Ahmadinejad unveils new ‘ambassador of death’ unmanned drone bomber
August 22, 2010
FoxNews.com

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday inaugurated the country’s first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an “ambassador of death” to Iran’s enemies.

The 4-meter-long drone aircraft can carry up to four cruise missiles and will have a range of 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), according to a state TV report — not far enough to reach archenemy Israel.

“The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship,” said Ahmadinejad at the inauguration ceremony, which fell on the country’s national day for its defense industries.

The goal of the aircraft, named Karrar or striker, is to “keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases,” he said, adding that the aircraft is for deterrence and defensive purposes.

The president championed the country’s military self-sufficiency program, and said it will continue “until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation.”

Iran launched an arms development program during its 1980-88 war with Iraq to compensate for a U.S. weapons embargo and now produces its own tanks, armored personnel carries, missiles and even a fighter plane.

Iran frequently makes announcements about new advances in military technology that cannot be independently verified.

State TV later showed video footage of the plane taking off from a launching pad and reported that the craft traveled at speeds of 560 miles per hour (900 kilometers) and could alternatively be armed with two 250-pound bombs or a 450-pound guided bomb.

Iran has been producing its own light, unmanned surveillance aircraft since the late 1980s.

The ceremony came a day after Iran began to fuel its first nuclear power reactor, with the help of Russia, amid international concerns over the possibility of a military dimension to its nuclear program.

Iran insists it is only interested in generating electricity.

Referring to Israel’s occasional threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities, Ahmadinejad called any attack unlikely, but he said if Israel did, the reaction would be overwhelming.

“The scope of Iran’s reaction will include the entire the earth,” said Ahmadinejad. “We also tell you — the West — that all options are on the table.”

Ahmadinejad appeared to be consciously echoing the terminology used by the U.S. and Israel in their statements not ruling out a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

On Friday, Iran also test-fired a new liquid fuel surface-to-surface missile, the Qiam-1, with advanced guidance systems.

After Crawling Onto U.S. Radar, Somalia Extremists Pose Threat – But Will They Go Global?
by Mike Levine
August 20, 2010
FoxNews.com

I feel so much better now that I know Janet Napolitano and her underlings are on top of things. Yes, we should all feel real secure now that this incompetent women is assuring us that everything is ok and under control. NOT!

Shown here are Al Shabab fighters.

One of the nation’s top intelligence officials was stunned by what he heard in that secret, underground facility.

Jack Tomarchio, the Department of Homeland Security’s Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Intelligence and Analysis at the time, had flown from Washington to Ohio earlier that spring day for a briefing on the Buckeye State’s latest efforts against terrorism. Now, as heavy winds battered the streets above, two Ohio Homeland Security officials told him how the capitals of Ohio and Minnesota had become havens for refugees of war-torn Somalia.

“Get out of town!” Tomarchio remembers saying in surprise. “Why did they go to Minnesota? It’s freezing up there. Why don’t they go to Arizona, where it’s desert-like?”

Then the two briefers told Tomarchio they were becoming increasingly concerned about “radical mosques” in Columbus, Ohio, where imams “considered to be a little fiery” would come from Somalia and preach anti-Western messages to the growing Somali community, Tomarchio recalls about that day in 2006.

It marked one of the first times a U.S. counterterrorism official was warned that Islamic extremists in Somalia could pose a threat to the U.S. homeland — not just a threat to the Horn of Africa or U.S. interests there.

In the years since, such extremists have become more powerful, more global and more deadly than U.S. officials ever imagined. One group in particular, Al Shabab, has recruited dozens of Americans from Minneapolis and elsewhere. They’ve produced the first known American suicide bomber, pledged their allegiance to Usama bin Laden, and last month launched their first attack outside Somalia with coordinated bombings in nearby Uganda.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano called it “a new phase for Al Shabab,” promising that the U.S. government is “constantly looking” to prepare for and prevent “any type of terrorist attack that should occur on our own soil.”

Virginia Man Arrested on Charges He Aided Terror Group
By Joshua Rhett Miller
July 21, 2010
FoxNews.com Jawa Report

Zachary Adam Chesser participates in a Revolution Muslim rally in April in Washington, D.C.

The Virginia man who warned on a radical Islamic website that the creators of the cartoon series “South Park” will be targeted for death for their caricature of the Prophet Muhammad has been arrested on charges that he provided material support to the terrorist organization Al-Shabab, federal officials said Wednesday.

Zachary Adam Chesser, aka Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, admitted to federal agents that he attempted on two occasions to travel to Somalia to join Al-Shabab as a foreign fighter. After he was stopped from boarding a flight from New York to Uganda on July 10, Chesser, 20, allegedly admitted that he intended to travel from Uganda to Somalia.

Chesser, of Fairfax County, Va., attempted to board the plane with his infant son; court records allege he intended to use his son as part of his cover to avoid detection.

“This case exposes the disturbing reality that extreme radicalization can happen anywhere, including Northern Virginia,” said U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride. “This young man is accused of seeking to join Al-Shabab, a brutal terrorist organization with ties to Al Qaeda. These allegations underscore the need for continued vigilance against homegrown terror threats.”

According to a court affidavit, Chesser allegedly discussed in a series of interviews with law enforcement officials how he has maintained several online profiles dedicated to extremist jihad propaganda. These profiles were allegedly used by Chesser to post pro-jihad messages and videos online.

“We can’t fight terrorists alone,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge Shawn Henry. “Religious leaders of all faiths, family members and particularly the younger members of our communities need to speak up and speak out against individuals who participate in actions like those alleged here.”

In April, FoxNews.com spoke to Chesser after he posted a warning on the website RevolutionMuslim.com following the 200th episode of “South Park,” which included a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad disguised in a bear suit. The young man, who just two years ago was studying foreign languages at George Mason University, wrote on the site that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the cartoon’s creators, “will probably end up” like Theo van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after making a film critical of Islamic society.

“It’s not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome,” Chesser told FoxNews.com. “They’re going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It’s just the reality.”

Chesser’s father, David, said he was unaware of the arrest and declined further comment when reached on Wednesday. Chesser’s mother, Barbara, reached at her office in Washington, also declined comment.

Chesser is scheduled to make his initial court appearance in U.S. District Court in Virginia on Thursday.

The U.S. Department of State designated Al-Shabab as a foreign terrorist organization on Feb. 29, 2008, describing it as a violent and brutal extremist group based in Somalia with affiliations to Al Qaeda.

U.S. Missiles Deployed Near China Send a Message
by Mark Thompson The Drudge Report
Jul 8, 2010

If China’s satellites and spies were working properly, there was a flood of unsettling intelligence flowing into the Beijing headquarters of the Chinese Navy last week. A new class of U.S. super weapon had suddenly surfaced nearby. It was an Ohio-class submarine, which for decades carried only nuclear missiles targeted against the Soviet Union, and then Russia. But this one was different: for nearly three years, the U.S. Navy has been dispatching modified “boomers” to who knows where (they do travel underwater, after all). Four of the 18 ballistic-missile subs no longer carry nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. Instead, they now hold up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, capable of hitting anything within 1,000 miles with non-nuclear warheads.

