 Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital. In a briefing in the City of London 12 days ago, a senior detective from SO15, the Metropolitan police counter-terrorism command, said: “Mumbai is coming to London.” The detective said companies should anticipate a shooting and hostage-taking raid “involving a small number of gunmen with handguns and improvised explosive devices”. The warning — the bluntest issued by police — has underlined an assessment that a terrorist cell may be preparing an attack on London early next year. During a “commando-style” raid by 10 gunmen on hotels and cafes in Mumbai in November 2008, 174 people were killed and more than 300 injured over three days. Officials now report an increase in “intelligence chatter” — communications captured by electronic eavesdropping agencies. One senior security adviser said the police warnings had intensified and become much more specific in the past fortnight. “Before, there has been speculation. Now we are getting what appears to be a definite plot to carry out a firearms attack on London,” he said. Earlier this year, police, military and intelligence services held an exercise in Kent to see whether they could defeat a commando raid in London by terrorists. “The exercise brought out to those taking part that the capability doesn’t exist to deal with that situation should it arise,” said a military source. Security sources said concerns had been raised by “chatter” on a prominent jihadist website two weeks ago. One contributor suggested fighters could use automatic weapons to strike places such as nightclubs, sporting venues and Jewish centres. In an online discussion hosted on December 2, another contributor invited suggestions for carrying out “guerrilla warfare” and proposed “a group of mujaheddin raid police stations and fire at them”. Another said: “Make sure that all those at the location are of age, that there are no children and so on. Insist on the locations and times where no Muslims or children are to be expected. “If machine guns are available, and explosive and expertise for [explosives] are not available, this is a good way ... The [Mumbai] operation is the ideal scenario for operations you are talking about.” A third contributor said targets should be “chosen in a studied manner”. He added: “In general, targeting economic joints and intelligence centres if possible has priority over police stations.” The Met is understood to be struggling to draw up effective plans to deal with the challenge of mass shootings followed by a prolonged siege with terrorists prepared to kill their hostages and themselves. In Mumbai, many victims were killed in the first half hour of the attack. The Met is concerned that it will be much longer before the SAS, which has traditionally dealt with terrorist sieges in London, would arrive from its base at Regent’s Park barracks. Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Commons counter-terrorism sub-committee, said the threat was “very real”. Times Online 
 An armed group in the southern Philippines is holding at least 57 civilians hostage, government officials have said. The hostages, including several schoolchildren and their teachers, were among a group of 75 kidnapped in the small village San Martin in the province of Agusan del Sur on Mindanao island early on Thursday. Eighteen people were released following several hours of negotiations, Chief Supt. Lino Calingasan of the Philippine National Police told local media, but dozens of others remained held hostage. Military officials have said they believe the kidnappers are members of a civilian paramilitary force known as the "Perez group". Police were reportedly pursuing the gunmen, who appeared to be using the hostages as human shields to escape after a clash with authorities in a nearby village on Wednesday. Al Jazeera's Marga Ortigas, reporting from Manila, said it was unclear what the group wanted although police say there is no political or religious motive for the kidnapping. She said the group was known to local police having been armed by the Philippines government a decade ago to fight against communist insurgents in the area. The group is similar to the force suspected by authorities of carrying out last month's massacre of 57 political activists and journalists in a nearby province, also on the island of Mindanao. Jaime Milla, a local police official, told the Associated Press the gunmen believed to be behind Thursday's kidnappings were former militiamen who had been dismissed and turned to banditry and extortion. He said the gang was known to have previously targeted mining and logging companies in Agusan del Sur and nearby provinces. Our correspondent said that last month's massacre and now Thursday's kidnappings had many Filipinos questioning whether it was a good idea to arm these groups in the first place, when the army should have been fighting the insurgents. "People are saying this was a monster the government had created, and it's now come back to bite them," she said. Al Jazeera
