 AN American company says it will stop adding biblical references to the so-called Jesus sights for rifles used by Australian soldiers. Trijicon triggered an international uproar when US soldiers in Afghanistan discovered that letters and figures they thought were simply stock or model numbers referred to passages from the Bible. One example was JN8:12 which turned out to be a reference to chapter eight, verse 12 in the Book of John: “When Jesus spoke again to the people he said ‘I am the light of the world’.” The company has now issued a statement saying it had stopped putting the inscriptions on its sights. It said it would also give the Pentagon, free of charge, 100 free kits which could be used to remove the references from sights that had already been issued to troops. The ADF has several hundred of the sights, which are prized by elite troops for their accuracy over long range, and it is now working out how to remove the scriptural links from them with wrecking the equipment. The Michigan-based family-owned company said it had for two generations been working to provide America's military men and women with high quality, and innovative sighting systems. “Our effort is simple and straightforward: to help our servicemen and women win the war on terror and come home safe to their families. “As part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon has put scripture references on our products for more than two decades. “As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation.” The ADF confirmed yesterday it had been unaware of the meaning of the inscription when the sights were issued to troops. “The Department of Defence was unaware of the significance of the manufacturer's serial number,” the spokesman said. “The sights were procured because they provide mature technology which is highly reliable, in wide use by our allies and best meet Defence requirements. Soldiers are confident in the utility of the sight and the positive and proven effect which it is having on operations.” The spokesman said Defence was conscious of the sensitivities over this issue and was assessing how to address them. Another inscription was 2COR4:6, which is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament. The passage reads: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” The Australian 
 AUSTRALIAN special forces soldiers are using gunsights with biblical references etched on to them as they fight the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The ADF has several hundred of the sights, which are prized by elite troops for their accuracy over long range. Their use by US, British and New Zealand troops has raised alarm among military leaders that it could reinforce views among extremists that the West is waging a crusade against Islam. The Australian Defence Force is investigating how to remove biblical references etched on to gunsights, without damaging the weapons. The ADF and military authorities in the US, Britain and elsewhere thought the letters and numbers on the sights were simply stock or model numbers until a US soldier in Afghanistan complained to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation that the initials referred to passage from the Bible. One example was JN8:12 which turned out to be a reference to chapter eight, verse 12 in the Book of John: "When Jesus spoke again to the people he said 'I am the light of the world. While coalition soldiers were unaware of the significance of the initials, military officials quickly became alarmed that religious extremists could take some propaganda advantage from them being proof the West was waging a crusader war against Islam. The ADF confirmed yesterday it had been unaware of the meaning of the inscription when the sights were issued to troops. "The Department of Defence was unaware of the significance of the manufacturer's serial number," the spokesman said. "The sights were procured because they provide mature technology which is highly reliable, in wide use by our allies and best meet Defence requirements. Soldiers are confident in the utility of the sight and the positive and proven effect which it is having on operations." The spokesman said Defence was conscious of the sensitivities over this issue and was assessing how to address them. Another inscription was 2COR4:6, which is an apparent reference to Second Corinthians 4:6 of the New Testament. The passage reads: "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." US military rules prohibit religious proselytising in Iraq or Afghanistan and were drawn to prevent criticism that the US was on a religious crusade in its war against al-Qa'ida and Iraqi insurgents. The sights are used by US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the training of Iraqi and Afghan soldiers. The maker of the sights, Trijicon, has a $US660 million ($725m) multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the US Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the American Army. Trijicon issued a statement saying: "As part of our faith and our belief in service to our country, Trijicon has put scripture references on our products for more than two decades. "As long as we have men and women in danger, we will continue to do everything we can to provide them with both state-of-the-art technology and the never-ending support and prayers of a grateful nation." The Australian
 by Lt.Col. Ralph Peters The Taliban scored a powerful psychological victory yesterday, as fewer than two dozen suicide attackers brought Afghanistan's government and capital city to a standstill. In a dramatic wave of attacks (possibly planned with help from Pakistani intelligence operatives), the Taliban struck Kabul's presidential palace, several government ministries and a multistory shopping complex. And they did it just as President Hamid Karzai was swearing in his new Cabinet (despite a battle with parliament over the legitimacy of his picks).
Think that gave Afghans renewed confidence in their government? We've been told, repeatedly, that Afghanistan's army and police are improving, yet US forces had to rush to their aid in responding to 20 or fewer attackers right in Kabul. Still worse: The attack's planning was meticulous and media savvy. In smooth coordination with simultaneous suicide bombings and small-arms attacks, Taliban public-relations agents popped up online and in the media to thump their chests over their win. When it comes to media relations, these thugs aren't backward barbarians. Indeed, the Taliban does it far better than our military, which slowly issues defensive statements that nobody takes seriously. (And where our bureaucracy's paralytic, NATO's is comatose.) Inevitably, our guys in Kabul will play down the attacks, claiming that "Saigon's back to normal, people are going about their business." But weigh the psychological impact yesterday's strikes had on Afghans unsure of which horse to back in this deadly race. Yesterday's wave of bombings was a mini-Tet Offensive -- a small-scale repeat of the attacks that triggered US public opinion's turn against the Vietnam War. They were designed to explode Western claims of progress and embarrass our leaders -- and it worked. Our self-delusion stinks of the early years in Vietnam, when Gen. Paul Harkins, our man in Saigon, claimed (in 1963) that the Vietnamese army was doing a great job, the war was being won and our troops would be home by 1965. Recently, I read a report by an official US visitor to Afghanistan calling Karzai "brave" and describing him as the leader Afghanistan needs.