Their capability makes watching these particular submarines especially interesting. The 14 Trident-carrying subs are useful in the unlikely event of a nuclear Armageddon, and Russia remains their prime target. But the Tomahawk-outfitted quartet carries a weapon that the U.S. military has used repeatedly against targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq and Sudan.

That’s why alarm bells would have sounded in Beijing June 28 when the Tomahawk-laden 560-foot USS Ohio popped up in the Philippines’ Subic Bay. More alarms likely were sounded when the USS Michigan arrived in Pusan, South Korea, the same day. And the klaxons would have maxed out as the USS Florida surfaced the same day at the joint U.S.-British naval base at Diego Garcia, a flyspeck of an island in the Indian Ocean. The Chinese military awoke to find as many as 462 additional Tomahawks deployed by the U.S. in its neighborhood. “There’s been a decision to bolster our forces in the Pacific,” says Bonnie Glaser, a China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “There is no doubt that China will stand up and take notice.”

U.S. officials deny any message is being directed at Beijing, saying the Tomahawk triple-play was a coincidence. But they did make sure news of the new deployments appeared in the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post – on July 4, no less. The Chinese took notice quietly. “At present, common aspirations of countries in the Asian and Pacific regions are seeking for peace, stability and regional security,” Wang Baodong, spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, said Wednesday. “We hope the relevant U.S. military activities will serve for the regional peace, stability and security, and not the contrary.”

Last month, the Navy had announced that all four of the Tomahawk Tridents were operationally deployed away from their home ports for the first time. Each vessel packs “the firepower of multiple surface ships,” says Capt. Tracy Howard, commander, Submarine Squadron 16 in Kings Bay, Ga., and can “respond to diverse threats on short notice.”

The move forms part of a policy by the U.S. government to shift firepower from the Atlantic to the Pacific theater, which Washington sees as the military focus of the 21st Century. Reduced tensions since the end of the Cold War has seen the U.S. scale back its deployment of nuclear weapons, allowing the Navy to reduce its Trident fleet from 18 to 14. (Why 14 subs, as well as bombers and land-based missiles carrying nuclear weapons, are still required to deal with the Russian threat is a topic for another day.)

Sure, the Navy could have retired the four additional subs and saved the Pentagon some money, but that’s not how bureaucracies operate. Instead, it spent about $4 billion replacing the Tridents with Tomahawks and making room for 60 special-ops troops to live aboard each sub and operate stealthily around the globe. “We’re there for weeks, we have the situational awareness of being there, of being part of the environment,” Navy Rear Adm. Mark Kenny explained after the first Tomahawk Trident set sail in 2008. “We can detect, classify and locate targets and, if need be, hit them from the same platform.”

The submarines aren’t the only new potential issue of concern for the Chinese. Two major military exercises involving the U.S. and its allies in the region are now underway. More than three dozen naval ships and subs began participating in the “Rim of the Pacific” war games off Hawaii on Wednesday. Some 20,000 personnel from 14 nations are involved in the biennial exercise which includes missile exercises and the sinking of three abandoned vessels playing the role of enemy ships. Nations joining the U.S. in what is billed as the world’s largest-ever naval war game are Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Peru, Singapore and Thailand. Closer to China, CARAT 2010 – for Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training – just got underway off Singapore. The operation involves 17,000 personnel and 73 ships from the U.S., Singapore, Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.

China is absent from both exercises, and that’s no oversight. Many nations in the eastern Pacific, including Australia, Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Vietnam, have been encouraging the U.S. to push back against what they see as China’s increasingly aggressive actions in the South China Sea. And the U.S. military remains concerned over China’s growing missile force – now more than 1,000 – near the Taiwan Strait. The Tomahawks’ arrival “is part of a larger effort to bolster our capabilities in the region,” Glaser says. “It sends a signal that nobody should rule out our determination to be the balancer in the region that many countries there want us to be.” No doubt Beijing got the signal.

June 29, 2010
Drudge Report
Reporting by Susan Cornwell

Afghan security situation “tenuous”, US general says 29 Jun 2010 13:37:43 GMT
Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, June 29 (Reuters) – The security situation in Afghanistan is tenuous and the Taliban insurgency remains resilient, the U.S. general picked to lead the war in Afghanistan told a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

“The security situation in Afghanistan remains tenuous, with instability fueled by a resilient and still confident insurgency, tribal tensions, political challenges, and competition for influence in the future,” Petraeus said in answer to advance questions submitted to him by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

The questions and answers were distributed to the media.

Report: Pakistan Is Funding, Training Taliban in Afghanistan
June 13, 2010
FoxNews.com Reuters

For at least two years there have been reports that half of the aid monies that Pakistan received during the Bush administration just simply disappeared. The American people are funding a nation that basically couldn’t care less how long the war in Afghanistan goes on and certainly doesn’t care if half of the Islamic-degenerates in their North West provinces get whacked in the process. All that the civilian and military rulers of Pakistan care about is the deep pockets of good ‘Ole’ Uncle Sam. This is just outrageous. And the beat goes on with the Obama administration.

KABUL — Pakistani military intelligence not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the movement’s leadership council, giving it significant influence over operations, a report said.

The report, published by the London School of Economics, a leading British institution, on Sunday, said research strongly suggested support for the Taliban was the “official policy” of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

Although links between the ISI and Islamist militants have been widely suspected for a long time, the report’s findings, which it said were corroborated by two senior Western security officials, could raise more concerns in the West over Pakistan’s commitment to help end the war in Afghanistan.

The report also said Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was reported to have visited senior Taliban prisoners in Pakistan earlier this year, where he is believed to have promised their release and help for militant operations, suggesting support for the Taliban “is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government”.

A Pakistani diplomatic source described that report as “naive”, and also said any talks with the Taliban were up to the Afghan government.

“Pakistan appears to be playing a double-game of astonishing magnitude,” said the report, based on interviews with Taliban commanders and former senior Taliban ministers as well as Western and Afghan security officials.

“DUPLICITY”

In March 2009, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, and General David Petraeus, head of U.S. Central Command, said they had indications elements in the ISI supported the Taliban and al Qaeda and said the agency must end such activities.

Nevertheless, senior Western officials have been reluctant to talk publicly on the subject for fear of damaging possible cooperation from Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state Washington has propped up with billions of dollars in military and economic aid.

“The Pakistan government’s apparent duplicity — and awareness of it among the American public and political establishment — could have enormous geo-political implications,” said the report’s author, Matt Waldman, a fellow at Harvard University.

“Without a change in Pakistani behaviour it will be difficult if not impossible for international forces and the Afghan government to make progress against the insurgency,” Waldman said in the report.

The report comes at the end of one of the bloodiest weeks for foreign troops in Afghanistan — more than 21 have been killed this week — and at a time when the insurgency is at its most violent.

