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Pedro Gonçalves

Iran uncovers plots in presidential election - 0 views

www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Gholam-Hossein

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 25 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Iran's Intelligence Ministry has uncovered 'terrorist' plots targeting the country's security and stability during the presidential election. "The ministry has dismantled the groups involved in such activities and has arrested almost all group-members in two stages," IRNA quoted Intelligence Minister Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei on Wednesday.
  • He said that the plots included bomb attacks on several sites in Iran, adding that those behind such activities were linked with "the Zionist and non-Zionist regimes outside the county."
  • One of the targets, Mohseni-Ejei said, was the holy shrine of the late founder of the Islamic Revolution, Imam Khomeini. After the plot was foiled, the assailant detonated the bomb outside the shrine and "a number of people have been arrested regarding the suicide bombing," he added.
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  • According to the intelligence minister, the US and some western countries were aiming to achieve unrest in Iran's elections atmosphere. When asked by a reporter about the arrest of foreign spies working under the guise of reporters, Mohseni-Ejei said, "Anybody who embarks on espionage activity in the country will be arrested. A foreign reporter has so far been nabbed and another one has been questioned and his things were confiscated." The Iranian government has arrested a reporter working for the Newsweek and another one working for the Washington Times.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israelis Cede More Control of West Bank Security - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...26mideast.html

Israel Palestine Palestinian Authority West Bank

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Israel has agreed to give the Palestinian security forces more freedom of action in four West Bank cities, Israeli and Palestinian security officials said Thursday, a move that implies a reduction in Israeli military activity in those areas as the Western-backed Palestinian forces assert more control.
  • The Israeli military also recently removed several significant checkpoints inside the West Bank, in line with a policy of easing movement and improving daily life for the Palestinians so long as calm prevails. A Palestinian can now drive from Jenin in the northern West Bank to Hebron in the south without being stopped and checked at any permanent roadblock along the way, the military says.
  • Palestinian officials said that the Israeli measures did not go far enough. The prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, told reporters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Thursday that they did not meet Palestinian expectations, and that “what is required is a full cessation of military raids in Palestinian Authority areas.”
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  • Israeli military officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity under army rules, said that Palestinian forces would now be able to operate 24 hours a day in the cities of Ramallah, Qalqilya, Bethlehem and Jericho, and would have to coordinate less with Israeli forces in the area, implying that the forces would reduce their own nighttime raids on those cities.
  • Israeli forces have been carrying out arrest raids almost nightly. On Wednesday night, for example, seven Palestinian suspects were arrested, and on Monday night six were arrested, including three from Qalqilya.
  • Military officials emphasized that the army would continue to operate in all the West Bank, but one said that the army would now enter the four cities only “in case of an urgent security need, and in accordance with security assessments.”
  • Two recent deadly shootouts in Qalqilya between Palestinian forces and armed Palestinian militants of the Islamic group Hamas have been mentioned as evidence of a new determination on the part of the Palestinian security apparatus. Four police officers, four militants and a bystander were killed in the clashes that occurred during attempts to arrest the gunmen.
  • In addition to removing the checkpoints, Israel says it has agreed to issue more V.I.P. cards for Palestinian businessmen, to ease their passage over the crossings into Israel.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC NEWS | Middle East | New protests over Iran elections - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8104466.stm

