Daily Terrorism Weather
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POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES I NTERNATIONAL C E N T E R F O R T E R R O R I S M S TUDIES 901 North Stuart Street Suite 200 Arlington, VA 22203 Tel. 703-562-4513, 703-525-0770 ext. 237 Fax 703-562-1000 [email protected] www.potomacinstitute.org Prof. Yonah Alexander, Director Daily Terrorism Weather 24 July 2012 Al-Qa'ida Yemen airstrikes kill at least 5 militants 24 July 2012 By: Ahmed al-Haj Cross Reference: Middle East Yemeni warplanes killed at least five al-Qaida-linked militants in overnight airstrikes against hideouts in the southern Abyan province, a security official said Tuesday. Al-Qaeda emerges as Bulgaria bomb suspect 24 July 2012 By: Kaveh Afrasiabi Cross Reference: Europe As the Israeli government seizes on last week's suicide bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Bulgaria as an opportunity to discredit Iran and Hezbollah, the on-going investigation in Bulgaria is increasingly pointing the finger at a different culprit - al-Qaeda. As reported in Lebanese media, an al-Qaeda cell has taken responsibility for the suicide bombing that took the lives of five Israeli vacationers, as well as a bus driver and a suicide bomber. [1] This has been corroborated by Bulgarian media reports that focus on two individuals, an American and a former Guantanamo inmate from Sweden with ties to al- Qaeda. Although the DNA evidence is still under investigation, on Thursday when Bulgarian media began identifying the suspected suicide bomber as Mehdi Ghezali, US officials quickly rejected this and insisted that "there was no evidence" linking him with the bomb. The same "anonymous" US officials simultaneously told the New York Times that this was a "tit-for-tat" Hezbollah job launched by Iran in revenge for Israel killing Iranian nuclear scientists. Emboldened by the US government's endorsement of his allegations against Hezbollah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasted no time in appealing to the European Union to add Hezbollah to its list of terrorist organizations, while vowing massive retaliation for the attack. Source: Asia Times Online http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NG25Ak03.html Al-Qaida leader threatens to carry out more attacks on US soil 24 July 2012 By: Jonathan Dienst An al-Qaida leader in Iraq has threatened to soon carry out an attack inside "the heart" of the U.S. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio recording boasting that operatives from his al-Qaida affiliate are in the midst of planning a major terror operation. "Soon you will witness them in the heart of your homeland, as our war with you has just begun, and so await them," al-Baghdadi said. 1 POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES I NTERNATIONAL C E N T E R F O R T E R R O R I S M S TUDIES 901 North Stuart Street Suite 200 Arlington, VA 22203 Tel. 703-562-4513, 703-525-0770 ext. 237 Fax 703-562-1000 [email protected] www.potomacinstitute.org Prof. Yonah Alexander, Director Federal and local security officials told NBC New York there are no new specific threats inside the U.S. The officials said that overseas terror leaders often make unsubstantiated claims and threats about targeting American interests. This latest terror threat message did not specify where or when such a plot might take place. New York, which officials say has faced more than a dozen unsuccessful terror plots since 9/11, appears not to be a target. "There is no specific or credible threat to New York at this time," said FBI New York spokesman J. Peter Donald. Source: MSNBC http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/23/12909634-al-qaida-leader-threatens-to- carry-out-more-attacks-on-us-soil Afghanistan Thirteen Afghan police "defect" to Taliban 24 July 2012 By: Sharafuddin Sharafyar An Afghan police commander and 12 junior officers have defected to the Taliban after poisoning seven comrades, government officials in the western province of Farah said on Tuesday. The commander, named only as Mirwais, was in charge of a checkpoint in the Bala Boluk district when he and his unit defected to the Taliban and handed over their equipment and weapons, including military vehicles. "He was a police commander for a checkpoint in Shewan village. He joined the Taliban with a Humvee, a Ranger (SUV), radios and 20 guns," said Abdul Rahman Zwandai, a spokesman for the Farah governor. The seven police were poisoned because they refused to join the rebellion, he said. All were taken to the Farah hospital and an investigation would be launched. Farah, bordering Iran, is one of western Afghanistan's most insecure provinces, although the west is relatively secure compared to insurgent strongholds in the east and south. The defection was the first time that police had joined the Taliban and taken so much equipment with them, Zwandai said, and will worry