 Twenty-one people who were among a group abducted in the southern Philippines have been killed by armed men. Major General Alfredo Cayton said in a radio interview on Monday that the bodies had been found, but could not confirm who carried out the killings. "Our army troopers have reached the area where the vehicles and those held were taken ... they were shot by the armed men," Cayton said. "We have recovered 21 bodies. Our men are continuing to scour the area to find the others," he said. Hostage-takers earlier seized 29 people, among them the wife of Esmael Mangundadatu, a local mayor, his aides, supporters and journalists. Military officials said Mangundadatu's wife was among the dead. The journalists taken captive were accompanying Mangundadatu's group to a local elections office to file his candidacy for governorship of the predominantly Muslim Maguindanao province in the autonomous Mindanao region in the May 2010 vote when they were captured by the kidnappers. The Mangundadatu family is known to have a long-running feud with the family of Andal Ampatuan, Maguindanao's incumbent governor. Marga Ortigas, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Philippines, said the families were well known to be political rivals. "This particular governor position is hotly contested because it is the seat of the autonomous region of Muslim Mindanao and the incumbent has been there for years." Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner, a military spokesman, said that the hostage-takers had links to Amputuan. Brawner said there were about 100 armed men, most of whom were deputised as government guards by Ampatuan's family. He said the leader of the group that staged the kidnapping was one of Ampatuan's sons. Ampatuan was not immediately reachable for comment. Ortigas noted that Maguindanao was one of the most politically tense provinces in the country. "It is the site of three different armed insurgent movements," she said. "Elections in the Philippines over the last few years are becoming more and more violent, particularly in the area." Al Jazeera
 SANA’A: One week after a Japanese engineer was kidnapped by Yemeni tribesmen, there are conflicting reports about the fate of the man, including the possibility he was taken by al Qa’eda members.
“The Japanese engineer who was held at Bait al Gob village in Arhab district was kidnapped by members of al Qa’eda, to which one of the tribesmen in jail belongs,” said Abduljaleel Sinan, one of the negotiation committee members seeking the release the hostage.
Japanese media have identified the man as Takeo Mashimo, 63.
“The relatives of the kidnappers were about to release the Japanese hostage, but one tribesman who belongs to al Qa’eda snatched the hostage Friday night and fled to unidentified area in al Jawf,” Mr Sinan told NewsYemen, an independent local online news site, yesterday.
Abdulrehman al Marwani, another negotiator, however, dismissed the idea that al Qa’eda had kidnapped the Japanese hostage. “It is not true that al Qa’eda kidnapped the hostage. We have been told the kidnappers moved their hostage into a village in al Jawf just to avoid the tribal negotiators’ pressure on them, though I expect he is still in Arhab,” Mr al Marwani said. “We were about to reach an agreement with the kidnappers that they would release the hostage and we will write them a letter to guarantee the release of their relative in a month’s time. They were also seeking guarantees that they would not be arrested by the government.”
Mr Mashimo worked for a Japanese development agency in Yemen. He was kidnapped last Sunday along with his Yemeni driver by armed tribesmen in Arhab, 45km north-east of the capital, Sana’a, while on his way to to supervise the construction of a school building. The kidnappers have said they would set him free in exchange for the release of a 22-year-old family member identified as Hussein Abdullah Gob.
Gob was imprisoned by US forces for a year in Iraq along with other jihadists and was later jailed for another year in Syria before he was handed to the Yemeni government.
Yemen has held Gob in jail for two years without trial, according to his relatives. More at the National
 BAGHDAD — An Iraqi official says Baghdad has contacted Tehran in a bid to secure the release of three Americans detained in Iran, but has received no reply. Foreign undersecretary Labid Abawi said Saturday that Iraq has sent messages and made "several efforts" to ensure the release of the Americans. He said Tehran has not responded and there were no plans to hand them over to Iraq at the current time. The Americans were detained by Iranian authorities after having crossed an unmarked border into Iran while hiking in northern Iraq in July. The U.S. says the three were innocent tourists on an adventure hike and accidentally crossed into Iran. Tehran says the Americans crossed the border illegally and has accused them of espionage. FoxNews
 Thailand: Former US President Jimmy Carter said he was pressed by his advisers to attack Iran during the hostage crisis there more than 30 years ago but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died. Islamist militants stormed the US Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, and seized its occupants.
Fifty-two Americans were held hostage for 444 days. Carter said Monday that one proposed option was a military strike on Iran, but he chose to stick with negotiations to prevent bloodshed and bring the hostages home safely. "My main advisers insisted that I should attack Iran," he told reporters in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where he was helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity.