Iran Iran Elections 2009 Ali Khamenei

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi are planning a new demonstration in Tehran in protest at what they see as a fraudulent presidential poll in Iran.The planned rally comes after overnight raids on university dormitories in several Iranian cities and as two pro-reform figures were arrested. Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has sought to calm tensions and called for an end to rioting.
  • Protests have grown since his re-election was confirmed on Saturday, with huge demonstrations in Tehran and clashes between protesters and security forces. Eight people have been killed.
  • Iran has imposed tough new restrictions on foreign media, requiring journalists to obtain explicit permission before covering any story. Journalists have also been banned from attending or reporting on any unauthorised demonstration.
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  • Two pro-reform figures, newspaper editor Saeed Laylaz and Hamid Reza Jalaipour, an activist and journalist, were arrested on Wednesday morning, reports said.
  • About 100 reformist figures were arrested on Sunday as opposition grew to the election results. Many have since been released.
  • Overnight, members of Iran's Basij volunteer militia reportedly raided university dormitories in several Iranian cities. The Basij stormed compounds, ransacking dormitories and beating up some students. Several arrests were made, our correspondent says, and the dean of the university in the city of Shiraz has resigned.
  • In the most high-profile incident, 120 lecturers at Tehran university resigned after a raid on that institution.
  • Ayatollah Khamenei has not appeared in public since the election results, but now seems to be deeply involved in the search for a solution to the stand-off. Meeting representatives of the four election candidates, he urged all parties not to agitate their supporters and stir up an already tense situation. He also repeated his offer of a partial vote recount, a proposal already rejected by the main opposition. "In the elections, voters had different tendencies, but they equally believe in the ruling system and support the Islamic Republic," the Associated Press reported him as saying. "Nobody should take any action that would create tension, and all have to explicitly say they are against tension and riots."
  • Witnesses said Tuesday's demonstrators walked in near silence towards state TV headquarters - apparently anxious not to be depicted as hooligans by authorities. Thousands of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supporters staged a counter-rally in Vali Asr Square in central Tehran - some bussed in from the provinces, observers say.
  • As night fell, residents took to the roof-tops of their houses to shout protest messages across the city, a scene not witnessed since the final days of the Shah, our correspondent says.
Pedro Gonçalves

Top military chief arrested in alleged plot against Turkish government - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Turkey Military

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 06 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gen. Ilker Basbug spent the night behind bars at Silivri prison after testifying for seven hours Thursday in an Istanbul court. He was accused of creating dozens of websites aimed at bringing down the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
  • arrested based on charges related to eliminating the government of Turkish Republic and establishing and leading a terrorist organization
  • Last July, Turkey's top four military officers resigned after a squabble with the government over the fate of officers jailed in the alleged plot against the Justice and Development Party.
Pedro Gonçalves

Egypt gives army power to arrest civilians | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...-justice-idUKBRE85C1BQ20120613

Egypt

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Human rights groups said the justice ministry decree amounted to a reintroduction of emergency law through the back door.
  • "Whenever the military is involved in arresting people, it then refers them to military tribunals, so this is basically a way of confirming the military's right to arrest and bring people before military tribunals," she said.
  • Amr Hamzawy, a liberal member of parliament, tweeted that the decision "reproduces the state of emergency law in a different form and threatens the rule of law."
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Turkey's Gul seeks to calm military 'coup plot' fears - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8536216.stm

Turkey Ergenekon

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 25 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Turkey's president has said tensions over an alleged military coup plot will be resolved within the law, after meeting the head of the armed forces.President Abdullah Gul made the statement after a summit with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and armed forces chief Gen Ilker Basbug. Tension between the government and the military has risen following a round of arrests over the alleged plot. Twenty military officers were charged this week in connection with the case. They were among more than 40 officers arrested on Monday.
  • Turkey's military has overthrown or forced the resignation of four governments since 1960 - most recently in 1997 - though Gen Basbug has insisted that coups are a thing of the past.
  • The latest men to be charged were arrested over the so-called "sledgehammer" plot, which reportedly dates back to 2003. Reports of the alleged plot first surfaced in the liberal Taraf newspaper, which said it had discovered documents detailing plans to bomb two Istanbul mosques and provoke Greece into shooting down a Turkish plane over the Aegean Sea. The army has said the scenarios were discussed but only as part of a planning exercise at a military seminar. The alleged plot is similar, and possibly linked, to the reported Ergenekon conspiracy, in which military figures and staunch secularists allegedly planned to foment unrest, leading to a coup.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Libya's Gaddafi urges 'holy war' against Switzerland - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8537925.stm

Lybia Switzerland Muammar Gaddafi EU

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 26 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has called for a jihad, or holy war, against Switzerland, as an ongoing diplomatic row between the two nations heats up.He criticised a recent Swiss vote against the building of minarets and said Muslims must boycott the country. There have been tensions between the nations since 2008, when one of Mr Gaddafi's sons was arrested in Geneva, accused of assaulting two servants.
  • "Let us wage jihad against Switzerland, Zionism and foreign aggression," he said. "Any Muslim in any part of the world who works with Switzerland is an apostate, is against Muhammad, God and the Koran."
  • In a referendum last November, 57.5% of Swiss voters approved a constitutional ban on the building of minarets. An appeal against the ban has been submitted to the European Court of Human Rights.
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  • Earlier this month, Libya stopped issuing visas to citizens from many European nations, prompting condemnation from the European Commission.
  • Libya's move came after Switzerland allegedly blacklisted 188 high-ranking Libyans, denying them entry permits. The Swiss ban is said to include Mr Gaddafi and his family. The row began after the arrest of Mr Gaddafi's son Hannibal and his wife, Aline Skaf, in Geneva in July 2008. They were accused of assaulting two servants while staying at a luxury hotel in the Swiss city, though the charges were later dropped. Libya retaliated by cancelling oil supplies, withdrawing billions of dollars from Swiss banks, refusing visas to Swiss citizens and recalling some of its diplomats. In the same month that the Gaddafis were arrested, Libyan authorities detained two Swiss businessmen, in what analysts believe was a retaliatory move.
Pedro Gonçalves

