Terrorists Admit Plot To Bomb London Stock Exchange And US Embassy

From The Telegraph:

(Clockwise from top left) Mohammed Shahjahan, Omar Latif (centre), Nazam Hussain, Usman Khan and Mohibur Rahman (PA)

Four al-Qaeda inspired terrorists have pleaded guilty to plotting a Christmas bomb attack on the London Stock Exchange, the American embassy and the home of London Mayor Boris Johnson.

Two of the men conducted a surveillance trip around central London and also talked about launching a Mumbai-style attack on Parliament.

A “target list” was found at the home of the ring-leader which listed the names and addresses of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, as well as two Rabbis and the American Embassy. It had on it the letters ‘LXC’ for London Stock Exchange.

Torn pieces of paper showed a sketch of what is believed to be a car bomb.

Three other men met with the plotters and planned to travel abroad to get more training before returning to launch further attacks. Another two men pleaded guilty to associated charges.

The men, from London, Stoke and Cardiff, were inspired by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and used their English-language magazine Inspire as a guide.

In Stoke the gang talked about attacking local pubs and clubs but decided to travel abroad to get more training.

In East London, Mohammed Chowdhury, 21, the ring leader, and Shah Rahman, 29, were under surveillance as they toured central London sites for six hours between 3.30pm and 9.30pm on November 28 2010.

They got off a bus in Trafalgar Square and walked along Whitehall towards Westminster. They were observed looking at Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, Blackfriars Bridge and the Church of Scientology on Queen Victoria Street.

After visiting a McDonalds restaurant on Cannon Street in the City of London, the two men boarded a bus back towards East London.

In the bedroom at Chowdhury’s flat in the Isle of Dogs, police found a handwritten target list on a folded piece of A4 paper on the computer desk.

The Stoke group have their origins in Pakistan, while the London and Cardiff groups were originally from Bangladesh.

The three groups were inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular, who died in a drone attack last year.

The defendants made contact with each other through dawah – proselytising - or by Paltalk or other internet messaging.

Meetings took place in November and December 2010 at which the defendants planned to use explosive devices to attack significant locations in London and around the country.

Their plans could be carried out without much preparation and were very difficult to intercept, sources said.

The London and Cardiff groups were keen to act quickly, at first talking about sending mail bombs through the Royal Mail and then deciding on a plan to set off bombs in the toilets of the stock exchange.

The Stoke group talked about persuading others to take bombs into pubs in their area so that they would explode.

Abdul Miah, 25, said to be at the centre of the Cardiff gang, and his brother Omar Latif, 28, pleaded guilty to taking part in the Stock Exchange plot. Gurukanth Desai, 30, pleaded guilty to attending meetings.

Mohibur Rahman, 27, from Stoke pleaded guilty to possession of a document containing information useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism.

The charges relate to two editions of al-Qaeda’s English language Inspire magazine.

Usman Khan, 20, Mohammed Shahjahan, 27, and Nazam Hussain, 26, all from Stoke pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism.

At Khan’s home in Persia Walk, Stoke, police officers recovered a folded A4 sheet of paper which bore notes of the structure, roles and responsibilities of individuals in a terrorist cell.

It included the headings ‘structure’, ‘responsibilities’, ‘communication’ and ‘local’ and appeared to be written by Shahjahan.

Saudi Arabia To Deport Ethiopian Christians

From BBC:

Some 35 Ethiopian Christians face deportation from Saudi Arabia for "illicit mingling", the global rights body Human Rights Watch (HRW) says.

Police arrested the group - including 29 women - after raiding a prayer meeting in the second city of Jeddah.

The women were subjected to strip searches and the men beaten and called "unbelievers", according to HRW.

In 2006, the Saudi government promised to stop interfering with private worship by non-Muslims.

The group was arrested in a private home as they gathered to pray during the run-up to Christmas, celebrated by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians on 7 January.

HRW spoke to a man and two women by telephone from the prisons where they are being held.

They say they have been charged with mixing with unmarried persons of the opposite sex - even though HRW says Saudi Arabia has no law defining "illicit mingling".

Mixing of the sexes is not allowed in public - but normally permitted in private unless for "the purpose of corruption", according to the religious police.

The ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom bans the practice of any religion except Islam - but in recent years pledged to leave people of other faiths alone if they worshipped in private homes.

Ethiopia was one of the first Christian countries in the world, having officially adopted Christianity as the state religion in the 4th Century.

