The magazine which has published this is US citizen Samir Khan's one, in which he stated he was "proud" to be a traitor to US:
An online Al Qaeda magazine has released tips with images on planning terrorist attacks. The English language online magazine is believed to be led by American citizen Samir Khan, currently living in Yemen, according to CNN.

The violent article, titled "The Ultimate Mowing Machine," advises the use of pickup trucks to "mow down the enemies of Allah." It encourages the use of a four wheel drive truck, citing "the stronger the better."

"To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run," the article reads.

There are many other terror tactics in the magazine, including the use of firearms to shoot up a Washington, D.C. restaurant.

The site caught the eyes of counter terrorism officials because it is written in perfect English, including the correct us of colloquials.

"The concern is that this magazine will reach kids who have never really been very interested in violent jihad before," says a counter terrorism official who has been tracking Khan for years.

"The magazine seems to make it fun and accessible. It used to be to get into this you needed to speak Arabic. Now you don't — English subtitles, English translations of extremist videos, that's the norm now."

Source.

Former Charlotte man admits to being "al Qaeda to the core" - WBTV 3 News, Weather, Sports, and Traffic for Charlotte, NC-:
Really peaceful, hein?

Three suspected al-Qaeda associates who were apprehended in West Africa by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents during an international anti-drug operation, were extradited to New York and appeared in federal court in Manhattan earlier this year, according to reports obtained by the National Association of Chiefs of Police's Terrorism and Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs committees.

The operation confirms the suspicions of terrorism experts that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are involved in narcotics trafficking to fund their terror operations.

The suspects -- Oumar Issa, Harouna Toure and Idress Abelrahman -- were charged with conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization after they allegedly agreed to transport as much as 1,000 kilos of cocaine. Allegedly, the drugs were earmarked for western European countries and the United States.

The cocaine interdiction and arrests occurred along the traffickers' favorite route through West Africa to North Africa that serves as a launch point for export to Europe. The suspects were taken into custody after an intense undercover investigation in which informants and agents posed as Colombian narco-terrorists who claimed they shared hatred for the United States with the African suspects.

According to the NACOP report, Colombian drug kingpins use the same transshipment techniques in Africa that they've successfully used in Latin America. The Colombian traffickers' utilized al-Qaeda's protection services in order to make certain shipments arrived at their destinations.

DEA officials report that in this case they were able to infiltrate the drug operation during the negotiations phase. The undercover DEA agents and informants indicated they were associated with the Colombia terrorist group FARC and could protect the shipment from West Africa to North Africa and ultimately to Spain.

Issa, Toure and Abelrahman claim to be from Mali, but their nation of origin is yet unknown.

Source (found).

Background:
Venezuela-Sahel: international net of drug trafficking and terrorism.
US charges 3 Al Qaeda men with drug trafficking to finance global terror.
Report: Hizbullah’s drug trafficking.
Drug Trafficking: More on "Air Al-Qaeda".
More on the links between South American drug traffickers and AQIM.
Northern Europe: Somali Muslim Khat-sale finances Islamic terrorism.
Spain: NC judge accuses Venezuela of ETA/FARC terrorism.
US: indictment links Hezbollah with Mexican drug cartels.
US: Walid Phares on Jihadist-Drug Cartels' links.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based nuclear watchdog, has obtained satellite images showing that a row of cooling towers at Pakistan's secret Khushab-III reactor has been completed. This suggests the plant could begin operation within months, allowing Pakistan substantially to increase its stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium.

Last year, Barack Obama, US president, called for "a new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials". In response, the Conference on Disarmament, a 64-nation coalition that negotiated the 1992 Chemical Weapons convention and the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, agreed to negotiate a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty, intended to cap production of weapons-grade enriched uranium and most forms of plutonium.