Good God -- he's hiding in his presidential palace, afraid to visit the front lines and see what kind of shape his country's really in. Yesterday, the war came to him. Our insistence on propping up Karzai is so uncanny a replay of our support for South Vietnam's incompetent Diem regime five decades ago that the similarity's unnerving. We saw what we wanted to see then. And we see what we want to see now. The problem is not our troops: They're doing everything we ask and more. But they're pit bulls led by miniature poodles. Senior military leaders refuse to see our enemies for what they are -- religious fanatics with a durable tribal base -- and insist on treating them as 20th-century ideological insurgents. Earth to Gen. Stan McChrystal: Those suicide bombers yesterday weren't Sandinistas. Special Forces and other personnel down-range (far from the gee-whiz briefing rooms) understand that there is no Afghan nation, that we've stuck ourselves in the midst of complex tribal wars super-charged by religious fanaticism among our enemies. And, in tribal wars, you have to pick your tribes. It's not that the war in Afghanistan's unwinnable. It's just not winnable on the ludicrous terms we've imposed upon ourselves. We want to build what can't be built and refuse to do what must be done -- and sacrifice our troops for foreign scoundrels. Poll the Afghans on the streets of Kabul today. Ask them if we're winning. Ralph Peters' latest book is "The War After Armageddon." NYPost
 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden's son Omar believes the al Qaeda leader has achieved his aim of humbling the United States but warns his death could unleash "very, very nasty" attacks by militants, Rolling Stone magazine said. In a rambling interview conducted in part in a Damascus strip club, Omar bin Laden told the magazine that U.S. President Barack Obama was making a mistake by scaling up the U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan. "It is like adding water to sand, as we say in the Arab world -- it only makes the sand heavier," Rolling Stone quoted bin Laden as saying in the interview that will be on newsstands on Friday. "If I was in his position, the first thing I would do is make a truce. Then for six months or one year, no fighting, no soldiers. Afghanistan can never be won. It has nothing to do with my father. It is the Afghan people." Omar bin Laden shot to his own form of notoriety in 2007 when he married a British woman almost twice his age whom he allegedly met while on a ride to the Giza pyramids in Egypt. The two have since been denied entry to Qatar, Egypt and Britain, while Spain rejected an asylum request. Omar describes himself as one of 11 sons of bin Laden and has in the past detailed a bizarre childhood spent in jihadist camps in Sudan and Afghanistan among battle-hardened fighters who tested chemical weapons on puppies, among other things. He left his father in Afghanistan in 2001 several months before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Rolling Stone said Omar bin Laden was making a living as a scrap metal merchant in the Saudi city of Jeddah, compared himself to film star Mel Gibson and dreamed of working for the United Nations and meeting Obama and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Bin Laden said his father was overjoyed when U.S. voters elected George W. Bush in 2000, predicting that he was just the kind of president the United States needed -- "one who will attack and spend money and break the country." Despite the huge amount of money and effort spent hunting for bin Laden, believed by many intelligence analysts to be hiding in tribal areas on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, Omar bin Laden said he believed the United States was actually lucky that his father had not been killed. "It is going to be worse when my father dies. The world is going to be very, very nasty then. It is going to be a disaster," bin Laden said, adding his father had managed to head off more lunatic attack suggestions from his followers. "My father has a religious goal. He is controlled by the rules of jihad. He only kills if he thinks there is a need." And while he has not seen his father in almost a decade, Omar said he did not believe bin Laden would see a need to launch more big attacks. "He doesn't need to. As soon as America went to Afghanistan, his plan worked. He has already won," the magazine quoted him as saying. Reuters
 Taliban fighters have staged a series of attacks in the centre of Kabul, with gunfire and several explosions reported at locations across the Afghan capital. Early reports of the attacks, which began on Monday close to the presidential palace, said that at least four people had been killed and that several people had been injured. Farhad Paiker, an Afghan journalist, told Al Jazeera that the strikes had spread to other parts of the city. "A suicide bomber in a car came towards the foreign ministry. Security forces tried to stop it and it hit a shopping centre," he said. "It is really chaotic in the area." Later a car bomb exploded near another shopping centre, close to the education ministry. A security source was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that a suicide bomber had killed "several police and intelligence officials". The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying that 20 of their fighters were involved in the clashes. Afghan security forces have locked down the centre of the city. Nato's international forces were also reportedly helping to secure the area. "We can confirm that four suicide bombers have been killed," Zemarai Bashery, an interior ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera. He said that two of the attackers had taken refuge in a building and had been killed by security forces. Qais Azimy, Al Jazeera's Kabul producer, reporting about 200m from the secene of some of the fighting, said: "There are hundreds of Afghan army and police and intelligence officials present. Civilians have completely left the area. "It is a big question mark how they [the fighters] got so close to the presidential palace." David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent who was at the Serena Hotel surrounded by the fighting, said: "We've heard four large explosions very close to the hotel. I'm told the fighting is close to the presidential palace. "There is fierce gunfire very close to me ... a heavy gunfight going on at the moment. "It is extraordinary that security has been breached to this extent," he said, adding that it showed the Taliban could act at will. The Serena Hotel, which is frequented by foreign journalists, was reported to be on fire shortly after the attacks began. Chater said there had been recent warnings that opposition fighters had hijacked six armoured cars and were planning an attack on the capital. The attack appears to be the most co-orindinated offensive on the capital since the US-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban from power. But Afghan politicians insisted the Taliban attack held little significance. "They did attack any important ministry," Mir Ahmed Joyenda, an Afghan parliamentarian, told Al Jazeera. "It does not mean the Taliban is strong. It means they can not target military targets only the Afghan people. It means that they are weak." Even so, the attack comes at a sensitive time in Afghan politics with Hamid Karzai, the president, yet to finalise his cabinet after disputed elections. Chater said that the strikes will bring into question the credibility of Karzai's authority and the military strategy in Afghanistan of Barack Obama, the US president. Obama committed 30,000 extra troops to the country at the end of last year, to be focused on training local security forces, after much deliberation. The attack also comes ahead of the London Conference on Afghanistan hosted by the UK, UN and Afghanistan on January 28 on winning the conflict in the country. Al Jazeera
 A MOCKED-UP image of how Osama Bin Laden may look today has been withdrawn by the US State Department after the FBI admitted it was partly based on a photograph of a Spanish MP taken from the internet. The Photofit image of an older, greying Al-Qaeda leader bore a striking resemblance to the left-wing politician Gaspar Llamazares, a member of Spain’s Communist party and a critic of the US “war on terror”.