"I could have destroyed Iran with my weaponry. But I felt in the process it was likely the hostages' lives would be lost, and I didn't want to kill 20,000 Iranians. So I didn't attack." The hostages were released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after the swearing in of President Ronald Reagan, whose victory over Carter is largely attributed to the crisis. The former president has commented in the past on how military action had been an option but that he feared a death toll in the tens of thousands, according to Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo. More at China Daily
 It was America’s first showdown with radical Islam. On November 4, 1979, radical Islamist students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Initially, it was to be a brief protest against America’s decision to allow the exiled Shah of Iran to enter the United States for medical treatment.
Instead, the world watched as a 444-day hell began for 52 American hostages. Thirty years later, Iran's unpopular leadership still paints America as the "great Satan," but the younger generations — those Iranians who had nothing to do with the Revolution — showed last spring that they do not always agree with the oppressive regime. And at least two of the Iranian students who were closely involved in the Embassy takeover 30 years ago are now ardent critics of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's regime—the very same government they supported and helped to establish. VIDEO: Fox News Reports on Iranian Hostage Crisis. In this watershed moment of American history, Fox News Reporting talks to those who were there and goes inside the strategies of the players and the politicians at the epicenter of the Iranian hostage crisis.
Fox News examines how President Jimmy Carter struggled to solve the crisis in an election year, and talks with insiders in the Reagan administration about the negotiations leading to the hostages' eventual release.
We also hear the dramatic stories of four former hostages, including then acting Ambassador, Bruce Laingen. "Fox News Reporting: Americans Held Hostage in Iran" hosted by Greta Van Susteren airs Friday, Nov. 6, at 10 p.m. ET only on Fox News Channel. Source: Foxnews
 PIRATES have hijacked a Panamanian-flagged carrier in waters off Somalia, taking 26 crew hostage, almost all of them Indian, a NATO spokeswoman said. "The MV Al Khaliq, a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier, has been hijacked early this morning off Somalia," said a spokeswoman for NATO's anti-piracy mission in London.
"There were 26 crew on board, 24 of whom are Indian and two Burmese."
A second carrier, the Italian-flagged Jolly Rosso, also came under fire from pirates north of the Seychelles, she said.
 The majority of schools across Pakistan are to close for at least a week following threats from the Taliban in response to the military's offensive in South Waziristan, officials said. Military schools and colleges announced a temporary closure on Sunday after threats were made known to them that a school bus may be hijacked, security officials said. A number of private and government schools were also considering a temporary closure on Sunday following the military schools' announcement, Pakistani security officials said. Aamir Ghauri, editor of the Asian Journal, told Al Jazeera that the recent escalation in violence had made Pakistan "a country of fear". "People actually don't want to go to work," he said. Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher, reporting from Islamabad, said government officials feared that schools could be targeted by suicide bombers, or that pupils could be taken hostage by those threatening to blow the school up. "We have no way of confirming whether or not the threats were made by the Taliban, but the threat was enough for the Pakistani government to take this action," he said. The Pakistani military launched its first major offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan on Saturday. A spokesperson for the Taliban has vowed the group will fight to the "last drop of blood", and both sides have said they are gaining the upper hand. On Sunday the military said it had seized key Taliban bases during the first 24 hours of fighting which saw at least five soldiers and 60 Taliban fighters killed. But the Taliban also claims it has inflicted heavy casualties on the Pakistani army, pushing them back into their bases. As many as 150,000 civilians have left the area in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault. Around 350,000 others are estimated to still be in the region. Security forces said they had captured key Taliban strongholds near on Saturday after the fighters withdrew from their fortifications and took refuge in nearby mountains, officials said. The army says about 28,000 soldiers are battling an estimated 10,000 Taliban fighters, including about 1,000 Uzbeks and some Arab al-Qaeda members. The Pakistani offensive comes after a series of bomb attacks across the country over the past two weeks that have killed more than 170 people. In the latest attack, at least 11 people died in two explosions near a police office in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday. Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from in Islamabad, said police believed the string attacks across Pakistan had been planned from South Waziristan where Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, is based. "So this is a crucial operation to decapitate the head of the senior Pakistani Taliban leadership," he said. "But there is always the problem that if you squeeze the Taliban in one area, they pop up in another." Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hamid Nawaz, a former Pakistani general and military-affairs analyst, said he believed the army could complete its operations before the December snowfall. "This is not going to be a set-piece battle ... the theatre of operations is only about 6,000km sq and there will only be pockets of resistance. "And efforts have been made to co-ordinate attacks with Nato troops as well as the Afghan army on the other side of the of the border to prevent anyone escaping." Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 Jeremy Page and Zahid Hussain Commandos freed 39 hostages yesterday after one of the most audacious militant attacks yet on the country's powerful military.
