EXCLUSIVE: Iranian President Ducks Charges That Iran Is Arming Iraqi Insurgents

February 12, 2007 -- IRAN

EXCLUSIVE: Iranian President Ducks Charges That Iran Is Arming Iraqi Insurgents

In an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad refused to address accusations that his country was supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq, saying instead that Iran asked for peace and was against conflict of any kind. (ABC News)

U.S. Says Arms Link Iranians to Iraqi Shiites

After weeks of internal debate, senior United States military officials on Sunday literally put on the table their first public evidence of the contentious assertion that Iran supplies Shiite extremist groups in Iraq with some of the most lethal weapons in the war. (NY Times)

IRAQ

Bombs Kill at Least 80 People in Iraq

A series of explosions that started in an underground parking garage blanketed Baghdad's city center in debris and smoke. (AP)

U.S. Troops Enter Eastern Baghdad as New Push Begins

American troops locked down a large industrial area of eastern Baghdad on Sunday while Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, without indicating how he would do it, vowed to speed the deployment of Iraqi forces throughout the war-ravaged capital. (NY Times)

Iraqi Court Sentences Saddam's VP to Death

An Iraqi court on Monday raised the sentence against Saddam Hussein's vice president to death by hanging for the killings of Shiites in the town of Dujail. (AP)

Bombing at Tikrit Police Station Kills 9

Nine police officers were killed Sunday near Tikrit when a suicide bomber drove up to a police station and detonated explosives hidden under hay on the bed of a truck, the U.S. military and Iraqi officials said. (Washington Post)

U.S. Kills Errant Contractor

U.S. forces in Iraq shot and killed a civilian contract truck driver from Michigan who had strayed from his convoy, a lawyer for the man's family confirmed Sunday. (AP)

EGYPT

Egypt Releases 'Rendition' Cleric

A Muslim cleric allegedly kidnapped by CIA agents in Italy and handed over to the Egyptian authorities has been released, his lawyer has said. (BBC)

JAPAN

Report: Explosion Heard Near U.S. Base In Japan

An explosion was heard near a U.S. Army base south of Tokyo late Monday and police suspected an attempted attack on the base, Kyodo News agency reported. (AP)

GERMANY

Former Red Army Faction Militant to Be Freed

Former Red Army Faction militant Brigitte Mohnhaupt is to be released from prison, a German court said on Monday, after 24 years in jail for her role in killings that shook West Germany's nascent democracy in the 1970s. (Reuters)

AFGHANISTAN

Hundreds of Taliban Massing to Attack Dam: Official

At least 700 Taliban fighters have crossed from Pakistan into Afghanistan to reinforce guerrillas attacking a key dam, a major source of electricity and irrigation, a provincial governor said on Monday. (Reuters)

SPAIN

Spanish Daily Reports on Al-Qa'idah Training Camps in Mali

Bamako: Jihadists recruited in Spain are being trained in handling arms and explosives in the deserts of the Sahel, the arid, semi-desert region of Africa which extends fron the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. In Mali, one of the world's poorest countries, Bin-Ladin has established a training base for Al-Qa'idah and its Algerian allies of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, according to European and US secret services. Bin-Ladin has met his objective of having a base in Africa close to Europe from which to attack it. In the huge, chaotic market around the Grand Mosque in Bamako, a place swarming with thousands of Malians, there are few hijabs (Islamic headscarves) and it is hard to find a woman covering herself with a burka. But the picture changes in towns and villages in northern Mali like Kidal, Tombouctou and Gao and signs of fundamentalism appear. What is happening in Mali, one of the world's poorest countries? Why is there talk of jihad among some Arabs and Tuaregs? Reports from European and US intelligence services say that this gigantic oasis has become the new rest and training base of Al-Qa'idah and its Algerian associates in the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), a breakaway group of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). Bin-ladin now has one of his most longed-for dreams: a loyal ally in africa and a base close to europe from which to prepare fresh attacks. (Translated by World News Connection)

