Vol.2

No.2

July 2003

Terrorism File

'Simulated terror' tests in 2 US cities

Seatle - May 14, 2003 - United States authorities launched a simulated attack on Seatle on Monday in the biggest ever test of disaster relief workers. A similar mock biological attack was scheduled to test Chicago emergency crews beginning on Tuesday in a week-long exercise in disaster management in the post-September 11 world. The Seatle 'attack' began at 3 p.m. Three minutes later, the first of dozens of fire and emergency vehicles arrived. About 200 fire-fighters doused the flames within 22 minutes although the acid smoke, bearing simulated radioactive material, was carried for miles on a brisk wind. Scores of police and emergency workers participated in the exercise, several of whom would have been contaminated with airborne radiation.

The Asian Age May 14, 2003

Woman dominates in Chechen suicide attacks

Moscow - June 5, 2003 - A woman suicide bomber ambushed a bus carrying Russian Air Force pilots near Chechnya on Thursday, blowing it up and killing at least 17 people, defence and justice officials said. The attack was the third in three weeks by women suicide rebels, which occurred in Russia's North Ossetia region bordering Muslim Chechnya, after the bus stopped near a railway crossing on the outskirts of Mozdok. Efforts have been launched to find out where and how suicide fighters - a relatively new phenomenon in Chechnya - were being trained. On May 12, a woman was part of a group that drove a truck packed with explosives into a government complex in Znamenskoye in northern Chechnya, killing 59 people. Two days later, a woman blew herself up at a Muslim festival in another part of Chechnya, killing at least 16 people. Chechen separatist warlord Shamil Basayev has claimed responsibility for the two attacks in May and threatened to launch a "whirlwind" of violence in the future.

The Asian Age - June 6, 2003

'Pak new epicenter of terrorism'

Washington - June 5, 2003 - "This is now the epicentre of terrorism. It really is. This is the only country I know in the world that has so many groups that are against the United States or western ideals," United States Embassy's Regional Security Officer Michael Evanoff was quoted as saying in the Christian Science Monitor. "Last year alone, these groups pulled off seven strikes against the United States community here, including a March church bombing in Islamabad that killed five, and a June truck bomb at Karachi consulate that killed 14 Pakistanis," he said. "The sprawling compound of the embassy is surrounded by thick brick ramparts, topped with razor wire and reinforced by steel pillars to keep a vehicle from smashing through," the Monitor said. United States Ambassador to Pakistan, Nancy Powell, travels through the town in an armoured car, with two diplomatic security agents always at her side. When she visits consulates in Peshawar, Lahore and Karachi, she is trailed by pick-up trucks packed with elite, US-trained Pakistani forces, the Monitor said.

The Indian Express - June 6, 2003

US airlines to get stun guns

The Bush administration has decided that stun guns, which emit a disabling electric shock, can be used to improve security on US airlines, a homeland security officials said on Monday. After months of testing, the transportation security administration told Congress that the technology was an acceptable non-lethal option to protect the cockpit from intruders. The government has not ruled out the use of stun guns by cabin crew in the passenger cabin.

Hindustan Times - June 11, 2003

Islamic terrorists nabbed in Moscow

Moscow - June 10, 2003 - The Federal Security Service (FSB) detained 55 suspected members of the Islamic Liberation Party, or Hizb al-Tahir al-Islami, in a raid on a Moscow cell of the terrorist outfit on Monday. "The detainees were plotting to set up a Khalifat in Russia by overthrowing the legitimate Government," said Sergei Ignachenko, head of the FSB press service. Security sources believe some militants of the Islamic Liberation Party had been trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

The Hindu - June 11, 2003

16 killed in Jerusalem bus blast

Jerusalem - June 11, 2003 - A Palestinian suicide bomber disguised as an ultra-Orthodox Jew killed 16 Israelis in a Jerusalem bus attack today, police said. Seventy people were wounded. The violence was the major setback for the US President, George W. Bush's West Asia peace initiative. Only last week, the Israeli and Palestinian Prime Ministers had pledged support for the so-called "road map" to peace and Palestinian statehood by 2005, and Mr. Bush invested his presidential prestige in the initiative.

The Hindu - June 12, 2003

Thai police foils plans to bomb missions

Bangkok - June 11, 2003 - The police in Thailand have broken up a cell of the Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiyah and foiled a plot to bomb embassies in the country, officials in Thailand and Singapore said. Three Thai men alleged to be members of Jemaah Islamiyah, the group suspected in last year's bombing on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, were arrested on Tuesday in raids on their homes in the Muslim-dominated Narathiwat province in southern Thailand, the police said. Arifin Bin Ali, 42, a Singaporean alleged to be a senior member of the group, had been arrested on May 16 in Bangkok by the special branch police, and he had been handed over to the Singapore government.

The Asian Age – June 12, 2003

'Saddam' threatens to widen resistance

Cairo - June 14, 2003 - A 3-page letter purportedly written by deposed Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, has warned foreigners to leave Iraq or face death. A copy of the letter sent to the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper and made available to the Associated Press, warned that a new stage in the Iraqi "resistance" to the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq was about to begin. "We tell the countries of the world to remove your citizens from Iraq (as) we are in a liberation struggle. If you do not do this then you will be responsible for their lives," the June 12 dated letter said. The paper's managing editor, Sana Aloul, said the newspaper was unaware of the letter's origins, but said she had no reason to doubt that it was from Mr. Hussein.

