 A MOCKED-UP image of how Osama Bin Laden may look today has been withdrawn by the US State Department after the FBI admitted it was partly based on a photograph of a Spanish MP taken from the internet.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 
 Keep in mind, this is after the Spanish elected Zapatero and withdrew their soldiers from Iraq following the 2005 Madrid bombings. I thought that was supposed to satisfy the terrorists? From CAN: The court set up by the Spanish government to try terrorism suspects has convicted 11 Asians, ten from Pakistan and one from India, for plotting to carry out subway bombings in Barcelona, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The terrorists were sentenced to between 8 and 14 years in jail. Ten of the terrorists were arrested in January 2008, and the final one was arrested later in the Netherlands. The authorities were able to foil the plot due to information provided by an informant.
The plotters were connected with Tehrik-e-Taliban, a group led by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban that was killed by an airstrike from an American unmanned aerial vehicle in August.
Mehsud’s group said that it hatched the plot against Spain due to that country’s military contributions to the war in Afghanistan. Robert Spencer of JihadWatch.org used the report’s omission of the terrorists’ faith to criticize the media’s reporting on this and other similar incidents. “Eight paragraphs in, we learn it was a’ suspected Islamist cell.’ Until then, one might almost have gotten the impression that Pakistan had declared war on Spain,” Spencer wrote on his blog. “And that is the problem with this kind of coverage, which is, of course, thoroughly ordinary. It is not because they are ‘men,’ or ‘Asians,’ or ‘Pakistanis’ that they are waging war on Spain. So these reports are essentially misleading.” This isn’t the first time terrorists have targeted Spain and specifically Barcelona.
On March 11, 2004, terrorists loyal to Al-Qaeda detonated backpack bombs on several buses, killing 191 people. Eleven Pakistanis were also arrested and later acquitted of planning attacks in Barcelona in 2007, although five were found guilty of other charges, reports The Sydney Morning Herald. The suspects found guilty in Spain are appealing their verdict, Newstrack India reports. World Threats
 Al-Zawahiri sounds a good bit like Hitler here. It plays well with his audience. "Al-Qaeda: Al-Zawahiri calls to 'disinfect the Maghreb of Spanish and French nationals,'" a translation of a Spanish news story by Claudia at Tea and Politics, January 1: Al-Qaeda retakes its offensive against the West threatening.
This time the message comes from Al-Zawahiri, AQ's No.2. In a video, he addresses the members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, those who have kidnapped three Spanish volunteers (and another French national). Al-Zawahiri assures that they will never be able to reconquest Al-Andalus without cleaning, "disinfecting" he says literally, the Maghreb of the "Infidels", those who for Bin Laden's No.2 are represented by Spanish and French nationals in the area.The video message is subtitled in English and Al-Zawahiri asks Muslims to be with his sons, the mujahidienes. He shows the territory they must reconquer, a map of the Iberian Peninsula, which in this occassion goes beyond the Pyrenees. In the video there are images of Cordoba's mosque or Granada's Alhambra in which Bin Laden and Co. appear with the black flag of Islam.... That is the flag of jihad. With thanks to JihadWatch
 "Asians." "Men." "Men of South Asian origin." "Pakistanis." "Men." "Born in Pakistan." "Pakistani origin." Eight paragraphs in, we learn it was a "suspected Islamist cell." Until then, one might almost have gotten the impression that Pakistan had declared war on Spain.