But Pakistan, which is deepening its nuclear ties to China, has blocked the Conference on Disarmament from starting discussions, saying a cut-off would hurt its national security interests. Ashley Tellis, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "Pakistan thinks its going to be forced to cap its fissile material stocks and wants to make sure it has as much as it can get before then." The country's position has frustrated many states. Rose Gottmeiler, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, recently warned that her country's "patience is running out".

Khushab-III is the latest in a series of reactors built to feed Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme. Khushab-II, located next to its new sister plant, became operational in February. The plutonium produced at the complex allows for the construction of small but lethal weapons: a single kilogram can produce an explosion equal to 20,000 tons of conventional explosives.

Source.

Background:
Pakistan: terrorist attacks and double game continues.
US slams Pakistan.
Contacts with the Taliban.
US top Defence officials worried about ISI's involvement with the Talibans.

The U.S. Embassy in Dublin has sponsored a seminar on Muslim entrepreneurs and business in Ireland. A main point of the conference was the need for Sharia law compliant financial products to be used.

The U.S. Embassy supported the conference as part of President Obama’s outreach to Muslims around the world.

Ambassador Dan Rooney congratulated the organizers on Wednesday and said that the U.S was “solid partners” in the venture. He gave a copy of President Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope “ to Imam Hussein Halawa, of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland, who opened the event.

At the conference, Thomas Cooney, academic director of the Dublin Institute of Technology, stated that 76 per cent of Muslim business people in Ireland say securing finance is their biggest problem and 90 per cent said there is a need for financial products to be compliant with Islamic law.

There are 45,000 Muslims in Ireland and Islam is the third largest religion reported on census forms.

Source.

Mohammed drawn as a dog by L. Vilks.

Lars Vilks, a conceptual artist from Sweden with a $100,000 bounty on his head, could be found secreted away in a room at the Rittenhouse Hotel Thursday morning, receiving carefully screened visitors from the media.

Vilks is on a weeklong tour of the United States and Canada, speaking about freedom of expression. He had been scheduled to hold forth at the Union League Thursday, but late Wednesday, the event was abruptly called off.

Craig Snider, a Union League member who was hosting the speaker, said that after he realized the visit would require extraordinary security measures to protect Vilks, his associates, and anyone in attendance, "I voluntarily canceled it. I was not prepared to ask the league to take that kind of risk."

Instead, he invited members of the local media to interview Vilks at the Rittenhouse.

The artist's appearance in Ottawa was also called off, but, as of Thursday, stops in Toronto and Boston were still scheduled.

CNN:

A German citizen of Afghan descent was the source of much of the information on a potential "Mumbai-style" terror plot in Europe, a German counterterrorism official said Wednesday.

The man, Ahmed Sidiqi, was detained in Kabul in July and transferred to U.S. custody where he has "revealed details about the terror plot," said the official, who did not want to be named because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Related:
Al-Shabab in Texas?

Background:
Indictment links Hizbullah with Mexican drug cartels.

Image via Wikipedia

In the presidential elections last year the UN–backed electoral commission threw out a third of the votes amid allegations of fraud and there are widespread concerns that the situation has not improved.

Gen Carter, who is based at Regional Command South in Kandahar, said they had already seen a "pattern of intimidation much as in the presidential elections" and he expected that the insurgents would inevitably "go after" election officials and voters.

Kandahar, he said, resembled Moscow in the 1990s, with "mobs, mafia and protection rackets" running madrassas, boarding houses, and private security companies.

He said many of the candidates were "honourable" and did not want to be seen as fraudulent or corrupt but added: "We would be kidding ourselves if we didn't think they have their own agendas."

Meanwhile, Hetmayar has already told to French press that "he totally regrets looming elections":

Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan warlord and former prime minister, told France's RFI radio and Liberation newspaper that his Hizb-i-Islami group 'isn't participating in these elections overseen by foreigners.'

Hekmatyar's group fights mainly in eastern Afghanistan and is one of the only major insurgent groups that has openly talked peace with President Hamid Karzai's government.