It turned out Llamazares’s grey hair, jaw line and forehead had been simply cut and pasted from an old campaign photograph by an FBI technician. The FBI originally claimed it used “cutting edge” technology to come up with new images of terrorist suspects for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice website. However, Ken Hoffman, an FBI spokesman, admitted yesterday that the agency had used a picture of Llamazares taken from Google Images to update the Photofit. He told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo: “The forensic artist was unable to find suitable features among the reference photographs and obtained those features, in part, from a photograph he found on the internet.” The US government had previously been using a 1998 photo of Bin Laden, including on a wanted poster that offered a reward of up to $25m (now worth £15m) for information leading to his capture or killing. Llamazares, former leader of the United Left party, was elected to Spain’s parliament in 2000. He said he would no longer feel safe travelling to the United States. “I was surprised and angered because it’s the most shameless use of a real person to make up the image of a terrorist,” he said. “It’s almost like out of a comedy, if it didn’t deal with matters as serious as Bin Laden and citizens’ security.” Llamazares intends to ask the US government for an explanation and is considering legal action. He said he has “no similarity, physically or ideologically, to Bin Laden”. They do share one trait: they are both 52. Bin Laden, who is wanted for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, is believed to be hiding in the lawless Pakistan frontier region bordering Afghanistan. His exact whereabouts have been unknown since late 2001, when he and some bodyguards slipped out of the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan, evading airstrikes, special forces and Afghan militias. Times Online
 Too much innocent blood has been spilled in the name of Islam. It is time the madness came to an end, writes Aijaz Zaka Syed* Terrorism, they say, is the weapon of the weak. But in our case it has become the weapon against the weak. The use of suicide is not something invented by Muslims. It's perhaps as old as homicide. Japan's harakiri comes to mind. But perhaps no people have suffered from it, and because of it, as much as Muslims have in recent years. So what drives a suicide bomber? And what kind of cause, however noble, makes you kill innocent people peacefully going about their day-to-day business -- people who haven't harmed anyone and pose no threat to anyone? And how can these faceless men, whatever their motives, ever think they would be forgiven, let alone rewarded, in the next life for their despicable acts against the defenceless? Is this what Islam really preaches and stands for? If not -- as we all know it doesn't -- why aren't our religious scholars, leaders and wise men raising a storm and doing more to stop these mad men bent on tarnishing the image of a noble faith and its billion plus followers? I have struggled with these questions every time innocent people are killed in a terror attack or suicide bombing. And these questions have been troubling me again since the mind- numbing attacks on a Muharram procession in Karachi and a volleyball match in Pakistan's north last week. The unparalleled scale of the attack on the Ashura procession in Karachi -- Pakistan's financial/commercial capital and political nerve centre -- has shaken a country that has long been used to daily mayhem of this kind. Nearly 50 people were killed and 500 injured in the Karachi attack. But more than the loss of lives, it is the devastation wreaked on the country's biggest city that day that will haunt Pakistan for a long time to come. Thousands of businesses, shops and commercial establishments were destroyed in no time, incurring losses worth billions of dollars. And the attack on the heavily attended volleyball match in the troubled Northwest killed 75 villagers, and left scores maimed. None of those watching the match or attending the Muharram procession had anything to do with the Western wars in Afghanistan-Pakistan or Iraq. They had no sympathy or affiliation whatsoever with the United States and the West. Then why have they been targeted? More importantly, what have the planners and perpetrators of these devastating attacks against unsuspecting bystanders achieved? But whoever said there is any higher purpose or noble objective behind all this madness? There's no method in the madness. This is an all-consuming monster that does not distinguish between friends and foes. In fact, paradoxical as it may sound, more Muslims than non-Muslims have been killed in macabre attacks carried out in the name of Islam. As regular readers would know, this humble hack has been doing his bit -- for what it's worth -- to question, critique and confront the big powers have been playing in the Middle East and Arab/Muslim world for centuries, and has gone to great lengths to point out repeatedly why US and Western policies are to blame for much of the mess you see in the Muslim world today, from Palestine to Pakistan. I have also religiously underscored the fact that groups like Al-Qaeda have been birthed and fuelled by Western double standards and unjust, callous policies in the Muslim world. And that even in the face of increasing threats from extremist groups and evidence of a clear link between cause and effect, the West has tenaciously refused to address, review and change its fundamental policies in the greater Middle East region. But that's another story altogether. Western actions cannot be an excuse for the kind of extremist violence that is being visited on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. Why are innocent people -- almost all of them Muslims -- being made to pay for Western policies and sins? And how does it help the "cause" of these so-called defenders of Islam when they target innocent Muslims, and non-Muslims for that matter? This death cult is the ultimate injustice and calumny against a faith that celebrates peace, reason, moderation and justice in all spheres. Why, Islam literally means peace! So what kind of Islam do these lunatics think they believe in when they send young, impressionable 13-year-olds who haven't even experienced what life is to die? The Karachi attack and the terror strike on the volleyball match are only the most recent instances of crimes committed in the name of a great faith. Pakistan's recent history, and that of the Middle East, is replete with such vile and craven crimes against humanity. Tens of thousands of innocent Muslims -- and non-Muslims -- have died in this mindless violence targeting bazaars, mosques, schools, hospitals... you name it. True, the self-styled "coalition of the willing" has visited a great deal of horror on Iraq and Afghanistan. But we are not any less injured by nihilists who kill and murder with