A 66-YEAR-OLD Frenchman has been jailed in Abu Dhabi after making a bomb joke on a plane, the French foreign ministry said today. Pensioner Jean-Louis Lioret, who was flying to Bangkok from Paris on Etihad Airways, was arrested after cabin crew overheard him using the word bomb in an exchange with his co-passenger, his brother Michel Lioret said. During a stopover at Abu Dhabi, Lioret's neighbour asked him to keep a packet on the other seat next to him as it was empty. Lioret's jocular "I hope it's not a bomb" was overheard and sent off alarm bells. He was taken off the plane and grilled by police and then jailed. He was also informed that the packet contained cigarettes and not a bomb. The French foreign ministry said it was informed of the arrest and was following the case closely. The Australian
A MAN linked to a former New York food-cart worker now charged in an al-Qaeda bomb plot crashed his car while fleeing investigators. The New York Post reported today a source said Adis Medunjanin, who is on the US government's no-fly terror watch list, made a dash yesterday from the home that investigators have been watching for months. The investigators pursued him, but 25-year-old Medunjanin, a Bosnian immigrant who reportedly accompanied alleged terror bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi on a trip to Pakistan in 2008, sped off down a major freeway. Earlier in the day, the feds had picked up his passport for reasons that remain unclear, sources said. Near Manhattan's 20th Avenue, Medunjanin crashed into another car and tried to run away, but FBI agents tackled him, sources said. "We are getting a disgraceful runaround by law enforcement," said Medunjanin's attorney Robert Gottlieb, who denied his client was on a watchlist. "He's not a terrorist. If he's on the list, they've got the wrong person," he said. A source said it was unlikely Medunjanin would be charged with leaving the scene of an accident. News.Com
Yemeni police have captured an al-Qaeda commander said to be behind the security threats that resulted in the closure of foreign embassies, officials say. Mohammed al-Hanq had evaded arrest on Monday during a raid by security forces in Arhab, 40km north of Sanaa, in which two of his relatives were killed and three other people wounded. "Mohammed al-Hanq and two others who were wounded were captured in a hospital in Amran [province], north of Sanaa," the official told the AFP news agency on Wednesday. They were found in a hospital in Reedah, in Amran, he said. The US embassy, which had closed for two days due to security concerns over an al-Qaeda threat, cited "successful" security operations north of the capital as it reopened on Tuesday. The British and French embassies, which also closed their doors, resumed operations on Wednesday. The French embassy remained closed to the public on Wednesday but the ambassador and staff reported for duty. The French foreign ministry announced the move on Tuesday night, saying: "We decided on the closure as a security measure after threats made public by known terrorist groups." Concerns that Yemen, a country on the southern tip of the Arabian peninsula, has become a haven for armed groups were thrown into sharp focus when a Nigerian man allegedly trained in Yemen was charged with trying to blow up a US-bound jet. The botched Christmas Day attack was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which also urged attacks on Western interests in Yemen. In the wake of the failed attack, General David Petraeus, the US regional military commander, travelled to Sanaa for talks with Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president. At the same time, Yemen sent army reinforcements to the eastern provinces of Abyan, Bayada and Shawba, where al-Qaeda fighters have hideouts, and raised the alert level in those regions. Al Jazeera 
A SECOND Nigerian man has been taken into custody after an incident on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. The man, aged in his 30s, barricaded himself in the bathroom on Delta/Northwest Airlines flight 253 for an hour, sources have told Fox News in the US. The plane landed safely and the man was arrested. It is the same route, airline and flight number as that on which another Nigerian man allegedly tried to set off explosives on Christmas Day. Delta spokeswoman Susan Elliott has said a man was 'verbally disruptive' which caused flight crew to request law enforcement meet the aircraft upon landing. Two Sources told Fox News that the man boarded a plane in Lagos, Nigeria with no baggage.
