elnur Ashinov. Their bodies were being prepared for burial later in the day in line with Muslim practice.

There has been no public claim of responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but suspicion fell on Islamic militants who launch frequent small attacks in neighboring North Caucasus republics, including Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia.

Those three provinces have a Muslim majority, but North Ossetia is predominantly Orthodox Christian with a sizable Muslim minority.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with Russia’s top Muslim cleric after the blast and said Russia’s 20 million Muslims should play a key role in eradicating Islamic extremism in the nation.

“The crimes like the one that was committed in the North Caucasus today are aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens. We mustn’t allow this,” Putin said at the Thursday meeting.

By SERGEY PONOMAREV

A car bomb exploded in the Russian republic of North Ossetia on Thursday, killing at least 16 people — including an 18-month-old baby — and wounding up to 112 others, government and local health officials said.

The vehicle blew up near a market in the city of Vladikavkaz, the republic’s leader, Taimuraz Mamsurov, told Interfax.

“Information that I possess indicates that the explosion in Vladikavkaz was organized by a suicide bomber, who drove a Volga 3102 car to near the entrance to the market,” Mamsurov said.

Investigators said the explosive device contained the equivalent of 40 kilograms of TNT.

The Investigative Committee of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office told CNN that 77 people were injured in the bombing.

However, local health authorities in North Ossetia told CNN that the number of injured is 112, 99 of whom were hospitalized.

At least nine of them, including one child, were said to be in critical condition.
The car bomb — inside a vehicle parked at the entrance to the central market in downtown Vladikavkaz, with a suicide bomber sitting inside it — detonated at 11:20 a.m. (3:20 a.m. ET), according to the Investigative Committee, which qualified the bombing as a “terrorist act.”

The committee also said the bomb was stuffed with various pieces of metal to increase the human damage. A natural gas canister, stored in the car’s trunk, also detonated, the committee said.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry is sending special medical planes to Vladikavkaz to airlift heavily injured patients to Moscow’s leading trauma clinics.

Friday was declared a day of national mourning in North Ossetia, according to a local government decree. Flags on all regional buildings will fly at half-staff and all entertainment programs on local TV will be cancelled as well as concerts and theater performances.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking on national TV, pledged that all organizers of the deadly bombing will be identified and punished — or killed.

“We will do all we can to catch these monsters and animals … who have committed a terror attack, a barbaric terror attack, against ordinary people. We will do all we can to find and punish them in accordance with the laws of our country, and we will destroy them if they offer resistance or in other circumstances,” Medvedev said.

Meanwhile, the owner of the car used in the bomb attack has been identified and arrested, a local police official told the Interfax news agency. The detainee claims that he sold it to an unknown buyer on Wednesday, the policeman said.
The Russian government announced each family of those killed with receive 1 million rubles in compensation (more than $32,000).

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin condemned the bombing, saying, “The crimes like the one that was committed in the North Caucausus today are aimed at sowing enmity between our citizens. We have no right to allow this.”

North Ossetia and the rest of the Caucasus region have been plagued with violence and political instability.

The market has seen other terrorist attacks in the past.

In November 2008, a suicide bomber blew up a bus at a nearby bus station, killing 12 people and wounding more than 40. An explosion killed more than 50 people and wounded 300 in March 1999.

By the CNN

In this image made from television, the wreckage of a car destroyed in a suicide car attack is seen near the entrance to a market in Vladikavkaz, North Caucasus, Russia, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2010. A suicide car bomber hit the central market of Vladikavkaz on Thursday, killing dozens and wounding more than 100 people in one of the worst terror attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said.

The target of the drone attack was the Haqqani network, a Pakistani militant group based near the Afghanistan border that has been blamed for attacks on NATO troops.

A suspected US drone attack in Pakistan’s tribal region on Wednesday killed at least six people. The target of the strike was the Haqqani network, a Pakistani militant group blamed for attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Associated Press reports.

The strike, which targeted at least one house in North Waziristan, was the sixth drone attack in the area this week. The missile hit a house in the village of Dande Darpa Khel just outside North Waziristan’s main town of Miran Shah, according to the AP.