They also captured the gunmen's alleged leader - identified as Mohammed Aqeel - who military sources said used to be in the army medical corps and had also been involved in an attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore in March.
Aqeel and four other militants had holed up in the office building after storming the army compound with five other gunmen - all in army uniforms and carrying grenades and automatic weapons - at about midday on Saturday.
Analysts described the attack as a significant embarrassment for the army and intelligence services.
They also said the attack showed that the Taliban and al-Qaeda were increasingly working together with militant groups based in Punjab province, allowing them to hit targets across the country.
"If there is a message in this then it is that they can hit hard targets as well as soft targets," said retired General Assad Durrani, a former head of the Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Aqeel, who used the alias Dr Usman, belonged to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Punjab-based militant group that has close links with al-Qa'ida and was blamed for the attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team.
Aqeel escaped arrest in April this year when police raided his house in Kahuta, near Islamabad, according to General Abbas.
Security officials told The Times that the militants were all thought to be members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and another Punjab-based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammed.
They also said that intelligence agencies had obtained the entire plan of the attack, and the names of those involved, from a computer disk recovered from a militant killed by police in southern Punjab last month. They appear, however, to have done little to prevent the attack.
"The militants have humiliated the army," said a retired brigadier, Javed Hussain.
This is the third militant attack in a week and comes as the army prepares to a launch an important attack on the northwestern tribal region of South Waziristan, the main al-Qai'da and Taliban stronghold in Pakistan.
It follows a suicide car bombing that killed 49 people in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday and a suicide bombing at a UN office in Islamabad that killed five people on last Monday.
Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, has blamed all three attacks on the Taliban and suggested that the army might bring forward the attack on South Waziristan, which the military has been preparing for since June.
"It has been decided, the civilian leadership has decided, the operation is imminent," Mr Malik said yesterday.
Hakimullah Mehsud, the new Pakistani Taliban leader, has warned that the Taliban planned to launch more attacks on military, government and other targets. He said that they would be revenge attacks for US drone strikes on the tribal areas, one of which killed his brother and predecessor as head of the Pakistani Taleban, Baitullah Mehsud, in August.
Six army personnel - including a brigadier in military intelligence and a lieutenant-colonel - and five militants were killed as the gunmen breached the compound's first gate and tried to storm the second gate.
Three hostages, two commandos and four more militants were killed in the rescue operation, during which Aqeel was also wounded and arrested, according to the army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas.
"They were in a room with a terrorist who was wearing a suicide jacket but the commandos gunned him down before he could pull the trigger," he said, adding that five more security personnel were injured.
"Now there is no terrorist left there. The operation is over."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, said in London the attack showed that militants represented a grave threat to the Pakistani state.
They also said there was no sign that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, which is controlled from another complex not far from the army headquarters, was at risk. "It is very important that alarmist talk is not allowed to gather pace," said Mr Miliband.