More than 1,800 foreign troops, including some 1,100 Americans, have died in Afghanistan since U.S.-backed Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban in late 2001. The war has already cost the United States around $300 billion and now costs more than $70 billion a year, the report said, citing 2009 U.S. Congressional research figures.

VIOLENT REGIONS

The report said interviews with Taliban commanders in some of the most violent regions in Afghanistan “suggest that Pakistan continues to give extensive support to the insurgency in terms of funding, munitions and supplies.”

“These accounts were corroborated by former Taliban ministers, a Western analyst and a senior U.N. official based in Kabul, who said the Taliban largely depend on funding from the ISI and groups in Gulf countries,” the report said.

Almost all of the Taliban commanders interviewed in the report also believed the ISI was represented on the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s supreme leadership council based in Pakistan.

“Interviews strongly suggest that the ISI has representatives on the (Quetta) Shura, either as participants or observers, and the agency is thus involved at the highest level of the movement,” the report said.

The report also stated that Pakistani President Zardari, along with a senior ISI official, allegedly visited some 50 senior Taliban prisoners at a secret location in Pakistan where he told them they had been arrested only because he was under pressure from the United States.

“(This) suggests that the policy is approved at the highest level of Pakistan’s civilian government,” the report said.

Afghanistan has also been highly critical of Pakistan’s ISI involvement in the conflict in Afghanistan. Last week, the former director of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, Amrullah Saleh, resigned saying he had become an obstacle to President Hamid Karzai’s plans to negotiate with the insurgents.

In an exclusive interview with Reuters at his home a day after he resigned, Saleh said the ISI was “part of the landscape of destruction in this country.”

“It will be a waste of time to provide evidence of ISI involvement. They are a part of it. The Pakistani army of which ISI is a part, they know where the Taliban leaders are — in their safe houses,” he told Reuters.

al-Qaida Devasted In Iraq
FoxNews.com Associated Press
June 6, 2010

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE, Md. (AP) — A string of setbacks for al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq has left the insurgent group “devastated” and struggling to cope with a double whammy of a leadership vacuum and a money squeeze, the top U.S. military officer said Sunday.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he found it particularly encouraging that gains against al-Qaida have been made in operations carried out jointly by U.S. and Iraqi military forces. That makes it more likely, Mullen said, that after U.S. troops leave in 2011 the Iraqi government will be able to handle what remains of al-Qaida’s capability to launch terror strikes.

Mullen’s remarks echoed an assessment made Friday by Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq. Odierno told reporters that over the last three months, “we’ve either picked up or killed 34 out of the top 42 al-Qaida in Iraq leaders.” He said the group is trying to reorganize but has “lost connection” with the top-rung al-Qaida leaders who are hiding in western Pakistan.

In a brief interview at Andrews Air Force Base upon his return from visiting the National D-Day Memorial at Bedford, Va., Mullen said he has been encouraged at progress against al-Qaida in Iraq, which is known for grisly suicide attacks that have killed thousands.

“I’ve watched this over an extended period of time where we have just devastated them by removing their leadership” and making it harder for the organization to get financing, Mullen said. “We’ve watched them struggle in that regard.”

Mullen said he could not estimate how much longer al-Qaida will remain a factor inside Iraq. But he expressed confidence that whatever its lifespan, the Iraqi government is showing encouraging signs of being able to contain the group well after the U.S. departs.

“Every single operation” against al-Qaida in recent months “has been Iraqi-U.S. combined, and in fact Iraqi-led for all intents and purposes,” he said.

The top two al-Qaida leaders in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, were killed by U.S. and Iraqi forces in April in an operation that both countries described as a major blow to the group. But attacks blamed on al-Qaida in Iraq in May — including a series of bombings and shootings that killed 119 people in a single day — raised questions about the impact of the two leaders’ slaying.

Odierno said Friday that in the months leading up to the killing of al-Masri and al-Baghdadi, U.S. and Iraqi forces had managed to “get inside” the terrorist organization and learned a great deal by capturing key leaders involved in the group’s financing, planning and recruiting.

The organization has proven resilient and able to change tactics in the past, most notably after its founder, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a June 2006 U.S. airstrike.

Mullen said he believes there is a connection between recent successes against al-Qaida in Iraq and gains against al-Qaida’s senior leadership in Pakistan.

Al-Qaida’s No. 3 official, Mustafa al-Yazid, was killed in May along with members of his family in perhaps one of the most severe blows to the terror movement since the U.S. campaign against al-Qaida began in 2001. He apparently was attacked in the tribal regions of western Pakistan where other senior al-Qaida figures, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be in hiding.

May 25, 2010
Red Cross Gives First Aid Training to Afghanistan’s Taliban, Report Says
NewsCore FoxNews.com

Attention all patriots. This will be the end of any of my hard earned dollars going to this duplicitous organization. May I suggest that you remember to do likewise. Thanx. Marc

More than 70 members of the “armed opposition” received training in April, the Red Cross has said.

The Red Cross in Afghanistan has been teaching the Taliban basic first aid and giving them medical equipment to help fighters wounded in battles with NATO and Afghani forces, The Guardian claimed Tuesday.

More than 70 members of the “armed opposition” received training in April, the Red Cross has said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had offered its medical expertise because it was difficult for the wounded to get to hospitals because of battles, land mines and roadblocks.

The organization aims to remain neutral in the conflict. It has also trained Afghan soldiers, policemen and taxi-drivers who act as a make-shift ambulance service in Helmand and Kandahar.

However, a leading figure in Kandahar’s local government, who wanted to remain anonymous, expressed outrage over the development.

He told the Guardian: “They [the Taliban] are like animals, and they treat the people they capture worse than animals.

“They kidnapped and killed an American lady and then wouldn’t even return her body. These people don’t deserve this help.”

The Afghan ministries of defense and interior both refused to comment on what they said was a highly controversial issue.

A NATO spokesman said: “NATO has tremendous respect for the humanitarian work carried out by the ICRC and we recognize the need for this work to be carried out impartially.”

Injured insurgents are generally accepted at Afghan hospitals but there have been cases of security forces raiding hospitals and arresting staff for treating the Taliban.

Iran Fires Short-Range Missiles In Gulf War Games
April 25, 2010
(AP) FoxNews.com

April 18: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, second left, listens to his Defense Minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, as a rocket is paraded during National Army Day.

Iran’s state television says the country has fired a series of missiles as part of an ongoing large-scale military maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.

The TV report Sunday said five ground-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles were simultaneously fired.

It did not elaborate on the specifications of the missiles or say whether they are new.

However, the semiofficial Fars news agency said on Saturday that four types of short-range missiles would be launched Sunday in the war games, including Nasr 1, a short-range cruise capable of destroying targets up to 3,000 tons in size.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard began Thursday the war games, an annual show of military strength that often leads to heightened tension in the region.