The Hindu - June 15, 2003

Five terror suspects killed in Mecca raid

Mecca - June 15, 2003 - Saudi troops and security agents raided a Mecca apartment building where terror suspects had holed up, killing five of the suspects, arresting seven - including one wearing a suicide bomb belt - and seizing a large cache of weapons, a Saudi newspaper reported Sunday. Five police officers and security agents were killed in the Saturday night violence that started when traffic police tried to stop a car, according to the Okaz report monitored in Cairo on the newspaper's website. Okaz did not name its sources. It said those killed or arrested were later identified as "wanted terrorists," but did not name any of them or give their nationalities.

Hindustan Times - June 16, 2003

'Top Al-Qaeda operative trained in Japan'

Tokyo - June 16, 2003 - Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged No.3 leader of the Al-Qaeda terrorist group and mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks in New York and Washington, spent months in Japan around 1987, being trained to operate rock drills by a Japanese construction machine maker, Kyodo News said, citing Japanese security sources. His stay in Japan coincided with the Afghan guerilla war against the former Soviet Union.

Hindustan Times - June 17, 2003

J&K militants kill 2 by injecting poison

Jammu - Militants killed two persons, including a woman, by injecting them with poison in Poonch district. This is the first time since militancy that such killings have been reported.

Hindustan Times - June 23, 2003

Third generation Al Qaeda

Paris - June 25, 2003 - A third generation of an estimated 800 to 1,000 Al Qaeda terrorists - mainly suicide attackers based on several continents - is preparing strikes against tourist and economic targets worldwide, a French terrorism expert, Roland Jacquard, consultant to the UN, said on Tuesday in a telephone interview. He added that it was his figure and would not appear in the UN report scheduled for release next week. "The UN report explains…that the risk of terrorism remains very, very present," said Jacquard. "The first generation of Al Qaeda was the original group based in Afghanistan. It spawned the second generation - those who carried out the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US. Today, Al Qaeda has become a terrorist organization that no longer reacts in pyramid fashion, he said, referring to the highly structured organization headed by Osama bin Laden that worked from the top-down, which is more dangerous as each group chooses its target.

Hindustan Times - June 26, 2003

Explosives meant for Al-Qaeda?

Athens - The head of Greece's intelligence services said on Wednesday he could not exclude the possibility that the explosives seized form a Sudan-bound ship were intended for the extremist Al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden. "The cargo is very large, I cannot imagine how Al-Qaeda could take 680 tones of TNT, but on the other hand, we can find out what it was intended for," Pavlos Apostolidis told the private Greek television channel Mega. Greek authorities on Sunday seized the Baltic Sky in the eastern Mediterranean allegedly loaded with 680 tonnes of explosives, including TNT and 8,000 detonators.

The Hindu - June 26, 2003

Omen!

A Boeing 727 plane that disappeared from an airfield in Luanda, Angola, on May 25 has still not been found. Investigators are concerned that it might be used in a 9/11-style suicide attack.

Time - June 30, 2003

Australia passes anti-terror laws

Canberra: Tough new Australian counter-terrorism laws drawn up in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks in the United States were passed in Parliament after months of bitter debate over whether these were too harsh. The legislation gives the domestic spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, powers to detain anyone who might have information on terrorism, for seven days without charge and without giving a reason, and restricts a detainee's access to a lawyer. The person does not have to be a terror suspect, just someone who may be able to help investigators. Opposition lawmakers expressed worries that civil rights would be compromised by the law. The Government agreed to a "sunset clause", which means it would lapse after three years and must be passed again by Parliament.

The Hindu - June 27, 2003.

14 killed, 7 injured in suicide attack on Army camp

Jammu: In the first major strike since Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee's peace initiative, two heavily armed terrorists dressed in military uniform carried out a suicide attack on an Army camp here early on Saturday, in which twelve persons were killed and seven injured. Both the terrorists were shot dead. The attack came as President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam wrapped up his three-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir. This is the second major attack on an Army installation here in the last two years. On May 14, 2001, militants had attacked family members of Army personnel killing 34 of them at Kaluchak.

Sunday Times - June 29, 2003

US arrests 8 for Kashmir 'jihad' plot

Washington - June 28, 2003 - Federal authorities on Friday charged seven men in he Washington area and an eighth in Philadelphia with stockpiling weapons and conspiring to wage "jihad" against India in support of a terrorist group in Kashmir. Although the officials said there was no evidence of a plot against the United States, they charged that members of the group pledged support for pro-Muslim violence overseas, hoarded high-powered rifles and received military training in Pakistan. Seven members of the group traveled to Pakistan in the last several years, and some received military training in small arms, machine guns, grenade launchers and other weaponry at a camp in northeast Pakistan connected to Lashkar-e-Tayyaba. The suspects were charged with conspiracy, firearms violations and commencing an expedition against a friendly nation - in this case, India. Justice department officials said the indictment demonstrated the government's aggressive, preventive strategy since the September 11, 2001, to terrorist attacks to prevent terrorism, rather than waiting for plans to fully develop.

The Asian Age - June 29, 2003

Food for Thoughts

"It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad. It is the regrets over yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who rub us of today.

- Robert J. Hastings

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"If you want to give a gift to your elders, try giving them your time and attention."

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