U.S. Accused Of Running Over Egyptian Civilians

From Jihad Watch:

How many are the lies that Egypt’s military regime has forwarded concerning its role in attacking and killing Egyptian demonstrators since it usurped power a year ago?

There were, for instance, the lies concerning the Maspero massacre, where the military slaughtered Christian Copts who were protesting the constant attacks on their churches—including by running them over with armored-vehicles.

Despite all the video evidence [apparently now removed by YouTube], the military regime insisted that it would “never, never” run over civilians; that the very idea was “impossible, impossible!” It even showed a video of a military-vehicle running amuck, claiming it was hijacked by Coptic protesters (it was later revealed that an Egyptian soldier was, in fact, inside driving).

More recently, Mohamad Tantawi, the head of the military—and de facto head of Egypt—insisted that the widely circulated video of soldiers beating, stripping, and kicking a female protester is “entirely fake”—a ludicrous assertion, even if Jimmy Carter supports it.

Who is the latest victim to be scapegoated for the military’s crimes against its own citizenry? None other than the U.S.A.

Ongoing accusations that American officials were involved in killing Egyptian civilians have prompted the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to deny it through a January 27 press release:

As we have stated in previous press releases, there is absolutely no truth to reports that U.S. embassy employees or diplomats were involved in hit-and-run incidents using U.S. diplomatic vehicles, injuring or killing protestors in January 2011 in Cairo. There is also no truth to statements alleging that the keys inside U.S. diplomatic vehicles are coded and can only be used by U.S. Embassy employees. On January 28, 2011, however, a number of our U.S. Embassy vehicles were stolen. After these vehicles were stolen, we heard reports of their use in violent and criminal acts. If true, we deplore these acts and the perpetrators. Egyptian authorities have conducted an investigation that has led to the recovery of some of these stolen vehicles.

Who is behind these accusations? The military? As mentioned, it did make similar accusations against Coptic protesters, saying they hijacked and manned the military-vehicles that ran over fellow Copts at Maspero—only to be exposed as lying by Al Dalil.

While it is not altogether clear who is behind these accusations—this report indicates a lawyer of a former Egyptian official being tried, while older reports mention “communiqués”—it is, of course, the military regime that stands to gain by this latest case of blaming the other.

Macedonia: Church Set On Fire After Carnival

From UKPA (Press Association):

An Orthodox Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set alight in southern Macedonia overnight amid religious tension between Christians and minority Muslims over a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran.

Firefighters extinguished the fire on Monday night in the two century-old Sveti Nikola church, near the town of Struga. The church's roof was destroyed but its icons were not damaged, the fire service said.

Hours before the fire, Muslim leaders had appealed for calm among community members.

The January 13 Vevcani festival prompted angry, sometimes violent demonstrations by Muslims, who are nearly all ethnic Albanian and make up 33% of the country's 2.1 million population and accuse the majority of stoking hatred against them.

Ethnic tension has been simmering in this small Balkan country since the end of an armed rebellion in 2001, when ethnic Albanian rebels fought government forces for about eight months, seeking greater rights for their community. The conflict left 80 people dead, and ended with the intervention of Nato peacekeepers.

The Vevcani carnival, said to have been held for some 1,400 years, attracts thousands of visitors. Local residents traditionally wear elaborate, frequently sarcastic masks, with some of the most common costumes including devils and demons.

But this year's perceived mockery of the Koran and the burka costumes caused outrage.

On Saturday, protesters attacked an inter-city bus heading from Struga to Vevcani, throwing rocks at the vehicle but injuring nobody. They also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga's municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam. On the same day, perpetrators attacked a church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside.

Macedonian Muslim leaders called for restraint but also accused the government of promoting Islamophobia.

Deputy Prime Minister Musa Xhaferi said such incidents "create discord" and "violate mutual respect and trust."

Dozens Killed In Egyptian Football Stadium Riot

From The Telegraph:

Fans of Al-Masry, a team based in Port Said at the northern end of the Suez Canal, invaded the pitch celebrating the team's home win over Al-Ahly, the Cairo-based club that is Egypt's biggest and most successful, and attacked amid what seemed to be an almost total absence of police.

Players fled to their changing rooms, from where the Al-Ahly team called their in-house television channel to give eye witness accounts and denounce the lack of security.

The Health Ministry said that 74 people had been killed, including a police officer. Meanwhile, the Cairo International Stadium, which Al-Ahly shares with its local rivals Zamalek, was briefly set on fire after the evening game there was cancelled as a mark of respect.

The country's new cabinet scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday to discuss the situation while troops were deployed to Port Said to keep the peace on the streets.