Western backers looking to hand security to Afghan forces by the end of 2014. But national intelligence officials denied reports in some Afghan media that two members of the country's High Peace Council, which leads government efforts to reconcile with the Taliban, had also defected to the insurgency. Source: Reuters http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/afghanistan-police-idINL4E8IO22K20120724 Iraq Iraq Blasts Point to Spillover 23 July 2012 By: Sam Dagher and Ali A. Nabhan 2 POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES I NTERNATIONAL C E N T E R F O R T E R R O R I S M S TUDIES 901 North Stuart Street Suite 200 Arlington, VA 22203 Tel. 703-562-4513, 703-525-0770 ext. 237 Fax 703-562-1000 [email protected] www.potomacinstitute.org Prof. Yonah Alexander, Director Iraq suffered its worst day of violence in nearly two years as bombings and attacks in nearly two dozen towns left almost 100 people dead, in what Iraq's government characterized as a clear spillover of sectarian violence from neighboring Syria. Attacks broke out at dawn Monday and lasted throughout the day, targeting security and military sites and several predominantly Shiite areas across the Shiite-majority country. As late as 11 p.m. local time, reports came in of a bombing in the Hay Ur neighborhood of Baghdad, raising the death toll to at least 96 people and 318 wounded, according to official reports. Source: The Wall Street Journal http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443570904577545231575003126.html?mod =googlenews_wsj Middle East Syrian forces battle rebel push on central Aleppo 24 July 2012 By: Oliver Holmes Syrian troops fought rebels trying to seize central Aleppo on Tuesday and quelled a jail mutiny on the outskirts of the northern city, killing 15 prisoners, opposition activists said. After a week of bloody battles between President Bashar al-Assad's forces and his opponents in Damascus, fighting intensified in Aleppo, a commercial city that long seemed immune to the 16-month-old upheaval convulsing Syria. Rebels seeking to capture downtown Aleppo were combating Syrian troops and intelligence men at the gates of the Old City, a U.N. World Heritage site, residents and activists said. The deaths in the prison mutiny were caused when Assad's forces used machineguns and teargas on inmates overnight, activists in contact with surviving prisoners said. Their accounts could not be verified independently due to Syrian restrictions on media access. As the struggle for Syria intensified, Western leaders seized on an admission by Damascus that it has chemical and biological arms and could use them if foreign powers intervened. "Given the regime's stockpiles of chemical weapons, we will continue to make it clear to Assad and those around him that the world is watching and that they will be held accountable by the international community and the United States should they make the tragic mistake of using those weapons," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a speech to veterans in Reno, Nevada. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Syria's chemical weapons were under "strict surveillance by the international community" and that their use would be unacceptable. Israel, which has publicly discussed military action to prevent Syrian chemical weapons or missiles from reaching Assad's Lebanese Shi'ite militant allies Hezbollah, said there was no sign any such diversion had occurred. Source: Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/24/us-syria-crisis-idUSBRE8610SH20120724 3 POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES I NTERNATIONAL C E N T E R F O R T E R R O R I S M S TUDIES 901 North Stuart Street Suite 200 Arlington, VA 22203 Tel. 703-562-4513, 703-525-0770 ext. 237 Fax 703-562-1000 [email protected] www.potomacinstitute.org Prof. Yonah Alexander, Director Syria threatens to use chemical weapons in case of a foreign attack 23 July 2012 Syria threatened Monday to unleash its chemical and biological weapons if the country faces a foreign attack, a desperate warning from a regime that has failed to crush a powerful and strengthening rebellion. The statement — Syria’s first-ever acknowledgement that the country possesses weapons of mass destruction — suggests President Bashar Assad will continue the fight to stay in power, regardless of the cost. “It would be reprehensible if anybody in Syria is contemplating use of such weapons of mass destruction like chemical weapons,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said during a trip to Belgrade, Serbia. “I sincerely hope the international community will keep an eye on this so that there will be no such things happening.” Syria is believed to have nerve agents as well as mustard gas, Scud missiles capable of delivering these lethal chemicals and a variety of advanced conventional arms, including anti- tank rockets and late-model portable anti-aircraft missiles.