Osama bin Laden is 'alive, well, and hunting falcons in Iran', documentary claims

Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in luxury in Iran, it is claimed.

That is the astonishing suggestion in a documentary to be shown at a film festival in New York.

Bin Laden has been housed in a guarded compound north of Tehran with his wife, several children and grandchildren since 2003, protected by the Iranian regime, according to Feathered Cocaine, an Icelandic film about the illicit multi-million-dollar trade in falcons.

In the film, a disguised falcon smuggler from the former Soviet Union identified only as 'T-2' says he first met bin Laden in 2004 at a falcon-hunting camp in northeastern Iran.

'I met him five times after 2004,' says the smuggler.

'The last time we met was in October 2007. Every time, it was in Iran.'

Falcon hunting is an exclusive hobby practised by some of the richest men in the Middle East, who travel to luxurious desert retreats to pursue the sport. A bird’s value can reach one million dollars.

Syriana - Now that You are My Economic Advisor - Falcons

Syriana - Now that You are My Economic Advisor | Movies & TV | SPIKE.com

The claim contradicts the common theory that bin Laden is living in an isolated network of fortified caves somewhere in the mountainous border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It is also at odds with the assumption by many that he is dead.

His son Omar bin Laden, who married a British woman and broke with his father before the 9/11 attacks, revealed last year that seven of his siblings were living in Tehran and trying to leave.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed the claim - and, apparently sarcastically, counter-claimed that bin Laden is hiding in Washington, D.C.

He told ABC News: 'Your question is laughable. Our position is quite clear.

'Some journalists have said bin Laden is in Iran. These words don't have legal value. Our position towards Afghanistan and against terrorism is quite clear... I don't know such a thing. You are giving news which is very strange.

'I heard that Osama bin Laden is in Washington, D.C.,' he added.

'Yes, I did. He's there. Because he was a previous partner of Mr. Bush. They were colleagues in fact in the old days. You know that. They were in the oil business together. They worked together.'

Bin Laden practices Wahhabism, a fundamentalist sect of Sunni Islam that is famously militant.

For that reason many experts have dismissed ideas that he could be in Iran - the largest country in the Middle East to practice Shia Islam.

But Alan Parrot, an American falconry expert who used to train falcons for Middle East millionaires, said the evidence unearthed during research for the film was so convincing he hatched a plan to kidnap bin Laden.

He claimed he was warned off by US government officials.

Parrot said bin Laden’s royal hunting friends brought him 'hundreds of millions of dollars' in cash during these expeditions, as well as military equipment.

The film shows a U.A.E. military C-130 transport plane delivering equipment to the camps.

Bin Laden’s penchant for falcon hunting gave the CIA an opportunity to assassinate him in 1999, according to the final report of the 9/11 commission.

He was spotted in a hunting camp in Afghanistan serving one of the Gulf royal families and CIA Director George Tenet asked President Bill Clinton for permission to launch a cruise missile strike on the camp on February 8, 1999.

The mission was aborted on orders from the White House.

'T-2' gave the filmmakers the frequencies of tiny radio trackers attached to bin Laden’s hunting falcons.

John Loftus, an American lawyer with connections to U.S. security agencies, said the CIA could use the frequencies to lead them to bin Laden’s falcons - and so to bin Laden himself.

Loftus said he offered the information to the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies but got no response.

Loftus and the filmmakers even approached 'Rewards for Justice', the State Department office offering a $50 million reward for information leading to bin Laden’s capture, but never received a reply.

Investigative reporter Ken Timmerman, who also appears in the film, interviewed a U.S. intelligence official who said that electronic intelligence intercepts appeared to back up the story, 'indicating the presence of a very important person in the region at the dates "T-2" mentioned.'

'Iranian authorities were moving the VIP from Tehran to Zahedan, a centre of the falcon-hunting grounds, which were closed off to all foreign visitors for security reasons,' said Timmerman.

'There was no doubt in my mind that they were expecting a big shot, and it makes sense to think it was bin Laden,' he claimed the U.S. official said.

Osama bin Laden in Iran, claims 'Feathered Cocaine' documentary
| Mail Online

Off the Radar: Faisal Shahzad Had No Ties to CT Muslim Community, Leaders Say

Thrown in today is the whole Islam = peace and love, nothing to do with terrorism.

Added today is "the public to distinguish between acts of violence and terror and Islam" which is all the good things mentioned above. Strangely though these acts of violence committed by Muslims, usually involve the killing of a lot of people, for political/religious ends. Well within the definition of terrorism.

Faisal Shahzad was a sleeper. He cleverly stayed off the radar. It wouldn't have been wise to go down to the local mosque and tell everyone his jihadist views. The facts are that he rigged a car up to explode, in a crowded area, and the aimed to coolly leave the country.


Area Muslim leaders from Hartford to New Haven convened Wednesday to see if anyone knew anything about Faisal Shahzad, arrested late Monday in connection with the foiled Times Square bombing attempt. But the man who authorities say was driven to act in the name of his religion appears to have no known ties in the state’s Muslim community, leaders say.

Mongi Dhaouadi, executive director of the Connecticut chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations in Hartford, said he has been in touch with most of the state’s 42 mosques and no one has reported ever seeing or hearing anything about Shahzad. “I’ve asked everyone, ‘Have you seen this person, have you heard of this person.’ And the answer is no.”

Dhaouadi was one of about a dozen religious leaders who gathered with Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch for a press conference Wednesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, several Muslim leaders gathered for a meeting.

“To tell you the truth, it is odd,” said Dhaouadi, of the little that is known of Shahzad. “We’re waiting for answers just like everyone else. We’re all trying to make sense of this.”

Muslim leaders urged the public to distinguish between acts of violence and terror and Islam, a religion that they said encourages peace and love.

Hasan Abunar, imam of the Masjid An-Noor and the Bridgeport Islamic Society, said he lectured against violence at the mosque Tuesday and will give another such lecture on Friday. “As Muslims we condemn what happened and we reject it,” he said.

Faisal Shahzad Had No Ties to CT Muslim Community, Leaders Say - Metropolis - WSJ

Cordoba Mosque to Open Two Blocks From World Trade Center

The Mosque's name 'Cordoba' is provocative. It harkens back to a time when Muslim's controlled Spain. After they were driven back from France, Muslims had much of Europe under attack. German Muslims have been reportedly naming their mosques in the same provocative way. One of their favorites is to use the name of the Muslim Turk who successfully conquered Constantinople. Most definitely the intent is to conquer.

Recently there was a disturbance in the old Spanish Cordoba mosque, which has been made into a church. Visiting Muslims students, decided to pray and when they were asked to stop, they instead attacked the guards, one had a knife.

