YNet, 15 Dec 09: Iran revealed its nuclear facility near the holy city of Qom in late September after a British agent exposed its true purpose to the West, Ynet learned Tuesday.
American, British and Israeli satellites had documented construction works at the uranium enrichment site for years, but the West only learned of its true purpose from an MI-6 agent who was exposed by Iran. Information proved by another Western intelligence agency coincided with the agent’s findings. . . . .
UPI, 15 Dec 09: Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service has established a station in Yemen’s capital ostensibly to help coordinate a joint campaign against northern Shiite rebels along the kingdom’s border.
But its main task is understood to be hunting down the Yemen-based operatives of a resurgent al-Qaida that threatens the Saudi monarchy, and eliminating them with extreme prejudice.
The Saudis, longtime adversaries of the republicans who triumphed over the royalists in Yemen’s civil war of the 1960s, have long distrusted their southern neighbors — and still do.
But such is the mortal danger the House of Saud sees in a resurgent al-Qaida in Yemen, ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, it has set aside old feuds to go after the jihadists. . . . .
Derby Evening Telegraph, UK, 15 Dec 09: A Derby man has been found guilty of five terrorism offences. Albanian-born Krenar Lusha was arrested at his Normanton home in August last year.
The 30-year-old pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of possessing articles which gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that they were for a terror-related purpose. A jury at Preston Crown Court this afternoon found him guilty of five of the counts.
He has been jailed for seven years and will be deported back to Albania once he has served half his sentence.
There were five articles found at Lusha’s home which rise to a reasonable suspicion that they were for the commission, preparation or instigation of an act or terrorism. These were:
- 71.8 litres of petrol,
- Hezbollah Military Instruction Manuals,
- a document entitled Ragnar’s Detonators,
- a document entitled The Bomb Book and
- a video entitled Mobile Detonators
All were found at his home. In the case of the other five items,
- two kilograms of Potassium Nitrate,
- a Car Bomb Recognition Guide,
- a document entitled Middle Eastern Terrorist Bomb Design,
- a document entitled Improvised Radio Detonation Techniques and
- a document entitled The Mujahideen Explosives Handbook,
He was found not guilty. This means there was not a reasonable suspicion that the articles would be used to commit an act of terrorism. . . . .
AP, 15 Dec 09: Thousands of foreigners have flocked to conservative madrassas in Pakistan, despite a government ban, The Associated Press has found through interviews with officials, documents, visits to the schools and encounters with dozens of students.
Pakistani and foreign governments consider the international students a potential security threat. The students could export extremism back to their own countries or stay and fight in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the US is battling a resurgent Taliban eight years after the US-led invasion. Islamabad stopped granting student visas in 2005, but many students still arrive on travel visas and never leave when they expire.
“We are concerned, but what can we do?” said an official from one Southeast Asian embassy in Pakistan who asked for anonymity because he did not want to upset his hosts. “We can’t stop people from travelling. It is their constitutional right,” the official added.
Officials are concerned in general about foreigners coming to the country for training in militancy. Most recently, five young American Muslims were arrested after meeting with representatives of an Al Qaeda linked group and asking for training, a law enforcement official said on Thursday. . . . .