Last week, rumors that Adam Gadahn had been arrested in Karachi, Pakistan, quickly swept through the global media. When the dust settled, it turned out that the rumors were incorrect; the person arrested was not the American-born al Qaeda spokesman. The excitement generated by the rumors overshadowed a message from Gadahn that the al Qaeda media arm as Sahab had released on March 7, the same day as the reported arrest. While many of the messages from al Qaeda figures that as Sahab has released over the past several years have been repetitive and quite unremarkable, after watching Gadahn’s March 7 message, we believe that it is a message too interesting to ignore.

The Message

In the message, which was titled “A Call to Arms,” Gadahn starts by telling jihadists to strike targets that are close to them. He repeats the al Qaeda doctrinal position that jihad is a personal, religiously mandated duty for every able-bodied Muslim. He then tells his audience that “it is for you, like your heroic Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan, to decide how, when and where you discharge this duty. But whatever you do, don’t wait for tomorrow to do what can be done today, and don’t wait for others to do what you can do yourself.”

As the message progresses, Gadahn’s praise of Fort Hood shooter Hasan continues. Gadahn lifts up Hasan as an example for other Muslims to emulate: “the Mujahid brother Nidal Hasan is a pioneer, a trailblazer and a role-model who has opened a door, lit a path and shown the way forward for every Muslim who finds himself among the unbelievers and yearns to discharge his duty to Allah.” He adds that Hasan was the “ideal role model” for Muslims serving in the armed forces of Western countries and of their Muslim allies. Gadahn’s message is clearly intended to encourage more jihadists to emulate Hasan and conduct lone wolf terrorist attacks.

Regarding the planning of such attacks, Gadahn praises Hasan for being a careful planner and for not engaging in a hasty, reckless or poorly planned operation. He states that Hasan clearly learned from the mistakes of others and did not repeat them. Although Gadahn does not specify particular plots in which he believes mistakes were made by grassroots jihadists, he is undoubtedly referring to cases such as the May 2009 arrest of a group of grassroots jihadists in White Plains, N.Y., who came to the attention of authorities when they sought help from a man who turned out to be an FBI informant. Gadahn praises Hasan for practicing careful operational security by keeping his plans to himself and for not discussing them over the phone or Internet. He also notes that Hasan did not make the mistake of confiding in a person who might have been an FBI informant, as several other plotters have done. Gadahn also says Hasan “didn’t unnecessarily raise his security profile or waste money better spent on the operation itself by traveling abroad to acquire skills and instructions which could easily be acquired at home, or indeed, deduced by using one’s own powers of logic and reasoning.”

When discussing methods lone wolf jihadists can use to conduct their attacks, Gadahn notes that while Hasan used firearms in his assault at Fort Hood, jihadists are “no longer limited to bullets and bombs” when it comes to weapons. “As the blessed operations of September 11th showed, a little imagination and planning and a minimal budget can turn almost anything into a deadly, effective and convenient weapon which can take the enemy by surprise and deprive him of sleep for years on end.”

Gadahn then turns his attention to targeting. He counsels lone wolf jihadists to follow a three-pronged target selection process. They should choose a target with which they are well acquainted, a target that is feasible to hit and a target that, when struck, will have a major impact. He notes that Hasan’s choice of Fort Hood fit all three criteria, but that jihadists should not think that military bases are the only high-value targets in the United States or other Western countries. “On the contrary,” Gadahn insists, “there are countless other strategic places, institutions and installations which, by striking, the Muslim can do major damage.”

He then relates that jihadists must attempt to “further undermine the West’s already-struggling economies” by carefully timed and targeted attacks against symbols of capitalism in an effort to “shake consumer confidence and stifle spending.” (In this way, Gadahn’s message tracks with past messages of Osama bin Laden pertaining to economic jihad.) Gadahn notes that even apparently unsuccessful attacks on Western mass-transportation systems can bring major cities to a halt, cost billions of dollars and send corporations into bankruptcy. He also calls upon jihadists to kill or capture “leading Crusaders and Zionists in government, industry and media.”

To summarize his lessons on targeting, Gadahn urges jihadists to “look for targets which epitomize Western decadence, depravity, immorality and atheism — targets which the enemy and his mouthpieces will have trouble trying to pass off to the conservative Muslim majority as illegitimate targets full of innocent people.”

Implications

First, it is significant that Gadahn, a representative of the core al Qaeda group, is openly advocating a tactical approach to terrorist attacks that was first publicly laid out by the leader of one of the al Qaeda franchise groups. Nasir al-Wahayshi, head of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), authored an article that appeared in AQAP’s Sada al-Malahim online magazine in October 2009 that encouraged jihadists to conduct simple attacks with readily available weapons. Since that time, al-Wahayshi’s group has been linked to Hasan and the Fort Hood shooting, the attempt to destroy Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009 and the June 1, 2009, attack against an armed forces recruitment center in Little Rock, Ark. Normally it is the al Qaeda core group that sets the agenda in the jihadist realm, but the success of AQAP has apparently caused the core group to jump on the AQAP bandwagon and endorse al-Wahayshi’s approach.

It is also telling that the core al Qaeda group chose to produce this particular video message using Gadahn as the spokesman and not one of their other talking heads like Ayman al-Zawahiri or Abu Yahya al-Libi. Gadahn, an American, is often used by the group to address the West, and English speaking-people in particular, so it is clear that the intended audience for his message was aspiring grassroots jihadists in the West. Indeed, Gadahn says in the video that his message is meant particularly for jihadists in the United States, United Kingdom and Israel. Presented in English, Gadahn’s video is more easily accessible to English-speakers than al-Wahayshi’s article, which was written in Arabic. Even though the al Qaeda core has been marginalized on the physical battlefield, when it comes to areas like militant philosophy, the pronouncements of the core group carry more influence with the wider jihadist world than statements from a regional franchise such as AQAP. When these two factors are combined, it is reasonable to assume that more people in the English-speaking world may pay attention to this call to simple attacks than they did to al-Wahayshi’s call in October 2009. Video is also a more viral type of media than the printed word, and video messages are known to be very appealing to aspiring jihadists.

[Read more...]

By Scott Stewart – STRATFOR
March 18th, 2010

More than 120 fighters from the anti-government Gulbuddin faction of Hezb-i-Islami have surrendered to local authorities in Baghlan after a weekend of fighting with the Taliban that left 60 insurgents and 20 civilians dead.

“Since Sunday 120 fighters including 70 armed men from Hizb-e-Islami have joined [the] government,” a police spokesman in Baghlan told Xinhua. Mamor Malang, a local commander of the Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, or HIG, was among those who surrendered to the government. More HIG fighters are expected to join the government in the coming days.

The fighting began on Saturday as a dispute between the local HIG units and Taliban forces in several villages in the Baghlan-e-Markazi district came to a head. The two forces, which are normally allied against Afghan and Coalition forces, battled over control of the region and the ability to collect taxes there. Twenty-five fighters were reported killed in the first day of the fighting, which ultimately ended on Sunday.

