Ain-Al-Yaqeen - October 21, 2005

		October 21, 2005

WORLDWIDE MOVE TO COMBAT TERRORISTS AND FOIL THEIR PLANS.
A BRITISH-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT ON COOPERATION AND TIGHT SECURITY MEASURES IN THE US AND EUROPEAN CAPITALS.
EUROPEAN WARNINGS FROM A CHEMICAL ATTACK OR A DIRTY BOMB.
THE EU ANNOUNCES A WAR AGAINST TERRORISM AFTER THE LONDON BOMB ATTACKS.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Russian President Vladimir Putin have pledged to increase their countries' joint efforts to combat terrorism.

The states plan to boost co-operation to "counter this scourge", they said on their second day of talks in London.

Mr Putin visited the Cobra briefing room where the government plans its emergency response to terror attacks.

Trade was on the agenda, with Mr Blair saying the two countries' economic futures are bound together.

Mr Putin presented awards to the British crew who took part in the rescue effort in August to save a team of Russians trapped in a submarine.

Mr Putin is the first foreign leader to see the high-security Cobra room, where their talks took place.

The two leaders said their countries have "suffered at first hand the cruelty and inhumanity of terrorism", in a statement after their meeting.

It continued: "Today, we reaffirm our utter condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and our determination to strengthen existing co-operation to counter this scourge."

Mr Blair's recent focus on new anti-terrorism laws matches Mr Putin's conviction that more needs to be done to counter international terrorism.

The Downing Street summit came the day after Mr Putin met Mr Blair and other European Union leaders for talks, which focused on plans for increased supplies to Europe of Russian oil and gas.

Soon Russia is expected to be supplying 50% of the EU's natural gas needs.

"We want to work to take the relationship between Europe and Russia to a new and more intense and strengthened level," Mr Blair said.

Mr Blair told journalists the discussions had been 'good and constructive' and said that the relationship between Europe and Russia was 'immensely important'.

They discussed the so-called 'four common spaces' between the two countries - the economy, freedom and justice, external security, as well as culture and education.

Other items on the agenda included energy and climate change.

The PM, sat alongside Mr Putin and President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, said he wanted to take the relationship with Russia to 'a new, more intense and strengthened level.'

A Joint UK-Russia statement on counter-terrorism was issued on 5 October 2005

The statement said: Today the President of Russia and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom visited COBR, the Government's crisis management centre. They discussed bilateral and international cooperation in counter terrorism, and heard presentations from the Metropolitan Police, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service.

Our countries have both suffered at first hand the cruelty and inhumanity of terrorism. In July, London was struck by a series of terrorist bombs that claimed 52 victims. And in September last year over 330 people - most of them children - were killed in the terrorist atrocity at Beslan. Today, we reaffirm our utter condemnation of terrorism in all its forms, and our determination to strengthen existing co-operation to fight this common scourge.

When we met in December 2001, we launched the UK-Russia Joint Working Group on International Terrorism in order to deepen our collaboration in practical ways. Today, we received a report on recent co-operation in bilateral and multilateral fora, including our close work on the text of the resolution on inciting terrorist acts, which was recently unanimously adopted by the UN Security Council.

At today's meeting, which marks the first visit of a foreign leader to COBR, we resolved to continue to strengthen our partnership, in particular by increasing practical cooperation between our security agencies.

On the other hand the British government unveiled sweeping anti-terrorism legislation designed to crack down on Islamic extremism, raising concerns from Muslim leaders, opposition parties and legal experts about the potential for infringing on civil liberties.

In the wake of the July attacks on London's transit system, the government wants the power to detain terror suspects for three months without charge, outlaw attending terrorist training camps in Britain or abroad and make it an offense to glorify or encourage terrorism.

"The terrorist threat facing the U.K. is real and significant and the government is determined to do all it can to protect our citizens from groups who would try to destroy our society, our way of life and our freedoms," Home Secretary Charles Clarke said as the Terrorism Bill was published in Parliament.

The government has moved swiftly since the July 7 suicide bombings that killed 52 London commuters, and the failed July 21 attacks.