The violence is a telling sign of the lack of security in Egypt following last year's revolution. That was in part triggered by outrage at unchecked brutality by police, and one of the Mubarak regime's first responses was to call them off the streets and put the army in charge of protests.

But since then it has proved difficult to persuade even beat policemen to return. As a sign of the sport's nervousness, the Al-Ahly team was earlier shown arriving in Port Said in a convoy of police trucks. Egyptian teams have devoted fan bases known as Ultras in imitation of their European equivalents, and the two sets of fans involved in last night's violence have a history of bad blood and have fought before.

The Ultras have also played a political role at the forefront of pro-democracy protests. Activists were already speculating last night that some of the thugs regularly hired by supporters of the old Mubarak regime might have been involved in the violence.

The last major incident in Egypt took place before and after a World Cup play-off game with Algeria, Egypt's greatest rivals, when fans stoned the visiting team's bus, causing a major diplomatic incident.

The trouble began at the end of the game, which Al-Masry won 3-1. State television showed dramatic scenes of fans storming on to the pitch, chasing the Al-Ahly players and, as they escaped, the visiting fans.

An official from a local hospital said most of the dead had been crushed or suffocated...

Read it all here.

Syria Troops Move On New Rebel Areas Near Capital

From the Associated Press via Fox News:

Syrian troops battled army defectors in a string of towns in the mountains overlooking Damascus on Wednesday in a new assault to crush rebellious areas around the capital, activists said.

The battles in a mountain valley came after regime forces succeeded in largely retaking control of suburbs on the eastern side of the city in an offensive the past week that fueled some of the bloodiest days of the nearly 11-month-old uprising. More than 30 people were killed around the country Wednesday, activists said.

Activists say President Bashar Assad's forces have intensified their crackdown in hopes of silencing protesters and the army dissidents who have joined them as the United Nations Security Council debates a draft resolution demanding that Assad step down.

On Tuesday, Western powers and Arab countries at the U.N. sought to overcome Russia's opposition to the measure. Addressing the Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried to allay Moscow's concerns that the resolution could open the door to eventual military intervention in Syria, as took place in Libya last year.

"I know that some members here may be concerned that the Security Council is headed toward another Libya," she said. "That is a false analogy."

"It is time for the international community to put aside our own differences and send a clear message of support to the people of Syria," Clinton said.

Russia has stood by Assad as he tries to crush an uprising that began last March. In October, Moscow vetoed the first Security Council attempt to condemn Syria's crackdown and has shown little sign of budging in its rejection of the new measure.

The latest resolution would demand Assad carry out an Arab League peace plan by which he would hand his powers to the vice president and allow formation of a unity government to pave the way for elections.

On Wednesday, shelling and machine gun fire rattled in towns along the Wadi Barada, a valley in the mountains a few miles northwest of Damascus near the Lebanese border, according to online video posted by activists.

The valley leads to the mountain resort town of Zabadani, an opposition stronghold that has been under the control of rebel soldiers and protesters for several weeks.

At least 21 civilians were killed as government forces battered Deir Qanoun, Ein al-Fija and other towns in the valley, and six army defectors were killed in fighting, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, put the death toll at 29 civilians in the valley. It said 14 fighters from the Free Syrian Army, made up of army defectors, were killed in fighting around the country. It was impossible to reconcile the two group's figures.

The fact that rebels made it to the doorstep of Damascus, the seat of Assad's power, was a dangerous development for the regime. Rebel soldiers had grown bolder, setting up checkpoints and protecting protesters in suburbs surrounding Damascus.

A military offensive largely succeeded in crushing the remaining resistance on the eastern side of the capital by Tuesday.

But those areas were hardly quiet Wednesday: Troops raided homes in several of those suburbs, searching for activists, killing at least two young men. A 3-year-old girl died in the suburb of Arbeen from gunfire as troops stormed neighborhoods, the Observatory said.

In the central city of Homs, one of the biggest flashpoints of the uprising and a scene of daily fighting, government troops shelled buildings and fought defectors in several neighborhoods. At least eight residents were killed, the Observatory said.

Regime troops were also fighting defectors Wednesday in the northeastern region of Idlib and the southern area of Daraa, activists said. A large force of armored vehicles and troops stormed into the town of Khirbet Ghazali, outside Daraa, opening fire and storming homes, the Observatory and LCC reported.

The U.N. estimated several weeks ago that more than 5,400 people have been killed in the Syrian government crackdown, but has not been able to update the figure. The death toll from Monday's offensive in the suburbs was around 100 people, making it among the bloodiest days since the uprising began, according to the two activist groups.