It does smack of the 'take' mentality in Islam. We come to the west to 'take' the west for Islam. Like they took Persia and Egypt. And now we have come to America and Europe to 'take' it. In the western world we look to build, and if they aim to take the west and don't continue with the west's build, invent develop mentality, the the west will end up like all Muslim civilizations, which crashed into nothing. Because most everything they acquired [even knowledge] was from the conquests. Therefore the need for more and more conquests, and particularly of advanced nations. Now Muslims must learn a new way, taking the west will not be as easy as shouting a few obscenities, twirling a sword, and watching Persia fall.


"FINANCIAL DISTRICT — The old Burlington Coat Factory building on Park Place has sat shuttered and empty since the landing gear from a hijacked plane crashed through the roof on 9/11.

Now, a Muslim group hopes to build a mosque and cultural center there, replacing what they see as the worst of Islam with the best.

“We have a vision that is opposite the vision of the extremists,” said Daisy Khan, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, the group behind the center. “We want to be a driving force for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan.”

Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee embraced the center’s message of tolerance and voted unanimously Wednesday night to support the project.

“Finally we can get that ugly space taken care of,” said Pat Moore, a member of the committee who lives nearby."

But other members of the community, who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, want the mosque to find a different home.

“It doesn’t belong down here,” said Rosemary Cain, whose firefighter son was killed on 9/11. “It makes me sick to think the city would allow such a thing.”

While Cain acknowledged that “not every person who is Muslim is a terrorist,” she thinks the Muslim community as a whole never sufficiently declaimed the attacks.

John Schmidt, 29, a construction worker who is rebuilding the World Trade Center, also got angry when he heard about the plans.

“No way,” he said. “Muslims bombed the towers. Why would they put a mosque next to the Freedom Tower?”

Khan envisions the $100 million, 100,000-square-foot Cordoba House as much more than a mosque: She wants it to be a gathering place for the entire downtown community, including residents, workers and tourists, whether they are Muslim or not.

The 13-story center, which could open as soon as 2013 at 45 Park Place, will include a 500-seat auditorium, a basketball court, a swimming pool and a kitchen for cooking classes. Khan hopes to host interfaith conferences and panels along with more lighthearted events like a Muslim Idol talent competition.

Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury, 42, who runs a newsstand on Park Place, said the center would provide much-needed education for Muslims as well as non-Muslims.

“People read the Koran and they don’t know the meaning,” said Chowdhury, who is Muslim. “It is good for them to learn — to learn is best.”

Matt Migeal, 39, who was selling 9/11 photo books in front of the World Trade Center on Wednesday, also thought it was good for the mosque to move in.

“This didn’t happen because of Muslim people,” Migeal said, gesturing toward the site. “Terrorism and Islam have nothing to do [with each other].”

The Cordoba Initiative already runs a mosque on West Broadway and started holding weekly services in the new Park Place space last year. As the services grow, they could attract up to 2,000 people, Khan said.

The Cordoba Initiative is already working with the NYPD on security.

Khan said she has heard very little criticism of the center so far, though she added that Saturday’s attempted Times Square bombing didn’t help.

“Events like [Times Square] always set us back,” Khan said. “Leaders have to push back in the other direction, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Mosque to Open Two Blocks From World Trade Center - DNAinfo.com

Times Square bomb suspect had links to terror preacher

The suspected Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad with his wife Huma Milan


Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US citizen has told interrogators that he been inspired to take up the cause of al Qaeda and radical Islam by the internet messages of Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based imam.

Awlaki, who was born in America, was accused of grooming Nidal Hasan in a series of emails before the US soldier opened fire at the Texas military base last year.

US officials also possess evidence that Awlaki held meetings with Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian who attempted to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight on Christmas Day.

A US official said that Awlaki was a crucial influence on Mr Shahzad. "He listened to him, and he did it," the official said.

Mr Shahzad has made wide-ranging admissions to interrogators since his arrest on Tuesday. The former financial analyst has said that he travelled to Taliban training camps in North Wazirstan, where he received training in bomb making. While there he met with Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban, whose death in a drone strike he was attempting to revenge by driving the car loaded with homemade explosives to America's most famous square.

Mr Shahzad also admitted that he had met with member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a separate group responsible for the attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008.

Pakistani officials are co-operating with US attempts to establish Shahzad's links to militant groups based in the country.

Four members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant group, which carried out the 2002 killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, have been taken into custody in Karachi.

Mr Shahzad's father, a former Pakistani Air Marshal, his father-in-law, wife and children have all been taken into protective custody.

The authorities claim to have put together a comprehensive picture of how the 30-year old prepared for the attack on his adopted homeland. Surveillance footage of Mr Shahzad in a shop where he bought commercial fireworks to place in the bomb, has been released.

"Shahzad has provided useful information, and we will continue to pursue a number of leads as we gather intelligence related to this attempted attack," the US Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Investigations into cash transactions indicated that Mr Shahzad received substantial support from foreign sources.

Times Square bomb suspect had links to terror preacher - Telegraph

Dissident Watch: Mohammed Hegazy :: Middle East Quarterly

Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy an Egyptian Christian convert, the first to seek to legally change his religion in the Egyptian courts. Fight for the right! Islam owns no one!

Public conversions from Islam to Christianity in Egypt, a country whose population is 10 percent Christian, ignite major controversy. While no Egyptian law forbids conversion to Christianity, Islamic law treats it as apostasy deserving of death.

In 2007, Mohammed Ahmed Hegazy, a 25-year-old Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity, petitioned officially to change his religion on his national identification card. Hegazy was the first Muslim-born Egyptian to sue the government for denying him official recognition of his religion, in contrast to most Christian converts who maintain a low profile for fear of persecution.¹ As a result, Hegazy aroused media attention and public controversy and had his home in Port Said set ablaze, found himself facing execution threats from Islamic clerics, and went into hiding.²

Some 300 intellectuals, poets, and lawyers responded to Hegazy's petition by issuing a statement opposing him and urging both Muslims and Christians not to support him because "he's a long way from both Islam and Christianity."³

Egypt's grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, has spoken against punishing apostasy, saying that "from a religious prospective, the act of abandoning one's religion is a sin punishable by God on the Day of Judgment. If the case in question is one of merely rejecting faith, then there is no worldly punishment."⁴

Gomaa's position is, in fact, much more moderate than that of the Egyptian public, which deems apostasy the most serious of sins that merits capital punishment. Despite, the mufti's comments, Egyptian courts have consistently chosen to reject Muslim conversion to Christianity.