impunity in our name. Let's face it: Some of the worst crimes against Muslims have been committed in the name of Islam by people who claim to be our defenders and champions. In fact, they are worse than the West because they pretend to be our friends and allies before they hunt us from within. If the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan are not our friends, the folks who live in our midst to kill us from within like a cancer are not our friends either. This is the reality Muslims have to confront, and confront it now, before it's too late. And this is the message we have to send across Muslim lands and around the world. I do not know how many people, especially Muslims, paid attention to this year's hajj sermon. Addressing the white sea of three million pilgrims from around the world in Mecca, and by extension the larger Muslim world, Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdel-Aziz Al-Sheikh used unusually strong language to draw attention to the issue that has become the bane of the Islamic world. While Islamic scholars, including those leading prayers at the most sacred mosque on the planet, have been talking about the growing cult of the suicide bomber and warning against extremism, this is the first time anyone has condemned the menace with such force and in such unequivocal terms.
Warning Muslims around the world against the extremists, the grand mufti termed the spectre of terror and suicide attacks as "the curse of Muslim lands". He singled out the extremism and the death cult of suicide attacks as the "most serious problem" facing the Muslim community today. This is the message that has to be taken far and wide with the force and conviction with which it was delivered. This is a matter of life and death, literally. Religious scholars, politicians, intellectuals, the media and ordinary Muslims have to come together, deploying all resources and means at their disposal to free ourselves of this stigma distorting the real, pristine image of Islam before the world. Too much innocent blood has been spilled and too many innocents have died in the name of our faith. It's time to say enough is enough! Please, not in our name! For God's sake, not in our name! * The writer is opinion editor of Khaleej Times . Al-Ahram Weekly
 by Lt.Col.Ralph Peters
Our terrorist enemies are out-thinking us. It’s not only embarrassing, but deadly. The Taliban’s latest innovation was on display again last week, when a suicide bomber, reportedly garbed in an Afghan army uniform, killed seven Americans, including a CIA mission chief. The terrorists are “inside the wire.” Everywhere. From eastern Afghanistan to Texas. And we’re stalled. For all of our wealth, technology and power, our enemies have the strategic and psychological initiative. The low-tech nature of most reported combat in our recent conflicts obscures the advent of four powerful innovations in warfare. Unfortunately, three of those revolutionary techniques belong to our enemies. The single breakthrough we’ve exploited has been Unmanned Aerial Vehicles — UAVs, commonly known as “drones.” They’re a terrific stand-off targeting tool. Our enemies, though, have mastered new forms of the tactical fight — with strategic effects. They still lose every classic firefight, but they are pioneering the means to win without directly confronting our combat troops. The first terrorist and insurgent innovation of this conflict era was the bulk employment of suicide bombers, dirt-cheap weapons with a high probability of success — the poor man’s precision arsenal. Their second innovation was another cheap-but-powerful tool, the Improvised Explosive Device, the IED or roadside bomb. We still can’t beat it. Then, over the last year or so, we’ve seen the ever more frequent use of their most insidious psychological weapon: the suicide assassin disguised as “one of ours.” This is an anti-morale nuke. Our linchpin effort in Afghanistan is the development of Afghan security forces. (The Obama Doctrine: “When they stand up, we’ll run like hell.”) And building up the Afghan army and police relies on trust between our trainers and advisers and “their” Afghans — as well as between Afghans themselves. Last year, we saw incident after incident in which a Taliban cadre within the Afghan security forces gunned down our officers at meetings (the Brits took a really bad hit), turned their weapons on our combat troops or, most devastatingly, blew themselves up when we embraced them as comrades. Don’t let this weapon’s low-tech nature fool you. This is the big one. President Obama’s desperate “strategy” for Afghanistan relies on building trust — between Afghans and their government, but above all on the security front. Our enemies have done what we refuse to do. They’ve analyzed the problem objectively and engineered ruthless solutions. And we won’t even block their Internet sites. We make up fairy tales about the power of development projects to deter religious fanatics. We impose rules of engagement on our troops that protect our enemies. We ground our air power. We grant terrorists “legal” rights with no basis in existing law. And our enemies do whatever it takes to win. I want to see every one of those enemies dead. But I have to acknowledge their commitment, their maddened courage and their genius at waging war for peanuts. Our troops in the field know all too well what a self-imposed mess we’re in. But the gulf between our grunts and their generals is immense and growing wider. It’s a (literally) bloody disgrace that our ragtag enemies innovate faster and more effectively than our armed forces and the legion of overpaid contractors behind them. They ask themselves, “What works?” We ask ourselves what the lawyers will say. The crucial difference? Our enemies believe in victory, even if we don’t. Exile Street
 A suspected US drone attack has killed at least 18 people and injured 14 others in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt, near the Afghan border, security officials say. The attack took place in Pasalkot village in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked fighters. Two missiles were fired at a compound on Thursday, where Hakimullah Mehsud, (pictured), the Pakistani Taliban chief, was believed to have been. "We had information that he was around there. We're checking on whether he was killed," a Pakistani security official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters news agency. However, a Taliban spokesman told Pakistan's Dawn TV that Mehsud was safe and had left minutes before the assault. Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said the US were likely to view the operations as a "huge success". "The use of drone strikes in Pakistan is highly controversial but there's no sign of the Americans stopping them any time soon," he said. "They will regard this latest operation as a huge success - targeting and killing what they say were a number of militants." Mehsud took over as leader of the Pakistani Taliban five months ago, after Baitullah Mehsud, his predecessor, was killed in a similar US drone attack. The US has increased drone attacks in Waziristan since a suicide bomber crossed over Pakistan's border and killed seven CIA employees in an attack in eastern Afghanistan on December 30. A video was later released showing Hakimullah Mehsud sitting beside the CIA bomber, a Jordanian double agent, creating the impression that his group played a major role in the second biggest attack on the CIA in its history. The attack was the seventh suspected US missile assault in the tribal district this month. North Waziristan houses Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters as well as members of the Haqqani network, a powerful group known for staging attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan. The US government has called on Islamabad to step up its efforts against Taliban- and al-Qaeda-linked fighters who cross over into Afghanistan. The Pakistani army recently completed an offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan, which borders North Waziristan. Al Jazeera
 Six people were killed Tuesday in southern Afghanistan, where protesters claiming that international troops destroyed copies of the Koran clashed with Afghan and foreign security forces, Afghan officials said. Also in the south, 13 insurgents were killed by a missile that international forces fired from an unmanned drone, NATO said. A protest of about 2,000 people in Helmand province's Garmsir district turned violent as demonstrators fought with security forces, leaving six civilians dead, according to the top official in the province, Abdullah Barak. Provincial spokesman Daoud Ahmadi confirmed six dead but did not say if they were civilians. NATO said only one person was killed during the protest — an insurgent sniper who allegedly shot at an Afghan official and was killed by NATO troops. A NATO spokesman denied that the foreign troops desecrated any copies of Islam's holy book in Sunday's operation with Afghan forces in Garmsir. Lt. Nico Melendez said no shots were fired, and no property was damaged. "We take such allegations very seriously and would support a combined investigation with local Afghan authorities," he said. Afghanistan is a Muslim nation where blasphemy of Muhammad and the Koran is considered a serious crime that is punishable by death. Similar allegations that U.S. troops desecrated the Koran during an operation in October in Wardak province also sparked protests. U.S. and Afghan authorities denied the allegation, insisting that the Taliban are spreading the rumor to stir up public anger. Tensions have intensified in southern Afghanistan as U.S. and other foreign troops step up their efforts to rout the Taliban. Coalition troops saw a group of insurgents near a safe house preparing ammunition as well as insurgent mortar teams moving equipment in the Naw Zad area of Helmand province, NATO said. The international force launched one missile, killing the 13 militants. On Monday, another missile fired from an unmanned aircraft killed three insurgents farther south in the Nad Ali district of Helmand, according to NATO. Drone attacks are widely associated with the fight against al-Qaida and its allies in neighboring Pakistan, where the unmanned aircraft are used to go after militants in areas where U.S. troops are banned from entering. But a NATO spokesman said the aircraft are also regularly used in Afghanistan. "The use of drones is routine and drone strikes are something that we're able to rely upon when we need them," Lt. Nico Melendez said, adding that their use has not increased or decreased in recent months. Melendez said drones are used in Afghanistan for reconnaissance, aerial monitoring and for attacks. In the south-central part of the country, a member of the Afghan National Police was killed and two others were wounded in a suicide attack Monday evening at a police station in Uruzgan province, police chief Juma Gul Hamit said. The suicide bomber detonated his cache of explosives near the gate of the police chief's office in Dihrawud district. Hamit said the attacker tried to enter the office where a meeting was under way. Although wounded by police, the bomber detonated his explosive vest, killing the one policeman and injuring the two others who kept him from going inside. In Paris, meanwhile, the French military said an army captain died Tuesday of wounds suffered a day before during an insurgent ambush in the Alasay valley east of Kabul. Another French soldier was killed instantly in the same ambush. Both casualties were with a joint Afghan and French army patrol that was attacked by small arms fire in a village market place. France has some 3,500 troops with NATO in Afghanistan. It has lost 38 men in Afghanistan since 2001. FoxNews
 IN terms of loss of life, the bombing of the CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, may be the most costly mistake in the agency's history. So it's important to look carefully for clues about how it happened, and lessons for the future. CIA veterans cite a series of warning signs that the agency wasn't paying enough attention to the counter-intelligence threat posed by al-Qa'ida. These danger signals weren't addressed because the agency underestimated its adversary and overestimated its own skills and those of its allies. The time to fix these problems is now, not with a spasm of second-guessing that will further weaken the CIA but through the agency's adaptation to this war zone. As the Khost attack made painfully clear, the CIA needs better tradecraft for this conflict. By getting a suicide bomber inside a CIA base, the al-Qa'ida network showed that it remains a sophisticated adversary despite intense pressure from CIA Predator attacks. This shouldn't have been a surprise: CIA sources say that during the past year, two al-Qa'ida allies in Afghanistan - the Haqqani and Hekmatyar networks - have run double-agent operations. That tactic succeeded disastrously in Khost on December 30, when the CIA's defences were penetrated by a Jordanian doctor posing as an informant for the Jordanian intelligence service. Why wasn't the Jordanian debriefed outside the base, or thoroughly searched when he arrived, given the danger he might have been turned by al-Qa'ida? Did the CIA trust its Jordanian ally too much? Those basic questions need answers. The Haqqani and Hekmatyar double agents were uncovered last year through polygraphs and other means, but agency insiders argue that these cases should have prompted tougher countermeasures. Both the Haqqani and Hekmatyar groups have their own intelligence units, and their operatives were expertly trained in the 1980s by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate. Muslim extremists are using increasingly sophisticated tools, sometimes the very techniques deployed against them. One example is the software used by Hezbollah to analyse patterns of