It has widened its powers to deport foreign nationals who glorify terrorist violence, has proposed banning 15 international Islamic groups under existing anti-terrorism laws and wants to make it easier to strip British citizenship from dual nationals considered a threat.

The Terrorism Bill also aims to outlaw preparing an act of terrorism, publishing or selling material that incites terrorism and giving or receiving training in terrorist techniques such as how to spread viruses, place bombs and even cause a stampede in a crowd.

The most controversial proposal would extend the maximum detention period for terrorist suspects held without charge from 14 days to three months.

Police and prosecutors argue that more time is needed in complex cases, in which suspects often have multiple aliases and store information in tightly encrypted computers, or where the cooperation of foreign agencies is needed.

Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the measure and said police have made an "absolutely compelling case" for the extension.

Meanwhile calling the risk of a terrorist attack against France very high, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has outlined new anti-terror legislation that will include expanded video surveillance of public areas and police access to phone and Internet records.

Sarkozy, who is also head of President Jacques Chirac's majority UMP (Union for a Popular Movement) party and a strong contender for the 2007 presidential elections, unveiled the measures in the wake of a dawn police sweep outside Paris, which rounded up nine Islamic militants suspected of plotting attacks.

Speaking on the France 3 television network, Sarkozy said France needed to revamp its anti-terror laws because "the terrorist threat exists. It is at a very high level."

Asked to rate the threat on a scale of one to five, Sarkozy said it was closer to four than to three.

The arrested suspects, who can be detained for four days without formal charges, are linked to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), a splinter group which originated from the violent Algerian Islamist movement and now has ties to al Qaeda.

One is Safe Bourada, an Algerian who served five years in prison for a 1995 bomb attack in Paris which killed 10 people. Police said they were able to identify other suspects because Bourada had been kept under surveillance since he was freed from jail.

According to police reports, the suspects were considering attacks on the Paris metro system and an airport but had not reached the point of selecting a final target.

The anti-terrorism bill, provides for the installation of surveillance cameras around businesses such as large department stores and places of worship like synagogues.

Sarkozy said he had studied the successes of British police in identifying, with the help of surveillance tapes, the terrorists responsible for the bombings in London last July.

The law will also require Internet cafe owners and telephone operators to keep connection records for one year. The minister said this would also help investigators track down terrorists who were plotting attacks.

The new legislation will give investigators better access to travel agency records, personal passenger details and passport and visa applications.

Travel behavior could provide early warnings that something was being planned.

"It is not normal that an individual from our neighbourhoods should leave all of a sudden for four months in Afghanistan [or] three months in Syria," Sarkozy said.

Authorities are aware of ten French nationals currently in Iraq as volunteer suicide bombers. Six have already died in suicide bombings.

Sarkozy repeated previous warnings that Muslim preachers who advocated violence and terrorism would be expelled and added that they could see their French citizenship revoked if they were naturalized. There have already been 34 expulsions in such cases.

The French have been shaken by the deadly bombings in Madrid and London.

Authorities fear that a suspected Islamic terror cell broken up in France was plotting attacks on the Paris subway, an airport and an intelligence agency's headquarters, newspapers said.

Police arrested nine people in the sweep, including an Islamic militant previously convicted on terrorism charges and freed from prison two years ago, officials said.

Le Figaro and Le Parisien newspapers said the alleged cell's suspected targets included the Metro, a Paris airport and the Paris headquarters of the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance, or DST, a police intelligence and counterterrorism agency.

DST agents launched the raid after receiving a confidential note from Algerian authorities summarizing the questioning of a suspect arrested Sept. 9 in Algiers, the Algerian capital, Le Parisien said.

The suspect, identified by the newspaper only as "M.B.", was an alleged group member who indicated that the attacks were being planned in France, the report said. His wife was among the nine arrested.

Le Figaro said the suspected cell allegedly had al Qaeda contacts and that some of its supposed members have knowledge of explosives.

The nine were apprehended in raids west of Paris and in Evreux, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of the French capital. Among those arrested was Safe Bourada, an Islamic militant convicted on terror charges and freed from prison in 2003, officials said. He had been under surveillance since his release.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy faced accusations Tuesday that he had tipped off reporters about the arrests -- which were filmed by waiting television crews.

