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Author Topic:   Terror, Terror Everywhere
DayDreamer
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posted April 23, 2006 12:17 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Bin Laden calls for jihad in Darfur
By Yara Bayoumy

10 minutes ago

Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden urged his followers to prepare for a long war against Western would-be occupiers in Sudan's Darfur region, according to an audiotape attributed to him and aired on Sunday.

The speaker, who sounded like bin Laden, also said on the tape broadcast on Al Jazeera television that the West's shunning of the Hamas Palestinian government showed it was waging a "Crusader-Zionist war" on Muslims.

"I call on the mujahideen and their supporters in Sudan ... and the Arabian peninsula to prepare all that is necessary to wage a long-term war against the Crusaders in western Sudan," bin Laden said, accusing the West of seeking to divide Sudan.

Sudan hosted bin Laden in the 1990s, but on the tape he criticized Khartoum for not enforcing Islamic sharia law throughout the country and made clear his call to arms in Darfur was in spite of his differences with the Sudanese government.

Criticizing a U.S.-backed peace deal between Khartoum and southern rebels, bin Laden accused the United States of planning to send "Crusader troops to occupy the region and steal its oil under the cover of preserving security there."

Some U.N. troops have arrived in southern Sudan, the first of an expected 10,000 peacekeepers to be sent there. Sudan is resisting pressure for U.N. peacekeepers to deploy in Darfur.

Bin Laden accused Washington of fuelling strife in the Arab country.

The United States is pressing for U.N. sanctions against the Sudanese government for its part in the Darfur conflict, which erupted in 2003 when mostly non-Arab tribes revolted, accusing the Arab-dominated authorities of neglecting them.

Khartoum retaliated by arming mainly Arab militia, known as Janjaweed, who began a campaign of murder, rape and plunder that drove more than 2 million villagers into squalid camps in Darfur and in neighboring Chad. Khartoum denies responsibility.

"WAR AGAINST MUSLIMS"

Bin Laden said the Darfur crisis and Western efforts to isolate the Palestinian government since Hamas won January elections were part of an anti-Muslim campaign.

"Their rejection of Hamas affirms that it is a Crusader-Zionist war against Muslims," he said, although he also criticized the Islamist group for breaking what he said was a taboo against "joining infidel assemblies."

The Saudi-born militant said people in the West shared responsibility for their countries' "war against Islam."

In the brief excerpts of the tape that Al Jazeera aired, he did not repeat his assertion in an audiotape issued in January that al Qaeda was preparing attacks in the United States but was open to a conditional truce with Americans.

But his remarks about the complicity of Westerners in the policies of their governments appeared to be an argument that they were fair game for revenge attacks by militants.

"The war is a responsibility shared between the people and the governments. The war goes on and the people are renewing their allegiance to its rulers and masters," bin Laden said.

"They send their sons to armies to fight us and they continue their financial and moral support while our countries are burned and our houses are bombed and our people are killed."

An Al Jazeera official declined to say how the channel had obtained the tape. A U.S. intelligence official said technical analysis was under way to determine its authenticity.

The Qaeda leader, on the run since the U.S. campaign to oust Afghanistan's Taliban government in 2001 after the September 11 attacks, said Western leaders had ignored his truce offers.

"They do not want a truce unless it is from our side only ... they insist on continuing their Crusader campaign against our nation and to loot our wealth," bin Laden said.

Saudi-born bin Laden and his right-hand man, Ayman al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in a mountainous area on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

(Additional reporting by Firouz Sedarat and Inal Ersan)

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited.

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DayDreamer
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posted April 23, 2006 12:20 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Iran Calls Nuclear Program 'Irreversible'
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
51 minutes ago


Iran said Sunday its nuclear program is irreversible, issuing yet another rejection of a U.N. Security Council deadline to cease enriching uranium that expires in five days.

Earlier this month, Tehran announced for the first time that it had enriched uranium using 164 centrifuges, a step toward large-scale production of nuclear fuel that can be used either in atomic weapons or in nuclear reactors for civilian electricity generation.

"Nuclear research will continue. Suspension of (nuclear activities including uranium enrichment) is not on our agenda. This issue is irreversible," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

The United States and some allies charge Iran is using the program as a cover for weapons production. Iran says it is designed only for power generation.

The Security Council deadline of Friday is not binding, but the United States and Britain said Iran must comply or the two countries would seek a resolution to make the demand compulsory, which would raise the possibility of sanctions.

"Iran won't give up its rights and has prepared plans for any eventuality," Asefi said.

The spokesman said a Russian compromise plan for joint uranium enrichment was still on the table.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, Saturday spoke of a "basic agreement" between Iran and Russia to set up a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil.

The announcement was a repeat of a similar declaration by Iran and Russia in February but details have never been worked out.

"Necessary grounds need to be prepared for its implementation," Asefi said. It still remains unclear whether Iran would entirely give up enrichment at home, a top demand of the West, or if the joint venture would be complementary to the existing enrichment inside Iran.

Asefi insisted Sunday that Iran has not used any advanced P-2 centrifuges in its enrichment of uranium.

Such a device would be a vast improvement over the current P-1 centrifuges, which Iran has said it used to enrich uranium.

Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed last week that his country was conducting laboratory research on the advanced P-2 centrifuge, which could be used to more speedily create fuel for power plants or atomic weapons.

"We have not so far used P-2 centrifuges. What we have used has been P-1," Asefi told reporters.

The spokesman, however, said Iran had the right to work on P-2 centrifuge.

"No one can deny us of such a work," he said.

Iran has vowed it would never give up its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to enrich uranium and produce nuclear fuel.