 Pakistani forces have stormed an army headquarters in Rawalpindi, freeing 22 hostages held there by suspected Taliban fighters, according to the military. The army operation got under way in the early hours of Sunday morning. Reports said that three hostages and four fighters were killed in the assault. "It appears the operation is over as the rattle of gun fire has calmed down," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said. "The military is very confident they have been able to save a lot of the military personnel [held captive]. "The situation is still quite fluid and it's not quite clear how many people have been rescued, [but they say] over 20 hostages have been released," he said. Gun fire and explosions were heard near the army headquarters just before dawn and soon afterwards reports from the Pakistani military said they had freed "most" of the hostages. There was no immediate word on the number of people wounded, but a reporter with the Reuters news agency said that he saw three ambulances leaving the area. Armed men, dressed as soldiers, attacked the army compound on Saturday, sparking a gunbattle that killed four fighters and six soldiers. The fighters took hostages, after which the military surrounded the compound and the ensuing siege lasted for more than 18 hours. It was unclear who was behind the attack, but the gunmen had been demanding the release of Taliban prisoners. The fighter's brazen assault on a military compound in the garrison city of Rawalpindi is likely to revive fears for Pakistan's stability. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 By Khurram Shahzad MILITANTS who tried to storm Pakistan's army headquarters have taken 10 to 15 hostages after a firefight that left six soldiers and four attackers dead, officials say. At least six insurgents armed with automatic weapons and grenades drove up to the compound yesterday and shot their way through one checkpost in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, before being stopped by security forces at a second post. Four militants were killed but at least two managed to flee during the fierce firefight, barricading themselves into a security office near the headquarters, as gunship helicopters circled overhead, the military said. "There are more than two terrorists who have taken some security personnel as hostages. Efforts are under way for their safe recovery," the military's spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said on state-run television. "Security forces have surrounded the terrorists. We are trying to recover the hostages safely," he added. "According to our assessment the number of hostages is 10 to 15," Gen Abbas later told private TV channel Geo. "There could be four to five terrorists inside the building," he said. The audacious attack in the city adjoining the capital Islamabad unfolded just before midday, when the militants dressed in army uniforms hurled grenades and opened fire at an entrance to the heavily fortified army command centre. "There were at least six attackers. Four were killed. Two have been traced and surrounded by the troops," said an official with the army's media wing. The attack comes amid a surge in insurgent strikes, as analysts say the Islamist Taliban militia try to deter an army offensive into their tribal stronghold along the mountainous border with Afghanistan. Gen Abbas said in an earlier interview with Geo that the militants were dressed in army uniforms and "were armed with sophisticated weapons and grenades." "They came in a van and tried to enter from gate one to gate two in the sensitive area," he told the TV channel. "Six soldiers were martyred in the attack," he added. A security official requesting anonymity said that a brigadier and a lieutenant-colonel were among the dead.
 The British journalist recently freed in a NATO military operation described his Taliban hostage-takers as "hopelessly inept," and praised his Afghan colleague who died in the rescue.
New York Times reporter Stephen Farrell described his four days in captivity in a blog on the newspaper's Web site, posted late Wednesday just hours after he was freed. Taliban militants kidnapped Farrell and Afghan journalist, Sultan Munadi, on Saturday. During a pre-dawn raid Wednesday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force plucked Farrell to safety, but did not retrieve the body of Munadi, who died during a fierce firefight between troops and Taliban militants.
A British commando was also killed, as were a woman and child. There has been criticism about the rescue operation as well as the initial decision to go into the region which Farrell points out in his blog, "was becoming more troubled by insurgents." International troops, including British forces, have expressed their unhappiness about having to extract a Western journalist from the area, a Western military source in Kabul told CNN.
Meanwhile, NATO has come under fire from a coalition of Afghan journalists working for foreign news outlets who called the pre-dawn raid "reckless and double-standard behavior." The Media Club of Afghanistan issued a statement Thursday saying it "holds the international forces responsible for the death of Mr. Munadi because they resorted in military action before exhausting other nonviolent means." "There is no justification for the international forces to rescue their own national, and retrieve the dead body of their own soldier killed in action, but leave behind the dead body of Sultan Munadi in the area. The MCA deems this action as inhumane." Read more here,,,, Source: CNN
Egyptian fishermen on two boats captured four months ago by Somali pirates have escaped from their captors, officials say. Police information indicated that two Egyptian fishing boats, held off Lasqorey coast in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, broke free on Thursday after overpowering the pirates holding them.
There were also unconfirmed reports that some of the pirates had been killed. Authorities in Puntland said the fishermen had been arrested, and their boats seized, by local security forces in April for illegal offshore activities. It was not clear how many fishermen were on board the boats during Thursday's getaway, with reports of up to 30 being held. Mohammed Adow, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Nairobi, Kenya, said the fishermen had made a "daring and dramatic escape" by taking matters into their own hands. "The pirates were celebrating the release of an Italian tug boat which had been taken alongside the two Egyptian fishing boats and the pirates had been given $4m in ransom. "The five pirates guarding the boats were said to be drunk, and the fishermen took advantage of that and attacked the pirates. They are said to have killed two of them and sailed off to Yemen," he said.