Spies' Roots Reach Deep in Lebanon - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...23lebanon.html

Lebanon Israel Mossad Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 May 09 - Cached
  • When the Lebanese authorities announced the arrest of an Israeli spy ring late last year, the news aroused little surprise. It is no secret that Israel has long maintained intelligence agents here.
  • But in recent weeks, more and more suspects have been captured, including a retired general, several security officials and a deputy mayor. All told, at least 21 people have been arrested, and 3 others escaped over the border into Israel with the help of the Israeli military, Lebanese officials say.
  • The spying network’s extent has mesmerized the Lebanese and made headlines here. It has also infuriated Lebanese officials, who sent an official protest to the United Nations this week. On Friday, President Michel Suleiman complained about the matter in a meeting here with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
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  • Those accused of being spies are said to have used sophisticated surveillance equipment and satellite phones, sometimes ingeniously disguised in crutches or knapsacks. One of them, a car dealer in southern Lebanon, placed Israeli tracking devices in cars he sold to Hezbollah members, security officials say. Most seem to have been motivated by the promise of money. Some were caught by Hezbollah before being handed over to the Lebanese authorities.
  • The arrests have even become an issue in Lebanon’s coming parliamentary elections, with some analysts saying that, intentionally or not, they might benefit the political alliance led by Hezbollah, Israel’s primary nemesis here. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, delivered an angry speech on Friday in which he called for all the captured spies to be executed and urged the Lebanese to help in capturing any remaining agents.
  • One of the important ones, the general said, was Ziyad Homsi. Mr. Homsi, 61, was the deputy mayor of Saadnayel, a town in the Bekaa Valley. According to a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Safir, which has links to Hezbollah, Mr. Homsi had told interrogators he was assigned to meet Mr. Nasrallah, which he apparently failed to do. Israeli monitors planned to track his movements as he went to meet the Hezbollah leader.
Pedro Gonçalves

Iran sees second day of clashes as anger rises over elections | World news | guardian.c... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...an-election-clases-ahmadinejad

Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Mir Hossein Mousavi Ali Khamenei Saeed Laylaz

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 14 Jun 09 - Cached
  • Outraged supporters of the moderate candidate, Mir Hussein Mousavi, who claimed his defeat in the Iranian election at the hands of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was manipulated, took to the streets of Tehran again today raising the prospect of more violent clashes.
  • In a sign of the anger among Mousavi's supporters, they chanted "the president is committing a crime and the supreme leader is supporting him", highly inflammatory language in a regime where the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is considered irreproachable.
  • Crowds also gathered outside Mousavi's headquarters but there was no sign of Ahmadinejad's chief political rival, who is rumoured to be under house arrest.
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  • Last night saw violent clashes after Ahmadinejad was confirmed as the winner of the presidential election on Friday, barely an hour after the polls had closed.Protesters set fire to rubbish bins and tires, creating pillars of black smoke among the apartment blocks and office buildings in central Tehran. An empty bus was engulfed in flames on a side road.
  • More than 100 reformists, including Mohammad Reza Khatami, the brother of former president Mohammad Khatami, were arrested last night, according to leading reformist Mohammad Ali Abtahi. He told Reuters they were members of Iran's leading reformist party, Mosharekat.
  • A judiciary spokesman denied they had been arrested but said they were summoned and "warned not to increase tension" before being released.
  • Mousavi, who had been widely expected to beat the controversial incumbent if there was a high turnout - or at least do well enough to trigger a second round - insisted he was the victor and appealed against the result to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
  • But Khamenei replied that the election had been conducted fairly. He ordered the three defeated candidates and their supporters to avoid "provocative" behaviour. "All Iranians must support and help the elected president," he warned.
  • Israel reacted immediately by demanding intensified efforts to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
  • "The regime is making a decision to shape the direction of Iran for the next decade," Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst, said. "I'm sure they didn't even count the votes. I do not accept this result. It is false. It should be the opposite. If Ahmadinejad is president again, Iran will be more isolated and more aggressive. But he is the choice of the regime."
  • Laylaz had warned before the result that a second presidential term for Ahmadinejad could create a "Tiananmen-type" situation in Iran. Ominously, as three weeks of campaigning drew to a close last Wednesday, an official of the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that any attempt at a popular "revolution" would be crushed.
  • Overt signs of repression included the failure of phone lines for hours after the polls closed and the blocking of the English and Persian-language websites of the BBC and Voice of America - which are regularly attacked by the Iranian authorities as "imperialist". Text messaging also failed.
Argos Media