Fox News also reported that federal authorities know who the man is, but have declined to release any information about him or whether he is connected to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has been charged over the Christmas Day alleged terror attempt. The Australian
 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown telephoned Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni on Wednesday and told her he strongly opposes the arrest warrant issued against her by a British court earlier this week. According to a statement issued by the Kadima leader, Brown said that Livni was "most welcome" in Britain at any time and that he planned to work to change the current legal situation. Livni clarified that there was a need to immediately repair the situation created, not for herself, "but for each and every decision maker, commander and soldier in Israel and worldwide, who are forced to fight terror." Livni addressed the issue during her meeting Wednesday with Lithuanian Foreign Minister Vyagaudas Usackas. "Israel is dealing today with a matter which must bother every democracy in the world, and especially the NATO members – the phenomenon of abusing legal systems and filing lawsuits against Israeli officials and IDF soldiers," she said. "This is not a new phenomenon of the past few days, and in many aspects this is not a personal lawsuit against me or against the State of Israel, but a lawsuit against every democratic country fighting terror. Those terrorists must be sued, not the people fighting against them. This is a challenge shared by the entire free world, not just Israel or Britain." On Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband met with Israeli Ambassador to the UK Ron Prosor, and said the British government would act with expediency to change the insufferable situation caused by the issuing of a warrant for the Opposition leader's arrest. Miliband spoke with both Livni and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and said he and British Ministry of Public Security officials were "shocked" to learn of the warrant. Relaying a message via the British Embassy in Israel, Miliband stressed that London sees Jerusalem as "a strategic partner and a close friend of the UK. We are determined to protect and develop these ties. Israeli leaders – like leaders from other countries - must be able to visit and have a proper dialogue with the British Government. "The procedure by which arrest warrants can be sought and issued without any prior knowledge or advice by a prosecutor is an unusual feature of the system in England and Wales. The Government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed in order to avoid this sort of situation arising again," he said. The Guardian newspaper reported Monday that a warrant for Livni's arrest had been issued by a British court, but was rescinded once it was discovered that she was not in the country. The warrant was issued following a complaint that the former foreign minister had been responsible for war crimes during the Israeli operation in Gaza about a year ago. Livni was scheduled to travel to the UK on Sunday but canceled her trip at the last minute. The Guardian reported that the Westminster Magistrate's Court issued the warrant at the request of pro-Palestinian activists, but it was later withdrawn. The attorneys who appealed for the warrant had apparently not been informed of Livni's cancellation. YNet 
THE Philippines announced today one of the co-founders of the Abu Sayyaf extremist group had been arrested after being detained at Jakarta airport using a false passport. Indonesian authorities picked up Abdul Basir Latip at Jakarta airport on November 21, but he was only brought back to Manila on Wednesday, said Philippine National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) spokesman Ricardo Diaz. He is accused of serving as a conduit of funds between al-Qaeda leaders in Saudi Arabia and the Abu Sayyaf, a local Muslim extremist group blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history, said Diaz. ``His involvement was not as a fighter but as a finance officer and the conduit for al-Qaeda to facilitate transfer of funds to the ASG (Abu Sayyaf group),'' said Diaz. The United States is also seeking Latip's extradition for the Abu Sayyaf's kidnapping of American missionary Charles Walton in the southern Philippines in 1993, Diaz added. Latip, who was allowed to speak with reporters after arriving in Manila, denied any direct links to the Abu Sayyaf. ``I was not a member of the ASG but I am a close friend of Janjalani,'' he said. Latip said he was returning home to the Philippines from Jordan when he was detained during a stopover at Jakarta. The Australian 
JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities have arrested a Jewish-American extremist suspected of carrying out a series of high-profile hate crimes against Arabs, peace activists and a breakaway Jewish sect. Israel's Shin Bet security service says Jack Teitel, a 37-year-old ultra-Orthodox West Bank settler, is behind the attacks, spanning 12 years. Police and security forces said Sunday that Teitel's targets included the murder of two Arabs and bombing attacks against a prominent left-wing academic, a family of messianic Jews, a monastery and Israeli police, whom he accused of begin pro-gay. Authorities originally suspected a Jewish underground for some of the attacks. But acquaintances described the father of four as a lone wolf, and authorities say he acted alone. Source: FoxNews
LUXOR, Egypt — Egyptian police say they have arrested a woman who had claimed she was kidnapped together with her young female cousin in hopes of bilking relatives out of the $55,000 ransom. Brigadier el-Shafei Mohammed Hassan, chief investigator in the southern city of Luxor, told reporters Sunday that the 20-year-old woman had come up with the kidnapping scheme with her father to extract the money from the wealthy parents of her 4-year-old cousin. They wanted the money to help out her father and pay for her wedding plans. Hassan said the woman was arrested in downtown Cairo and she led police to where the young girl was being kept. Kidnapping for ransom is uncommon in Egypt. But hundreds of people go missing every year, and many of the cases go unsolved. Source: FoxNews
GENEVA — A nuclear physicist working at the world's largest atom smasher has been arrested on suspicion of links to the Algerian branch of Al Qaeda, another blow to a project that has been plagued by glitches and was shut down after a massive electrical failure a year ago. The scientist, arrested in France, is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda's North African offshoot, which has carried out a deadly campaign against security forces in recent months, a French official said Friday. The judicial official said the suspect was one of two brothers arrested Thursday in southeastern French city of Vienne. The official spoke anonymously because the case is ongoing. The scientist has been assigned to analysis projects at the laboratory since 2003, and was one of more than 7,000 scientists working on the Large Hadron Collider, the world's largest atom smasher, said the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN. The physicist had no contact with anything that could be used for terrorism, it said. "None of our research has potential for military application, and all our results are published openly in the public domain," the organization said. The LHCb experiment where he worked is the smallest of a series of installations along the 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border. Read more here,,,, Source: FoxNews 
Heroin bags were found hidden in the pages of the KoranAugust 20 A man and his mother-in-law have been arrested for attempting to smuggle thousands of pounds worth of heroin concealed within a copy of the Koran.Custom officials at Jakarta's international airport seized the book, the religious text of Islam, as it arrived by DHL express mail delivery from Cambodia on Tuesday. Their suspicions were raised when a routine X-ray of the parcel exposed a series of holes in the book. A closer inspection revealed 60 grams of heroin secreted in four small plastic bags near its front and back covers. Police valued the hoard at 600 million rupiah, or £35,000. Maman Sulaeman, head of customs at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, said an Indonesian man was arrested soon after the discovery. "He claimed that he was just a courier and that he did not know the contents of the package," Mr Sulaeman said. The suspect's mother-in-law, thought to be an accomplice, was also apprehended. The pair, from Jakarta, are now being held by the Indonesian National Police. Under the country's tough narcotics law, they could be sentenced to death if found guilty of attempted drugs smuggling. Source: Sky NewsH/T: JihadWatch
 From correspondents in Jakarta, Indonesia | August 19A MAN believed to be from Saudi Arabia has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling money used to finance last month's deadly Jakarta hotel attacks, Indonesian police said today.Police spokesman Nanan Soekarna said the man, identified only as Ali, had been arrested recently as part of the investigation into who funded the July 17 attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels that killed nine people. Another man identified only as Iwan also had been detained for questioning over his suspected links to the network of Malaysian Islamist extremist Noordin Mohammed Top, the alleged mastermind of the attack. "Ali and Iwan are still being questioned by our team to prove their links with another country and with the financing,'' Mr Soekarna said. "Ali is believed to be a Saudi Arabian national.'' Analysts have said that if the funding for the attacks came from abroad, a likely source would be al-Qaeda. But police have not confirmed any connection between the hotel blasts and Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's organisation. Al-Qaeda has allegedly financed previous suicide attacks in Indonesia including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, and Noordin's first major operation, a 2003 truck bombing of the Jakarta Marriott that killed 12. Noordin, 41, leads a splinter group of the Jemaah Islamiyah terror network, which aims to create a regional Islamic caliphate. He is Indonesia's most-wanted man and is blamed for a series of attacks against Westerners in the mainly Muslim country that have killed around 50 people and wounded hundreds. DNA tests showed that a suspect killed in an August 8 raid on a militant hideout was not Noordin as initially reported, police said last week. Source: The Australian
 ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities last night arrested pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad, who brokered a now-failed peace deal between the government and militants in the Swat Valley. Mian Iftikhar, the Information Minister for the North West Frontier Province, said police arrested Mohammad in Peshawar for speaking against the government and encouraging violence and terrorism. "Instead of keeping his promises by taking steps for the sake of peace, and speaking out against terrorism, he did not utter a single word against terrorists," Mr Iftikhar said. He said that the cleric's stance "encouraged terrorism, it encouraged violence". The cleric negotiated a deal with the government in February that imposed shariah, or Islamic, law in Swat in exchange for an end to two years of fighting. But it was widely seen as an acquiescence to Taliban control of the valley. The deal collapsed in April when the Taliban advanced into neighbouring districts, triggering a military offensive that prompted a spree of retaliatory attacks by militants. The military offensive in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas forced two million people to flee their homes and take refuge in camps or with relatives across the country. In the past two weeks hundreds of thousands have been returning home as the offensive winds down, although sporadic fighting persists. The cleric's arrest followed that of a former MP and a suspected Taliban militant in connection with the beheading of Polish geologist Piotr Stanczak, kidnapped near the Afghan border last September. Investigator Malik Tariq Awan said the two were taken into custody a month ago. He named one as Shah Abdul Aziz, a member of a pro-Taliban party who was elected to parliament's lower house in 2002. Mr Awan said Aziz was believed to have plotted the abduction of Stanczak, who was taken while surveying oil and gas fields. A video emerged in February of Stanczak's beheading. His remains were recovered and flown back to Poland in April. Source: The Australian
Exiled Palestinian Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal gestures as he speaks during a meeting with a delegation of Greek and Italian parliamentarians in Damascus19 March RAMALLAH, West Bank, (AP) – Israel rounded up 10 Hamas leaders in the West Bank early Thursday, two days after indirect talks between Israel and the Islamic militant group on a prisoner swap broke down. Among those detained were four Hamas lawmakers, a university professor and a former Hamas deputy prime minister. The Israeli military said in a statement that those arrested were involved in "restoring the Hamas administrative branch." Hamas in the West Bank has been the target of a crackdown by Israel and the security forces of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the past two years, ever since the militants seized Gaza by force. The detentions appear to be an attempt to pressure the group after the failure of recent efforts to win the release of an Israeli soldier, Sgt. Gilad Schalit, who is being held by Hamas in Gaza. Ahmed Bahar, a Hamas leader in Gaza, denounced the arrests as "immoral blackmail by the Zionist occupation." Israel has detained dozens of Hamas politicians in the West Bank on various occasions following the capture of Schalit, 22, in a cross-border raid in June 2006. The detainees in the latest raid include Nasser Shaer, a former Palestinian deputy prime minister, and four Hamas lawmakers. Some have already been detained in the past and released. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had hoped to secure the release of Schalit before a new Israeli government is formed, possibly within days. To that end, he dispatched two senior envoys to Cairo over the weekend to try to clinch an Egyptian-brokered deal with Hamas, which rules Gaza and has no direct ties with Israel. But the envoys returned to Israel without a deal in hand, and on Tuesday Olmert declared that Israel would not free all of the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners the Islamic militants demanded in exchange. Some were involved in attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, and Olmert insisted that there were "red lines" that Israel "will not cross." Incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to partner with hawkish parties in Israel's new government, has not commented on the failed release efforts or how he plans to deal with Schalit's case. The failure of the prisoner swap talks threatens to set off a long chain reaction of setbacks. Israel has vowed not to lift its crushing blockade of impoverished Gaza until Schalit is returned home. That could seriously impede reconstruction there after Israel's recent military offensive because building materials and equipment won't be able to enter the territory, home to 1.4 million Palestinians. The continued blockade could also hamper efforts to cement a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, which in turn would carry the threat of a sudden escalation in the low-level violence that has continued since the war ended on Jan. 18. On Wednesday, Schalit's father, Noam, blamed Olmert for failing to free his son and said the family would dismantle a protest tent it set up outside Olmert's residence on Saturday — 1,000 days since the serviceman was captured. Source: aawsat.com