It is not clear if this split is localized to the district or portends a wider problem in the North; Taliban and HIG leaders have not commented on the fighting.

HIG has allied with the Taliban in the northern Afghan provinces of Baghlan and Kunduz. The allied terror groups maintain safe havens in Baghlan and in neighboring Kunduz province. Of the seven districts in Kunduz province, only two are considered under government control; the rest of the districts – Chahara Dara, Dashti Archi, Ali Abab, Khan Abad, and Iman Sahib – are considered contested or under Taliban control, according to a map produced by Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry in the spring of 2009. Two districts in neighboring Baghlan province – Baghlan-i-Jadid and Burka – are under the control of the Taliban [see LWJ report, "Afghan forces and Taliban clash in Kunduz," and Threat Matrix report, "Afghanistan’s wild-wild North"].

HIG commanders claim to have thousands of fighters and supporters under arms in northern Afghanistan, and say the group is flush with foreign support and fighters.

“We have around 3,000 to 4,000 Hezb-i-Islami men in the north,” a HIG commander named Kalakub told a PBS Frontline reporter who spent a week with fighters in Baghlan. “People come to us from all over Afghanistan. … They come from Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan. We get special mujahids from abroad, but we’re not allowed to talk about them.” Quraishi believes that these special mujahids are mainly Arabs from Yemen and Saudi Arabia who have been trained by Al Qaeda.

The northern HIG is led by Commander Mirwais, “a former millionaire businessman who turned to jihad after the US invasion of Afghanistan.”

“Jihad has become a duty for all the Afghan nation because the foreign and non-believer countries have attacked us,” Mirwais told PBS Frontline. “They’re getting rid of our religious and cultural values in Afghanistan. They’ve increased obscenity and want to force Western democracy on our country.”

HIG is a breakaway faction of the Hezb-i-Islami, which has joined the Afghan government. HIG is a radical Islamist group that is loosely aligned with al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who is closely tied to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Hekmatyar was a key player in the Soviet-Afghan war and led one of the biggest insurgent factions against Soviet and Afghan communist forces. His brutal battlefield tactics and wanton destruction of Kabul following the collapse of the Afghan Communist regime in the early 1990s led to the demise of Hekmatyar’s popularity. The Taliban overran his last stronghold south of Kabul in 1995 and forced him into exile in Iran from 1996-2002.

[Read more...]

By Bill Roggio
March 8, 2010

• UN official monitoring al Qaeda activities says donations have dried up

• Terrorism finance specialist says Osama Bin Laden only surviving, playing inspirational role

• Terrorists carrying out attacks no longer funded by al Qaeda

PARIS: Al Qaeda is running out of cash, with traditional sources of financing under increasingly tight surveillance and donors demotivated or suffering from the financial crisis, according to experts.

As a result, the heart of the network founded by Osama Bin Laden is busy financing its own survival while counting on partners, often relatively unknown, to organise attacks against traditional targets, say the experts.

“Yes, I do think they are short of money,” said Richard Barrett, United Nations pointman for monitoring al Qaeda and Taliban activities. “We see quite a lot of statements asking for money, and we hear in other ways too that they are short of money.”

He says the drop off in funds is partly due to stepped-up international surveillance of traditional financing networks, as well as the international financial crisis.

“Donations have dried up a lot,” said Barrett, a former anti-terrorist chief at Britain’s MI6 intelligence agency. “Partly because of the international regime of sanctions: if you’re found to be giving money to al Qaeda, then you suffer considerably, because your reputation, your business, all goes down the drain,” said Barrett. “The sympathy for al Qaeda’s aim has dropped off a lot,” he said. “So it’s much less likely that you have a lot of people giving small donations.”

Bin Laden and his acolytes – known to intelligence services worldwide as ‘al Qaeda Central’, no longer have an operational role and are content simply to inspire copycat attacks around the world.

“Osama Bin Laden and [his deputy Ayman] Al Zawahiri maintain a high profile, they project an image of threat,” said Loretta Napoleoni, terrorism finance specialist and author of ‘Terror Incorporated’.

“They are iconic figures, but they don’t do anything, except survive. They don’t plan attacks, they are icons [in] hiding … they don’t need a lot of money for that. “Their inspirational element is still very strong: look at all the different attacks that were made in their name, but these attacks are funded in a different way than the 9/11 attacks,” she told AFP.

“They are funded locally, mostly through crime. They don’t receive money from al Qaeda Central, and they don’t need to … the cost of terrorist attacks since 9/11 has collapsed: it’s very cheap to carry out an attack today.”

A case in point is al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) which consists largely of Algerians and has made a speciality out of providing logistical support to drug and people smugglers in their corner of the Sahara.

They are also involved in kidnappings of Europeans, raking in millions as ransom payments.

AQIM “finances itself through drug dealing from western Africa to western Europe”, said Napoleoni.

“They are in joint-ventures with drug dealers for that. And they resort to kidnappings too. They make a lot of money like that. … it’s people who know people, and they do business with each other.”

[Read more...]

Who could’ve predicted this?

Since singer Susan Boyle ( who professes being a virgin) has been on TV, there’s been a marked drop in suicide bombings.

Apparently many of the terrorists didn’t realize what a virgin looked like!

(h/t Mike Sr)

Venezuela Announces Nationwide Energy Rationing
January 12, 2010
FoxNews.com

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuela’s government imposed rolling blackouts of four hours every other day throughout the country on Tuesday to combat an energy crisis.

President Hugo Chavez has said rationing is necessary to prevent water levels in Guri Dam — the cornerstone of Venezuela’s energy system — from falling to critical lows and causing a widespread power collapse. Drought has cut the flow of water into the dam, which feeds three hydroelectric plants that supply 73 percent of Venezuela’s electricity.

Rolling blackouts will begin in the capital of Caracas on Wednesday, said Javier Alvarado, president of the city’s state electric utility.

“With these measures, we’re trying to keep Guri from taking us to a very critical situation at the end of February, from creating let’s say a total shutdown of the country,” Electricity Minister Angel Rodriguez told state television Monday night as he announced the nationwide rationing plan.

Government officials had already imposed some cuts to help the country get through the dry season until May, when seasonal rains are predicted to return.

The government recently reduced the hours of electricity supply for shopping centers and required businesses and large residential complexes to cut energy use by 20 percent or face fines.

Chavez’s government has also partially shut down state-run steel and aluminum plants. The president announced last week that many public employees will have shorter workdays — from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. — except those in offices that tend to the public.

Some parts of the country have already been enduring unplanned blackouts for months, as demand has outstripped the electrical supply. The energy output from the Guri Dam’s three hydroelectric plants has also declined below its normal capacity.

The increased rationing will help cover a 12 percent energy shortage created by the situation at Guri, Alvarado said.

He said water levels at the dam in southeastern Venezuela have dropped drastically as a result of the El Nino weather phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean, saying “it’s a global phenomenon and it’s affected us in recent months.” He noted there has been particularly little rain in southeastern Venezuela, where the watershed that feeds Guri is located.