Storm of Violence in Iraq Strains Its Security Forces - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...25iraq.html

Iraq Islamic State of Iraq Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia Abu Omar al-Baghdadi

shared by Argos Media on 25 Apr 09 - Cached
  • A deadly outburst of violence appears to be overwhelming Iraq’s police and military forces as American troops hand over greater control of cities across the country to them. On Friday, twin suicide bombings killed at least 60 people outside Baghdad’s most revered Shiite shrine, pushing the death toll in one 24-hour period to nearly 150.
  • The bombings on Friday ominously echoed attacks like the one at a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February 2006 that unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed and pushed the country toward civil war.
  • The latest bombings — there have been at least 18 major attacks so far this month — so far have not prompted retaliatory attacks, but they have strained what remains a fragile society deeply divided between Sunnis and Shiites.
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  • Two suicide bombers struck within five minutes of each other on streets leading to the shrine of Imam Musa al-Kadhim and his grandson. One of the attacks, and perhaps both, were carried out by women, witnesses said.
  • Nearly half of those killed were Iranians making a pilgrimage to the shrine, a golden-domed landmark in the predominantly Shiite Kadhimiya neighborhood of Baghdad that is devoted to 2 of the 12 imams of Shiite Islam. At least 125 people were wounded, many of them also Iranians.
  • A loose coalition of Sunni militant forces, the Islamic State of Iraq, has claimed responsibility for carrying out many of the recent attacks.
  • The deadliest of the three bombings on Thursday struck a restaurant filled with Iranian travelers in Muqdadiya, a town in Diyala not far from the border. The toll in that attack rose to 56, with Iranians making up the majority of the dead. Over all, at least 89 people were killed in the bombings on Thursday, and more than 100 were wounded.
  • After the attacks on Friday, angry Iraqis who gathered amid the bloody debris blamed lax security and corruption of the police and government officials for what had happened. Some of their anger had a strongly sectarian cast.“They have been ruling us for 1,400 years,” said a Shiite army soldier who identified himself only as Abu Haidar, referring to the Sunni domination of Shiites in Iraq. “We took it over for four years, and they are slaughtering us.”
  • The Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella insurgent group that includes Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, says the recent attacks as part of a campaign called Harvest of the Good, which it announced in March.
  • In a statement distributed on extremist Web sites at the time, the group’s leader, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, ridiculed President Obama as “Washington’s black man” and called his plan to withdraw American forces by 2011 an “implied avowal of defeat.”
  • On Thursday, Iraq’s military claimed to have arrested Mr. Baghdadi, but what was touted as a major success appeared to be in question. Extremist Web sites denied his arrest, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors claims and other statements by terrorist and extremist groups. The American military command also said in a statement that it could not confirm “the arrest or capture” of the leader, who the American military believes to be a fictitious Iraqi figurehead of a movement that includes many foreign fighters.
  • A senior national police official on Friday bluntly cited the limitations of Iraq’s security forces and their equipment for detecting explosives, typically hand-held wands used at checkpoints that the official described as fakes.
Argos Media

Human Rights Watch accuses Hamas of killing Palestinians in Gaza | World news | guardia... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...mas-killings-gaza-human-rights

