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Washington Post (USA) 09/02/2010
Yemeni American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi said he taught and corresponded with the suspect in the attempted Dec. 25 airliner bombing but did not order the attack, according to an interview published this week.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian, "is one of my students; yes, we were in correspondence," Aulaqi said in the interview, published Tuesday in Arabic by al-Jazeera.net. "But I did not give [him] a fatwa in regards to this operation." In Islam, a fatwa is an order by a recognized religious authority.
The interview was the first to claim direct contact with Aulaqi since the attempted attack but did not indicate when or where it took place. An introduction to the question-and-answer format said it was rushed because of "security conditions and precautions."
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Jerusalem Post (Israel) 01/02/2010
Top Hamas operative Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was identified and killed following an interview he gave to Al-Jazeera on instructions from the movement’s leadership in Syria, according to a Fatah-affiliated news agency.
The interview with Mabhouh was conducted against his will and against the advice of his colleagues in the armed wing of Hamas, Izzadin Kassam, the agency said.
The Palpress news agency said it did not rule out the possibility that the killing was an “inside job.”
“Did he know too many secrets and that’s why they decided to get rid of him?” the agency asked. “Perhaps he knew about the weapons convoy [to Hamas] that was destroyed by Israel about a year ago?”
Although the Hamas operative appeared masked in the interview and was only identified by his nom de guerre, Abu Abed, Israeli security authorities were able to identify him and later track him down, according to the report.
The interview was part of a documentary that was recently aired by the popular Arab network. The film focused on Izzadin Kassam and its past operations, particularly the abduction and killing of IDF soldiers.
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Agencies 01/02/2010
Yemen yesterday said it would stop its war on Shia northern rebels only if they agree to a six-point truce offer, including a pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia, as fighting raged on three fronts.
The offer came amid government claims that another 24 Houthi rebels were killed.
“If the Houthi (rebels) agree to start implementing the six points ... the government does not see a problem in stopping military operations,” Yemen’s Supreme National Defence Council announced.
The rebels’ truce offer on Saturday was rejected, a government official said, “because it does not include a sixth point, which demands a pledge from the Houthis not to attack Saudi territory.”
Of the six points, the defence council stressed that the rebels should “pledge not to attack Saudi territory and to hand over Yemeni and Saudi captives without any delay.”
Reel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi had offered in an audio message released on the Internet on Saturday to accept the government’s “five” conditions to end the war, but demanded a halt to military attacks as a precondition.
“I announce our acceptance of the (government’s) five points, after the aggression stops,” he said. “The ball is now in the other party’s court.”
Initially, the government had set five conditions to end the war. The pledge to end attacks against neighbouring Saudi Arabia was apparently added after the rebels locked horns with Riyadh.
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Al Jazeera 01/02/2010
Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has said Taliban fighters should drop their demand that US and Nato forces must leave Afghanistan before reconciliation talks can be held.
Karzai said on Sunday that talks would make it easier for troops to leave, adding that he was hoping to launch a peace initiative this year.
At a conference on Afghanistan in London last week, Karzai called on tribal and ethnic leaders to take part in a "loya jirga" - or assembly of elders - as a start to peace talks and announced an international fund to reward Taliban fighters who disarmed.
However, Taliban commanders dismissed the initiative, saying that they were only willing to hold talks only if the more than 110,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan withdraw.
Karzai said the Taliban's insistence on a withdrawal of Western troops before any talks was "not a meaningful gesture".
"The international community is here for success in defeat of terrorism, success in the defeat of extremism," Karzai told a news conference.
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Associated Press 01/02/2010
Some 25 Egyptians arrested in November are being questioned by prosecutors for allegedly planning terrorist attacks, a security official and a lawyer said Sunday.
The security official said the suspects were arrested on charges of stockpiling weapons and explosives to be used in "attacks against targets inside Egypt." The men were arrested in Mansoura, northeast of Cairo, two months ago and are believed to be members of a new Islamic militant group.
The official and lawyer both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigations.
"They are accused of forming a new Islamic militant group based on ideas of Sayyid Qutb," said the lawyer referring to an Egyptian ideologue executed in 1966 whose ideas provide much of the intellectual basis for today's militant groups.
The Egyptian independent daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported Sunday that the group was planning to attack US ships in the Suez Canal and the tomb of revered Jewish holy man, Abu Hatzira in the Nile Delta.
Quoting security officials, the paper also said the group was planning to ship weapons and explosives to Hamas for use in their rockets.
The report added that some of the suspects have received training in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur.
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