The Insider: Daily Terrorism Report

Oct. 22, 2003 -- [[[[insert new tease para daily]]]]]

America

United States

U.S. Thinks 9/11 Planner Killed PearlAuthorities once questioned such claims, but they now believe the Al Qaeda operative is the man who slit the journalist's throat. (LA Times)http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pearl22oct22,1,4570565.story?coll=la-headlines-world

Terror Memo Cites DoubtsRumsfeld Questions on Terror Progress The United States has no yardstick for measuring progress in the war on terrorism, has not "yet made truly bold moves" in fighting al-Qaeda and other terror groups, and is in for a "long, hard slog" in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a memo that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sent to top-ranking Defense officials last week. (USA Today)

Pentagon to Probe Remarks Made by General

The Pentagon is launching a formal investigation into statements by a high-ranking Army officer that cast the U.S. fight against terrorists in religious terms, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced on Tuesday. (Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61301-2003Oct21.html

Editorial: The General Who Roared

Lt. Gen. William Boykin, who has called the war on terrorism a "Christian battle" and disparaged Muslims, should be dismissed from his post. (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/opinion/22WED2.html

US Erecting a Solid Prison at Guantanamo for Long Term

The detention facility here for prisoners captured mostly in the Afghanistan war is increasingly taking on a permanent air as the authorities are building a hard-walled traditional prison alongside the corrugated metal units that have housed detainees for nearly two years. (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/national/22GITM.html

Laptops screened at Guantanamo base

U.S. troops are being ordered to surrender their laptop computers for security sweeps 72 hours before leaving the Guantanamo base in Cuba, officials said Tuesday. (LA Times)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gitmo22oct22,1,3923283.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Moussaoui can't represent self at appeal

A federal appeals court Tuesday denied a request from terrorism defendant Zacarias Moussaoui to represent himself at a Dec. 3 proceeding on his access to al-Qaeda prisoners. (Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60778-2003Oct21.html

Georgia says database is too invasive

Amid cost and privacy concerns, state officials backed away from an antiterrorism database that officials initially considered joining — making Georgia the sixth state to abandon the Matrix project. (LA Times)

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-terror22oct22,1,575237.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

Passenger tracking at airports on holdCarriers say system will violate privacy, without increasing safety significantly. (CS Monitor) http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1021/p02s01-ussc.html

Patriot Act misunderstood, senators say

Democratic and Republican lawmakers said yesterday that the USA Patriot Act has drawn unmerited criticism from civil libertarians at both ends of the political spectrum who have targeted it with complaints over unrelated issues. (Washington Post)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61591-2003Oct21.html

Editorial: A breach that can teach

As any air traveler knows, the 48,000 screeners employed by the $5-billion-a-year Transportation Security Administration since 9/11 are proficient at confiscating small objects like pins and nail scissors. But not always, it seems, at detecting the very weapons that were used on Sept. 11, 2001 — box cutters. The real question, however, is how much that matters. (LA Times)

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-airplanes22oct22,1,5246635.story?coll=la-news-comment-editorials

Middle East

Pakistan

Pakistan nabs Al Qaeda money leader's aide

A Yemeni national arrested this week during a routine security check at a roadblock in eastern Pakistan is believed to be an aide of captured Al Qaeda financial manager Abu Zubaydah, a police official said on Wednesday. (AP)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20031022/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_1

Yemen

Yemen holds Al Qaeda suspect

Yemeni authorities have arrested a Saudi suspected of being a member of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network who entered Yemen secretly, a security official said today. (News.com, AFP)

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7636623%255E1702,00.html

Bin Laden's audio contained coded messages, reports newspaper

The Yemeni paper Al Balagh claimed that the recent Bin Laden statement aired on Al Jazeera contained coded messages to launch operations in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The paper says it got its information through sources, who said the attacks will be carried out in the three countries within the coming two weeks. Yemeni security sources confirmed that they had foiled Al Qaeda plans to attack the American, British and German embassies in Yemen when 17 members of the group were arrested. (Asharq Al Awsat)

Saudi Arabia

Saudi detainees 'plotted attacks'

Terror suspects seized in Saudi Arabia were preparing to carry out suicide bombings across the country, a top security official has said. (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3209110.stm

Most of Saudi Arabia's terrorist cell members captured – says security official

A Saudi security source told Al Hayat newspaper that authorities managed to arrest most of the members of the terrorist cells in Saudi Arabia, leaving only one or two cells in the country, which security forces continue to hunt. (Al Hayat).