And that is the problem with this kind of coverage, which is, of course, thoroughly ordinary. It is not because they are "men," or "Asians," or "Pakistanis" that they are waging war on Spain. So these reports are essentially misleading. "Asians jailed over planned metro attack," from AFP, December 15 Spain's anti-terrorism court has convicted 11 men of South Asian origin, mostly Pakistanis, in connection with a plot to stage suicide attacks in the Barcelona metro last year. The men have received jail terms of between eight and 14 years, a copy of the ruling indicates. They intended to "carry out a violent attack using explosives against the Barcelona metro, which could have caused many casualties", the court said on Monday. "The indiscriminate aim is evidence of the terrorist nature of the attacks." Shaib Iqbal and Qadeer Malik, both born in Pakistan, received the stiffest terms of 14 years and six months for "belonging to a terrorist group" and for "weapons possession". Maroof Ahmed Mirza, also of Pakistani origin and who the court said was "the leader of the group", was jailed for 10-and-a-half years for "belonging to a terrorist group", while the other eight each received terms of eight-and-a-half years on the same charge. Ten of the men were arrested in the northeastern city of Barcelona in January 2008 in raids during which police also recovered bomb-making equipment. Another was detained five months later in the Netherlands. The charges were based on the declarations of an informant who was a member of the suspected Islamist cell and who then became a protected witness. The court said the cell was inspired by Baitullah Mehsud, leader of a Pakistani Taliban group linked to al-Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.... In May 2007, Spain's high court acquitted 11 Pakistanis of planning extremist attacks in Barcelona, but convicted three of them of collaborating with terrorists and two of falsifying documents. With thanks to JihadWatch
 DenmarkFired for racist remarks - Diana Brälye (34), a police agent, was fired for writing racist posts on her blog. She referred to Pakistanis as "Fucking Perkers" (Perker = derogatory term for Pakistanis) in a post in February, 2008, when schools all over the country were being set on fire. She intends to appeal the decision. ( DA) More violent men getting treatment - In recent years more and more men of immigrant or refugee background have been getting treatment for domestic violence says the national Dialog Mod Vold (Dialog against Violence) organization. According to its director, about 15% of the 499 men getting treatment are of non-Danish background, and the numbers are going up. this is the result of close cooperation between the organization and the police. In the psychological counseling organization Alternativ til Vold (Alternative to Violence) in Roskilde, on the other hand, less than 1% of the 40 men they treat are from ethnic minorities. The reason, they say, is that it's a big taboo to seek help. About half of the women in women's shelters were born abroad. 80% came to Denmark as part of family reunification, refugees, immigrants or asylum seekers. ( DA) SpainMosque desecrated - a mosque in the Melilla enclave was desecrated on Constitution Day (Dec 6) with graffiti saying "Viva Franco", "No Moors" and "One, Great and Free" (Franco motto) etc. This is the first time in years that a religious building has been attacked in Mellila. ( ES) Mosques too small - The mosques of Valencia are too small to accommodate the worshipers. In the past four years the number of Muslims doubled, and the current mosques are too small. Expansion plans have been frozen due to the crisis, the donations from the worshipers don't even cover ongoing expenses. In addition they face resistance from local municipalities. ( ES) SwedenCatholic church to mosque - The Sundsvall Islamic association rented the former Catholic church and will be making it into a mosque beginning next year. The current mosque is a 'cellar mosque' and does not have room for the faithful, which during holidays can get up to 700 people. ( SV) Saddam's helper - An update to this story. The man is Muhamed Kemal Abed (57). He says he was offered asylum in the US, but declined because he thought it unthinkable to live in a country that "occupied and ruined Iraq". ( SV) NetherlandsMetro attack - Herbert Raat, an Amstelveen local councillor (VVD), had a fight in the metro last week by three Moroccan girls. On his blog he says he saw a older man cursed and attacked by several girls of around 16. When the man got up and tried to ward them off, one of them began to shout that they're Moroccan and 'don't give a damn about this country'. When he tried to intervene, he was pushed and spitted on. On his blog he says that it's inconceivable that he had to fight in the metro with three girls. ( NL) Brochures on Islam - The Islam contact group of the Council of Churches prepared two brochures to help municipal councillors better understand Islam. One is about the Islamic perspective of evil which was created after the creation of