Call to throw out Guantanamo case

The criminal case against the first Guantanamo detainee standing trial in a US civilian court should be thrown out because he was denied the right to a speedy trial, defence lawyers have argued.

But the US government said in the Manhattan federal court on Monday that gathering intelligence from Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani during interrogations was "weightier, more significant" than giving him a speedy trial.

The case of Ghailani, a Tanzanian national charged over his alleged role in the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, is being watched for precedents that could affect other Guantanamo detainees.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US, is also due to be tried in Manhattan federal court.

Alluding to the importance of the proceeding, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said during Monday's session: "I think everybody can agree that whatever I do here would be unprecedented."

Ghailani was taken into custody in Pakistan in July 2004 and interrogated outside the US as part of the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" programme in which suspects were captured in one country and interrogated in another.

He was transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006 and his case was moved to the Manhattan federal court last June.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaeda to kill Americans, as well as separate charges of murder for the 224 people killed in the African bombings.

Ghailani's case, which coincides with the eighth anniversary of the first group of 20 detainees being sent to Guantanamo in 2002, is a test for Barack Obama's plans to shut down the US military prison.

Last week, the US president reiterated his commitment to shut it down although the White House has conceded that he will not meet his self-imposed deadline of the end of January.

Obama also suspended the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Yemen last week, following revelations that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to destroy a Detroit-bound US airliner on December 25, reportedly received al-Qaeda training in Yemen.

Nearly 200 detainees remain at Guantanamo, nearly half of them from Yemen.

The US government is working to refurbish a prison in the state of Illinois to hold some detainees while their fate is determined.

Al Jazeera

Australian, US embassies in Indonesia receive bomb threats

November 04, 2008

THE US and Australian embassies in Indonesia received bomb threats amid a security crackdown ahead of the imminent execution of three Islamists convicted over the Bali bombings, police said.

A US embassy spokesman confirmed that a threat had been received and was being taken seriously.

"We are working closely with the Indonesian police,'' he said.

National police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said the threat was received through a telephone text message to police.

"We're investigating this to find out who sent the threat," he said.

He said it was being taken seriously although a similar threat against a shopping mall in Jakarta yesterday had proved to be a hoax.

Initial searches of the embassy compounds failed to find any bombs, the Detikcom news website reported, quoting police.

It said the text message read: "I will pull the trigger (of the bomb) if Amrozi and his friends are executed," referring to the Bali bombers.

Security at the US and Australian embassies has been boosted amid fears of reprisal attacks after the execution.

Amrozi, 47, his brother Mukhlas, 48, and Imam Samudra, 38, are facing execution any day over the bombings of packed tourist nightspots which killed 202 people six years ago.

Security has been tightened across the mainly Muslim archipelago due to concerns about revenge attacks from Islamist fanatics and the Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror network, which was allegedly behind the Bali carnage.

The Australian embassy spokeswoman was not available to comment.

Source: The Australian

Blasts from Islamist militants hit US embassy in Yemen

Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent | September 18, 2008

ISLAMIST militants armed with automatic weapons, rocket-propelled grenades and up to two suicide car bombs attacked the US embassy in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, yesterday, leaving 16 people dead.

It was the second strike on the high-security compound in six months, with six Yemeni soldiers, four civilians, including an Indian, and six of the terrorists among the dead, the Yemeni Interior Ministry said.

A group calling itself Islamic Jihad in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement and threatened similar strikes against the British, Saudi and United Arab Emirates missions in the Yemeni capital.

Witnesses said gunmen arrived in police jeeps within seconds of the blast, spraying guards with automatic fire and attempting to storm the perimeter.

A senior US official last night said up to five explosions were used in the assault, and that Yemeni authorities who first responded were also ambushed by snipers.

It appeared some of the attackers were dressed as Yemeni troops and that the first Yemeni emergency personnel to arrive on the scene were hit by heavy sniper fire from gunmen across the street from the embassy.

However, the explosions did not breach the heavily fortified walls surrounding the embassy compound, nor were any Americans among those killed or injured.

The White House last night denounced the strike and offered condolences to the relatives of Yemenis killed.

"The United States condemns this attack," said spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

"This attack is a reminder of the continuing threat we face from violent extremists both at home and abroad."