Hekmatyar has a reputation of being a ruthless Islamic extremist, whose power has waned over the years. He commands far fewer fighters than the Taliban.

Speaking to a massive crowd of Friday prayers worshippers and the faithful in Tehran, Hojjatol-Islam Kazem Sedighi referred to the upcoming international nuclear disarmament conference in Tehran, and said the Iranian nation is organizing this international conference on nuclear disarmament because our religion and our customs oblige us (tell us ) to respect the right of every human being.

Heh, yeah, right. What rights? Because I don't see women, non-Muslims, homosexuals et al have their rights very respected in Iran, do they.

Turning to recent threats by US president, Barack Obama against the Islamic republic of Iran, Hojjatol-Islam Kazem Sedighi said Obama's threats against Iran are sheer stupidity and an obvious disgrace.

In further remarks, Tehran's interim Friday Prayers Leader referred to America's track record of using nuclear weapons against other countries, and said given this history, the United States is not in a position to lecture or chide other countries who are pursuing a peaceful civilian nuclear program.

Heh, it's not the same the context in which US used the nuclear bomb (despite the evident damage), than the actual context of Iran. No one has attacked Iran, but Iranian president has spoken about "wiping Israel off the map".

Turning to the recent nuclear security conference in Washington, Hojjatol-Islam Kazem Sedighi said that conference was just a talking shop – a somewhat hollow conference -- with little or no substantive achievements.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Tehran's interim Friday Prayers Leader praised Iranian nuclear scientists and engineers, saying the Islamic republic of Iran is justly proud of them, since they have brought honour top the country. He pointedly added: "Young and highly committed Iranian scientists have proved to the world that there is no contradiction between science and technology and religion, and that religion is perfectly compatible with science, advancement and progress.

Yes, religion is perfectly compatible with science, but only with the science that gives more power to the Ayatollahs. I'm sure that if the science was to give more power to the Iranian people, he wouldn't speak in those terms.

Anyway, remember when Obama was speaking about "dialogue with no preconditions with Iran"? Clearly they were not impressed then and are not so now. But now they are enraged by the possibility of being attacked by US nuclear weapons, after Obama said that the new US rules (no nuclear attack against non-nuclear states) don't include Iran and North Korea.

Lt. Col. Ralph Peters (USA-Ret.), author of Endless War, does not want to belittle Iran's threat, but he believes there is a far more dangerous Islamic enemy that the United States is doing virtually nothing about.

"As far as I'm concerned, our number-one enemy is Saudi Arabia -- period," he contends. "Saudi royal princes are still funding terror. Certainly Saudi Arabia still has the goal of a global caliphate; they just differ from al-Qaeda on means, not the ends.

"But Saudi Arabia, the most religiously repressive state in the world, is allowed to fund up to 80 percent of North American mosques and mullahs. Now how can we allow a religiously oppressive state that allows not one Christian church or synagogue on its soil, how can we allow them to dictate what isn't Islam in North America?" the retired Army officer wonders.

He notes that those Saudi-funded mosques are converting American citizens into radical Muslims.

Well, I don't see Obama protesting against Saudi Arabia, after all the criticism Bush received because of his friendship with Saudi king:


The economy can be really hard to fight against, but it's not the only cause of concern...

AN AL-QAEDA recruiter, described as the No. 1 terrorist threat to America, was engaged by a Sydney youth group to address hundreds of young people - a decision that has caused deep divisions at one of Australia's largest mosques.
At the same time as Anwar al-Awlaki was advising the extremist later charged with killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas, he was in talks with a group, Sydney Muslim Youth, about delivering a sermon to young Australians. He was already well known to security agencies as the spiritual guide to three of the hijackers on September 11, 2001.
''Anwar al-Awlaki is like a virus produced by the body wanting to fight a microbe,'' said Taj el-Din al-Hilaly, condemning the sermon, which was delivered at his mosque by phone link from Yemen.

