NYTimes.com: C.I.A. Deaths Prompt Surge in U.S. Drone Strikes

FRONT PAGE | January 23, 2010 C.I.A. Deaths Prompt Surge in U.S. Drone Strikes BY SCOTT SHANE AND ERIC SCHMITT Since a suicide bombing that killed seven Americans in Afghanistan, the Central Intelligence Agency has employed an intensive series of strikes against militants in Pakistan. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company | Privacy Policy

(BN) U.K. Raises Terror-Threat Level to `Severe'; U.S. Level Remains Unchanged

Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

U.K. Raises Its Terrorism Threat Level to Severe

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The U.K. raised its international terrorism threat level to "severe" from "substantial," indicating authorities consider an attack "highly likely."

"I should stress that there is no intelligence to suggest that an attack is imminent," Home Secretary Alan Johnson said in the statement today announcing the change.

The heightened alert comes two days after the government suspended direct flights between Yemen and the U.K. as British officials prepare to host conferences next week in London on Yemen and on the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. government said it doesn't plan to follow the U.K. action with its own raised alert.

The highest level of alert in the U.K.'s five-tier scale is "critical," meaning an attack is "expected imminently." "Severe" comes next, followed by "substantial," indicating an attack is a "strong possibility." The last two threat levels are moderate and low.

Earlier today India alerted its airports and national airline after intelligence reports said hijackers may attempt to seize a plane flying in South Asia. The Indian Civil Aviation Ministry ordered extra searches of passengers before they board and the use of sky marshals on some flights, according to a government statement.

Dec. 25 Incident

The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda said it was behind a Dec. 25 plot in which Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight on its approach to Detroit.

Several hundred al-Qaeda members in remote tribal areas of Yemen may be preparing for attacks similar to last month's plane plot in the U.S. and elsewhere, President Barack Obama's assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, John Brennan, said on Jan. 3.

The U.S. has no plans now to raise its terror threat level, an Obama administration official said after the U.K. posted the increased alert. The official asked not to be identified. The overall threat level of the U.S. is elevated, or yellow, meaning there is a "significant risk" of attack. Yellow is the third of five tiers in the threat alert.

The country's threat level for domestic and international flights is high, or orange, which is the second-most severe on the scale.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Jan. 20 announced stepped-up security following the attempted Christmas Day attack including the creation a "no-fly list" of terrorist suspects and a second list of those who will be subject to increased security screening prior to boarding flights heading to Britain.

The nation's three intelligence agencies will focus on investigating individuals "long before" they reach the country, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: James Hertling in Paris at jhertling@bloomberg.net Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net

Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://m.bloomberg.com/iphone

Sent from my iPhone

CNN intvu with Defne Bayrak, CIA Bomber's Wife

This CNN interview with Defne Bayrak is interesting because it's video, and it completely supports what was reported last week in my column, and the week before by Newsweek Turkiye:





Shadowland: Divorce, Jihadi Style 13 January 2010
What role do women play in Al Qaeda? A few are suicide bombers; others may encourage their men to become one. http://www.newsweek.com/id/230607/page/1

Newsweek Online: The Bomber's Wife 7 January 2010
In an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK Türkiye, the wife of the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan talks about her husband's life and beliefs. (Reported by Newsweek Turkiye's Adem Demir, written by Christopher Dickey) http://www.newsweek.com/id/229792

English transcript of the Newsweek Turkiye interview: http://www.newsweekturkiye.com/haberler/detay/35416/My-Husband-Fought-for-Islam

Al-Jazeera in English: Obama's First Year

Christopher Dickey, Stephen Walt of the Kennedy School, and Philip Bobbitt, author of "Terror and Consent" on Riz Khan's program, 20 January 2009:

BBC News - Straw says Iraq 'most difficult decision' in his life

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/uk_news/politics/8471511.stm

Sent from my iPhone

Nicaragua: Back to the Future

http://www.nicatimes.net/nicaarchive/2010_01/0115101.htm

Sent from my iPhone

France24: Haiti = Somalia?

http://www.france24.com/en/20100115-haiti-plight-christopher-dickey-somalia-earthquake-world-this-week

"Thinking Fits" on Hezbollah

... From occupation to liberation, from the wretched earth of downtrodden Shiism to the heights of sectarian power, from the womb of Khomeini’s revolutionary Iran to the warm bosom of warring Lebanon; from resistance, pure and simple, to the infinitely trickier threesome of resistance, deterrence and governance: this has been the journey of Hezbollah over the past two decades. It’s a movement that’s been there, done that, and the manifesto is meant to reflect the wisdom it has acquired along the way.

It is interesting, if perhaps nothing more than a coincidence, that Hezbollah has chosen to commit to print this hard-earned wisdom [a 32 page manifesto] at a time when Iran’s civil society has been harassing its Islamist regime to get some of its own. There is something to be said for Hezbollah’s effort to downplay the political meaningfulness of the very controversial, and indeed very political, Wilayat al Faqih, when it just so happens the position and its current holder are rapidly losing so much of their luster in their Persian birthplace.

Although Hezbollah’s situation in Lebanon at the moment is somewhat more comfortable than that of its colleagues in Iran, the Islamist movement has had its share of retreats and embarrassments, the latest of which have been the Salah Ezzeddine financial scandal, revelations about rampant prostitution and drug-related crimes in the Southern Suburbs and Hezbollah’s failure, in spite of its best efforts, to win for “the opposition” a parliamentary majority in the June elections, all of which have tarnished the party’s brand and undercut its credibility among its own community of followers.... http://thinkingfits.blogspot.com/

BBC News - Spanish MP's photo used for Osama Bin Laden poster

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/mobile/americas/8463657.stm?

From the article: 'The FBI claimed to have used "cutting edge" technology, but Mr Llamazares said it showed the "low level" of US intelligence services and could cause problems if he was wrongly identified as the Saudi.

"Bin Laden's safety is not threatened by this but mine certainly is," he said, adding that he was considering taking legal action.'

Sent from my iPhone

The FBI's Terrorist Facebook

There are a lot of gray-bearded terrorists out there who've been on Federal Bureau of Investigation's fugitive lists for decades. These photographs and computer-generated images of the men as they looked then and might look now, as well as a few the Feds didn't bother to "enhance" or "age" are all taken from the FBI's online "wanted" posters: http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/fugitives.htm

Among them are a master bomb maker from the Palestinian May 15 Organization dating back to the 1970s and a vegan animal rights activist. One is from the Philippines, another form Buffalo, New York. There are airplane hijackers from the 1980s, and senior figures in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. One of my favorite transformations is in the looks of a man still wanted in connection with the 1993 -- yes, 1993 -- bombing of the World Trade Center in New York. A couple of these guys are believed to have been behind the Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in 1996, a couple more are linked to the attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, others plotted the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and of course several are closely associated with the events of September 11, 2001, including You Know Who.