mobile phone calls and expose an Israeli spy network in Lebanon last year. Iran uses sophisticated pattern analysis to study which of its nuclear scientists might have been recruited by the West. Despite this growing threat, the CIA has devoted only limited resources to defending itself. Within its large Kabul station, the CIA is said to have just two officers working full time on counter-intelligence. There's a similar lack of resources devoted to Pakistani operations against the agency. The 2004 intelligence reorganisation added more layering and bureaucracy but not more muscle. It created a new National Counterintelligence Executive, but this group has focused on traditional targets such as Russia and China rather than new ones. "What good is it?" asks one CIA counter-terrorism veteran. "It's overhead. It contributes little, other than additional tasking and more meetings." The CIA's career track is another troubling part of the problem. The complex penetration and deception operations that could counter al-Qa'ida take time and patience. But agency operations mirror the short, two-year tours of assignment, or the even shorter deployments to war zones. "We live in two-year cycles," says one insider. The rational careerist looks at a penetration or deception plan and concludes: "It's too time-consuming, it won't get me promoted." What's most troubling is that during the past year the CIA has had what this source calls "egregious lapses of counter-intelligence and security at the bases in Afghanistan". Evidence of sloppy procedures is said to have surfaced last late last year at one of the agency's bases in southern Afghanistan. One of its vehicles was stolen but headquarters wasn't notified for several weeks. Someone was caught photographing the entry gate to the base, but he was initially turned over to the Afghan police rather than to agency operatives. An Afghan guard failed a polygraph, raising worries that he might be a double agent. Yet aggressive countermeasures weren't taken. A final obvious problem is training. Case officers need more preparation for high-threat meetings and paramilitary challenges than they're getting. After any calamity, there are always haunting what-ifs. But looking in the rear-view mirror isn't going to make the CIA any stronger or better. The Khost attack shows that al-Qa'ida's network, though badly wounded, remains a wily and resourceful foe. The inescapable conclusion is that the CIA and its allies need to lift their game. David Ignatius is a columnist with The Washington Post. The Australian
Gingrich: "Where In The Muslim World Have We Seen Any Battle Cry ... To Condemn? Where Is The Condemnation? At What Point Do You Have To Say 'Enough?" Everyone must watch this! I think this may be the best speech I have ever seen, by any politician, on the threat we face from Islam.
Former Republican congressional leader Newt Gingrich discusses the war on terror at the National Press Club. Still very much applicable.
 U.S. intelligence officials believe that the homicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan last month was planned with the help of Usama bin Laden's close allies, raising fears that the Al Qaeda leader is enjoying a lethal resurgence. Authorities believe that the attack could not have taken place without the prior knowledge and assistance of the Haqqanis, the powerful Taliban group thought to be shielding bin Laden. The attack was carried out by a Jordanian doctor whom the CIA believed was about to divulge the whereabouts of bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
It is one of the deadliest blows against the CIA and has increased tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan because of Islamabad’s repeated failure to target the Haqqanis. The Haqqanis control a large block of territory on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border near the Afghan town of Khost, a Taliban hotbed near where the CIA officials were killed on December 30. It is also where the U.S. believes bin Laden is hiding. One former CIA officer, who did not wish to be named, told The Times of London that the agency had taped evidence of a Pakistani army officer tipping the Haqqanis off about a raid and a member of Pakistan's intelligence service boasting that the "Haqqanis are our guys." Pakistan has ignored U.S. demands to target the strongholds of the Haqqanis’ leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose father, Jalaluddin, founded the network and was a Mujahidin commander and ally of the U.S. during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The network is said to be behind several audacious attacks, including the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008. Continue reading at The Times of London FoxNews
 AL-QAEDA said the suicide bombing at a US base in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA agents was "revenge" for the deaths of top militants in US drone strikes in Pakistan. A Jordanian identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who was said to be a triple agent, blew himself up at the base in Khost on December 30 in the deadliest attack against the CIA since 1983. The head of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said the bomber wrote in his will that the attack was revenge for "our righteous martyrs" and named a number of top militants killed in US drone attacks, US monitoring group SITE reported. These included Baitullah Mehsud, (pictured) the leader of Pakistan's Taliban blamed for a wave of deadly attacks including the killing of former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Mehsud was killed when a US missile slammed into his father-in-law's house in August last year. The al-Qaeda statement surfaced after another round of US drone strikes left 11 militants dead near Pakistan's Afghan border yesterday. Attacks by unmanned US spy planes have soared in the past year, with Washington determined to wipe out militant sanctuaries while the extremists have vowed fierce retaliation. The Australian
 No virgins for you, guys -- to get them you have to kill and be killed for Allah (Qur'an 9:111). Not just "be killed." Premature Detonation Alert: "14 terror suspects mistakenly kill themselves," from CNN, January 6 Kabul, Afghanistan -- Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said. The explosion occurred as the suspects were riding the bus in the province of Kunduz, said police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqobi. Yaqobi said the suspects wanted to attack Afghan police or foreign soldiers. With thanks to JihadWatch
 by Alan Caruba The failed Christmas bomber attack was yet another wake-up call for Americans who have slipped into a self-induced coma regarding Islam’s constant threat to the nation and the West. Despite the post-9/11 attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush and now President Obama have both repeatedly asserted the absurd notion that Islam is “a religion of peace.”
