AP, 18 Dec 09: Three accused al-Qaida associates brought to New York on Friday are charged with plotting to ferry drugs through the Sahara desert to raise money for terror attacks — evidence of what prosecutors say is a dangerous, growing alliance between terror chiefs and drug lords.
The arrests mark the first time U.S. authorities have captured and charged al-Qaida suspects in a drug trafficking plot in Africa, in a case officials say demonstrates the spread of the terror network into global criminal activity.
The three suspects — believed to be in their 30′s and originally from Mali — were arrested by local authorities in Ghana earlier this week and turned over to U.S. agents. They arrived in the United States early Friday morning, officials said.
The three suspects are expected to appear Friday in federal court in New York on charges of narcoterrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists stemming from a monthslong undercover investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The DEA has long seen close ties between Afghanistan terrorists and the booming drug trade there. But the African case marks an expansion of both al-Qaida’s illegal activities around the globe and U.S. efforts to stop the type of black market deals that generate money for terror operations. . . . .
MANHATTAN U.S. ATTORNEY CHARGES THREE AL QAEDA ASSOCIATES WITH CONSPIRING TO TRANSPORT COCAINE THROUGH AFRICA FOR THE FARC (DOJ, 18 Dec 09)
Belfast Telegraph, 18 Dec 09: Dissident republicans are planning to use honey traps this Christmas in a bid to lure a member of the security forces to his death, it has emerged.
During a recent security briefing Army personnel were warned about the recruitment by dissidents of attractive females to identify soldiers at popular nightspots and lure them into ambushes.
Military personnel have been advised not to attend certain bars and clubs over the holidays. If they do attend the nightspots they have been warned to be on their guard for any possible traps.
A security source told the Belfast Telegraph: “We have been told that ‘honeys’ may be used by dissidents to identify soldiers. “The English accents and haircuts can give soldiers away but these ‘honeys’ will be used to lure soldiers into a trap. A lot of soldiers will be out over the holiday period so there is particular concern at the minute about this.”
The source added that all military personnel were recently warned that the terrorist threat against them has been upped yet again.
The use of honey traps is not a new terrorist tactic. It was a popular method used by the Provisional IRA during the Troubles. One of the most famous ‘honeys’ was IRA spy Rosena Brown, who allegedly used her charms to befriend senior prison officer John Christopher Hanna, who became infatuated by her and passed information about a colleague who was murdered by the IRA. . . . . .
CBS, 18 Dec 09: Crimesider has now translated the full message that a group calling itself the “Iranian Cyber Army” left on the front page of Twitter when they hacked it early Friday.
The text, written in Farsi, Arabic and English, references the Koran, speaks of victory for the “Party of God” – perhaps a reference to Hezbollah – and seems to claim the hackers can embargo America on the Internet. . . .
. . . . Early Friday, Twitter users trying to reach their accounts were redirected to a Web page that had a picture of a green flag and a message that said, “This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army. iRANiAN.CYBER.ARMY@GMAIL.COM ”
At the bottom in small letters it reads:
U.S.A. Think They Controlling And Managing Internet By Their Access, But THey Don’t, We Control And Manage Internet By Our Power, So Do Not Try To Stimulation Iranian Peoples To….
NOW WHICH COUNTRY IN EMBARGO LIST? IRAN? USA?
WE PUSH THEM IN EMBARGO LIST
Take Care.
The image on the hacked Web page contains two pieces of Arabic writing. In large blue letters, it says: “Verily, the Party of God (believers) will be victorious.” The line, which is taken directly from the Koran, could be a reference to Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia in Lebanon, whose name literally means “Party of God.”
A second piece of Arabic writing is in small red letters on the large green flag. It says: “Peace be Upon Him.”
Below it in large Farsi letters is a reference to Imam Husayn, a highly revered religious figure for Shiite Muslims. Shiites are the largest Muslim sect in Iran.
The bottom of the graphic contains a poem written in Farsi:
At our leader’s command, we fight / gallop
At his demand we fall on our swords
If he asks us to remain calm and patient
We’ll be patient, even if we burn and perish in submission . . . .
New York Times, 18 Dec 09: The former Soviet spy Aleksandr Y. Lebedev is seeking to expand his British media empire by adding The Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers, less than a year after buying a London daily tabloid.