A year before Hegazy's request for official recognition, another Muslim convert to Christianity, Sheikh Bahaa el-Din Ahmed Hussein el-Akkad, was arrested and jailed. In blatant contradiction to Egyptian law, Akkad was imprisoned without charges for eighteen months and then released without explanation. According to his lawyer, Egyptian authorities jailed Akkad "only because he has chosen a different belief, to be a Christian."⁵

In January 2008, a Cairo court ruled that it was against Islamic law for a Muslim to leave Islam, thereby denying Hegazy and other Egyptians the right to convert to other religions.⁶ In reference to Hegazy's case, Judge Muhammad Husseini told the administrative court, "He can believe whatever he wants in his heart, but on paper he can't convert."⁷

Despite this ruling, a month later an Egyptian court allowed twelve Coptic Christians legally to change their religion from Islam to Christianity. In this case, the judge granted official recognition because the defendants had been born as Coptic Christians⁸ and had converted to Islam to obtain divorces. Islam allows a man to divorce his wife, but Coptic Orthodox Christianity does not.⁹

While some Coptic Christians see this ruling as a major victory, it is clear that its application is limited. Despite the grand mufti's statements against physical punishment for apostasy and the court's concessions for Coptic-born Christians, Egyptian society and the religious establishment continues to persecute born-Muslims who convert out.

Stephanie Winer, a University of Pennsylvania student, is a former intern at the Middle East Forum.

[¹] Compass Direct News Service (Santa Ana, Calif.), Sept. 12, 2008.
[2] "Egypt—Jail time extended for Christian rights workers," Open Doors, Witney, Oxon, U.K., Aug. 22, 2007.
[3] Nashwa Abdel-Tawab, "Whosoever will, let him disbelieve," Al-Ahram Weekly (Cairo), Aug. 9-15, 2007.
[4] Khaled Diab, "Faith and Punishment," The Guardian (London), Aug. 2, 2007; Abdullah Al-Araby, "Apostasy in Islam: The Point of No Return," Islam Review, accessed Sept. 18, 2009.
[5] Compass Direct News, Oct. 18, 2006.
[6] Compass Direct News, Sept. 12, 2008.
[7] Compass Direct News, Jan. 31, 2008.
[8] BBC News, Feb. 9, 2008.
[9] The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2008.

Dissident Watch: Mohammed Hegazy :: Middle East Quarterly

University of Gaza ‘Greenhouse for Hamas Terror’

Palestinian engineering students attend their graduation ceremony at The Islamic University on July 31, 2005 in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. 2095 students were graduated from The Islamic University for the 2005 studying season.


University of Gaza students affiliated with Hamas used chains and knives to attack Fatah supporters several days ago, sending several students to the hospital. The incident is a footnote in a long-standing atmosphere of Jihadist education at the university, which maintains that it is an academic institution like any other.

Using aid from the West and affiliation with international student bodies, the Islamic University of Gaza is a greenhouse for Hamas terrorists, according to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC).

Founded in 1978 by since-assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, it has been described by The New York Times’ Steve Erlanger as "one of the prime means for Hamas to convert Palestinians to its Islamist cause."

De facto Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh is one of many Hamas terrorist leaders who are graduates of Gaza U., where he studied Arabic literature. Senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar learned alternative medicine there.

The al-Qassam Brigades, the terror arm of the Hamas political machine, uses Gaza University laboratories to develop and produce explosives and long-range rockets, ITIC reports. "Students are involved in manufacturing weapons and are sent by Hamas to Iran, Syria and Lebanon for further training," its researchers add. "The university is a warehouse for weapons and the venue for secret meetings of military leaders."

Violent clashes between Hamas and Fatah supporters are common, and Hamas students used chains and knives several days in a violent confrontation with Fatah rivals, several of whom were hospitalized.

The University of Gaza maintains the profile of an academic institution and is a member of four international university groups, including the International Association of Universities. Although it "conducts lectures on its radical ideology and concentrates on hostility to Israel and the West," the terror researcher states, it is funded by Western and Muslim groups in the United States, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, among others.

According to its own accounts, [UK charity praised by Gordon Brown and Prince Charles] Muslim Aid paid £325,000 [$496,328] to the Islamic University of Gaza, where leading Hamas figures teach, and £13,998 [$21,377] to the al-Ihsan Charitable Society, designated by the US government as a "sponsor of terrorism" and a front for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.

Muslim Aid raised more than £24 million [$36.6 million] last year and has been given at least £830,000 [$1,267,464] of public money. It claims to serve humanity "regardless of political affiliation" and only supports lawful organisations. +

It maintains links with respected academic institutions, such as the London School of Economics and Queen Mary College. Several years ago, international chipmaker Intel set up the Intel Information Technology Center of Excellence at the university.

However, inside its walls, lecturers emphasize the importance of Jihad and the Islamic code while teaching how to use the media for religious coercion. Its academic studies, including those for teachers in grade schools, are linked to Jihadist education and the value of suicide attacks.

Gaza University academics deny it is a Hamas institution. "Equally important for our American colleagues is to remove the false label that IUG is a ‘Hamas-controlled’ institution," according to two of its lecturers, "IUG is a university like any other in Palestine that reflects the diversity of its population."

However, IDF intelligence has known for years that Hamas develops and stores Kassam rockets at the university, which was evacuated during Israel's Operation Cast Lead counterterrorist operation. The IDF bombed its weapons laboratories, but the United Nations "Fact Finding Mission" reported, "These were civilian, educational buildings and the Mission did not find any information about their use as a military facility."

Voice Of The Copts - University of Gaza ‘Greenhouse for Hamas Terror’

Egypt Christians want action on insulting novel | Reuters

This is the problem with religious laws, people can claim legitimately to being insulted and the law has to act in their favor. Problem is although all of Egypt's recognized religions would be covered, under the law, any action taken would likely be be in favor of insulting Islam. If the Coptic Christian community had been accused of insulting Islam they, could not only expect legal reprimand, but physical attack by Egyptian Muslims who would take the the law into their own hands.

Father Bassiet said the novel ‘Azazeel’ is an insult to the history and the symbols of the Coptic Church, as it says that the Church has darkened the world, and that its priests took all the food and filled life with ugliness. It also says they were snakes that killed in the name of the Lord anyone who was not Christian. VC

(Reuters) - Egyptian Christians have called for government action against the author of a widely read novel they say insults Christianity, in an unusual case that puts freedom of expression in Muslim-majority Egypt under fresh scrutiny.

Government investigators are looking into the complaint filed by a group of Egyptian and some foreign Copts against Youssef Ziedan, a Muslim who wrote the 2008 award-winning novel Azazeel (Beelzebub).

Egyptian law prohibits insults against Islam, Christianity and Judaism, and Ziedan could be sent to jail for up to five years if prosecuted and found guilty.

"They accuse me of insulting Christianity ... It's a serious crime and this is a big shock to people, especially since the novel has been so successful," Ziedan said.