Chavez’s critics say his government is to blame because it has failed to complete enough power upgrades to keep up with increasing demand despite Venezuela’s bountiful oil earnings.

January 06, 2010
Airport Security Measures Draw Accusations of ‘Profiling’
FOXNews.com

The Obama administration’s decision to crank up airport security for passengers traveling to the U.S. from 14 nations has triggered a backlash of complaints from Muslim and privacy groups who say President Obama’s response to terror threats amounts to little more than racial profiling.

But defenders of the policy say it’s a carefully targeted way of zeroing in on those travelers most likely to pose a threat, and that hurt feelings shouldn’t really matter after the United States narrowly averted, by sheer luck, a deadly midair bombing on an airliner heading to Detroit on Christmas Day.

The Transportation Security Administration will have to deal with these opposing arguments in the months ahead as it continues to examine and adjust its screening policies and figure out the best way to balance security and privacy.

“I suspect that these rules will be ameliorated in the near future, and after a couple months we’ll probably back away” and strike a compromise, said Jim Harper, a member of a Department of Homeland Security privacy committee and scholar with the Cato Institute. He noted that some countries have objected to or shown reluctance toward implementing the full measure of enhanced screening techniques for passengers traveling through and from the selected 14 nations. He criticized the TSA measures as too broad, but he said he’s surprised so many people are resisting technologies like full-body scanners over privacy concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday criticized practically every initiative the Obama administration has taken in the wake of the failed attack on a Northwest Airlines flight. The ACLU scolded Obama for announcing he would suspend the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen, for suggesting the no-fly list should be expanded and for subjecting passengers from 14 nations to additional screening.

“Using national origin or religion as proxies for suspicion is nothing less than racial profiling,” the organization said in a statement.

Nearly all of the 14 countries are Muslim nations. The list includes Yemen, where suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab traveled in 2009 and may have met with a radical cleric, and Nigeria, the suspect’s homeland.

“It comes pretty close to across-the-board profiling of Muslim travelers,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Usually after these kinds of incidents you see some knee-jerk reaction. … It’s often, ‘Let’s let Muslims pay the price for this one because we can’t think of anything else to do.’”

But given that almost all terror plots these days are driven by Islamic jihadist beliefs, proponents of the extra layers of security say profiling, done carefully, is not necessarily a bad thing.

Asa Hutchinson, former Homeland Security undersecretary, said it’s important to draw a line between profiling based on race and profiling based on national origin.

“If you’re talking about profiling based upon geographic origins or where they’re flying from, absolutely,” he said. “If you’re talking about simply because they’re part of a particular racial origin, absolutely not. … You have to be smart about who you’re inspecting.”

Frank Cilluffo, former special assistant for homeland security under President George W. Bush, said airports need to be “profiling” based on behavior even though it’s become a “dirty word.” He cited a slew of signs that would have set off alarm bells about Abdulmutallab if security officials had profiled him better.

“We should have seen bells ringing. When you have an individual paying cash for a one-way ticket, no luggage – that should have been bing bing bing bing bing,” he said. “It shouldn’t be the first line of defense, but rather the last line of defense.”

The first line of defense, most agree, is better intelligence.

Obama made clear in remarks Tuesday that he expects the U.S. intelligence community to do a much better job connecting the dots regarding threats posed by potential terror suspects — something he said agencies failed to do before the Christmas Day plot.

“Just as Al Qaeda and its allies are constantly evolving and adapting their efforts to strike us, we have to constantly adapt and evolve to defeat them because as we saw on Christmas, the margin for error is slim and the consequences of failure can be catastrophic,” Obama said.

Iran Kills 4 Protesters in Fierce Clashes in Tehran, Witnesses Say
December 27, 2009
(AP) FoxNews.com

TEHRAN, Iran — . Iranian security forces on Sunday killed at least four people, including a nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, during the fiercest clashes with anti-government protesters in months, opposition Web sites and witnesses said.

Amateur video footage purportedly from the center of Tehran showed an enraged crowd carrying away one of the casualties, chanting, “I’ll kill, I’ll kill the one who killed my brother.” In several locations in the center of the capital, demonstrators fought back furiously against security forces, hurling stones and setting their motorcycles, cars and vans ablaze, according to video footage and pro-reform Web sites.

Demonstrations also took place in at least three other cities.
A close aide to Mousavi, a presidential contender in a disputed June election, said the 35-year-old nephew, Ali Mousavi, died of injuries in a Tehran hospital. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears of reprisals from the government.

Mousavi’s Web site and another reformist Web site, Parlemannews.ir, also said Ali Mousavi died during clashes in which security forces reportedly fired on demonstrators.

The protesters in Tehran tried to cut off roads with burning barricades that filled the sky with billowing black smoke. One police officer was photographed with blood streaming down his face after he was set upon by the crowd in a blazing street.

The protests began with thousands of opposition supporters chanting “Death to the dictator,” a reference to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as they took to the streets in defiance of official warnings of a harsh crackdown on any demonstrations coinciding with a religious observance on Sunday. Iranians were marking Ashoura, commemorating the seventh-century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints.

Security forces tried but failed to disperse protesters on a central Tehran street with tear gas, charges by baton-wielding officers and warning shots fired into the air. They then opened fire directly at protesters, killing at least three people, said witnesses and the pro-reform Web site Rah-e-Sabz. A fourth protester was shot dead on a nearby street, they said.

Witnesses said one victim was an elderly man who had a gunshot wound to the forehead. He was seen being carried away by opposition supporters with blood covering his face.

More than two dozen opposition supporters were injured, some of them seriously, with limbs broken from beatings, according to witnesses. There were also violent confrontations in at least three other major cities: Isfahan and Najafabad in central Iran and Shiraz in the south.

The clashes marked the bloodiest confrontation between protesters and security forces since the height of the unrest in the weeks after June’s election. The opposition says Ahmadinejad won the election through massive vote fraud and that Mousavi was the true winner.

Reporters from foreign media organizations were barred from covering the demonstrations on Tehran’s central Enghelab Street, or Revolution Street, and the reports of deaths could not be independently confirmed. Video footage circulating on the Web could also not be authenticated.

Ambulance sirens could be heard near the site of the protests.

The witnesses and opposition Web sites said angry protesters threw stones at security forces and set dozens of their motorbikes on fire. Police helicopters circled overhead as clouds of black smoke billowed into the sky over the capital.

Tehran’s police chief denied officers fired on the crowd — or that they were even armed.

“No report of death has been sent to the police,” Azizollah Rajabzadeh said, according to the semiofficial ISNA news agency. “No one has been killed. Police did not open fire and the present officers did not carry weapons.”

Police had blocked streets leading to the center of the capital to try to prevent thousands of people from joining the protest. Still, many opposition supporters managed to break the security wall.

Fierce clashes also broke out Sunday between security forces and opposition supporters in the cities of Isfahan and Najafabad in central Iran, the Rah-e-Sabz Web site said.