Our correspondent said the case highlights how illegal fishing off Somalia's coast is one of the "core issues creating the continuation of piracy". "The Somali pirates are saying they are just doing what they are doing to guard their country's resouces, and particularly the country's marine resources, which they say all kinds of people from different nationalities are coming in to take advantage of their country's lack of central authority."
Local residents also reported seeing the boats leaving the coast. "I think some of the pirates are dead because one of them told me that the crews fought them and managed to get away with the boats," Ali Guled, a pirate in Lasqorey village, told the AFP news agency. In a related development, amid concern about a possible rise in attacks as the monsoon winds ease, officials from the region met military officials from Nato's anti-piracy force on Thursday. "We had talks with the Nato military officials on board one of their ships ... in order to prevent the pirates from carrying out attacks after the monsoon winds end," Muse Gele Yusuf, a Puntland governor, said. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 By Alan Caruba According to the August 6 DEBKAfile, the three American hostages that Iran is now holding are all likely to be declared “Israeli spies” and put on trial as such. That’s a hanging offense.Frankly, my first thought was this: How STUPID do you have to be (a) American, (b) Jewish, and (c) hiking along an unidentified area close to the border or possibly in Iran? My second thought was: Since all three have writing credits with legitimate publications, might they, like the two Chinese-American girls, also be considered “journalists”? And, if so, is there a private plane warming up to send former President Clinton to do some official or unofficial groveling on behalf of the greatest superpower in the world? That’s not going to happen. The three hostages are Shane Bauer from California who writes for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, and New American Media, all liberal to the core. I suspect young Bauer will return, if he is not hung, a conservative. His partner, Sarah Short, also from California, writes for Matador, whatever that is, and Joshua Steel Petel, from Oregon, a former yeshiva student, writes for Jewish Week. Oy! They range in age from 27 to 30. How does one reach the age of 30 and not know that Iran has been hostile to the United States and Israel since its Islamist Revolution in 1979? Read more here ...
 The Obama administration has asked a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit against Iran filed by Americans held hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran 30 years ago. The request comes in a $6.6 billion class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington. Fifty-two American diplomats and military officials were held captive for more than a year at the end of Jimmy Carter's presidency by a group of Islamist students who supported the Iranian revolution. The hostages were released on Jan. 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the new president. In court papers filed Tuesday night without any announcement, the Justice Department argued that the agreement to release the hostages, known as the Algiers Accords, precluded lawsuits against Iran. A similar lawsuit brought by the Iranian hostages was dismissed in 2000 after the government successfully argued it was banned by the Algiers Accords. The hostages argue that legislation passed by Congress last year and signed into law by President George W. Bush gives them the right to bring private lawsuits. Read more ...Source: APH/T: Christopher Holton
 US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson plans to visit Iran to push for the release of jailed US-Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi. “We have applied for visas today and we hope we will be granted entry, and if so we want to make a humanitarian plea, a moral appeal to gain the release of the journalist,” he said on a visit to Malaysia. Saberi, 31, was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment last week by an Iranian revolutionary court that convicted her of spying for the United States. In an unprecedented move on Sunday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for “justice” for Saberi and said she should be given the right to defend herself. Jackson said no date had been set yet for his mission, which he said would complement the appeals already made by US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. “I hope the Iranian leadership will accept our mercy appeal and let her go,” he said, urging Malaysians to use any connections with Iran, a fellow Muslim nation. “If you have access to a voice in Iran, whether religious or political, join with us in making a plea to release that young woman from prison,” he said. Jackson, who has been involved in US hostage negotiations in the past, is in Malaysia to address a peace conference. Source:The Australian
THE US ship captain being held hostage in a lifeboat by pirates off Somalia managed to jump off the boat but failed to escape his captors, US networks have reported. Captain Richard Phillips jumped into the water during the night and tried to swim towards the nearby US destroyer, the USS Bainbridge, but pirates jumped into the water and recaptured him, three television networks reported. US military officials said Captain Phillips was fine, and that the pirates did not hurt him. The pirate commander said that he was demanding a ransom to free Captain Phillips. "We are demanding to get ransom and to return home safely before releasing the captain," Abdi Garad said. Mr Garad also said their men were negotiating with the US navy "not to be arrested if they release the captain and the American officials will hopefully fulfil that condition otherwise the captain will not be released." Source: The Australian