the world. It is based on a 'Koran circle' and it suggests making more such meetings. The second is about the Christians and Muslims reading the Bible and the Koran together. The brochures were presented in the Rotterdam Islamic University. The day was opened by prof. dr. Ahmed Akgunduz who said that all believers - Muslims, Christians and Jews, should unite against the increasing secularization of the Netherlands ( NL). Moroccans complaining about Moroccans - Moroccan mothers asked the mayor of Culemborg to do something about the trouble caused by Moroccan youth. They say several older youth make it impossible for the younger children to play in the local schoolyard. According to the mayor this shows the diversity of Moroccans, "People always speak about 'the' Moroccan community, but it doesn't exist at all." Following tensions between the Moroccan and Moluccan communities, the municipality started talks with people from both groups. The mayor says that when he speaks in a Turkish mosque, he knows he reaches most of the Turkish community, but when he speaks in a Moroccan mosque, he knows that he doesn't reach most of the group. The mosque is also tired of the negative image of trouble-causing youth, on which they have no control. ( NL) United KingdomCharity organizes Muslim festival - JAN Trust, a Haringey women’s charity, organized a festival to celebrate "the diversity of British Islam". ( EN)
 A spokesman claiming to represent al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for the kidnappings last month of four Europeans in Mali and Mauritania. The claim was made in an audiotape obtained by Al Jazeera on Tuesday. "Two units of the valiant mujahedeen managed to kidnap four Europeans in two distinct operations: the first in Mali where Frenchman Pierre Camatte was seized on November 25, and the second in Mauritania where three Spaniards were held on November 29," the spokesman, who identified himself as Saleh Abu Mohammad, said on the tape. He added that "France and Spain will be informed later of the legitimate demands of the mujahedeen", but did not go into detail about the demands. Camatte, the kidnapped Frenchman, was snatched from a hotel in the Sahel region of northern Mali on the night of November 25. The three kidnapped Spaniards were working as volunteers in Mauritania delivering humanitarian aid when they were kidnapped on November 29. They have been named as Albert Vilalta, 35, Alicia Gamez, 35, and Roque Pascual, 50. Earlier this year a US-based monitoring group reported that AQIM had claimed responsibility for killing Briton Edwin Dyer, one of a group of six Westerners kidnapped in Niger in January. The group had said threatened to kill Dyer unless the British government released Abu Qatada, a Muslim cleric, from a UK prison. Al Jazeera
 Spanish police have arrested nine men suspected of seeking to have a woman killed after they accused her of adultery, claiming they were following Islamic law, authorities said on Sunday. The men were arrested on November 14 and seven have been held in jail, a police spokesman said. According to police, the woman had been taken in March and held in an isolated house in Valls in northeastern Catalonia. Authorities say the men set up a court there to judge her for adultery. "These men had formed a kind of court to apply (Islamic) sharia law," the spokesman said, adding the woman told authorities she was tried and sentenced to death. She was later able to escape and report what happened to police. Herald Sun
 Three men of Pakistani origin denied any wrongdoing Thursday as they went on trial over an alleged plot to stage homicide attacks in Barcelona on orders from the Pakistan Taliban. Police foiled the alleged plan with a series of raids in January 2008 in Spain's second-largest city, after a member of the cell designated to blow himself up got cold feet and alerted authorities, a Spanish prosecutor said. The 11 men on trial include nine men of Pakistani nationality or origin and two from India. They have all pleaded innocent. Malik Qadeer, 33, accused of belonging to a part of the cell tasked with making bombs for the attacks, said he is a butane gas delivery man who knows nothing about electronics or chemicals. "I don't even know how to connect two cables," he told the National Court. Qadeer said he had never even heard the word Taliban until he moved to Spain in 2001, and said he knew nothing of any plot to bomb the metro in Barcelona. "Not even a beast would do that," he said. His 28-year-old roommate, Shaib Iqbal, also denied any knowledge of the alleged plot. One of the plan's alleged ringleaders, 40-year-old imam Maroof Ahmed Mirza, refused to testify. Another accused leader, Mohammad Ayud Elahi Bibi, 65, said he practiced a peaceful version of Islam. After Thursday's session, the trial was scheduled to resume Monday. When the plot was made public last year, it gave Spaniards a chilling reminder of the Madrid terror bombings of March 2004: packed commuter trains ripped apart by 10 backpack bombs that killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,800.