Cell phone services were down and Internet connections were slowed to a crawl, as has happened during most other days of opposition protest in an apparent government attempt to limit publicity and prevent protesters from organizing.

Opposition activists have held a series of anti-government protests since the death of a dissident cleric last week.

The Dec. 20 death of the 87-year-old Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a sharp critic of Iran’s leaders, has given a new push to opposition protests, which have endured despite a heavy security crackdown since the election.

His memorials have brought out not only the young, urban activists who filled the ranks of earlier protests, but also older, more religious Iranians who revered Montazeri on grounds of faith as much as politics. Tens of thousands marched in his funeral procession in the holy city of Qom on Monday, many chanting slogans against the government.

Iran’s police chief, Gen. Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, had threatened tougher action against protesters on Sunday should they hold rallies.

Opposition leaders have used holidays and other symbolic days in recent months to stage anti-government rallies.

Iran is under pressure both from its domestic opposition within the country and from the United States and its European allies, which are pushing Iran to suspend key parts of its nuclear program.

Did ‘Jihadi Cool’ Lure 5 Americans to Pakistan?
December 20, 2009
Reuters

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — There was a book left in a Pakistani hotel room where five young men from Virginia were arrested on suspicion of trying to join Taliban forces.

Called “The Pact,” that book tells the true story of three boys from a rough neighborhood and broken homes who bond and eventually help one another through medical and dental school.

“This is a story about the power of friendship. Of joining forces and beating the odds,” reads one snippet on the back of the book.

It is also a story with a happy ending.

But the saga of these five young men from suburban homes in Virginia — friends who grew up together and attended the same small neighborhood mosque — has been anything but happy, quickly turning from one of promise to despair for many of the family members and friends they left behind.

There is sadness in their tight-knit Muslim community, and anger. These were young men who grew up with modest means, still living in small homes and apartments with their families, but who, in at least some cases, seemed as though they were on track to achieve good things.

Some of the young men, who range in age from late teens to early 20s, have been described by friends and neighbors as polite, quiet, even kind. They went to public schools. Some were athletes.

Right up to the time they disappeared a few weeks ago, they regularly attended prayer services at the mosque. Then two or three of them would head to a nearby gym five days a week, “like clockwork,” a gym manager says.

At least two of them were in college. Umar Farooq — whose family ran a computer business and whose home has a small nameplate on it that says “geek,” a slang American term for a somewhat offbeat scholar — was a business major at George Mason University. Another of the five, the soft-spoken but charismatic Ramy Zamzam, had just started dental school at Howard University. This past week, he would have taken his first round of final exams.

Instead, he and his friends were sitting in jail cells in Pakistan, not yet charged but suspected of trying to join militants who are fighting U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

“We had such hope for them,” says Mustafa Abu Maryam, the volunteer youth coordinator at the Islamic Circle of North America mosque, a one-story brick house tucked in a residential street in Alexandria, a northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C.

While the mosque is traditional, with a curtain dividing men and women during prayers, for instance, he and other leaders say they have always rejected extremism.

That may not matter, however, in an age when just about anyone on the Internet can connect with terrorists and where even young Muslims from moderate families can get caught up in what some call “Jihadi cool.”

These are “seemingly well-adjusted kids who are forming a subculture of their own — namely, the Muslim under siege,” says Saeed Khan, a specialist in Islam who teaches at Wayne State University in Michigan, a state with a large Arab Muslim presence.

It is a scenario that has played out in Britain more than once. And some suspect it happened here, too, since one of the young men left a farewell video that mixed war scenes and calls to fight for Muslims across the world.

In this instance, Khan thinks the young men’s close proximity to the nation’s capital also could have influenced them.

“They feel a certain helplessness that, despite this proximity, they are disenfranchised from helping end the perceived violence against fellow Muslims thousands of miles away,” he says.

With the exception of one young man’s father, who was questioned and released by Pakistani authorities, the families have remained in seclusion, although they are cooperating fully with authorities. Their seclusion has, however, meant that details about some of the young men have been sketchy at best.

Very little is known, for instance, about Aman Hassan Yemer, a young man of Ethiopian descent who, at age 18, is the youngest of the five.

Meanwhile, for at least one other, Waqar Khan, signs of trouble-making had begun to emerge.

Between December 2005 and March 2006, Khan, now 22, was arrested for trespassing, twice at Mount Vernon High, his former school, and once at an unspecified location. Prosecutors dropped two of the charges, and Khan pleaded no contest to the third misdemeanor charge and received a small fine and a year of unsupervised probation. He was also ordered to stay away from the high school.

Farooq’s mother also told The New York Times that Khan, whose former employers included United Parcel Service, had brought $25,000 with him to Pakistan, significant money for someone in his circumstances.

Still, those details offer little explanation or solace to family and friends.

December 16, 2009
AP/ISNA

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Wednesday test-fired an upgraded version of its most advanced missile, which is capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, in a new show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike against it amid the nuclear standoff with the West.

The test stoked tensions between Iran and the West, which is pressing Tehran to rein in its nuclear program. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said it showed the need for tougher U.N. sanctions on Iran.

“This is a matter of serious concern to the international community and it does make the case for us moving further on sanctions. We will treat this with the seriousness it deserves,” Brown said after talks with U.N. chief Ban Ki-Moon in Copenhagen.

Wednesday’s test was for the latest version of Iran’s longest-range missile, the Sajjil-2, with a range of about 1,200 miles. That range places Israel, Iran’s sworn enemy, well within reach, as well as U.S. bases in the Gulf region and parts of southeastern Europe.

The two-stage Sajjil-2 and is powered entirely by solid-fuel while the older, long-range Shahab-3 missile uses a combination of solid and liquid fuel in its most advanced form.

Iran has repeatedly warned it will retaliate if Israel or the United States carries out military strikes against its nuclear facilities, at a time when the U.S. and its allies accuse Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran denies the claim, saying its program is intended solely to generate electricity.

Nuclear negotiations have been deadlocked for months, with Iran equivocating over a U.N.-drafted deal aimed at removing most of its low-enriched uranium from the country so it would not have enough stockpiles to produce a bomb. The U.N. nuclear watchdog last month sharply rebuked Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment.

State television broke the news in a one-sentence report accompanied by a brief clip of the test, showing the missile rising from the launch pad in a cloud of smoke.

Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi vowed that the Sajjil-2 would be a “strong deterrent” against any possible foreign attack. He said the new version can be fired more quickly and flies faster than previous ones making it harder to shoot down, though he did not give further details.

“Given its high speed,” he said, speaking on state TV, “it is impossible to destroy the missile with anti-missile systems because of its radar-evading ability.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the latest missile test.

Iran has intensified its missile development program in recent years, a source of serious concern in Israel, the United States and its Western allies at a time when they accuse Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon. Iran, which is under several sets of U.N. sanctions over its nuclear program, denies the charges and says its nuclear program is aimed solely at generating electricity.

