Terrorism

Palestinian political leader and activist George Habash died yesterday. The interesting part is that Habash was part of the 60s-70s Palestinian resistance movements that employed terror tactics trying to draw attention to the Palestinian cause.

According to the Congressional Quarterly Jeff Stein, the FBI hoped to track down Iranian terrorists by following, out of all things, Falafel sales in groceries.

The photo on this story at Wired blogs, shows Iranian dishes.

What is sad is that falafel is not part of the Iranian cuisine, being mainly a staple of the Eastern Mediterranean.

Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today while on the streets. A gunman shot her, then blew up himself while she was standing on top of her car.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

Benazir's father was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who was founder of the PPP (Pakistan's People Party), Prime Minister, then President of Pakistan. A military coup ousted him from power, and put him on trial and executed. Partially out of emotional sympathy, his wife, Nusrat Bhutto was made head of the PPP.

Ossama Bin Laden, head of Al-Qaeda, appeared in a video posted on some sympathetic web sites. This is the first time in 3 years he has done so.

Noting that he looks more youthful, Western media has noticed his shorter trimmed bird, and less grey hair compared to before.

Moreover, Radio Free Europe analyses certain aspects of the video message, including:

Two recent cases of militants in Saudi Arabia and Egypt renouncing violence and urging others to do the same.

Ahmed Al-Shayea, Saudi Arabia

The first is Ahmed Al-Shayea أحمد الشايع who drove a truck bomb in Baghdad in Christmas of 2004. He now shows his amputated fingers and disfgured face on Saudi TV channels, deploring others not to take the path that left him with these scars.

A Pew Global Attitudes survey for 2007 has observed a sharp decline in support for suicide bombing since 2002.

Dwindling Muslim Support for Terrorism

Even as many people around the world express more positive views of their lives and countries than they did five years ago, opinions about regional issues and concerns are a mix of good and bad news.

Another case of collateral damage in the global war against terror.

Dr Mohamed Haneef, an Indian Muslim physician working in Brisbane, Australia was arrested there in connection with the attempted bombings in London, England and Glasgow, Scotland, by Muslim medical workers.

Now, he has been cleared of any charges.

Al-Qaeda's ideologue, and second in command, Ayman Al-Zawahiri has a video tape out where he spells out the short and long term goals of Al-Qaeda.

Short term: the West

As I always thought: the goals are local to the Middle East, and does not target the West as a primary goal. Rather, he sees that Western governments are interfering with what is an internal struggle that Al-Qaeda (and other militant groups) would have won on their own against the despotic regimes in the region.

The story behind a book of poetry written by Guantanamo detainees could be as compelling as the poems themselves.

Prisoners, denied pens and paper, wrote some of the poems by scratching
verses onto foam cups with pebbles. Other poems were translated into
English by linguists with security clearances but no literary
credentials.

"It was a long and draining project," said Marc Falkoff, a law professor who represents 18 detainees.

I have wrote about Professor Robert Pape in a past article. He has been doing more speaking lately. The latest is speaking to a Muslim banquet and a Jewish audience in Cleveland. Details in this article on Cleveland Jewish News.