HRW Hamas Fatah Palestine Israel Gaza West Bank Joe Stork

shared by Argos Media on 21 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Human Rights Watch today accused the Islamist movement Hamas of a campaign of killing and attacks against Palestinians in Gaza that has left at least 32 dead and dozens more seriously injured.
  • The attacks came over the past three months, beginning during Israel's three-week war in Gaza. "Hamas authorities there took extraordinary steps to control, intimidate, punish and at times eliminate their internal political rivals as well as persons suspected of collaboration with Israel," Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.
  • "The unlawful arrests, torture and killings in detention continued even after the fighting stopped, mocking Hamas's claims to uphold the law," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East division.
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  • Palestinian human rights groups in Gaza also found 49 Palestinians were shot in the legs in punishment attacks and around 73 were severely beaten, suffering broken arms and legs, from the start of the war in late December until the end of January. Some of the attackers were not identified, but many appeared to be from Hamas.
  • During the Gaza war 18 Palestinians, many suspected of collaborating with Israel, were killed. Most had escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed by Israeli aircraft at the start of the war. A further 14, at least four of whom were in jail at the time, have been killed since the end of the war.
  • The accounts corroborate witness testimony reported by the Guardian at the time and appear to show Hamas took advantage of the chaos of the war to exert control over its political and security rivals in Gaza. Other Palestinians have also spoken of a campaign of intimidation against secular and moderate groups in Gaza.
  • Human Rights Watch said Fatah, the rival, western-supported Palestinian faction that controls the West Bank, had also used "repressive measures" against its Hamas opponents. It said Palestinian human rights groups recorded 31 complaints of torture by the Fatah-led security forces, as well as one death in custody and the arbitrary arrest of two Palestinian television journalists.
  • "Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," said Stork.
  • Human Rights Watch has also accused Israel of violating international law during the Gaza war, including by what it said was indiscriminate use of weapons such as white phosphorus in densely populated civilian areas.
Argos Media

Plot to assassinate Obama foiled in Turkey - CNN.com - 0 views

edition.cnn.com/...index.html

Obama Assassination Attempts

shared by Argos Media on 07 Apr 09 - Cached
  • U.S. officials have taken "very seriously" a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama involving a Syrian man who was arrested late last week in Turkey
  • officials also noted that while Obama gets more threats than usual as the first African-American U.S. president,
  • The plot was first reported by the Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Watan, which revealed that Turkish security services arrested a man of Syrian origins Friday in connection with a plan to kill Obama during his visit to Turkey.
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  • Obama was in Strasbourg, France, on Friday for a NATO summit and did not arrive in Turkey for the final leg of his trip until Sunday.
  • The Saudi paper reported the suspect, who was carrying an Al-Jazeera TV press credential in the name of "M.G.," confessed to authorities after his arrest that he and three alleged accomplices plotted to stab Obama with a knife during the Alliance of Civilizations Summit in Istanbul, which Obama attended on Monday evening. The U.S. officials confirmed those allegations, but stressed to CNN that the information provided by the man is still being verified.
Argos Media

'Merchant of Death', Viktor Bout, denies arming terror | World news | The Observer - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...viktor-bout-merchant-of-death

Arms Trade Igor Sechin Russia US Viktor Bout

shared by Argos Media on 15 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The UN has accused him of arming the alleged war criminal Charles Taylor in Liberia, as well as rebels in Sierra Leone and the Congo. He was arrested in a five-star hotel last March while allegedly discussing the sale of shoulder-launched missiles with US agents masquerading as Colombian rebels from FARC. The request to Thai authorities to arrest Bout says the US feared he was travelling on a British passport, number K163077. UK officials have declined to comment.
  • Bout's supposed client list reads like a Who's Who of the world's nastiest warlords but also includes Americans, Britons, Frenchmen and Russians. A former US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, has admitted that planes connected to his department did fly supplies into Iraq to aid the US occupation. Bout said it was possible that these deliveries were made by a company run by his brother, Sergei. He denied earlier reports that he shipped armoured cars into Iraq for Britain. He said the French government did hire him to fly its troops into the Congo in 1994 for Operation Turquoise, a relief mission after the Rwanda genocide.
  • Some analysts suspect that Bout's activities were linked to Russian intelligence. He denies this, but, asked if he worked for the Russian state, he said: "Sometimes, yeah. We did the flights." His battle against extradition has now become intensely political. Some observers have speculated that he is of high value to the US because of his alleged links to Igor Sechin, a deputy to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin and one of the Kremlin's most powerful figures. He denied any such links or ever meeting Sechin, saying that the two men did not – as is claimed – serve as intelligence officers in Mozambique at the same time.
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  • one estimate had his wealth at $6 billion
Argos Media

BBC NEWS | Europe | Seven held over Dutch 'bomb plot' - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...7941080.stm