By Stephen Graham ISLAMABAD - Pakistan acknowledged for the first time that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were launched from its shores and at least partly plotted on its soil, saying Thursday that it had arrested most of the main suspects including one described as "the main operator." Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Pakistan has started criminal proceedings against eight suspects - some of them also named by India as the masterminds of the attacks - but he reiterated that authorities needed more evidence from New Delhi to secure convictions. The revelations suggest Pakistan is serious about punishing those behind the November attacks, which killed 164 people and stirred fear that the nuclear-armed neighbors could slide toward war and that Pakistan might be distracted from its struggle against the Taliban and al-Qaida. Read more ...Source: AP
  A WESTERN Sydney woman whose mother is languishing in a Kuwaiti jail after a dispute with guards at the country's international airport has called on the Australian government to intervene.
Nasrah Alshamery, 43, has been charged with insulting Sheikh Sabah IV Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah during an argument with security officers at Kuwait's airport on December 23.
Ms Alshamery's daughter Wasa, 21, said her Winston Hills family were enjoying their first holiday in a decade and had already visited the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Syria when they arrived in Kuwait.
The dispute started when her 12-year-old brother was shouted at by an airport guard after asking where to obtain visas, she said.
When her father, Soliman, told the officer to be polite, he was assaulted, she said.
"He pushed my dad and my dad fell on the ground,'' Ms Alshamery told AAP.
"The other security came running and punched my dad in his head.''
At this point her six brothers became involved and the family was soon surrounded by 35 police and airport guards.
Ms Alshamery said when her mother threatened to seek diplomatic assistance, the security officers laughed and proceeded to insult Australian women, the Australian government and the nation's soccer team.
''(A guard) threw her passport on the ground and he stepped on it and he goes, 'Who's going to help you now? The emu or the kangaroo?''' she said.
Ms Alshamery said the family of nine were then taken to a nearby police station where her mother and two brothers were jailed.
The rest of the family were forced to wait in a holding room for days without food or water before being allowed to leave the country.
Nasrah Alshamery was denied bail and will reapply on January 21.
Her sons, Abdulaziz, 22, and Abdulrahman, 18, have been freed on bail but cannot leave Kuwait after being charged with assaulting government officials in the same incident.
Ms Alshamery, a medical science student, said her family had been rocked by the ordeal.
"Even the (12-year-old) twins, now they wake up at night very scared, going, 'The guy is going to hit me,' and my dad is very stressed and upset," she said.
"I'm the one who's taking care of the family now."
She has tried to contact the Australian government for assistance but Ms Alshamery said her pleas had gone unanswered.
"No one is doing anything," she said. Source: The Australian
 December 07, 2008
Indian police have arrested two men suspected of helping the militants who carried out the Mumbai attacks, amid reports of a home-grown terror link and fresh security jitters.
Pakistan said it was awaiting "concrete proof" that a group based there carried out the November 26-29 attacks on India's financial capital that killed 172 people, including nine attackers.
The arrests of the two men late are believed to be the first in connection with the attacks, other than the capture of one of the militants during the 60-hour siege.
The men - identified as Tousif Rahaman and Sheikh Muktar - were held "for allegedly providing SIM cards to the terrorists in the Mumbai attacks," senior Kolkata police official Javed Shamim said.
Rahaman, who was arrested in Kolkata, "bought about 40 SIM cards from the city, two of which are believed to have been given to the terrorists,'' he said.
Shamim said Muktar - who was detained in New Delhi - was from revolt-hit Indian Kashmir, where Islamic militants have been waging a nearly two-decade battle against New Delhi's rule in the disputed Himalayan region.