In the US New York City's subway system was put under heightened alert Thursday after officials received information from the FBI about a "specific threat," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

A well-placed U.S. military official told CNN that the same intelligence also led to a raid against suspected al Qaeda operatives in Iraq.

There were indications that a terrorist attack on New York's subway system is possible "in the coming days," said New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Both he and Bloomberg declined to give further details, citing security concerns.

Spokesmen for New Jersey transit systems and Amtrak said they remained on a heightened state of alert, as they have been since early July.

Law enforcement sources said the threat information came from Iraq and that it included claims that a group of 15 to 20 people were in the United States to carry out an attack against New York's mass transit system.

The sources said they could not corroborate the information.

No arrests have been made in Manhattan, but operations continue outside the city, Kelly said, without mentioning where.

And Bloomberg said that officials "do not have any reason to believe" that any of the plotters "are in New York at this point in time."

"The encouraging news is that classified operations have, in fact, partially disrupted this threat," said Mark Mershon, assistant director of the FBI's New York field office.

It was the first specific threat against the city's subway system, Bloomberg said. But the threat did not mention specific subway stations, he added.

New York has 26 subway lines, 490 stations and 660 miles of subway track. There are about 6,400 cars.

"The detail of this specific threat is, in fact, classified," Mershon said. "We put down threats, multiple threats, every day. But the detail of this specific threat was so on point that we did raise this concern with the New York City Police Department."

Officials at different levels of government questioned the credibility of the information, however.

A Bush administration official told CNN the threat involved the use of explosives hidden in baby carriages. The official said he believes New York officials made the threat public "out of an abundance of caution."

An official from the Department of Homeland Security said that the agency has received intelligence regarding "a specific but not credible" threat to New York's subway system "in recent days."

The official said that the intelligence community concluded the information is of "doubtful credibility." Still, Bloomberg urged New Yorkers to be vigilant.

New York has been on "orange" alert, or the second-highest level -- indicating a high risk of terror attack -- since the color-coded warning system was established after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Meantime President Bush said the United States and its allies had foiled at least 10 serious plots by the al-Qaida terror network in the last four years, including plans for Sept. 11-like attacks on both U.S. coasts.

In a speech, President Bush said that since September 11, 2001, the United States and its allies have thwarted 10 al Qaeda attacks worldwide, three of them inside the United States.

"Because of this steady progress, the enemy is wounded, but the enemy is still capable of global operations," Bush said. "Our commitment is clear: We will not relent until the organized international terror networks are exposed and broken, and their leaders held to account for their acts of murder."

Bush said Islamic radicals are seeking to establish a "radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia" with Iraq serving as the main front. He singled out Iran and Syria as "allies of convenience" for Islamic radicalism.

Pentagon officials released a letter they said was written from one terrorist leader to another that they said confirmed administration assertions that Iraqi insurgents have a detailed plan to force U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and create an Islamic state there.

The White House initially would not give details of the 10 plots that Bush mentioned in his speech before the National Endowment for Democracy, saying some information remained classified.

Three targets cited were in the United States, including plans to use hijacked airplanes to attack the West Coast in mid-2002 and the East Coast in mid-2003. The White House said at least one planner of the West Coast attack was a key figure behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

The third was the case of Jose Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who converted to Islam and allegedly plotted with top al-Qaida commanders to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a U.S. city. Padilla, whose plot never materialized, was designated an enemy combatant by Bush and is being held without criminal charge at a Navy brig in South Carolina.

The White House said the other seven attacks included plans to:

Bomb several sites in Britain in mid-2004.

Attack Westerners at several places in Karachi, Pakistan, in spring 2003.

Attack Heathrow Airport using hijacked commercial airliners in 2003.

Carry out a large-scale bombing in Britain in spring 2004.

Attack ships in the Arabian Gulf in late 2002/2003.

Attack ships in the Straits of Hormuz, a narrow part of the Persian Gulf where it opens into the Arabian Sea, in 2002.