At the time, a general election was three days away, and Islamic militants who claimed responsibility for the Madrid massacre said it was revenge for the presence of Spanish peacekeepers in Iraq. In 2008, public transport was allegedly targeted again, a general election was just two months away and the attack was allegedly planned because Spain has troops in Afghanistan, prosecutor Vicente Gonzalez Mota has said. But there have been doubts as to how close the Barcelona cell actually was to staging what would have been Spain's first suicide terrorist attack. Read more,,,, Source:FoxNews
 MADRID — A Muslim lawyer in Spain said Wednesday she was ejected from a courtroom for wearing a head scarf and has filed a discrimination complaint with the body that oversees Spain's judiciary system. Spanish law stipulates that trial lawyers must wear black robes but says nothing about head scarves. The General Council of the Judiciary, which supervises the Spanish court system, said it has opened a preliminary probe of the judge named in the complaint. An official with the council said he could not recall a similar incident. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with council rules. The attorney, Zoubida Barik Edidi, a Moroccan-born Spaniard, said she was attending an Islamic terror trial Oct. 29 at the National Court when Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez kicked her out of the room because of the purple scarf. Barik Edidi, 39, was sitting next to a colleague acting as defense attorney, but was not formally part of the defense team. The judge said defense attorneys or prosecutors at a trial cannot wear such a garment, she told The Associated Press. "Madam, you cannot remain in this courtroom," she quoted the judge as saying. Barik Edidi noted that she was not a defense attorney per se, and had attended the previous day's session without the judge complaining about her scarf. Gomez Bermudez said he had erred and should have thrown her out the first time. "This is my courtroom and here I give the orders," Barik Edidi quoted the judge as saying. Barik Edidi said her complaint accuses the judge of discrimination and abuse of authority, and that she is concerned about his action possibly being copied by other judges. "The fear I have is that I will not know what courtrooms I am allowed into and which ones I am not," she said. During that same trial — involving nine men accused of recruiting suicide bombers to go to Iraq — Gomez Bermudez expelled a witness who wore a burka-style outfit and refused his request that she show her face. The judge said Spanish court rules bar people from testifying with their face concealed. Read more here,,,, Source: FoxNews
 by Paola Del Vecchio The first Islamic party in Spain is getting ready to have representation in the key municipalities in the administrative elections in 2011.
The Renaissance and Union of Spain Party, promoted by Mustafa Barrach, a former journalist and Arabic professor in Granada, is close to Rabat, according to a report today in the ABC conservative newspaper.
Member of the Al Hegira Muslim community and treasurer of the Spanish Islamic Council, Barrak aspires to gathering not only votes from the nearly 1,300,000 Muslim residents in Spain but also from immigrants who represent 10% of the Spanish population. Mustafa Bakkach, who has been living in Spain for 15 years, dedicates much of his time to supporting immigrants.
The Islamic Council, an organisation inspired by the Sufi branch of Islam, is made up of a majority of Spanish converts belonging to the Yamaa Islamica-Liga Morisca. Moriscos is what the 300,000 Muslims are called who stayed on the Iberian peninsula after the expulsion of the Catholic kings and were forced to convert to Christianity and then banished for good in 1609.
In the internal gazette, the organisation expounds a clearly national vocation not only for consolidation in one area or autonomous region and considers Islam the base of its principals in political activities, a determining factor for the moral and ethical regeneration of Spanish society.
However, at the same time, it respects the Spanish constitution and refuses terrorism as an instrument of political struggle.
The organisation does not realistically aspire to winning the municipalities but wants to obtain a discreet number of councillors in some key Spanish cities.