The US embassy in Sanaa also condemned what it described as a "heinous" attack on the compound and vowed to work with the Yemeni authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice.

It said its chancery and consular sections would remain closed until further notice.

"The US embassy condemns this attack in the strongest possible terms," a statement said.

"Today's events demonstrate that terrorist criminals will not hesitate to kill innocent citizens and those charged with protecting them in pursuit of their agenda of terror.

"A number of explosions occurred in the vicinity of the embassy's main gate and there were several secondary explosions.

"A number of Yemeni security personnel were killed and injured, as were several Yemeni citizens waiting to gain entry to the embassy."

Police and soldiers swarmed on the scene soon after the blasts, engaging the insurgents in gunfights that resounded throughout nearby neighbourhoods for up to 15 minutes.

It is understood no one was killed or injured inside the embassy.

It was the second attack on the embassy this year.

The embassy had been under virtual lockdown since April, after a rocket strike on a residential compound for Western workers in Sanaa.

In the aftermath of that attack, the US ordered all non-essential staff to leave the country and banned them from returning.

One month earlier, three mortars had landed near the embassy grounds, wounding a number of local students.

A witness to the latest attack, British citizen Trev Mason, described a massive fireball.

"We heard the sounds of a heavy gun battle going on," Mr Mason said.

"I looked out my window and we saw the first explosion going off - a massive fireball very close to the US embassy.

"The gun battle went on for a further 10 to 15 minutes, followed by two further loud explosions."

Insurgent activity has been on the rise in Yemen, the ancestral home of al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden, and a hotspot of militant Islam in the Middle East.

The impoverished nation on the southeastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula was the scene of several high-profile attacks linked to al-Qa'ida over the past eight years, including the strike on the US warship, the USS Cole, one year before the September 11 terror attacks in the US.

Oil facilities along the Yemeni coast and convoys of workers were also targeted.

At least three other plots against oil and gas sites have been foiled.

Source: The Australian

What the Cartoons Have Unleashed

By Robert Spencer

Who is responsible for the June 2 suicide attack against the Danish Embassy in Pakistan that killed six people? An increasing number would say that the Danes themselves are responsible, or at least the Danish government, for its obstinate attachment to that irritating little principle of free speech. On Wednesday, June 4, a web posting claiming to be from Al-Qaeda said that the bombing was fulfillment of Osama bin Laden’s vow to exact revenge for the cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad that ran in a Danish newspaper in 2005. Fauzia Mufti Abbas, Pakistan’s ambassador to Denmark addressed a rhetorical question to the people of Denmark: “I’d like to know if your newspaper is satisfied with what it has done and what it has unleashed?”

You read that right. Fauzia Mufti Abbas, after jihadist thugs and murderers in her country killed six innocent people because of some cartoons published in a newspaper half a world away, had the volcanic chutzpah to say to Denmark that “the people of Pakistan that feel they have been harassed by what your newspaper has begun.”

Speaking strictly for myself, I feel more harassed by the murders of six people (who, by the way, had nothing to do with the cartoons, although even if they had been the cartoonists themselves this would be no better) than I do by any affront to my religion. If Fauzia Mufti Abbas or you or anyone else drew cartoons of people I revere and respect, people I think brought the best things to humanity, if you made fun of them, ridiculed and mocked them in the most outrageous terms, I might think you were a boor. I might think you were an idiot. But I would not kill you. I would not kill anyone else. I would not think anyone else was justified in killing you or anyone else. I would chalk it up to the fact that people differ in good faith about what is true and good, and we all have to live in the same world. Read more ...

Source: FrontPage Magazine

Denmark: Pakistani ambassador blames cartoons for embassy attack, threatens with more attacks

Danes need look no further than their own newspapers to find the reason for the car bombing that severely damaged their embassy in Pakistan on Monday, according to Rohan Gunaranta, an international terrorism expert from Pakistan. Read more ...

Source: Islam in Europe

Denmark: Muslim reactions to attack against Danish embassy

Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen called the attack "lunacy". He says it's certainly shocking and horrible. Regardless of whether it was politically or religiously motivated, it's not something that can be comprehended in any way.

He says there have been things in recent years which have set Denmark on the world map and that has made some people upset at us and he's sorry about that, since it's his fatherland. But it does not justify doing something like this, under any circumstances. Read more ...

Source: Islam in Europe