Azazeel, which won the 2009 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, backed by the Booker Prize Foundation, tells the story of a 5th-century Egyptian monk who witnesses debates over doctrine between early Christians.

During President Hosni Mubarak's 29 years in power, the government has tolerated little political dissent and has over time adopted selective censorship of films, books and other media seen as risque or challenging to Islam.

In 1995 an Egyptian sharia court declared Egyptian intellectual Nasr Abu Zayd an apostate from Islam over his liberal, critical approach to Islamic teaching. His marriage was annulled and he was effectively forced into exile.

CLERICAL SCRUTINY

Books related to Islam must be approved by clerics at al-Azhar university, a top religious authority for Sunnis.

In the same way, Coptic Church elders scrutinize books about Christianity, but Ziedan's novel was not vetted because it was considered a popular rather than spiritual tome, one Coptic church leader said.

But Mamdouh Ramzi, a Coptic lawyer who is among the group that have complained about Ziedan, said the novel is offensive to Christians.

"He insulted priests and bishops and said many things with no proof or evidence from books or history ... He is not a Christian man, what does he know about the Church?" Ramzi asked.

The case, joined by Coptic groups in the United States, the Netherlands, Canada and Austria, reflects broader complaints by Copts that they are marginalized in mainly Muslim Egypt.

"... we should receive attention from the authorities or we will start to wonder why the law does not respond unless the matter includes an insult to Islam," Ramzi said.

Christians account for about 10 percent of Egypt's 78 million people. Sectarian violence is not common, but disputes occasionally break out over issues involving land or women, prompting complaints by Copts that the government does too little to protect them for fear of Islamist reprisals.

The case presents Mubarak's government, which fought a low-scale Islamist insurgency in the 1990s, with a dilemma, said Gamal Eid, who heads the Cairo-based Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

On the one hand, it wants to avoid criticism from Christian groups abroad and so is under pressure to act; on the other, it does not want to jail a writer at a time of human rights scrutiny before elections this year and next.

"This case has become politicized, so any outcome is possible," Eid said.

Mubarak, who turned 82 this week, has not yet said whether he will run for a sixth term in the 2011 presidential vote.

Egypt Christians want action on insulting novel
| Reuters

Faisal Shahzad ‘carried out dry run’ before Times Square attack

The man accused of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in Times Square carried out a dry run days before the failed attack, it has been claimed.

Faisal Shahzad, who is in custody in New York on terrorism and weapons charges, drove from his home in Connecticut to the theatre district on April 28 in the vehicle that days later he would pack with explosives, a law enforcement official told the Associated Press.

Mr Shahzad then returned on April 30 - the day before the attack - to drop off a black Isuzu get-away vehicle near to the target site.

But despite these preparations his escape from the scene on May 1 was hampered when Mr Shahzad discovered he had left the keys for the getaway vehicle inside the explosive laden car, the official said.

He was forced to travel by public transport after leaving Times Square and returned on Sunday May 2 to retrieve the Isuzu even as investigators were searching for suspects. Mr Shahzad used the black vehicle to drive to John F. Kennedy airport where he was apprehended on board a flight out of the country.

Mr Shahzad, 30, admitted to rigging the Pathfinder SUV with a crude bomb based on explosives training he received in Pakistan, authorities say. He was pulled off a plane on Monday headed for Dubai and has been cooperating with investigators. He has yet to appear in Manhattan federal court.

Kifyat Ali, a cousin of Mr Shahzad’s father, has called the arrest “a conspiracy”.

The 30-year-old Pakistani-American could have links to both the Pakistani Taleban and a Kashmiri Islamist group, officials said today.

The United States has asked Pakistan for help in investigating the failed bomb plot, and is preparing a detailed request for urgent and specific assistance to be presented by the end of the week.

Pakistani security officials told Reuters that Mr Shahzad was close to Jaish-e-Muhammad, a group fighting Indian forces in the disputed territory of Kashmir and which also has ties to al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban.

“The people who have been picked up do have links to Jaish and have also been in touch with Shahzad during his visits here,” a Pakistani security official in Karachi said.

The official was referring to Mohammad Rehan, a friend of Shahzad, who was detained on Tuesday after leaving the Bat’ha Mosque in Karachi. Other associates, including Mr Shahzad’s father-in-law, have also been detained in Karachi.

The United States has also asked to interview Mr Shahzad’s parents, the Washington Post reported, quoting a Pakistani official who said their whereabouts are still unknown.

The suspect’s family packed belongings from their Peshawar home on Tuesday night and disappeared, neighbours said.

Faisal Shahzad ‘carried out dry run’ before Times Square attack - Times Online

Landlord talked to suspect after botched NYC bomb

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The landlord of the suspect in the Times Square bombing attempt says he got a call from him that night saying he had lost his apartment key and needed to be let into the building.

Stanislaw Chomiak told The Associated Press that Faisal Shahzad (FY'-sul shah-ZAHD') said he had been hanging out with friends in New York City.

Authorities say he had actually left his keys in the ignition of an SUV he had loaded with firecrackers, gas and fertilizer and rigged to explode in Times Square. The bomb did not go off.

Chomiak says Shahzad told him he took cab to his Bridgeport apartment from a train station. The landlord says Shahzad lived alone and that he never saw him with anyone.

Shahzad was arrested Monday, and authorities say he is cooperating.

Landlord talked to suspect after botched NYC bomb

Russian special forces storm oil tanker, arrest Somali pirates, crew took cover in safe room

Russian commandos dramatically rescued the crew of an oil tanker today that had been seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia.

Special forces marines stormed the Liberian-registered Moscow University and freed all 23 Russian crew members unharmed. One pirate was reported killed and ten others were arrested after a firefight during the dawn helicopter raid on the vessel, which is carrying 86,000 tonnes of oil worth $52 million (£34 million).

“During reconnaissance preceding the assault operation, the Russian sailors simultaneously used helicopters and speedboats while special forces covertly approached the tanker,” an unidentified Russian navy official told the Ria-Novosti news agency.

“The pirates on board the Moscow University tanker opened fire using small arms. One of them was shot during return fire.”

Colonel Alexei Kuznetsov, a spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry, said: “Nobody was hurt among the tanker crew and the Russian military. The pirates have been detained and are being held on board the Moscow University tanker.”

A Kremlin spokesman praised the “excellent job” carried out by rescuers from the anti-submarine destroyer Marshal Shaposhnikov and the response of crew members to the hijack.

“The oil tanker's crew was brilliantly prepared. The outcome was due to the training, organised by the ship's owner, and the preparatory work done by the personnel. The crew were prepared to act in an emergency,” said Anatoly Safonov, the Kremlin’s envoy for international co-operation in combating terrorism.