The U.N. Security Council resolution would give Assad 15 days to start implementing the Arab peace plan and halt the crackdown, otherwise the Council would consider "further measures."

That would likely mean economic and other sanctions. But Moscow says it could lay the groundwork for later military intervention. Russia, a longtime ally of Assad, has insisted the crisis can be resolved by negotiations and that U.N. action thwarts any dialogue.

Arab officials joined Western countries in trying to persuade Russia to back the measure.

Deputy Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed bin Helli said Wednesday the League sought the U.N. resolution to back its peace plan and boost an Arab solution for the crisis, not to bring in international military action.

The League "is still committed ... to solving this crisis in the Arab framework, away from any outside intervention," he said during a visit to Baghdad.

Moscow's stance is motivated in part by its strategic and defense ties, including weapons sales, with Syria. Russia also rejects what it sees as a a world order dominated by the U.S.

Afghan Woman Is Killed 'For Giving Birth To A Girl'

From the BBC:

A woman in north-eastern Afghanistan has been arrested for allegedly strangling her daughter-in-law for giving birth to a third daughter.

Wali Hazrata is in police custody. She has made no public comment about the allegations.
The murdered woman's husband, a member of a local militia, is also suspected of involvement but he has since fled.

The murder took place two days ago in Kunduz province. The baby girl, who is now two months old, was not hurt.

The birth of a boy is usually a cause for celebration in Afghanistan but girls are generally seen as a burden.

Some women in Afghanistan are abused if they fail to give birth to boys. And this is just the latest in a series of high-profile crimes against women in the country.

Late last year a horrifying video emerged of the injuries suffered by a 15-year-old child bride who was locked up and tortured by her husband.

'Crime against humanity'

This murder took place in the village of Mahfalay, in the district of Khanabad in Kunduz.

Khanabad's police chief, Sufi Habib, told the BBC that "the mother gave birth to a third girl two months ago. The husband and mother-in-law strangled her for giving birth to a third daughter".

Senior officials told the BBC that the mother-in-law, known as Wali Hazrata, tied the feet of the 22-year old woman, who was known as Stori, while Stori's husband strangled her.

He is thought to be a fighter with an illegal armed militia which is believed to have some political support. Local villagers say that Stori often urged her husband to lay down his arms.

"She lived in a hell not a house. But then she also asked her husband to stay home and avoid going out with these thugs," one neighbour who wished to remain anonymous told the BBC.

While militia groups have some political support, they have often been accused of violence against women, robberies and extortion.

Afghan women's rights activists brought this case to the attention of the media.

The Director for Kunduz Women's affairs, Nadira Gya, condemned the incident saying: "it was a brutal crime committed against an innocent woman".

Local religious and tribal elders in the district also condemned the killing, saying it was an act of ignorance, and calling it a crime against Islam, humanity and women.

They called for immediate punishment. Wali Hazrata appears to have made no public comment as yet.

Somalia: Islamic Terrorists Ban Red Cross Aid Work

From the BBC:

The ICRC was one of the few aid agencies still operating in war-torn Somalia
Somalia's al-Shabab militants have banned the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from operating in parts of the country it controls.

The Islamist group said the ICRC had falsely accused them of blocking aid and had been handing out unfit food.

Al-Shabab controls large parts of south and central Somalia, which is suffering its worst drought in decades.

The ICRC, one of the few aid agencies operating there, said it had not heard about the ban.

The agency had suspended food distribution earlier this month saying militants had blocked supply routes, but it was still providing emergency care and water programmes.

Al-Shabab had already halted the work of several aid agencies working in the famine-hit region, including some from the UN. It accused them of exaggerating the scale of the problems for political reasons, and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

In a statement, it said the ICRC had "repeatedly betrayed the trust conferred on it by the local population and, in recent weeks, falsely accused the mujahideen [al-Shabab fighters] of hindering food distribution".

The group said 70% of food it had inspected in ICRC warehouses was unfit for human consumption, and that it had since destroyed nearly 2,000 tonnes of "expired" rations.

Somalia is said to be one of the world's most dangerous places for aid workers to operate. It has not had a functioning central government for more than 20 years and has been wracked by fighting between various militias.

The UN-backed government runs only a few areas, including the capital, Mogadishu, which al-Shabab withdrew from in August.

The UN says the areas worst affected by famine are in the southern and central areas, which are under the control of the al-Qaeda linked group.

In recent weeks, al-Shabab has lost ground to both Kenyan and Ethiopian forces, which have moved onto Somali territory.