It sounds a good deal, BUT I would add: if he returns to the bad habits of preaching hate on the internet and recruiting people to be suicide killers or just killers (will he renounce that also?), the assassination order will be back automatically, without any further notice.

Of course, AQ is not going to consider this deal as a good one. Stepping off from making any other "virulent anti-American sermon" just because his life is menaced, doesn't sound like a very brave decision, after supporting jihad and suicide attacks...

US President Barack Obama Tuesday signed an executive order freezing the property in the United States of members of a group of radical Islamists "contributing to the conflict in Somalia."
Obama said in his order he "declared a national emergency to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by that conflict."
He said that the measure, which named 11 individuals and the Al-Qaeda-inspired hardline Shebab militia, was "not targeted at the entire country of Somalia, but rather is intended to target those who threaten peace and stability in Somalia."

About time...

Anyway, that clarification seems a little bit useless, isn't it? Of course, the measure, which goes against 11 individuals and a terrorist group is not targeted at the entire country.

While the ban on music stopped the broadcasting on several radios, fights continue, with an added problem: lack of doctors and nurses. The existent have to cope with the increasing number of casualties:

According to WHO, only 250 qualified doctors, 860 nurses and 116 midwives work today in Somalia, home to the lowest number of health workers of any country in the Horn of Africa or Middle East.

Also Mark Bowden, the United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Somalia, expressed serious concern over the Somali crisis, which has deepened over the years since the fall of Siad Barre in 1991.

The UN official added that since the start of the year, fighting in Mogadishu has forced over 100,000 people from their homes.

Horrible perspectives.

Has Ban Ki-Moon something to say about this? Is it going to investigate this or investigations are only made when Israelis are involved?

Syria has transferred long-range Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, Israeli and U.S. officials alleged, in a move that threatens to alter the Middle East's military balance and sets back a major diplomatic outreach effort to Damascus by the Obama administration.
Israeli President Shimon Peres on Tuesday publicly charged President Bashar Assad's government with transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah's forces inside Lebanon. Syria and Hezbollah both denied the charges. But the allegations already are affecting U.S. foreign policy: Republicans pressed on Capitol Hill to block the appointment of a new American ambassador to Damascus, according to congressional officials. The White House said it was pressing ahead.
The Scuds are believed to have a range of more than 435 miles—placing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's nuclear installations all within range of Hezbollah's military forces. During a monthlong war with Israel in 2006, Hezbollah used rockets with ranges of 20 to 60 miles.

The Scuds could be made with North Korean or Russian technology. Anyway, in 2005, Hizbullah was using already Russian missiles sold to Syria, although till now they weren't long-range ones.

Hizbullah's terrorists are trying to infiltrate themselves in several other countries, specially from South America and in the US.

Federal authorities have identified Hizbullah-aligned cells in several cities in the United States. In February 2010, four Florida men were charged in a plot to relay millions of dollars to Hizbullah through a shopping center in Paraguay. The suspects were said to have been working with Mohammed Yusef Abdullah, identified as Hizbullah's main liasion in South America.

 Europe drug trade is funding Hizbullah, while on the other hand it is rumoured that Russian FSB (ex-KGB) helped Hizbullah busting Israeli spy rings.

Yes, he said that yesterday:

Obama said that already "terrorist networks such as Al-Qaeda have tried to acquire the material for a nuclear weapon." He called on countries to adopt a "concrete" plan to secure nuclear materials within four years.

Brennan has added that AQ wants nukes but doesn't have the ability to use them. Well, they will overcome it. In the meantime, they use suicide bombers with home-made devices.

You know, what really surprises me? That everyone seems so worried now that terrorists can acquire nuclear material. They have been trying to do so for many years now, but now every damned politician in the world (including Zapatero) is very worried about that. Russian "Black Widows" have killed a handful of people not long ago and they didn't have nuclear weapons.

So, do they know something that we don't?