Independent News & Media, the publisher of the two struggling papers, said Friday that it had entered into exclusive talks with Mr. Lebedev. But it said the discussions were “nonbinding” and that there was no guarantee a deal would be concluded.
Mr. Lebedev, who also owns a major Russian bank, parts of the airline Aeroflot and a newspaper in Moscow, bought The Evening Standard, of London, in January and swiftly turned it into a free paper. . . . .
Russia Today launches first UK ad blitz
Guardian, 18 Dec 09: . . . . .Two decades after the demise of Pravda, the Kremlin’s 24-hour English language TV channel, Russia Today (RT), is launching its first major advertising blitz across the UK. Dubbed North Korean TV by its detractors, the channel, available on satellite and cable TV, gives an unashamedly pro-Vladimir Putin view of the world, and says it seeks to correct the “biased” western view offered by the BBC and CNN. . . .
. . . . . Next year the Russian government will spend $1.4 billion (£866m) on international propaganda – more than on fighting unemployment. In January RT launches a Spanish service aimed at Latin America, a region of growing Kremlin geopolitical interest; RT already broadcasts in Arabic.
The Kremlin has trebled the budgets for its main state news agencies, Ria Novosti and ITAR-Tass, despite Russia’s deep economic crisis; there is a paid-for monthly supplement in the Daily Telegraph, Russia Now, and a revival of the Soviet-era radio station Voice of Russia.
The Kremlin employs two major PR agencies, Ketchum and GPlus, and in London uses Portland PR. And then there are the angry bloggers – a shadowy army of Russian nationalists who are active on western newspaper websites, including the Guardian’s Comment is free site. Anyone who dares to criticise Russia’s leaders, or point out some of the country’s deficiencies, is immediately branded a CIA spy or worse. “They [the Kremlin] are coming to realise that information matters and that control of information internationally matters even more,” says Evgeny Morozov, a Yahoo! fellow at Georgetown University’s institute for the study of diplomacy.
Morozov, who is writing a book on how authoritarian regimes are exploiting the internet, said the Kremlin was taking a more “aggressive” approach following last year’s war in Georgia.
The Russian government lost the PR battle over the conflict, at least initially, and failed to get its message across to shivering European consumers during two recent gas wars with Ukraine. “They have realised it is only by controlling what gets printed in the international media they can advance their hard policy agenda items,” Morozov says. Current Russian aims, he says, include thwarting Nato expansion and winning recognition for Moscow’s puppet states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. . . . .
. . . . .Insiders at RT praise the professionalism of the staff. It includes several British journalists and newsreaders. “Generally people there are pretty talented,” one former employee said. “But nobody is under any illusions as to what it’s all about. There is such a lack of objectivity. It’s like North Korea TV.”
RT enjoys more freedom than Russia’s domestic state-controlled channels. But while there is sometimes broad-based criticism of the regime, there is an unspoken understanding that you cannot criticise Putin, the ex-employee said.
Other sources familiar with the Kremlin’s PR strategy say that there is a lingering misunderstanding among top Russian officials as to how the western world works. “They think it’s enough to have good PR and that this is sufficient to act as a counterweight to the bad publicity caused by events in Russia,” one said. “Obviously it isn’t.”. . . . .
MEMRI, 18 Dec 09: On December 17, 2009, jihadist websites posted a new 128-page book by Ayman Al-Zawahiri titled The Morning and the Lamp: A Treatise Regarding the Claim that the Pakistani Constitution is Islamic. The date given at the end of the introduction is Dhu Al-Qi’da 1429 / November 2008. The existence of this book was previously known, as Al-Zawahiri made reference to it in an August 2009 video; this is the first time, however, that the text has been made public.
Al-Zawahiri’s book is a polemical treatise arguing that the Pakistani constitution is in contradiction with Islam and the shari’a. The import of this contention lies in the fact that many Pakistani Islamists believe that the constitution itself is Islamic, and that the faults they identify in the Pakistani regime are due rather to its never having been fully implemented. Al-Zawahiri’s critique focuses on topics such as shari’a law vs. popular sovereignty and human legislation, immunity granted some office-holders from judicial prosecution, the non-restriction of important offices to male Muslims, and the fact that the word “democracy” is mentioned in the constitution’s preamble. . . . . .