It is, in fact, a religion of conquest and one in which the religion and the state are one. To live in a Muslim nation is to live under Sharia law in which conversion to another religion is punished by death. “When Asia Was the World” by Stewart Gordon is an interesting book about life in Asia during the years 500 to 1500 of the Common Era. “Buddhism and Islam arose and spread along Asia’s far-flung trade routes. So did luxury goods, such as silk, pearls, spices, medicines, glass, and simple things like rice and sugar.” “Two centuries before Ibn Fadlan traveled (921-922 CE) through this region, the overall borders of the Muslim world had been set in one of the fastest, broadest conquests in human history.” “Between 630 CE and 680 CE, Islamic armies swept north from Mecca across what is present-day Jordan, Palestine, and Syria and east across Iraq, then fought in Persia and attacked south into Yemen. By 720 CE, Muslim armies had successfully attacked Egypt, North Africa, and Spain and had conquered several caravan cities, Samarkand, Tashkent, Bukhara and Khwarizm. There, however, the conquest stopped.” As the memoir of Ibn Battula (1325-1356 CE) revealed, “Every king was surrounded by rivals, factions, squabbling nobles, and a necessary but unwieldy bureaucracy. Kings particularly wanted to know about the successful strategies, symbols, and ceremonies in other courts.” In other words, the worlds of these early kings was no safer than our own today when Western leaders must maintain vast intelligence gathering agencies to know what is being plotted in the Middle East and everywhere else in the world. It is therefore essential for America to be led by a President who understands the threat posed by Islam in general and by al Qaeda’s network in particular, but in contrast to that we have a President who intends to close the Guantanamo detention center for non-state enemy combatants, extend the protections of the U.S. Constitution to admitted terrorists given civil trials instead of military tribunals, and was slow to respond to the Fort Hood murders and the Christmas day attempted airliner bombing. On such events and attitudes does the safety and fate of the nation hangs. It is therefore vital that we pay attention to the voices of those who understand that history turns on winners and losers. “The greatest advantage our opponents enjoy,” writes Ralph Peters,”is an uncompromising strength of will, their readiness to ‘pay any price and bear any burden’ to hurt and humble us. As our enemies’ view of what is permissible in war expands apocalyptically, our self-limiting definitions of allowable targets and acceptable casualties, hostile, civilian and our own, continue to narrow fatefully.” Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer, a journalist who has reported from various war zones, is widely traveled, and an author of 24 books. He is quintessentially politically incorrect. Among the obstacles facing the present generation of Americans, as Peters sees them, are (1) “we simply do not feel endangered”, (2) American’s “collective memory has effectively erased the European-inspired horrors of the last century”, (3) “ending the draft resulted in a superb military, but an unknowing, detached population’, (4) Americans have come to believe in a “catechism of bloodless war”, and (5) “we have become largely a white-collar, suburban society in which a child’s bloody nose is no longer a routine part of growing up, but grounds for a lawsuit.” Americans who passed through our nation’s schools since the 1960s have been neutered because, as Peters notes, “History is no longer taught as a serious subject. As a result, politicians lack perspective; journalists lack meaningful touchstones; and the average person’s sense of warfare has been redefined by media entertainments in which misery, if introduced, is brief.” “We have cheapened the idea of war,” says Peters, forgetting or never knowing the price paid by previous generations to defend the nation and its principles. “More Americans died in one afternoon at Cold Harbor during our Civil War than died in six years in Iraq. Three times as many American troops fell during the morning of June 6, 1944 (D-Day) as have been lost in combat in over seven years in Afghanistan.” While President Obama cited Gandhi in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Peters points out that “Gandhi would not have survived very long in Nazi Germany.” The President made a case for the necessity of some wars, but returned home to spend three months making up his mind to increase our troop presence in Afghanistan and to then tell the enemy that they would be gone in eighteen months. That is astonishingly stupid and reveals the chasm that exists between Obama’s first year in office and the nearly eight years under George W. Bush in which America was spared another attack. “The problem is religion,” says Peters. “Our Islamist enemies are inspired by it, while we are terrified even to talk about it.” History teaches us that Islam has long since plunged those parts of the world over which it holds sway into centuries of backwardness while Europe and the New World grew in power, innovation, and dominance. My view is that Islam is literally fighting for its life despite the more than a billion who subscribe to it. Far from its earliest years when it championed intellectual inquiry, it now holds desperately to the most primitive control over the lives of its adherents and cannot expect a Reformation such as took place in Christianity. The wars to defeat it will take a long time, cost many lives, and be worth every dollar and every casualty. CFP
 WASHINGTON: Before detonating a suicide bomb in Afghanistan last week, a Jordanian militant was considered by American spy agencies as the most promising informant in years about the whereabouts of al-Qa'ida's top leaders. US intelligence officials told The New York Times they had been so hopeful about what the Jordanian might deliver during a meeting with CIA officials at a remote base in Khost that top officials at the agency and the White House had been informed the gathering would take place. Instead, the Jordanian double-agent blew himself up, killing seven CIA operatives. The Jordanian militant for months had been feeding a stream of information about lower-ranking al-Qa'ida operatives to his Jordanian supervisor, Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid, to establish his credibility and apparently to help broker a meeting with CIA operatives in Afghanistan. The Americans believed he might provide them with leads to Ayman al-Zawahri, the terrorist group's second-ranking operative. Jordanian officials said the GID detained and interrogated Balawi about a year ago because of concerns he was tied to al-Qa'ida. The GID subsequently released Balawi after concluding he'd become a loyal covert asset of the agency, the officials said. Balawi, who was living in Pakistan, began contacting the GID by email and passing on "credible" information about al-Qa'ida leaders and plots against Jordan, the US and other Western allies, the