Netherlands Amsterdam Terrorism

shared by Argos Media on 13 Mar 09 - Cached
  • Seven people have been arrested in the Netherlands on suspicion of planning to blow up shops in Amsterdam.
  • The suspects, six men and a woman, are Dutch citizens of Moroccan origin.
  • District Attorney Herman Bolhaar told a news conference: "As far as we can tell, none involved has a history of terrorist involvement." One of those arrested was related to a suspect in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, he added.
Pedro Gonçalves

Israel remains silent over use of forged British passports in Dubai assassination | UK ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...ation-forged-british-passports

israel mossad dubai uk

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 19 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Dubai police chief declared that he was "99%, if not 100% certain" of Mossad's involvement, and called on Interpol to issue an arrest warrant for the Israeli spy chief, Meir Dagan
  • SOCA is concentrating specifically on the misuse of British passports, it is understood that MI6 is conducting a broader, parallel probe into Israeli involvement
  • US also looked likely to be drawn into the affair for the first time, after the Wall Street Journal reported that Mabhouh's assassins had used American-registered credit cards to buy plane tickets.
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  • a further two Irish passports were used in the assassination, bringing the total number of Irish travel documents involved to five as speculation grew that the size of the hit squad was bigger than the 11 originally reported.
  • In Dubai, however, the emirate's police chief, Dahi Khalfan Tamim, called on local television for Interpol to issue "a red notice against the head of Mossad … as a killer in case Mossad is proved to be behind the crime, which is likely now."
  • British officials said last night it was too early to speculate on what measures Britain might take against Israel if the government remained uncooperative.One possible consequence could be Britain's response to an Israeli request to change its 'universal jurisdiction' law on war crimes, under which a London magistrates court issued an arrest warrant in December for Israel's former foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, for her role in the Gaza offensive a year earlier.
  • Sir Richard Dalton, Britain's ambassador to Iran from 2003 to 2006 said: "All this just says how pathetic and ludicrous the claim is that Israel is Britain's strategic partner."
  • The Dubai authorities said they had asked Britain for assistance at the end of January, but the foreign office insists it was only informed of the British connection hours before it was made public.
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Pakistan confirms Taliban 'number two' arrested - 0 views

news.bbc.co.uk/...8519354.stm

Pakistan Afghanistan Mullah Baradar

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 17 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Pakistan has confirmed that a Taliban suspect captured earlier this month is one of the organisation's top leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.
  • US and Pakistani agents had seized Mullah Baradar in Karachi on 8 February, US officials said on Tuesday.
  • But a Taliban spokesman has said Mullah Baradar, thought to be their second-in-command, is free and in Afghanistan.
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  • The arrest suggests Pakistan is getting tough with Afghan Taliban leaders sheltering there, says the BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad, something that has long been a demand of the White House.
Pedro Gonçalves

Dubai police chief says to seek Netanyahu arrest | World | Reuters - 0 views

uk.reuters.com/...idUKTRE6214U620100302

Dubai Israel Mossad Benjamin Netanyahu

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 03 Mar 10 - Cached
  • Dubai's police chief plans to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of Israel's spy agency over the killing of a Hamas leader in the emirate, Al Jazeera television reported.
Pedro Gonçalves

Turkish military high command detained over fears of secular 'coup' | World news | guar... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...rkey-arrests-alleged-coup-plot

Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan Military

shared by Pedro Gonçalves on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Police in Turkey today detained more than 40 high-ranking military commanders for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Islamic-rooted government.The arrests highlighted the ongoing struggle between the secular establishment and the government and leaves question marks over the traditional role of the military as the pillar of the secular state.The detention of several senior military officers – including members of the elite class known as Pashas, a title of respect harking back to Ottoman times – underlines that such officials are no longer untouchable.
  • The commanders detained today are reportedly accused of seeking to foment chaos by blowing up mosques to trigger a military takeover. The military denies the accusation.
  • Several high-ranking members of Turkey's military, including ex-deputy chief General Ergin Saygun, former air force chief General Ibrahim Firtina and navy chief Admiral Ozden Ornek were among those detained. Several other senior admirals and generals were also among the suspects.
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  • In total prosecutors have charged more than 400 people, including soldiers, academics, journalists and politicians. No one has yet been convicted.
  • The detentions followed revelations of wiretap evidence and the discovery of secret weapons caches, which dealt a blow to the military's credibility.
  • Turkey's secular military has ousted four governments since 1960, which is why many Turks believe it has been the real power since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created the republic out of the Ottoman Empire.Under European Union pressure, Erdogan has dramatically curtailed the military's power and reinforced civilian rule, while bolstering democratic institutions.
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