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DayDreamer
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posted April 23, 2006 12:21 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Intelligence on Iran nuclear threat seen as inadequate
44 minutes ago


WASHINGTON (Reuters)- The United States doesn't have enough good intelligence to know whether or not Iran will be capable of producing nuclear weapons in the near future, top congressional intelligence committee members said on Sunday.

Iran said earlier on Sunday it would not abandon its work on nuclear enrichment, which the United Nations has demanded it halt, and was prepared to face sanctions from abroad.

Asked on Fox News Sunday when Iran might be capable of producing nuclear weapons, House Permanent Select Committee on

Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra, a Michigan Republican, said: "I'd say we really don't know.

"We're getting lots of mixed messages," Hoekstra said.

"We've got a long way to go in rebuilding our intelligence community. .... We don't have all of the information we would like to have.

Jane Harman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, concurred. "Our intelligence is thin," she told Fox News. "I don't think we have enough sources, I don't think our analysis is sharp enough."

Washington has said it wants a diplomatic resolution over Iran's nuclear ambitions but has not ruled out military action, a step its allies, as well as Russia and China, oppose.

"This is not a time to be saber-rattling in our government," said Harmon. "Just the fact that the Iranian government is making a lot of noise doesn't prove their capabilities.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060423/pl_nm/security_intelligence_dc_2;_ylt=AvpTxQwvxn3uxl5mKJTp2YEUewgF;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZGZwam4yBHNlYwNmYw--

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DayDreamer
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posted April 23, 2006 12:22 PM           Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
New Plans Foresee Fighting Terrorism Beyond War Zones
Pentagon to Rely on Special Operations

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 23, 2006; A01

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials.

The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them publicly.

Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.

For example, SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war.

And in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials. "We do not need ambassador-level approval," said one defense official familiar with the order.

Overall, the plans underscore Rumsfeld's conviction since the September 2001 terrorist attacks that the U.S. military must expand its mission beyond 20th-century conventional warfare by infantry, tanks, ships and fighter jets to fighting non-state groups that are, above all, difficult to find.

The plans each run more than 100 pages and cover a wide range of overt and clandestine military activities -- such as man-hunting and intelligence gathering on terrorist networks; attacks on terrorist training camps and recruiting efforts; and partnering with foreign militaries to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. Together, they amount to an assignment of responsibilities to different military commands to conduct what the Pentagon envisions as a "long war" against terrorism.

The main campaign plan sets priorities, allocates resources such as manpower and funding, and coordinates operations among regional military commands to implement the Pentagon's broader National Military Strategic Plan for the War on Terrorism, published in unclassified form in February. It lays out nine key goals, such as targeting terrorist leaders, safe havens, communications and other logistical support, and countering extremist ideology.

A second detailed plan is focused specifically on al-Qaeda and associated movements, including more than a dozen groups spread across the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. Such groups include the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Ansar al-Islam in the Middle East, Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia, and the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Saharan Africa.

A third plan sets out how the military can both disrupt and respond to another major terrorist strike on the United States. It includes lengthy annexes that offer a menu of options for the military to retaliate quickly against specific terrorist groups, individuals or state sponsors depending on who is believed to be behind an attack. Another attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets, according to current and former defense officials familiar with the plan.

This plan details "what terrorists or bad guys we would hit if the gloves came off. The gloves are not off," said one official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The Pentagon declined to comment on the counterterrorism plans or their approval, citing longstanding policy. "We do not discuss contingency plans or future operations," said Cmdr. Greg Hicks, a Defense Department spokesman. SOCOM's deputy commander, Vice Adm. Eric T. Olson, said earlier this month in Senate testimony that the plans had been approved.

Special Operations Command, led by Gen. Doug Brown, has been building up its headquarters and writing the plans since 2003, when Rumsfeld first designated it as the lead command for the war on terrorism. Its budget has grown 60 percent since 2003 to $8 billion in fiscal 2007. President Bush empowered the 53,000-strong command with coordinating the entire military's efforts in counterterrorism in 2004.

"SOCOM is, in fact, in charge of the global war on terror," Brown said in testimony before the House last month. In this role, SOCOM directs and coordinates actions by the military's regional combatant commands. SOCOM, if directed, can also command its own counterterrorist operations -- such as when a threat spans regional boundaries or the mission is highly sensitive -- but it has not done so yet, according to Olson, and other officials say that is likely to be the exception to the rule.

To extend its reach to more countries, SOCOM is increasing by 13,000 the number of Special Operations troops, including Special Forces soldiers skilled in language and working with indigenous militaries, and Delta Force operatives and Navy SEAL teams that form clandestine "special mission units" engaged in reconnaissance, intelligence gathering and man-hunting. Already, SOCOM is seeing its biggest deployments in history, with 7,000 troops overseas today, but the majority have been concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 85 percent last year in the Middle East, Central Asia or the Horn of Africa.

But SOCOM's more robust role -- while adding manpower, specialized skills and organization to the fight against terrorism -- has also led to some bureaucratic tensions, both inside the military with the joint staff and regional commands, as well as with the CIA and State Department. Such tensions are one reason SOCOM's plan took years.

When SOCOM first dispatched military liaison teams abroad starting in 2003, they were called "Operational Control Elements," a term changed last year because "it raised the hackles of regional commanders and ambassadors. It was a bad choice of language," said one defense official, adding: "Who can pick on Military Liaison Elements?"

State Department officials, meanwhile, said that although, for the most part, cooperation with the military teams has been good, they remain concerned over continued "gray areas" regarding their status. "Special Ops wants the flexibility and speed to go in there. . . . but there's understandably questions of how you do that and how you have clear lines of authority," one U.S. official said. There remains "continuing discussion, to put it politely, in terms of how this is going to work," the official said. SOCOM says the teams work for the regional commanders.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/22/AR2006042201124.html

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