The crew locked themselves in a safe room, which had reinforced doors that could be opened only from inside, when the Somali pirates boarded the tanker.

The ship had been disabled and was not moving, although crew members told officials that pirates were attempting to get into the engine room.

The Kremlin despatched the warship to the Gulf of Aden as soon as the crisis broke yesterday about 350 miles (560km) off the coast of Somalia. The vessel, which is owned by Novoship, a subsidiary of a Russian state company, was bound for China from Sudan.

The pirates had threatened to take the tanker to a pirate haven on the coast of Somalia. Novoship said in a statement that the operation to free the Moscow University had been sanctioned in the knowledge that “the crew was under safe cover inaccessible to the pirates and that the lives and health of the sailors were not threatened”.

This was the first time that a wholly Russian crew had been taken hostage by Somali pirates. The speed of the Kremlin’s response came as an international naval coalition steps up the fight to protect vessels threatened by piracy in Gulf waters.

A European Union force has increased its attacks on pirate ships and United States warships have also destroyed boats in several clashes during recent weeks.

However, pirates still hold more than 300 hostages seized aboard ships attacked off the East African coast in recent months and are demanding millions of dollars in ransoms to release crews and cargos.

A statement from the EU’s naval force said that the Marshal Shaposhnikov had sent a helicopter to the oil tanker, which had returned fire after being shot at by pirates.

It added: “Eventually, the pirates surrendered and a boarding team from the Marshal Shaposhnikov captured all the pirates and freed the crew.”

Russian special forces storm oil tanker, arrest Somali pirates - Times Online: "Russian special forces storm oil tanker, arrest Somali pirates"

Disinvited evangelist prays at Pentagon anyway

What is certain is that Islam does have more than a few problems when it comes to dealing with those who choose not to follow it. This includes the treatment of apostates, which relates most to Franklin Graham's experience in the Islamic world. For Graham, if person in the Islamic world, chose to listen to his Christian message, under Islamic law, they could be arrested, imprisoned and even killed.

Also ~ what is increasingly being brought to our attention ~ is the terrible treatment non-Muslims in the Muslim world are being subjected to. There are forced conversions, blasphemy laws that target non-Muslims. Like Muslim women, non-Muslims are not equal under Islamic law. Non-Muslims are not given the same protection under the law from attack. Churches and other non-Muslim places of worship are often forbidden or can't be repaired easily. All sanctioned by Islamic law.

If these acts were carried out by a dictator, there are a few choice words we would use to describe it, but because these are carried out in the name of Islam, then they are given special protection from criticism. They are given a pass.

Going after Graham for highlighting the inequalities between Islamic rule and the freedoms we enjoy in the West ~ is to do away with the messenger.


WASHINGTON — Evangelist Franklin Graham prayed on a sidewalk outside the Pentagon Thursday after his invitation to a prayer service inside was withdrawn because of comments that insulted people of other religions.

Graham's invitation to attend an event inside the Defense Department for national prayer day was withdrawn two weeks ago.

But he arrived in the Pentagon parking lot just before 8 a.m. EDT — his party of a half dozen people forming a circle on the sidewalk and praying with heads bowed for about five minutes.

Graham once called Islam evil. He told an impromptu press conference Thursday outside the Pentagon that he prayed for the men and women of the armed forces and that he doesn't feel his statements about other religions have been offensive."

The Associated Press: Disinvited evangelist prays at Pentagon anyway

Australian: Gunman disguised in burka and sunglasses robs cash courier

Cover-up: The gunman wore a burka to disguise himself while robbing a courier (file picture)

A gunman dressed in a head-to-toe black burqa and sunglasses robbed a cash courier in a shopping centre car park.

The courier had just withdrawn a large amount of money from a bank yesterday when he spotted two men following him, Australian police said.

He returned to his vehicle which was parked in the car park when one of the men approached him and told him his tyre was going flat.

The man became suspicious and drove from the scene, changing his tyre in a nearby street before driving to a shopping centre.

Whilst he was parking his vehicle in the car park, he was approached by a man wearing a full burka and dark glasses.

The man pointed a pistol at him and demanded he hand over the money.

The victim handed over a bag containing a large amount of cash, and the man then ran off.

The 35-year-old victim works as a cash courier for jewellery businesses and was working on a job in Sydney at around 3pm when he was robbed, New South Wales state police said.

The burka is the most concealing of all Islamic veils. It covers the entire face and body, leaving just a mesh screen to see through.

In Australia, some Muslims wear head scarves, but burkas are almost never worn.

The burka has become something of a controversial garment over recent years, with some suggesting it poses a security risk, as the wearer cannot be identified.

Last month, Belgium became the first European country to impose a full ban on wearing a burka.

Its parliament approved a draft law which states women can be jailed for hiding their faces in public.

The bill - which must be rubber-stamped by the Belgian senate - is set to become law by July.

France is poised to follow Belgium, with President Nicolas Sarkozy leading the charge to ban the burka. He has described the garment as 'contrary to the dignity of women'.

Since 1975, a national anti-terrorism law in Italy has forbidden the wearing of any mask or clothing that makes it impossible to identify the person underneath.

However, the law permits exceptions for 'justified cause', which has often been interpreted by courts as including religious reasons.

A woman in Italy became the first person in the country to be fined £430 for wearing a burka in a public place - the post office - earlier this week.

Daily Mail

Miracle Crash Escape For UKIP Candidate [Video]

A very lucky escape for the UK Independence Party's [UKIP] former leader Nigel Farage.

The UKIP party has been campaigning for a ban on the burqa in public buildings, around security concerns. And they also invited the Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders over from Holland to speak at the UK Parliament, when he was famously banned from entering the UK.

UKIP candidate Nigel Farage has had a miraculous escape after being pulled from the wrecked cockpit of a light aircraft on the morning of the General Election.

Mr Farage, who is contesting Speaker John Bercow's seat in Buckingham, was dragged from the smashed aircraft with his face covered in blood.

It is thought the small plane got into difficulty after getting tangled in a Vote UKIP banner it had been towing.

Mr Farage, an MEP and a former UKIP leader, was taken to Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire, but has since been transferred to the John Radcliffe Infirmary for checks on a possible chest injury.

The pilot of the aircraft was airlifted to a hospital in Coventry.
The plane had been due to fly over the counties of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire.

SKY News

Islam ‘No vote’ ‘Voting for man-made law is apostasy’ stickers plastered over a UK polling station

The anti-voting stickers are from the same area where a Muslim man scrolled Islamic graffiti on a war memorial:

Conservative MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of the Parliamentary Counter Terrorism sub-committee, said: 'This is an outrage against our war dead.'