Attack a tourist site outside the United States in 2003.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman would only broadly characterize the intercepted letter that the Defense Department released, which he said was written by Osama bin Laden deputy Ayman al-Zawahri to the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He would not say where, when or how it was obtained, or who intercepted it, but he said the Pentagon is confident it is authentic.

Whitman said the letter demonstrates "that there is this detailed planning and intent on the part of the insurgents in Iraq to one day control that country and to really try to extend their extremism to neighboring countries. It demonstrates to me they clearly understand the importance and significance of the battle in Iraq right now."

In the letter al-Zawahri urges Zarqawi who has declared war on Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority to avoid bombing mosques and slaughtering hostages to avoid alienating the masses, Whitman said. He also said that al-Zawahri asked Zarqawi for some financial support.

On the other hand The Russian embassy in Kuala-Lumpur was among 11 foreign missions that received letters with threats. Malaysian police investigated the suspicious packages and said that they were harmless, the Associated Press reports.

"It's the work of individuals or a group of people who are out to cause havoc," said Kuala Lumpur police chief Mustafa Abdullah in an interview. "Probably because of the latest development in Bali, they want to take advantage of that."

The embassies of Japan, Thailand, Germany, Canada, Singapore and the Philippines each received a package by post. The British, French, Russian, U.S. and Australian embassies received packages as well, Mustafa said.

The packages had similar contents: a CD-ROM and an oily substance, which may be vehicle coolant, and a note saying the recipient had been "infected with a biological and chemical weapon, may Allah curse you for what you have done to the Muslim" community, Mustafa said.

Suicide bombings on Indonesia's resort island of Bali on Oct. 1 killed 22 people. In 2001, anthrax spores were used in a series of letter attacks in the U.S., killing five people, including two U.S. postal workers.

Indonesian police have stepped up their search for clues to the identity of three suicide bombers who carried out Saturday's deadly attacks on Bali. The police hunt continued as the Australian government warned of further possible attacks on the tourist island.

Police said they had been questioning two people in connection with the attack, but there was no "strong indication" they were involved.

Bali police chief I Made Mangku Pastika released few details about the two men, who he said were not under arrest, but did say they were not Balinese.

Police were recovering scraps of the explosive devices as part of their investigation, and have also found shreds of a black bag and jeans, and two wallets believed to have been used by the bombers, said police spokesman Brig Gen Sunarko Danu Artanto.

A doctor in northern Australia, where some of the victims were evacuated to, has told ABC radio that his staff had removed bags of shrapnel from people injured in the bombings, and these would be handed to Indonesian police.

Mr Pastika appealed to the public to come forward with information, following the publication of photographs of the bombers' severed heads.

"We need the participation of all people in Indonesia," he said. "The pictures of them [the attackers] are clear, and they are easy to recognise."

Australia's foreign ministry warned that more attacks could follow, naming one area which may be particularly at risk - Seminyak - and urging Australian nationals to consider leaving Bali.

"Media have reported further general and specific bomb and terrorist threats and anonymous tip-offs in the wake of the 1 October bombings," the ministry said in a statement.

"While this information cannot be corroborated, Australians should be aware that the Seminyak area in Bali has been mentioned as a potential target for terrorist attacks," it said.

At least two Australians were killed in the attacks, and the foreign ministry said it had "grave fears" about two more.

The Indonesian authorities have said they want to find two Malaysian fugitives suspected of masterminding other attacks in Indonesia.

They are Azahari Bin Husin and Noordin Mohamed Top - suspected leaders of militant group Jemaah Islamiah who have been on Indonesia's most wanted list since the Bali attacks of 12 October 2002, which killed 202 people, including many Westerners.

Their group is also suspected of being behind a suicide bombing at the Marriott hotel in Jakarta in 2003, and a suicide bombing at the Australian embassy last September.

The suspected spiritual leader of JI, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, issued a statement from prison condemning Saturday's attacks.

"I very much disagree with the bombings, whatever the reasons, in peaceful places including Bali, which definitely sacrificed innocent people," it said.

Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was sentenced to 30 months jail in March for conspiracy, after he was found guilty of giving his approval for the 2002 bomb attacks on Bali, which killed 202 people.

The three bombs exploded in the tourist areas of Jimbaran and Kuta within moments of each other.

Most of those killed were Indonesian, but casualties are also believed to include people from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the US.

More than 100 people were wounded, 17 of them seriously.

In London Intelligence and security chiefs from 27 European countries concluded a two-day summit held in London and chaired by MI5 director general Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller on counter-terrorism co-operation, especially through the drawing up of a "best practice guide" in an attempt to learn from the lessons of the London suicide bombings on July 7 and the botched attempts on July 21 and the Madrid train bombings last year.

The 27-nation Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG), comprising the 25 European Union member countries and Norway and Switzerland, according to the British Home Office, met for two days in London to discuss how they could draw on the experience of the two London bombings and the Madrid train bombings to protect themselves from further attacks and to prepare their responses if they are hit. The chairmanship of the CTG rotates according to the presidency of the EU, which is currently held by Britain.

The meeting held behind closed doors and away from the gaze of the media, according to the Home Office, had "agreed to build upon the existing program of mutual co-operation and intelligence-sharing focused on combating international terrorism".

The meeting could not have come at a more poignant time as yet another two terrorist bombs against international targets exploded on the popular Indonesian tourist island of Bali. Early reports suggested at least nine people were killed with the death toll expected to rise further. The explosions in Kuta and the Jimbaran beach area came almost three years to the day when some 202 people, mostly Australian and British tourists, died in terrorist bombings in 2002.

It also coincided with the latest US anti-terrorist offensive in Iraq called 'Operation Iron Fist' which is focused in and around the town of Sadah, near Al-Qaim, in the Al-Anbar province on the border with Syria, which the US alleges is a haven for foreign terrorist insurgents crossing over from Syria.

It further coincides with British Defense Secretary John Reid's first visit Afghanistan for talks with president Hamid Karzai. Around 900 British soldiers are already stationed in the country, and the figure could rise to 4,000 by next May, according to Reid.

The CTG was formed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks in the United States in 2001 and has been meeting on a regular basis ever since to discuss the international terrorist threat. Its formation reflected a belief among intelligence chiefs that international co-operation between agencies is vital if they are to combat fluid terrorist groups able to move easily from country to country. In early September, MI5 Director General Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, at a CTG conference of security chiefs held in the Hague in the Netherlands and hosted by the Dutch Intelligence Agency AIVD, discussed in depth the nature of the terrorist threat which the UK and the West were faced with, and how this threat could be pre-empted or contained to protect the citizens and the security of the countries.

"Governments face difficult decisions about how best to protect the public, without preventing normal life going on or damaging the economy," stressed Dame Manningham-Buller. "We want people to continue their way of life and have confidence to make their own decisions on risk. Given we in the UK, and I expect the statistics are not so different here, receive over a hundred pieces of threat intelligence a week, i.e. intelligence pointing to a terrorist threat, decisions on what to do are difficult, especially as is so often the case if the intelligence is piecemeal and uncertain. The repercussions, another dilemma, of such decisions can be significant."

International co-operation in the face of an international threat, she urged, was essential. The Hague meeting was vital because it was the first time that the European Counter-Terrorist Group met the Security Services of the ten EU accession countries into the CTG.

"In my area we are working through the CTG and have an extensive range of work in hand. We need to engage more extensively with partners outside the EU in order to put the threat within Europe into a broader context and we need to build both on the links to Europol and the relationship with the EU SitCen. I know some believe that international, or in this case EU, work can present a difficult dilemma with regard to national interests but, in my experience, substantial counter-terrorist work on a practical, tactical level works successfully every day on the basis of the relationships of mutual trust to which I referred at the start of my talk. And at the political and strategic level there is further important work in progress," she added.

The UK, the Netherlands and beyond, she warned, faced a high level of threat. The scale of the problem has become more apparent "as the amount of intelligence collected and shared has increased. Responding to it is challenging. Intelligence, the capability to collect it and the competence to handle it are vital but not sufficient."