Israel has not ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran, in turn, has threatened that such an attack would be retaliated against with strikes on Israel’s own nuclear sites.

The name “Sajjil” means “baked clay,” a reference to a story in the Quran, Islam’s holy book, in which birds sent by God drive off an enemy army attacking the holy city of Mecca by pelting them with stones of baked clay.

The Sajjil-2 was first tested in May. Iranian officials touted it as a breakthrough over the Sajjil-1 unveiled months earlier, saying the new missile had a more sophisticated navigation system. The Sajjil-2 was tested a second time in September.

Solid-fuel missiles like the Sajjil-2 are more accurate than the liquid fuel missiles of similar range currently possessed by Iran. They are also a concern because they can be fueled in advance and moved or hidden in silos. Iran previously had a solid-fuel missile, the Fateh, with a far shorter range of 120 miles.

Iran’s arms manufacturing program began during the country’s ruinous 1980-88 war with neighboring Iraq to compensate for a U.S. arms embargo. Since 1992, Iran has produced its own tanks, armored personnel carriers, missiles and a fighter plane. The actual capabilities of the weapons, including the accuracy and range of the country’s homemade missiles, are difficult to ascertain given the secrecy of the Iranian military.

Iran Defiant While Warming to Nuclear Fuel Proposal
December 12, 2009 (AP)

Iran, under pressure from the West to come clean about its nuclear program, seemed to warm Saturday to a U.N. proposal while at the same time vowing to aggressively pursue the nuclear technology it says it needs to power the country.

Foreign minister Manochehr Mottaki expressed defiance in the face of threatened sanctions against the Islamic nation, and he suggested that if diplomatic talks didn’t progress, Iran was prepared to “abandon the whole thing.”

“We need 10 to 15 nuclear plants to generate electricity in our country,” Mottaki said. Russia is currently helping Iran build its first nuclear plant.

But Mottaki, speaking to reporters at a regional security conference in Bahrain, also said Iran is ready to exchange the bulk of its stockpile of enriched uranium for nuclear fuel rods, as proposed by the U.N. — though according to its own mechanisms and timetable.

Mottaki said Iran agreed with a U.N. deal proposed in October in which up to 2,600 pounds of its uranium would be exchanged for fuel rods to power its research reactor.

“We accepted the proposal in principle,” he said through a translator. “We suggested in the first phase we give you 400 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium and you give us the equivalent in 20 percent uranium.”

Iran has about 3,300 pounds of low-enriched uranium and needs to refine to 20 percent to operate a research reactor that produces medical isotopes.

The White House expressed unhappiness at Iran’s announcement, particularly its proposal of exchanging the material in batches. A senior Obama administration official told the Associated Press such a proposal is inconsistent with the U.N. plan.

The U.S. and its allies fear that if Iran continues to develop its uranium-enriching process, it could eventually develop material for a nuclear weapon, a charge Tehran denies.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that sanctions are coming “soon” if Iran continues its current program, and he reiterated that all options, including military action, must stay on the table. The Obama administration is looking to press for new United Nations sanctions in early January.

“I think that you are going to see some significant additional sanctions imposed by the international community,” Gates said, adding that “any military action would only buy some time, maybe two or three years.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency proposed in October that Iran ship its uranium out of the country to be further refined by France and Russia and turned into fuel rods, which cannot be turned into weapons.

Iran has been giving mixed signals over the deal, including several statements from lawmakers rejecting it outright.

Mottaki maintained, however, that a clear answer had been given involving the simultaneous exchange of uranium for fuel in stages.

“We gave a clear answer and we responded and our answer was we accepted in principle but there were differences in the mechanism,” he said, suggesting the exchange take place on Iran’s Kish island, in the Persian Gulf.

Investigators are sharing their findings with FBI officials now in Sargodha.

Regional police chief Javed Islam said the men wanted to join militants in Pakistan’s tribal area before crossing into Afghanistan and said they met with Jaish-e-Mohammed in Hyderabad, and with representatives of a related group, Jamat-ud-Dawa, in Lahore.

Another law enforcement official, Usman Anwar, the local police chief in the eastern city of Sargodha, told The Associated Press that the five are “directly connected” to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

“They are proudly saying they are here for jihad” or holy war, Anwar said.

A key break in the case came not from federal agents or spies, but parents worried their sons may have made a terrible decision.

The families, based in the northern Virginia and Washington, D.C., area, were particularly concerned after watching what is described as a disturbing farewell video from the young men, showing scenes of war and casualties and saying Muslims must be defended.

“One person appeared in that video and they made references to the ongoing conflict in the world and that young Muslims have to do something,” said Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR. The video has not been made public.

After the disappearance of the five men in late November, their families, members of the local Muslim community, sought help from CAIR, which put them in touch with the FBI and got them a lawyer.

The missing men range in age from 19 to 25. One, Ramy Zamzam, is a dental student at Howard University. Pakistani police officer Tahir Gujjar identified the other four as Eman Yasir, Waqar Hasan, Umer Farooq and Khalid Farooq.

On the heels of charges against a Chicago man accused of plotting international terrorism, the case is another worrisome sign that Americans can be recruited within the United States to enlist in terrorist networks.

President Barack Obama declined to talk specifically about the case Thursday, but said, “We have to constantly be mindful that some of these twisted ideologies are available over the Internet.”

Obama, in Oslo, Norway, to accept the Nobel Peace Prize, also praised “the extraordinary contributions of the Muslim-American community, and how they have been woven into the fabric of our nation in a seamless fashion.”

A Virginia Muslim leader said the five men did not seem to have become militant before they left the U.S.

“From all of our interviews, there was no sign they were outwardly radicalized,” said Imam Johari Abdul-Malik.

Pakistan has many militant groups based in its territory and the U.S. has been pressing the government to crack down on extremism. Al Qaeda and Taliban militants are believed to be hiding in lawless tribal areas near the Afghan border.

In Washington, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s local office said agents have been trying to help find the men.

“We are working with Pakistan authorities to determine their identities and the nature of their business there if indeed these are the students who had gone missing,” said the spokeswoman, Katherine Schweit.

According to officials at CAIR, the five left the country at the end of November without telling their families.

After the young men left, at least one phoned his family still claiming to be in the United States, but the caller ID information suggested they were overseas.

A Howard University spokesman confirmed Zamzam was a student there but declined further comment.

Samirah Ali, president of Howard University’s Muslim Student Association, said the FBI contacted her last week about Zamzam, and told her he had been missing for a week. Ali said she’s known Zamzam for three years and never suspected he would be involved in radical activities.

“He’s a very nice guy, very cordial, very friendly,” Ali said.

One of Zamzam’s younger brothers, interviewed at the family’s Alexandria, Va., apartment, said Zamzam has a 4.0 grade-point average.

“He’s a good guy,” the brother said, identifying himself only by a nickname, “Zam.” “He’s a normal Joe.”

FoxNews.com The Associated Press contributed to this report.