The pair appeared in a Kolkata court on Saturday and were remanded in custody for two weeks on accusations of forgery and cheating.
India has accused Pakistan of harbouring Islamists who trained and equipped the 10 militants, straining ties between the nuclear-armed neighbours and threatening a slow-moving peace process.
Suspicion has fallen on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which has fought Indian control of divided Kashmir and was blamed for a 2001 attack on the Indian parliament which brought the two countries to the brink of war.
Several Indian newspapers have cited unidentified intelligence sources as saying Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was involved in training the gunmen. Source: The Australian from: Agence France-Presse
Egyptian police have arrested two relatives of an Islamic scholar who runs a U.S.-based center advocating for democracy and human rights in the Muslim World. According to the International Quranic Center (IQC), officials arrested Mustafa Kamel Mohamed Ali Sunday. Ali is not politically or religiously active. But he is a cousin of IQC President Ahmed Subhy Mansour. Later, authorities arrested a second cousin who is who writes for the IQC. Mansour, a former professor of Islamic history at Al-Azhar University, has managed to anger radical Islamists and the Mubarak government in Egypt. Mansour left Egypt after being fired from his job and jailed by the government. According to the Center's post on the arrests, it's part of a troubling escalation in intimidating Mansour and his supporters through his relatives. Read more ...Source: IPT BlogInternational Quranic Center Latest recipient of The MASH Award
From correspondents in Birmingham, United Kingdom | October 28, 2008
FOUR men arrested last week during raids in the central English city of Birmingham have been charged under anti-terrorism laws and will appear in court today, police said.
Three of the men, aged 29, 30 and 34, all from the city, were charged with engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism, West Midlands police said late yesterday.
A fourth man, aged 31, also from Birmingham, was charged with failure to disclose information relating to an act of terrorism.
A fifth man arrested in the raids on October 21 was released without charge.
Britain has been on heightened alert since suicide bombings on London's public transport network in July 2005 left 56 dead, including the bombers.
The country's terror threat level is currently at "severe", the second-highest of five levels. Source: The Australian
THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY: Raja Petra accompanied by his wife Marina Lee Abdullah leaving Kuala Lumpur magistrates’ court on July 15 after he was released on RM2,000 bail. Yesterday, he was charged under ISA following his article titled ‘I promise to be a good, non-hypocritical Muslim’ in his blog.BAGAN DATOH: The arrest of blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin under the Internal Security Act (ISA) yesterday afternoon should serve as a warning to irresponsible bloggers who flout the law, said Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. He said many bloggers might be thinking that they could get away from facing the ISA if their blogs were based overseas and therefore not subjected to this country’s laws. “It is not appropriate that the ISA is used against Raja Petra while the other irresponsible bloggers are free to do as they please,” he told reporters at Kampung Sungai Burung, here yesterday. He was commenting on Raja Petra’s arrest following his article titled ‘I promise to be a good, non-hypocritical Muslim’ which contained remarks that insulted Muslims, besides allowing postings that insulted Islam and Prophet Muhammad in the article, ‘Not all Arabs are descendants of the Prophet’, that appeared in the ‘Malaysia Today’ website. Read more ...Source: Borneo Post
By Faiza Saleh Ambah  JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Dec. 31 -- Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, Fouad al-Farhan, has been detained for questioning, an Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed Monday. It was the first known arrest of an online critic in the kingdom. Farhan, 32, who used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform, was detained "for violating rules not related to state security," according to the spokesman, Maj. Gen. Mansour al-Turki, responding to repeated requests for comment with a brief cellphone text message. Farhan's Dec. 10 arrest was reported last week on the Internet and has been condemned by bloggers in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Bahrain. The Saudi news media have not yet reported the arrest, but more than 200 bloggers in the kingdom have criticized Farhan's detention, and a group of supporters have set up a Free Fouad Web site. Read more ...Source: The Washington Post
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