According to ABC, the government does not hide a certain worry, since there are currently 1,300,000 resident Muslims in the country including Spanish converts and immigrants from Islamic countries of which there are 700,000 from Morocco.
But there could be more than two million if illegal immigrants are counted. The politicians fears have to do with the new party eventually lead to the non-integration in urban area with high
Muslim presence and that in cities where they already have a majority, the Muslims could attempt to impose their customs through municipal regulations.
 MADRID — A Spanish judge has indicted seven people for allegedly helping the suspected Madrid train bombers flee after the 2004 terror attacks. National Court Judge Eloy Velasco is charging six of the seven with belonging to a terrorist group, while one is accused of collaboration. Velasco says the seven provided money, cover and information to help six men who are suspected of having participated in the March 11, 2004, bombings to evade justice.
The morning rush hour attacks on commuter trains headed for the capital's main southern station killed 191 people and wounded about 1,800. Four of the seven indicted are free, one is in custody and the whereabouts of two others are unknown. Source: FoxNews
 Spanish Muslims launched Saturday, October 26, an independent, self-regulatory body to train imams in the southern European country."The Islamic Union of Imams and Preachers in Spain is the fruit of strenuous efforts of Muslim imams over the past years," chairman Sheikh Alaa Said told IslamOnline.net. The new body will be entrusted with training imams and preachers across the country. "The growing Muslim community in Spain required the launch of an official Islamic body to unify efforts of imams and preachers nationwide," said Said. The umbrella body will have three specialized committees on fatwa, research and training."It seeks to upgrade the level of all those working in the field of Da`wa in Spain," he said. The Union was approved by the Spanish Interior Ministry last May. "At first we encountered some obstacles with the Justice Ministry to register the Union," said Said. "But we later moved to the Interior Ministry to get the official approval after presenting the necessary papers to launch the body." A dignitary of Spanish officials and nearly 70 imams and preachers from across Spain took up in the launch of the Muslim Union. Leading among attendees were Josep Maria Felipe, the general director of the immigration of the Valencian government, Sheikh Hussein Halawa, chairman of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and Sheikh Wanis Al-Mabrook, the head of the European Assembly of Muslim Imams and Spiritual Guides. ( more) Source: IslamOnline (English)
 Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has cancelled a planned trip to Israel this Friday, against the background of Israeli anger at the Swedish government's refusal to condemn an article in a Swedish newspaper accusing IDF soldiers of killing Palestinians and harvesting their organs. While Swedish officials told The Jerusalem Post late last week that the visit was in doubt, Israeli diplomatic officials said Saturday night that the visit had definitely been cancelled. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was considering not meeting Bildt unless he condemned the article in the tabloid Aftonbladet, something the Swedish government - citing freedom of the press - had adamantly refused to do. Netanyahu gave vent to Israel's disappointment over the matter during a meeting last week in Jerusalem with visiting EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. During that meeting, Netanyahu said that no one was expecting the Swedes to restrict freedom of the press, but that it was reasonable to expect the government to speak out against the type of defamation that in the past had led to the mass murder of Jews. Sweden currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and Bildt's failure to visit here will have an impact on the country's ability during its term as president to have any real say on the diplomatic process. Ironically, while the Swedes continued to refuse to condemn the article, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos said Saturday in Stockholm that he regretted the Spanish newspaper El Mundo's decision to run an interview Saturday with Holocaust denier David Irving as part of a retrospective on the start of World War II 70 years ago. "The foreign minister, while maintaining the most absolute respect for freedom of expression, regrets that space was given to a historian who denies one of the biggest tragedies for humanity in modern history," a spokesman for Moratinos said. "These types of statements deeply hurt the Jewish people." Read more here,,,, Source: JPost