The house was owned by Maulvi Azizullah, a member of the Haqqani network, a militant group based in North Waziristan that U.S. military officials have called the most dangerous threat to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

The Haqqani network is closely allied with the Taliban and is led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a well-known fighter during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Haqqani received support from the U.S. and Pakistan during the Soviet war but has since turned against the Americans.

Drone strikes appear to be the only available way for the US to go after the Haqqani network, reports the AP. US officials have long urged the Pakistani government to crack down on the group, but Islamabad has refused, possibly due to its desire to preserve their historical ties with a group that can influence events in Pakistan.

The Institute for the Study of War traces those ties back to the days of the 1980s jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, when Islamist militant groups like the Haqqani network allowed Pakistan to exercise influence in its chaotic and war-torn neighbor. The Institute says that Pakistan’s top military official, General Ashfaq Kayani, has referred to the group as a “strategic asset” for Islamabad.

Pakistan may grow more concerned with the strategic use of militant groups as the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan draws to a close, says the AP, which reports that “analysts believe the government views them as an important ally once foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan.”

The news website Indian Express says that ten militants were killed and several others were injured in the attack and the Times of India reports that two houses were destroyed in the strike, but neither report has been confirmed.

In August, the US State department released its annual global terrorism report for 2009, singling out groups like the Haqqani network and other Al Qaeda elements in Pakistan as “the foremost security threat to the US homeland.”

As the Monitor has previously reported, those fears were underlined in June when a Pakistan-born Connecticut man, Faisal Shahzad, pled guilty to attempting to detonate a car bomb in New York City’s Times Square. Shahzad had traveled to Pakistan to receive training from Al Qaeda there, and called his attempted attack an act of “war.”

By CSmonitor.

In this Jan. 31, 2010 file photo, a U.S. Predator drone flies over the moon above Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan.

Eleven policemen and four schoolchildren were among the 19 people killed in a suicide bomb attack on a police station in Lakki Marwat, a district of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa bordering Punjab. According to the police, 600 kg of explosive material were used in the blast which brought down the police station and damaged several buildings in the vicinity including a hospital, a mosque and a school.

The death toll is expected to rise as many of the 40 injured are battling for life. The suicide bomber rammed the explosive-laden vehicle into the rear wall of the police station early in the morning.

The schoolchildren were killed as their van was parked nearby.

As many of the buildings in the vicinity bore the brunt of the huge explosion, police cordoned off the area while efforts were on to pull out people buried in the rubble. After the explosion, police rounded up 10 persons suspected to be linked to terrorist groups.

Area police said this was the handiwork of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has claimed responsibility for last week’s suicide attacks on Shias in Lahore and Quetta. Talking to reporters, a senior police officer said: “The TTP is all out to hurt us. They are targeting everyone. We have lost personnel from the level of constable to Assistant Inspector General. The frontier police is writing its history with blood.”

On Sunday, The Daily Times had reported that terrorists had resurfaced in the suburbs of Peshawar — the capital of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa — and were imposing their writ by declaring a ban on shaving beards. After holding a barber captive for a fortnight, they released him last week with the diktat that barbers would be killed if they shaved beards.

By Thehindu.

People gather at the site of suicide bombing at a police station in Lakki Marwat, Pakistan on Monday.

At least 42 people have died in a suicide attack during a Shiite Muslim rally in Pakistan’s south-western city of Quetta in the second major strike by militants within 48 hours.

The attack has raised fears that the Pakistan Taliban is trying to capitalise on devastating floods that have plunged the country into crisis.

Police said the bomber was among a 450-strong crowd when he detonated the bomb in the main square of the city, triggering chaotic scenes as members of the crowd fired rifles and set vehicles ablaze in protest at the attack.

Shiite leader Allama Abbas Kumaili appealed to participants to remain peaceful. “We understand these are attempts to bring Sunni and Shiite sects against each other,” he said.

The rally was being held to mark Al-Quds day, an international event opposing Israel’s control of Jerusalem and showing solidarity with Palestinian Muslims.

The attack in Quetta is the second this week on Pakistan’s minority Shiite population. A triple suicide attack on Wednesday night killed 35 people at a Shiite ceremony in the eastern city of Lahore.

The bombings were later claimed by the Pakistan Taliban in revenge for the killing of a Sunni leader last year.

Militants have used sectarian strikes as part of their campaign to destabilise the government and sow fear among minorities.