Tohseef Shah sprayed the words 'Islam will dominate the world - Osama
is on his way' and 'Kill Gordon Brown' on the plinth of the memorial in December.

+

There seems to be a radical group operating in the Staffordshire area called the ROAD2JANNAH who are running a 'Boycott The Ballot Box' campaign on their 'Virulent Voting' page.


STICKERS encouraging Burton residents not to vote have been plastered over a polling station.

Burton resident Ahmad Bukhatir branded the stickers ‘quite disgusting’, while Burton county councillor Peter Beresford said the offending items were trying to take away people’s democratic right to vote.

Mr Bukhatir said he had noticed the stickers saying: ‘Voting for man-made law is apostasy’ at Victoria Community School, in Victoria Road, and Victoria Nursery School, in York Street, which is a polling station for today’s elections.

Apostasy in Islam means the rejection in word or deed of their former religion by a person who was previously a follower of Islam.

Mr Bukhatir, himself a Muslim, said the stickers could cause more unnecessary tension between religions.

He said: “It is quite disgusting. We had the issue with the war memorial graffiti which caused uproar in the Muslim community and now we have these stickers.

“It is trying to say when you vote you become a disbeliever.

Possible Islamic graffiti connection:

Community leaders among Burton- upon-Trent's 4,000-strong Muslim population also slammed Shah's actions.

Khadim Thathall, a former president of a mosque in the town, said: 'This young man has clearly been radicalised by groups which are looking to cause trouble and it's a pity that the court hasn't been able to deal with him more strictly.'

Shah (r)  - believed to be a former student of De Montfort University in Leicester - uses as his Facebook profile photograph a flaming lion's head superimposed on crossed Kalashnikov rifles.
He lives with his parents in a £200,000 [$300K] detached house and works at his father's car spares shop. Last night, he refused to discuss the case.

Instead he appointed Abdullah Ibn Abbas, who described himself as spiritual leader of a group called Road to Jannah, to speak on his behalf.

He said: 'It really doesn't concern us how the British people feel about the graffiti he wrote - the real outrage should be about the thousands of Muslims who are being killed and butchered as a result of British foreign policy.' +

“These stickers are nothing new, but they are not helping the tension between religions when there shouldn’t be tension.” Councillor Beresford said he was ripping the stickers down and had contacted East Staffordshire Borough Council.

He said: “So far I have taken down 35 stickers and there are more than 10 plastered in Grange Street.

“I have seen them all over lamp posts, rubbish bins, speed signs. Clearly someone is wishing to put their opinion forward that voting is something to do with Allah rather than the general population.”

The postcard-sized stickers also say: ‘The right of legislation belongs to none but Allah.’ The Burton councillor said: “Clearly there seem to be some people who don’t feel that voting is a matter for the Muslim community. If some people don’t want to vote then that is their right, but everyone has a right to vote.

“These stickers and some leaflets are professionally done but they do not reflect the views of the Muslim community. It looks like these have been put up by someone who has been easily influenced by a larger group.”

Burton Mail

Mumbai attacks: Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, sole-surviving terrorist, sentenced to death [Video]

The sole-surviving gunman involved in the Mumbai terror attacks has been sentenced to death.

An Indian court sentenced Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, 22, to death over the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people and raised tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbouring rivals.

The death penalty, which in India is carried out by hanging, must be confirmed by a higher court.

Kasab, from Pakistan, was the only terrorist captured alive following the three-day rampage by 10 gunmen in November 2008 which killed people at key Mumbai landmarks, including two luxury hotels, the main train station and a Jewish centre.



The Mumbai court on Monday had found Kasab guilty on more than 80 charges, including murder and waging war on India.

Judge M.L. Tahaliyani imposed the death penalty for four different crimes, namely murder, waging war against India, as well as conspiracy and terrorism offences.

“He should be hanged by the neck until he is dead,” he said.

Kasab could spend many years on death row, awaiting a series of appeals. The last execution in India was in 2004, when a security guard was hanged in Calcutta for the rape and murder of a schoolgirl. Since then, the last trained hangman in India is understood to have retired.

Kasab, the slightly built son of a foodstall owner, drifted into extremism from a life of petty crime. Since his capture, everything from his demands for meat biryani (the food in his prison is vegetarian) to his literary tastes (he was said to be reading Gandhi’s autobiography) have been pored over by India’s media.

At first he claimed to be a child ineligible for trial in an adult court, pleaded innocent and accused the police of beating a confession out of him. Three months later he confessed to taking part in the terror attack and said that he was “ready to hang”. The move was part of a pattern of bizarre behaviour.

At one stage in court, Kasab produced a white powder from a screwed-up piece of paper, saying it was poison that his prison guards had tried to add to his food. In December he retracted a confession that had included a detailed account of his indoctrination and weapons training. Instead, he claimed to be an aspiring film star who was in Mumbai hoping to break into Bollywood when he was arrested and set up.

Mumbai attacks: Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, sole-surviving terrorist, sentenced to death - Times Online

Shahzad’s Friends Describe a Growing Seriousness

A Suspect Pressed by Finances, and Religion

Theirs was an arranged marriage: two well-educated children of prominent Pakistani families set up through a mutual friend. He was the quiet one; she was the one who laughed at parties.

At their wedding in Peshawar six years ago, men and women danced separately but also together, “a rarity at that time,” recalled one guest. “It was such a huge gathering that even their family friends from Qatar came.”

When they returned to the United States, his colleagues at the cosmetics maker Elizabeth Arden celebrated with a small office party.

The husband, Faisal Shahzad, put photographs of his wife, Huma Mian, on his desk at the Arden office in Stamford, Conn. They bought a brand-new house for $273,000, 35 miles away on Long Hill Avenue in Shelton. By the time they moved in, she was pregnant, the neighbors recalled.

As another day passed with Mr. Shahzad talking to investigators about the car bomb he had admitted driving into Times Square on Saturday, details emerged on Wednesday about the couple and their life together, along with speculation about his radicalization. People who knew them, both in Connecticut and in Pakistan, said he had changed in the past year or so, becoming more reserved and more religious as he faced what someone who knows the family well called “their financial troubles.”

Last year, one Pakistani friend said, he even asked his father, Bahar ul-Haq, a retired high-ranking air force pilot in Pakistan, for permission to fight in Afghanistan.

Mr. Haq, now in his 70s, adamantly refused, according to a person familiar with the conversation, saying that he disapproved of the mission and reminding his son that Islam does not permit a man to abandon his wife or children.

As a newlywed, the wedding guest said of Mr. Shahzad by e-mail from Pakistan, “there was no sign of him being extremist or, for that matter, he wasn’t a bit religious.” But in the past couple of years, after changing jobs and fathering two children, Mr. Shahzad “started talking more of Islam.” The guest spoke on the condition he not be identified because of concerns about his safety in the wake of the attempted car bombing.