 A Danish shipping company says one of its U.S-flagged ships, the
Maersk Alabama, (above center) has been hijacked off Somalia with at
least 20 American crew members on board. Six vessels have been
hijacked in the last week by Somalian pirates, like the ones shown
in these file images. THE crew of a US-flagged, Danish-owned freighter hijacked by pirates off Somalia have retaken control of the ship but their captain is still being held hostage on a lifeboat. For the first time a ship with a US crew was hijacked by Somali pirates. The crew of 20 Americans were in control of the ship and were trying to negotiate their captain's release while they waited for a US warship to arrive, second mate Ken Quinn told CNN. "We are just trying to offer them whatever we can, food, but it is not working too good," Mr Quinn said. "We have a coalition warship that will be here in three hours. We are just trying to hold them off for three more hours and then we will have a warship here to help us," he said. The ship's operator, Maersk Line Ltd, confirmed that the US crew had regained control of the 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama after the pirates left the ship with one hostage. A spokesman for the company said no injuries had been reported for the rest of the crew left aboard. Maritime officials said the Maersk Alabama was carrying food aid for Somalia and Uganda from Djibouti to Mombasa, a Kenyan port, when it was seized far out in the Indian Ocean. The seizure was the latest in an escalation in pirate attacks off the lawless Horn of Africa country of Somalia. "We can confirm that our crew has control of the ship. The pirates have departed the ship and they have taken one crew member with them as a hostage," the Maersk Line spokesman said, but could not confirm whether the hostage was the captain. A Pentagon spokeswoman, Army Lieutenant Colonel Elizabeth Hibner, said the US Navy destroyer Bainbridge was en route. Details on how far away it was were not immediately available. The ship seizure, about 480km off Somalia, was the first time Somali pirates have seized US citizens, if only briefly. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was very worried by the hijacking and called for world action to end the "scourge" of piracy. "We are deeply concerned and we are following it very closely," Ms Clinton said in Washington. "Specifically, we are now focused on this particular act of piracy and the seizure of the ship that carries 21 American citizens. More generally, we think the world must come together to end the scourge of piracy." The Maersk Line spokesman said that the company was working with the US military and other government agencies to address the situation. Mr Quinn said the four pirates sank their own boat when they boarded the container ship. However, the captain talked them into getting off the freighter and into the ship's lifeboat with him. The crew then overpowered one of the pirates and sought to exchange him for the captain, Mr Quinn told CNN. "We kept him for 12 hours. We tied him up," he said. The crew released their captive to the other pirates, but the exchange did not work and the captain was still being held by the pirates on the lifeboat. "They are not aboard. We are controlling" the ship, he said. Maersk Line is a Norfolk, Virginia-based subsidiary of Denmark's A.P. Moller-Maersk, the world's biggest container shipper. Among the ship's cargo were 400 containers of food aid, including 232 containers belonging to the UN's World Food Program that were destined for Somalia and Uganda. The seizure was the latest in a wave of pirate attacks. Gunmen from Somalia seized a British-owned ship on Monday after hijacking another three vessels over the weekend. In the first three months of 2009 just eight ships were hijacked in the strategic Gulf of Aden, which links Asia, the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to Europe via the Suez Canal. Last year, heavily armed Somali pirates hijacked dozens of vessels, took hundreds of sailors hostage often for weeks and extracted millions of dollars in ransoms. Foreign navies sent warships to the area in response and reduced the number of successful attacks. Source: The Australian
TWO Iraqi soldiers who helped rescue Melbourne man Douglas Wood from kidnappers in the war-torn country in 2005 have been given asylum in Australia.
Mr Wood, who spent six weeks under threat in Iraq until being rescued in April 2005, asked Kevin Rudd act swiftly in assisting the servicemen to obtain sanctuary in Australia.
Immigration Minister Senator Chris Evans said the two men, who had been hiding in the Middle East after fleeing Iraq, had arrived safely in Australia this week.
"The Australian Government recognises the contribution that the Iraqi service personnel made in securing the release of Douglas Wood," Senator Evans said.
"The lives of these men were assessed as being in imminent danger so it was critical their claims were processed as quickly as possible," he said.
The Iraqi men will receive the assistance provided to all refugees through the government's humanitarian settlement services to help them establish their new lives in Australia. Source: The Australian
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Scotland Yard has warned businesses in London to expect a Mumbai-style attack on the capital. 
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