Strangers in the Land
 By FOUAD AJAMI
A departure and a return: In the legend of Moorish Spain, Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, is said to have paused on a ridge for a final glimpse of the realm he had just surrendered to the Castilians. Henceforth, the occasion, and the place, would be known as El Último Suspiro del Moro, The Moor’s Last Sigh. The date was Jan. 2, 1492. In his “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe,” Christopher Caldwell, a meticulous journalist who writes for The New York Times Magazine and other publications, gives this subject its most sustained and thoughtful treatment to date. The question of Islam in Europe has occasioned calls of alarm about “Eurabia,” as well as works of evasion and apology by those who insist Islam is making its peace with European norms. Caldwell’s account is subtle, but quite honest and forthright in its reading of this history. “Islam is a magnificent religion that has also been, at times over the centuries, a glorious and generous culture. But, all cant to the contrary, it is in no sense Europe’s religion and it is in no sense Europe’s culture,” he writes. It hadn’t taken long for Islam to make its new claim on Europe. Caldwell’s numbers give away the problem: “In the middle of the 20th century,” he tells us, “there were virtually no Muslims in Western Europe.” Now there are more than 15 million, including 5 million in France, 4 million in Germany and 2 million in Britain. The native populations in Western Europe hadn’t voted to have the Turks and the Moroccans in Amsterdam, the Kurds in Sweden, the Arabs in London and the Pakistanis and Indians in Bradford and West Yorkshire. The post-World War II economic boom, and labor shortages, brought the immigrants, and they put down roots in their surroundings. In time, labor immigration “gave way to refugee immigration and to immigration aimed at reunifying (and forming) families. . . . Admitting immigrants changed from an economic program to a moral duty.” Read more here... Fouad Ajami teaches at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University and is a fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of “The Foreigner’s Gift.” Source: NYT
The Basque Autonomous Police (Ertzaintza) detained on Sunday night in Portugalete (Vizcaya) a 43-year-old man of Maghrebi origin, accused of stabbing his 20-year-old daughter 20 times and of hurting another two sons, according to the Basque Interior Department. The attack began inside the family’s home, in Ruperto Medina’s st, when the man stabbed his older daughter. Her teenage brothers, another girl and a boy, tried to end the quarrel and got hurt. She has a cut in one hand. He fell off the stairs.. Both of them suceeded in fleeing the house asking for help, while the stabbed girl got in one neighbour’s house. But the father followed the first ones and had a hard discussion with his son in the street. According to another neighbour, who was woken up by the “shouts”, everything happened very quickly. Several minutes afterwards, the Police arrived at the scene and arrested the man. “He was shouting like a mad man and was very difficult to handle”, the witness say. (…). Read more ...Source: Publico.es H/T: Tea and Politics
 A SPANISH warship has intercepted a skiff carrying nine suspected Somali pirates believed to have attacked an Italian cruise ship at the weekend, the defence ministry said today. The Numancia frigate “intercepted a skiff with nine occupants who could be connected to the hijacking attempt of the Italian cruise ship which was eventually repelled by the boat,” it said in a statement.
The cruise liner Melody, carrying more than 1,500 people, was attacked on Saturday but Israeli security guards on board the ship responded to the pirates' gunfire and were able to repel them.
After the hijacking attempt The Numancia, along with patrol planes from France and the Seychelles and an Indian navy ship, launched a high-seas hunt for the assailants.
During the search, the naval mission found “two small boats with nine suspects on board very close to the scene of the attack against the cruise,” the Spanish defence ministry said.
The suspects abandoned one the boats and were later caught in the skiff. The Spanish navy handed over the suspects to a Seychelles ship since they were captured in the island nation's waters in the Indian Ocean.
A commander of the pirates who attacked the cruise ship described the bandits' attempt to seize the boat in an interview with AFP today.
“Unfortunately, for technical reasons, we could not seize the ship,” Mohamed Muse told AFP by phone from the pirate lair of Eyl, in the northern Somali breakaway state of Puntland.