“The recession had taken a toll on them, I guess,” he wrote in an e-mail message from Pakistan. He said that their money worries became apparent in 2008 or 2009 and that Mr. Shahzad “lost his way during the financial problems.” JPMorgan Chase has since moved to foreclose on the Shelton house, which the couple had abandoned in a hurry, leaving behind clothes and toys.

In February, Mr. Shahzad leased a two-bedroom apartment in Bridgeport, Conn. His landlord said he never saw Mr. Shahzad’s wife. Faiz Ahmad, a friend from the Shahzad family’s ancestral village, Mohib Banda, said that when he last saw Mr. Shahzad, at a wedding a year and a half ago, he was sure that something was wrong. Mr. Shahzad seemed changed, he said, sitting by himself and not talking very much.

He was “completely quiet on the sofa, like someone who has some worries, and undergoing some internal change,” Mr. Ahmad said. “So he was sitting silent, silent. And silence in itself is a question.”

A Pakistani man said that an acquaintance of his who was a friend of the Shahzad family told him that within the past year, Mr. Shahzad had peered critically at a glass of whiskey the friend was holding, indicating a judgmental stance typical for rigid jihadis.

Mr. Shahzad, now 30, appeared to be tracing a familiar arc of frustration, increasing religiosity and, finally, violence. He was born and raised in Pakistan, with a privileged upbringing in a moderate family that lived in at least three places — Karachi, Rawalpindi and Mohib Banda. Mr. Haq, according to Mr. Ahmad, “was a man of modern thinking and of the modern age.”

Family friends interviewed on Wednesday said they believed that Mr. Haq was in hiding in the city of Dera Ghazi Khan in western Pakistan, where the family has wheat fields. Mr. Shahzad’s wife was also believed to be in Pakistan, though her whereabouts was unknown. Dawn, a Pakistani daily, reported that her father had been arrested in Karachi, but Pakistani authorities would not confirm that.

Mr. Shahzad, the youngest of four, was born into a new generation in the years after a military autocrat, Zia ul-Haq, began to inject a rigid version of Islam into Pakistan’s education system. At the same time, hard-line mosques were given money and land, elevating a narrow, often sectarian world view that cast a pall over young Pakistanis.

Ms. Mian, the oldest of four, was born in Colorado, though she spent summer vacations in Pakistan and lived with her family in Qatar for a while as a child, according to the wedding guest. Her father, Mohammad Asif Mian, earned two master’s degrees at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colo., in the 1980s, and has written four books.

In the best-selling “Project Economics and Decision Analysis,” published in 2002, Mr. Mian thanked family members for their patience and support, adding, “Special thanks to my daughters at the University of Colorado for being on the dean’s list; this has contributed a lot to my enthusiasm.”

Ms. Mian and her sisters, Saba and Hina, all studied at Denver-area colleges and shared a house just off the campus of the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2003 and 2004.

Huma Mian married Mr. Shahzad soon after earning an accounting degree in 2004, and moved to Connecticut, where he was pursuing an M.B.A. at the University of Bridgeport and, on an H-1B visa for highly skilled workers, was working as an operation analyst at Elizabeth Arden, managing and analyzing accounts receivable, according to a résumé obtained by MSNBC.

“I was always surprised, with her having to buy milk for the baby and everything else, how they afforded this on one income,” recalled Brenda J. Thurman, a neighbor in Shelton.

The couple did not socialize much with people on their block. “It was three years before I knew she spoke English,” Ms. Thurman said.

Ms. Thurman said that Ms. Mian left for a couple of months in late 2008 or early 2009, and that Mr. Shahzad told her she was going to Pakistan to have their second child. Within a few months of her return, they packed up and left again last summer. Mr. Shahzad, who had left Elizabeth Arden in 2006 to become a client reporting analyst at Affinion, a financial marketing services company in Norwalk, Conn., quit his job there.

Piles of garbage remained outside the home in Shelton this week, filled with clues about their lives. There were packets of Nair, moisturizer with Arabic writing on the back, a makeup brush, a Japanese cherry blossom scent body spritzer, wrapping paper and gift bags that appeared to be for baby gifts.

There was an envelope addressed to “Faisal, Huma and Alishaba,” which contained a card proclaiming, “Congratulations on your new little girl!”

How, why or where Mr. Shahzad became radicalized remains unclear. Dr. Saud Anwar, the founder of a Pakistani-American association in Connecticut, said that as soon as Mr. Shahzad’s name surfaced in connection with the car bomb, he canvassed Connecticut Muslim and Pakistani groups and found he was not involved with any of them.

But Dr. Anwar said he had been in touch with a university classmate of Mr. Shahzad’s, a man of Pakistani descent who told Dr. Anwar he did not want to be interviewed by reporters. The classmate said he had remained friends with the couple and had noticed something different about Mr. Shahzad about a year ago.

“His personality had changed — he had become more introverted,” Dr. Anwar said the classmate told him. “He had a stronger religious identity, where he felt more strongly and more opinionated about things.” Dr. Anwar said he had asked the classmate whether this change had come through association with a group, and the friend said it seemed to be “on his own that he was learning all these things.”

Mr. Ahmad, the friend from Mohib Banda, speculated that the transformation was rooted in Karachi. An associate of Mr. Shahzad’s was arrested in a mosque believed to have ties with a militant group in Karachi early Tuesday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

“The question is who has put Faisal in this path?” Mr. Ahmad asked. “The Faisal with the beard that you see, he was not the old Faisal. He was like you, like me, handsome, liberal and an active person.”

According to Pakistan’s information minister, Mr. Shahzad traveled to Pakistan 13 times in the past seven years. One Pakistani official who knew the family said it was unlikely that Mr. Shahzad would have been radicalized in Pakistan if he was only on short trips, which tend to be dominated by family commitments like weddings; the criminal complaint against him filed on Tuesday says that he returned in February from a five-month stint. It also said Mr. Shahzad had been trained in bomb-making in Waziristan.

Another family friend in Pakistan, Kifayat Ali, called Mr. Shahzad “emotional” and said that he used to carry a dagger around with him as a boy. He speculated that Mr. Shahzad had become enraged by the United States’ military actions, fueled by the Pakistani press blaring conspiracy theories and anti-American vitriol.

“A person sees the brutality of Afghanistan and Iraq,” Mr. Ali noted. “These scenes affect people.”

The résumé posted Wednesday on msnbc.com said Mr. Shahzad held three different positions at Elizabeth Arden over five years starting in mid-2001, and then spent three years at Affinion. At Arden, he said he had “decreased bad debt write-offs by 47 percent” and “recovered over $2.5 mil in ‘lost’ revenue.” At Affinion, he said he prepared “monthly commission forecasting for high-profile Affinion clients such as Citibank, Bank of America, Royal Bank of Scotland, Peoples Bank, US Bank, Wells Fargo and a couple of smaller clients.”