officials said. The GID turned the information over to the CIA and other Western governments, which maintain close ties to the Jordanian intelligence agency, they said. US intelligence officials are working to verify their belief the double-agent was working with al-Qa'ida. The meeting at the CIA base, one official said, was about "important people" in al-Qa'ida. "It was the most promising lead" the agency had, the official said. "If you've got promising leads brought to you by your friends, coupled with information that checked out . . . It was the agency's duty to meet with this person". The agency has not yet had a chance to do a full review of what happened, but questions it seeks to answer include why the bomber was allowed on to the compound without being checked and why so many officers were near the bomber at the time of the explosion. Jordanian officials said they expected a team of CIA investigators to visit Amman in coming days to seek information about Balawi and the circumstances surrounding the attack. A staunch Western ally in the Middle East, Jordan has long had one of the most effective intelligence operations in the Arab world. But the suicide bombing severely embarrassed Amman, and raises questions over Jordan's vaunted role in helping Western intelligence agencies identify and track down Islamist terrorists. Jordan's GID was set up in 1964 and has built up a reputation for ruthless efficiency at home and abroad. Keeping a very tight grip on internal security and briefing the government on opposition movements within the kingdom, it has forestalled or intercepted several plots to destabilise the country during the 10-year reign of King Abdullah II and his father. Its role overseas is of growing importance and is the key to Western attempts to penetrate Arab jihadist networks. The Australian
 WASHINGTON: The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordan-born terrorist double-agent who had been invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden's second-in-command. The bomber had been recruited by the Jordanian intelligence service and taken to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qa'ida by posing as a foreign jihadi, US officials said. The attacker, a physician-turned-mole, had been recruited to infiltrate al-Qa'ida's senior circles and had gained the trust of his CIA and Jordanian handlers with a stream of useful intelligence leads, two former senior officials briefed on the agency's internal investigation told The Washington Post. His track record as an informant apparently allowed him to enter a key CIA post without a thorough search, the sources said. An Afghan security official identified the bomber as Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, also known as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed Balawi was the bomber, Arabic-language websites reported. The bomber appears to have been invited to an operational planning meeting on al-Qa'ida, a former senior US intelligence official said. "It looks like an al-Qa'ida double-agent," the former official said. "It's very sophisticated for a terrorist group that's supposedly on the run." The blast on December 30 killed four CIA officers, including the Khost base chief; three CIA contractors; and Mr bin Zeid, officials said. Six CIA employees were wounded in the attack. The Al Jazeera television network reported the bomber had initially been recruited to provide intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri. The CIA's deputy chief of station from Kabul travelled to the meeting at the CIA Khost base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, according to former intelligence officials, pointing to the meeting's importance. The officer was wounded in the attack, according to informed sources. Both the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack. The Afghan Taliban fights alongside an array of militants, including the Haqqani network, an Islamic extremist group that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan and maintains close ties to al-Qa'ida. The US and Jordanian intelligence services have worked closely together for years, said a former senior intelligence official. "There's a confidence level with them," the former official said. Officials said Balawi had been jointly managed by US and Jordanian agencies and had provided "actionable intelligence" over several weeks of undercover work along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. "This is someone they obviously trusted very, very much," a former official said. Balawi was an active recruiter and an "elite writer" on al-Qa'ida's password-protected al-Hisba website, where he went by the name Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, according to the journal of the US Military Academy at West Point's Combating Terrorism Centre. In a posting on the site in May 2007, Balawi sought to persuade people from a variety of backgrounds, including African-Americans, Native Americans, Vietnamese and poor immigrants, to join the fight against their "oppressor", the US, the West Point analysts found. Balawi had studied medicine in Turkey with government funding, according to a translation of the Jordanian website Jerasa News by the Middle East Media Research Institute. He left Jordan about a year ago after being detained for a few months by Jordanian intelligence officers.
The Australian
 SUSPECTED Taliban militants have kidnapped two French journalists working for France's public television broadcaster and three Afghan companions in the east of the war-torn country, a colleague says. Gunmen snatched the group as they were travelling about 60km from the Afghan capital, a French journalist working with them said. Criminal groups and Taliban insurgents have kidnapped several dozen foreigners, many of them journalists, since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime in Kabul, sparking a nine-year insurgency. "The two journalists, accompanied by their Afghan translator, and the translator's brother and cousin, were kidnapped on the road between Surobi and Tagab," their French colleague said. She blamed the kidnapping on the Taliban, saying they had laid an ambush for the group in Kapisa province. French defence minister Herve Morin, who was visiting French troops in Afghanistan to mark the New Year, confirmed only that the journalists had been missing since Wednesday. "We can't rule out any hypothesis and are doing everything to make contact with them." The journalists' employer, public broadcaster France Televisions, did not formally confirm their abduction. "We have had no news of them for 48 hours," said Paul Nahon, director of documentaries. The journalist and cameraman had been working on a documentary for about two weeks, he said. French troops deployed in Kapisa have launched a manhunt for the five. The Australian
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AN American company says it will stop adding biblical references to the so-called Jesus sights for rifles used by Australian soldiers. 
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