Original Article: Al Qaeda Entrena En El Desierto Del Sahel A 'Yihadistas' Reclutados En España
(El Pias)

Train Bombing Case Set To Open In Madrid

One of Europe's biggest terrorism cases begins this week with the trial of a group of Islamists and Spaniards accused of involvement in the Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people three years ago. (Sydney Morning Herald)

How the Madrid Train Bombing Trial Will Work

Twenty-nine people charged in connection with the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004 will go on trial on Feb. 15. (Reuters)

FRANCE

Secret French Report Warns Against Attacks in France During Presidential Elections

A secret French intelligence report recently submitted to the government warned against an al Qaeda plot to carry out attacks in the country during the upcoming presidential elections, according to al Hayat newspaper. The report says al Qaeda wants to repeat "the Spanish scenario" - in reference to the March 2004 Madrid train attacks – to affect the election results. The report cites four factors believed to support the theory that al Qaeda is determined to attack France, including Europeans fighting in Iraq being asked to return to their home countries, Europeans training in camps along the Afghani-Pakistani border and in Kashmir and finally – and most dangerously as the report points out – Moroccan networks association with a militant Algerian that recently joined al Qaeda. Al Hayat also published a undated letter allegedly written by Osama bin Laden to a member of the mentioned Algerian group about targeting France. (Al Hayat)

SOMALIA

Heavy Blasts Rock Somali Capital

Three people have been killed and several wounded during six explosions in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. (BBC)

ANALYSIS & OPINION

Who Will Blink First, the US or Iran?

By Michael Young

Recently, from his perch at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, Germany's former foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, wrote a commentary warning of the dangers in an American military attack against Iran. His views are significant in that they are shared by many Bush administration critics in the United States and Europe. (Daily Star)

Shiaa Fundamentalism is Not a Substitute

By Sayyed Wild Abah

Last year I asked an American politician: "Do you not see that your project in the end failed and did not achieve the desired goals now that the country has transformed into a state of devastation and mass destruction?" (Asharq Alawsat)

The Story of Abu Walid al Masri: The Ideologue of the Afghan Arabs

By Mohammed Al Shafey

London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Safiyah al Shami, the sister-in-law of Mustafa Hamid, who is known as Abu Walid al Masri, the ideologue of the Afghan Arabs, has disclosed that he is currently detained in Iran alongside his eldest son and two of his sons-in-law, one of whom is believed to be Saif al Adel, the military commander of Al Qaeda. (Alsharq Alawsat)

State Of Denial

By Jeff Stein

Doug Feith got off easy.He's not in handcuffs, getting a mug shot like some astronaut.He wasn't duck-walked out his office with a bag over his head.But Congress got off pretty easy itself.You won't hear much this week about Congress' failure to ride herd on Feith and his co-conspirators to twist the intelligence on Iraq and stampede the country into war. (Congressional Quarterly)

How to Stop the U.S. From Being Goliath

By Niall Ferguson

American soldiers have superior training and weapons, but insurgents know the terrain. (LA Times)

The Reappearance of al Qaeda's Online Magazine

A premier Web-based al Qaeda magazine likely published in Saudi Arabia appeared again Feb. 8 -- the first issue since April 2005. The publication of a fresh edition indicates that the Saudi node of the global militant Islamist movement, which was weakened after a Saudi security crackdown that began in mid-2004, might have revived itself. (Stratfor)

Contempt for Our Culture

By Soumaya Ghannoushi

In his remarks on British Muslims, David Cameron betrays a familiar Tory hostility to pluralism. (The Guardian)

The Insider Daily Investigative Report (DIR) is a summary of major news articles and broadcasts relating to investigative news, including international terrorism and developments in Iraq. The DIR is edited daily from foreign and U.S. sources by Chris Isham, Hoda Osman and Elizabeth Sprague of the ABC News Investigative Unit. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ABCNEWS.