By Gareth Porter WASHINGTON – The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Iran had “quietly hidden an increasingly large part of its atomic complex” in a vast network of tunnels and bunkers buried in mountainsides. The story continued a narrative begun last September, when a second Iranian uranium enrichment facility near Qom was reported to have been discovered by United States and Western intelligence. The premise of that narrative is that Iran wanted secret nuclear facilities in order to be able to make a nuclear weapon without being detected by the international community. But evidence indicates that the real … Continue reading Iran places trust in ‘passive defense’

By Pepe Escobar HONG KONG – One’s got to hand it to failed underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab. He is the real Man of the Year. With a single twitch of his lower parts, the now iconic young Nigerian single-handedly not only forced the Barack Obama administration to unleash tight airport security measures, a new virtual striptease craze bound to bolster the fortunes of selected players in the security industry; but he also managed to place no fewer than 675 million Muslims (plus sundry Nigerian and even Cuban Christians) on a Cyclopean terror list of 10 “prone to terrorism countries”. … Continue reading Empire reloaded

By Stephen Zunes The United States may be on the verge of involvement in yet another counter-insurgency war that, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, may make a bad situation even worse. The attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight by a Nigerian and apparently planned in Yemen, the alleged ties between the perpetrator of the Fort Hood massacre to a radical Yemeni cleric, and an ongoing US-backed Yemeni military offensive against al-Qaeda have all focused US attention on that country. With a population of about 24 million, Yemen has almost as large a population as Saudi Arabia, yet … Continue reading Yemen left with little wiggle room

by Sheila Musaji The Jamaica Observer reports that Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal has been arrested in Kenya for allegedly violating his Kenyan visitor’s visa by preaching in a local mosque. Sheikh Abdullah El-Faisal (aka Trevor William Forest), was born in Jamaica and trained in Islamic studies in Saudi Arabia for seven years.  He went to Britain where he served at the Brixton Mosque where he was ousted in 1993.  He served four years in a British prison for urging his followers to kill non-Muslims, including Americans, Hindus and Jews and was deported from Britain to Jamaica in 2007.  He is the … Continue reading Abdullal El Faisal, Revolution Muslim, and Islamic Thinkers Society

// // The well-regarded Muslim organisation, British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD), has announced that it is joining the Accord Coalition, which brings together religious and non-religious groups to promote community schooling and reform the way faith schools currently operate. BMSD’s director, Tehmina Kazi explained: “Our goals in this area coincide, as BMSD wishes to see more faith schools embrace a broad and objective curriculum that teaches pupils about a variety of religious and non-religious beliefs.” Kazi continued: “It is vital that we embed a culture of respect for these different beliefs, and we are confident that this will equip … Continue reading Muslim group joins coalition to reform faith schools

// // By OLIVIER ROY FLORENCE, ITALY — What do the terrorists who attempted to strike U.S. territory in 2009 have in common? What is their connection with the Arab Middle East, often presented as the cradle of Islamic radicalization? The answer seems to be very little. What ties together Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian-born, British-educated, trained-in-Yemen man charged in the failed Christmas Day plane bombing; Anwar al-Awlaki, the fierce radical Islamic preacher who, in fact, holds a degree in civil engineering from Colorado State University rather than a master’s in divinity from an Arab theological school; and Nidal Malik … Continue reading The Allure of Terrorism

Bruce Hoffman Professor, Security Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Fellow, Combating Terror Cente Bruce Hoffman, professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center, was online Monday, Jan. 11, at 11 a.m. ET to discuss his Outlook article titled “Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too.” Al-Qaeda has a new strategy. Obama needs one, too. 5 Myths about who becomes a terrorist // <![CDATA[ var rn = ( Math.round( Math.random()*10000000000 ) ); document.write('‘) ; // ]]> ____________________ Mt. Airy, Md.: Aside from al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremist groups who/what … Continue reading Al-Qaeda’s grand new strategy

LONDON (Reuters) – A double agent who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan sent a plea to Islamist writers a few weeks earlier urging them to launch suicide attacks, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said, citing a militant forum. The agent, Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, himself a former prolific writer on pro-al Qaeda Internet forums, urged fellow propagandists “nearly 50 days ago” to come to the “battlefield,” SITE reported an associate of Balawi’s as saying. “Beware, beware that you are satisfied with writing on the forums without going to the battlefield in the Cause of Allah,” a January 10 … Continue reading Bomber Urged More Attacks Before Striking CIA