“We were aware that hijacking such a big ship would have been a new landmark in piracy off the coast of Somalia but unfortunately they used good tactics and we were not able to board,” he said.
“It was not the first time we went for that kind of ship and this time we came closer to capturing it and we really sprayed it with gunfire,” Muse said.
The captain of the cruise liner, Ciro Pinto, said the attack had felt like a war, and praised the response of the security guards.
“The ship was very big and there were only a dozen pirates involved in the attack so we eventually had to decide to back off after chasing it for close to 30 minutes,” Muse said.
Somali pirates are currently holding at least 16 ships and more than 250 seamen to ransom. Attacks surged in April as calm seas allowed them to approach their prey more easily and dodge the increasing naval presence in the region.
 November 09, 2008
EGYPTIAN police are questioning Osama bin Laden's son Omar at Cairo airport today to decide whether to let him back into the country after a failed bid for political asylum in Spain.
"He's still at the airport," an airport official said of the Saudi-born 27-year-old who had been living in Egypt.
"Police are looking into his case, to know if he can stay in Egypt or not."
Spain yesterday definitively turned down bin Laden's request for political asylum after he said his life was in danger in the Middle East because he is a pacifist.
Omar, one of the 19 children of the fugitive founder of the al-Qaeda terror group, had appealed against Spain's refusal on Wednesday to grant him asylum, which he asked for shortly after arriving in Madrid on a flight from Cairo.
But Spanish authorities deemed that his security was not in danger and he returned to Cairo late yesterday.
His British-born wife Zaina Alsabah bin Laden condemned what she said had been a "political decision", adding that the couple had been trying to raise money to fly to New Zealand instead of returning to Egypt.
Spain's interior ministry said Wednesday's decision to turn down the asylum claim was in line with the opinion of the UN refugee agency.
"Our reasons for leaving Egypt and coming to Spain had nothing to do with any actions of the Egyptian government," the bin Ladens said in a statement issued while they were in Spain.
"We are most grateful to the Egyptian government and the lovely Egyptian people.
"They graciously showed us every kindness, more than any country in the world, in fact. There were outsiders working within Egypt which created genuine concern for Omar's safety. That is the only reason we left Egypt."
Omar bin Laden, who has a Saudi passport, is the fourth child from Osama bin Laden's first marriage. His wife, 52, whom he married in 2007, is British, having changed her name from Jane Felix-Browne.
In April he was refused permission to live in Britain because of the alleged trouble his arrival might cause.
He says he has not spoken to his father since 2000, when he decided to leave a training camp in Afghanistan, with Osama bin Laden's consent. Source: The Australian
 November 05, 2008
MADRID: One of Osama bin Laden's sons has asked for political asylum in Spain, months after he was refused permission to live in England with his British wife.
Omar bin Laden, a self-described pacifist, made the request on arriving at Madrid's Barajas airport on Monday on a flight from Cairo, where he currently lives, that had been en route to Casablanca in Morocco.
“He has asked for asylum. The law has been applied. He is being held in Barajas and the asylum commission, which has the legal capacity to decide if he should receive asylum or not, is analyzing the request,” Interior Minister Alfredo Perez told a press conference.
It was not known on what grounds the 28-year-old, who was traveling on a passport from Saudi Arabia, was seeking asylum.
Under Spanish asylum rules, the ministry has 72 hours to make a decision, and the petitioner has a right of appeal.
Omar flew to Madrid with his wife Zaina Alsabah bin Laden, 52, formerly known as Jane Felix-Browne, who he married last year, one year after they met in Egypt, a source close to Omar bin Laden told AFP.
The couple would prefer it if the media would not cover Omar's bid for asylum as it could hurt his chances of being accepted, the source added.
Authorities in Britain turned down a request in April from Omar for a settlement visa.
At the time he said he wanted to live in England with Zaina at her home in northwestern England in the village of Moulton, near Northwich in Cheshire.
The British embassy in Cairo said it had based its decision on fears that his presence in the country would cause “considerable public concern”.