Ministry of defense official denies that missiles were found near port

Saudi sources rejected reports coming out of London that missiles were found in Al Quszeya area south of the port of Jeddah. The reports had claimed the missiles were pointing towards the sea and ready to fire on American targets. (Asharq Al Awsat)

Afghanistan

'New Species' of terrorist threatens Kabul

A new breed of terrorist has infiltrated Kabul and is planning attacks on civilians and soldiers, according to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander. (AP)

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/LondonFreePress/News/2003/10/22/232583.html

AUSTRALIA

Anthrax lab man 'held false passports'

A worker at a Commonwealth Serum Laboratory plant, which produces blood samples and stores diseases such as anthrax, has been arrested in possession of false passports that federal agents believe are linked to international terrorists, a court has heard. (Sydney Morning Herald)

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/21/1066631429714.html

ASIA

US war on terror wins support at Pacific conference

The 21 leaders of the Pacific Rim nations closed their annual trade summit yesterday with a declaration to support the US war on terror and "eliminate the severe danger posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." (The Guardian)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1068013,00.html

Indonesia:

US will hand over Hambali

The United States will "eventually" hand over top terror suspect Hambali to Indonesia for trial, Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said on Wednesday. (AFP)

http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1434021,00.html

EUROPE

Sweden

Swedish police arrest terrorist suspect

Swedish police have arrested a man investigated in an alleged conspiracy to open a terrorist training camp in the United States in 1999, officials said Wednesday. (AP)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64174-2003Oct22.html

France

France to stage simulated gas attack on Paris subway

While France's current threat remains at a low level, officials continue to remain on guard. Last December, French authorities dismantled what they said was a terror cell with ties to Chechen rebels and al-Qaeda that planned bomb or toxic gas attacks in France and Russia. (AP)

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/ap10-21-230533.asp?reg=EUROPE

The War in Iraq

Plans to arrest maverick Iraqi cleric for murder

Coalition and Iraqi officials are preparing an arrest warrant for the firebrand Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr over his alleged involvement with the brutal murder of a rival cleric last spring, sources close to the Iraqi governing council told the Guardian yesterday. (The Guardian)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1068114,00.html

32 followers of defiant cleric are arrested in raid in Karbala

American troops helping the Iraqi police during a raid on a mosque in Karbala on Tuesday morning arrested 32 supporters of a fundamentalist Shiite cleric who has openly defied the United States. (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/international/middleeast/22IRAQ.html

Anti-US cleric harangues, but Iraq's Shiites heed four Ayatollahs

When a young and radical Shiite cleric discussed plans here last week to set up his own government of Iraq, he challenged more than the American-led occupation. The cleric, Moktada al-Sadr, threatened the authority of the four grand Shiite ayatollahs who hold sway in this holy city and who until now have counseled the 15 million Iraqi Shiites to remain patient with foreign troops. (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/international/middleeast/22SHIA.html

Arms cache found in Iraq

Coalition forces and Iraqi police discovered a huge arms cache allegedly belonging to al-Qaeda. (UPI)

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story.asp?StoryId=Cp5yaWeidAxjHCs1HCM1Zy2fJAgu

White House threatens a veto of its own spending bill for Iraq

The White House threatened Tuesday to veto its own spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan if Congress made reconstruction aid a loan, taking its most forceful stand on the issue even as more lawmakers supported a reimbursement by Iraq. (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/politics/22COST.html

Halliburton's Iraq-fuel costs are criticized

Halliburton Co. unit KBR is paying much more than local buyers to bring fuel into Iraq, congressional Democrats charged, ratcheting up their criticism of the company's no-bid contract to restore Iraq's oil industry. (Dow Jones Wire)

http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/10/21/rtr1116830.html

World Bank pledges $5 billion in Iraq aid

The World Bank has said it will contribute between $3bn and $5bn over the next five years towards the rebuilding of Iraq. (BBC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3212366.stm

Use of Turkish troops in Iraq in doubt

The prospect of thousands of Turkish troops entering Iraq to relieve strain on American forces appears to have dimmed, although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld says he remains hopeful that Turkey will find a way to follow through on its offer to help. (AP)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3295017,00.html

Plan: send more reserves to Iraq

The Pentagon plans to rotate into Iraq as many as 30,000 more reservists early next year, defense officials said Tuesday. (Newsday)

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wopent223505047oct22,0,780777.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlines

Baghdad suicide bomber not Iraqi - source

The man who carried out the suicide operation near Baghdad hotel was an Arab, but not Iraqi, a security official confirmed to Al Hayat. A hotel guard who survived the attack and spoke to the man minutes before he stormed with his car towards the hotel said he did not have an Iraqi accent. (Al Hayat)

Baffled occupiers, or the missed understandings

Pollsters and journalists have been busy asking Iraqis how they feel about the Americans on their streets, but there is a potentially more important issue. How do the Americans here feel about the Iraqis? Will they ever feel comfortable enough in this alien culture to finish the job they started?

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/international/middleeast/22LETT.html

Yemen says Saddam's wife not in the country

"Well-informed Yemeni sources" denied that Saddam Hussein's wife Sajida was in Sana'a in reaction to earlier reports about her being seen at one of the hotels in the capital. (Asharq Al Awsat)

Editorial: Who said crime is useless?

The lies of Mohammad Seed Sahaf are no less than a crime perpetrated against the Iraqis than the crimes of Saddam Hussein. (Al Hayat)

http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/10-2003/Article-20031022-633d0eb2-c0a8-01ed-0033-278a87ad8b7e/story.html

Editorial: Security: Iraq's fourth war

Anyone speaking or listening to the "Iraqis inside," who have been living for years through wars that exhausted their country and under international sanctions that impoverished them, realize that these people's views differ from what is being written in the press and foreign media. (Al Hayat)

http://english.daralhayat.com/OPED/10-2003/Article-20031022-6388ee18-c0a8-01ed-0033-278a66a2f4b4/story.html