Hasan Askari Rizvi, a military and political analyst, said a lull in attacks during the worst of the flooding crisis had given way to a new campaign.

“They are capitalising on the fact that the government and the military are busy dealing with the floods,” he said. “They see this as an opportunity to take the war into the cities far from their territories in the northwest.”

Earlier, at least one man was killed and four were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect in Mardan, in the north-west of the country.

By Telegraph.co.uk

Injured people lie down on road after an explosion during a Shiite procession in Quetta Photo: AP

Three Americans were killed in Afghanistan Saturday, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said.

Two of the U.S. service members died in a bombing in southern Afghanistan. The third death followed an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan. No other details were immediately available.

The casualties came as the top American diplomat and top U.S. general in Afghanistan reassured the troubled nation of U.S. support.

“Now looking ahead, we’re all focused together on the upcoming parliamentary elections and the key test will be the satisfaction of the Afghan people with the progress that’s going to come from their hard work as they approach the elections — their incredible reputation for perseverance and their indomitable spirit,” said Amb. Karl Eikenberry, speaking to Afghan journalists with Gen. David Petraeus.

Meanwhile, Afghan and coalition soldiers fought off assaults on two military bases that left more than 20 insurgents dead, ISAF said.

The fighting occurred in Khost province, a volatile region on Afghanistan’s rugged border with Pakistan.

Insurgents clad in U.S. military uniforms and wielding rocket-propelled grenades and small arms “simultaneously launched attacks” against Forward Operating Base Salerno and Forward Operation Base Chapman, ISAF said.

Chapman is the same base where a suicide bomber killed seven CIA officers on December 30.

Troops killed about 15 insurgents at Salerno and six at Chapman. Five insurgent fighters were captured and were in ISAF custody.

A Haqqani network operative who helps carry out bombings and two other insurgents died in an airstrike while fleeing Salerno in a vehicle. Two insurgents who got into Salerno were killed by soldiers. The Haqqani network is a militant group with ties to al Qaeda.

“We are tightening our grip on the insurgents and as a result they are attempting anything and everything as a last ditch effort,” said U.S. Army Col. Rafael Torres, ISAF spokesman. “The insurgents gave their best effort and came up short.”

Afghan police and ISAF members seized a car bomb and a vehicle carrying ammunition. Forces also seized suicide vests, rifles and unexploded munitions.

Four ISAF soldiers were injured, and three have returned to duty. The fourth was set to return to duty soon. No base facilities were damaged.

Also Saturday, an Afghan civilian was killed by a suicide attacker in southeastern Paktika province, ISAF said. Seven people also were wounded when the insurgent detonated a suicide vest.

By the CNN

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT- An Afghan National Army soldier stands near the body of a suicide attacker near a NATO base in Khost province of Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2010. Insurgents launched pre-dawn attacks Saturday on a major NATO base in eastern Afghanistan and a nearby camp where seven CIA employees were killed last year in a suicide bombing. NATO said there were no coalition casualties and the attacks were repelled. It said 13 insurgents were killed, four of whom were wearing suicide vests, and five captured. (AP Photo/Nishanuddin Khan)

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden jacket killed at least three people, including a key security official, in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar Wednesday.

Among the dead was Sifwat Ghayour, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary, said Bashir Ahmed Bilour, a provincial government official. Ghayour had just left his office and his car was stopped at a traffic light when the attack occurred.

The Frontier Constabulary is spearheading the fight against Islamic militants in the northwestern frontier province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and is supported by the United States.

In southern Pakistan, the death toll rose Wednesday to 57 in widespread violence that broke out after the killing of a provincial lawmaker. The number of wounded has also gone up — to 110, said Rafiq Gul, deputy superintendent of Karachi police.

Syed Raza Haider, a leader of the MQM party, was shot Monday evening at a mosque in the southern Pakistani port city of Karachi. Haider was attending the funeral of a relative, Gul said. The gunman also killed the politician’s bodyguard.

Haider’s death triggered political and ethnic violence in the city, as mobs set fire to vehicles and gunfire erupted. Gul said 48 vehicles, eight shops and several gas stations were set ablaze in the mayhem. The MQM is part of the ruling coalition backing President Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party.

By the CNN

A suicide bomber wearing an explosives-laden jacket killed at least three people, including a key security official, in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar Wednesday.