It is thought the authorities were referring to comments made by Omar that he could not be certain that his father was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks against the United States that killed over 3,000 people.
Asked during an interview with CNN in January if he knew his father was behind the attacks, Omar, who sported dreadlocks that dangled halfway down his back replied: “Yeah, maybe.”
Omar also declined to directly condemn his father during the interview but called on him to give up violence.
“I try and say to my father: `Try to find another way to help or find your goal. This bomb, this weapons, it's not good to use it for anybody',” he said.
He said he had not spoken to his father since 2000, when he walked away from an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan with Osama's blessings, and does not know where the al-Qa'ida leader is.
“My father told me, 'If this is what your choice - your decision - is, what can I tell you? I like you to be with me, but this is your decision.',” he said.
Saudi-Arabian-born Omar is the fourth of 11 children born to his father's first wife, and he is one of 19 children Osama bin Laden has fathered.
In a video broadcast in October 2004, just before the last US presidential elections, Osama bin Laden said he ordered the airline hijackings that hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In 2004 Spain suffered one of Europe's deadliest attacks when bombs planted by Islamic extremists inspired by Al-Qaeda and angered by the country's participation in the US-led invasion of Iraq exploded on packed commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people. Source: The Australian
 October 17, 2008
MADRID: Spanish police have arrested 12 north Africans suspected of links to the 2004 Madrid bombings in which 191 people died.
The arrests broke up an “Islamist terrorist cell” that was supporting al-Qa'ida, the Interior Ministry said.
Eight of the suspects, all Moroccans, were detained in raids carried out overnight in the northeastern province of Catalonia, around Madrid, and in Andalucia in the south.
The suspects are believed to have helped five people implicated in the Madrid bombings to escape.
The raids were ordered by Spain's top anti-terrorist judge, Baltasar Garzon, a judicial source said.
Later in the day, four more people - three Moroccans and an Algerian - were arrested in their prison cells over possible links to some of the eight other suspects.
The incidents add to a string of terrorism-related arrests and incarcerations.
Spanish courts last year ordered 21 people jailed for life in connection to the bombs left on Madrid commuter trains on March 11, 2004. Four have since been acquitted after appeals.
In January, Spanish police broke up what they said was a group of mainly Pakistani Islamist extremists suspected of planning attacks in Barcelona and arrested 15 people.
On June 5, Spain's anti-terrorist court charged 11 of those arrested, most of them Pakistanis, with belonging to a terrorist group.
Overall last year, 52 people were detained in Spain over alleged links to Islamist extremism, the attorney general's office said in a report last month.
Spain's proximity to Algeria and Morocco, where extremist groups have stepped up their activity, and the presence of terrorist training camps in the Sahara desert, were cited as factors putting the country at risk. Source: The Australian
 MADRID (AFP)--Spain's Supreme Court Tuesday acquitted on appeal 14 of the 20 men who were sentenced jail in February for belonging to an Islamic terrorist group suspected of planning to blow up a courthouse.
The National Audience, Spain's top antiterrorism court, had sentenced the 14 to prison terms from seven to 11 years for membership in an al-Qaida-inspired cell.
The Supreme Court also reduced the sentence of another man from nine to two years. It acquitted him of belonging to a terrorist cell but upheld a conviction for document forgery.
The court confirmed all the convictions against five others, including Abderrahman Tahiri, also known as Mohammed Achraf, who was found to have tried to obtain explosives to blow up a court with a massive truck bomb.
Tahri, considered to be the cell leader, received the stiffest sentence of 14 years behind bars.
The men were arrested in 2004, several months after the Madrid train bombings of March 11 that killed 191 people and which were claimed in the name of al- Qaida by an Islamic cell.
Prosecutors charged the men during their trial with planning an attack either on the National Audience, the Supreme Court, a Madrid metro station or the headquarters of Spain's opposition Popular Party. Source: AFP
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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.
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