But James Hart, an Affinion spokesman, said “there’s a lot of résumé puffery in there” and that Mr. Shahzad had been “one rung up from entry level” when he left.

A former manager at Elizabeth Arden said that he was the only Pakistani working for the company at the time, but never asked for special accommodation for prayer. And she remembered that on Sept. 11, Mr. Shahzad, like everyone else, huddled around the one radio in the office, listening to bulletins about the attacks on the World Trade Center.

“I think he was just normal,” she recalled. “Isn’t it always the case, though? It’s always the normal ones that you don’t really think they’re going to do something like this.”

Shahzad’s Friends Describe a Growing Seriousness - NYTimes.com

Car bomb suspect who slipped under radar is son of air force chief

There were clues in Pakistan but only to the tight handful of minders who knew what Faisal Shahzad was planning. There were clues in Connecticut — but only to the paranoid.

He jogged late at night in traditional Islamic robes, according to a neighbour. He had moved his family out of their modest, suburban home in what seemed like a hurry. He disliked President Bush.

Otherwise, the man who allegedly set out to kill tourists in Times Square last weekend might have been one of them: a well-bred young man married to a woman from an equally respectable family, whose Facebook page said she loved Friends, shoe shopping “and of course Faisal”.

The chief suspect in the latest terror case to fixate the US Government and public was continuing to answer FBI questions yesterday in a jail cell in New York as the Obama Administration tightened its “no-fly” procedures for terror suspects and stepped up pressure on Pakistan to broaden its offensive against militants from every jihadist faction.

In Peshawar, senior Pakistani officials told The Times that Mr Shahzad, 30, received explosives training on his last trip to the region at a camp run by Qari Hussain, a known trainer of suicide bombers for the Taleban. Sources also said that the father of two, whose last-known job in the US was as a $50,000 (£33,000) a year financial analyst, was taken to South Waziristan by a lead member of Jaish-e-Mohammed, an al-Qaeda-backed group blamed for a series of recent attacks in Pakistan.

He knew what he was getting into, even if almost no one else did. When they came for him at 11.02pm on Monday, as Emirates Flight 202 was preparing to push back from the gate at Kennedy airport, he looked up and said calmly: “I was expecting you. Are you NYPD or FBI?”

It was the end of a 12-year transformation from student to would-be bomber, during which Mr Shahzad defied all efforts by US intelligence agencies since 9/11 to home in on terrorists before they strike.

As a student he was “unremarkable” but diligent when it came to retaking his exams. As an office worker he was competent. As a US visa applicant he passed all the FBI’s security checks with “no derogatory information”.

He was a cipher, one of millions who came to America in the same period, appeared to like it and methodically progressed from immigrant to law-abiding citizen.

It was still unclear yesterday where he was born. Officials in Pakistan have said that it was in the northern province of Nowshera, but on university application forms found in a rubbish bin outside his abandoned home in Shelton, Connecticut, he gave Karachi as his place of birth.

What is beyond doubt is that he first came to the US in 1998 as 19-year-old student, the son of an air vice-marshal of the Pakistani Air Force, Baharul Haq, who remains well known as the founder of the Sherdils, the country’s leading military aerobatics team. He acquired two degrees, in computer science and business administration, from small private colleges in Washington and Bridgeport, Connecticut.

He showed no outward sign of being radicalised as a student or since. No mosques contacted since he allegedly left a smoking SUV in Times Square on Saturday have acknowledged any contact with a Faisal Shahzad. He shopped at a halal grocery in Bridgeport before his final trip to Pakistan last year, but he and his family also ate at the Red Lobster chain and Burger King.

On February 3 Mr Shahzad returned from Pakistan after nine months in Waziristan, but slipped beneath the FBI’s radar because, since April last year, he has been a US citizen and was therefore subject only to cursory immigration checks. His entitlement to citizenship came courtesy of his wife, Huma Mian, the daughter of a successful oil executive. They married in 2004.

“If this hadn’t happened I would have long forgotten him,” William Greenspan, one of Mr Shahzad’s undergraduate supervisors, told The New York Times.

He was remembered clearly yesterday in the village of Mohib Banda outside Peshawar, where friends of his family expressed great surprise at his arrest. “He came from a respectable family and was not even a religious person,” Kayfayatullah Khan said.

Another villager reacted with suspicion to the news emerging from New York. “America is our enemy,” Bashir-ur-Rehman said. “It wants to defame us. The arrest of Faisal is meant to malign a respected family and Pakistan.”

Car bomb suspect who slipped under radar is son of air force chief - Times Online

President Yar’Adua’s death may spark power struggle in oil-rich Nigeria

President Yar’Adua of Nigeria, whose long sickness plunged Africa’s most populous country into a constitutional crisis, has died, the Office of the Presidency announced last night.

A spokesman said Mr Yar’Adua, 58, passed away at 9pm at Aso Rock presidential villa, with his wife Turai by his side. He will be buried today in accordance with Muslim custom [...]


Under an unwritten deal to keep rival religious and geographical groups happy, the Presidency is supposed to alternate between north and south. The northerners fear that southerners will now capitalise on the late President’s death to capture the highest office in the land before their due date.

Mr Yar’Adua was barely half way through his first term when he fell ill. The country faces elections next year and in a country where patronage rules the governing party is more or less certain of victory.

The prospect of Nigeria slipping into a protracted power struggle will ring alarm bells across the continent. Nigeria has recently seen the worst intercommunal violence for decades.

Mr Yar’Adua’s fellow northerners are determined not to let the presidency slip from their grasp before their time is up. Mr Yar’Adua was expected to stand for a second term in 2011. The northern political elite suspect that once Mr Jonathan, a southerner, steps into the presidential mansion he will not leave.

In the background lurk the military — many of whose senior generals are also northerners — which found it hard in them past to resist the temptation to carry out a coup. “The country is in crisis but despite the anarchical nature of the democracy in place, it is still better than military rule,” said Banjo Adewale, a Nigerian analyst. “It is not like the 1970s and 80s. There is no support for the military.”

Mr Yar’Adua took office in 2007 in a country notorious for corruption. He gained the accolades of many for being the first leader to declare publicly his personal assets when taking office — setting up a benchmark for comparison later to see if he misappropriated funds. But enthusiasm for his rule waned as little changed in a country burdened by years of corruption.

President Yar’Adua’s death may spark power struggle in oil-rich Nigeria - Times Online

Nigeria President Yar'Adua dies after long illness

LAGOS, Nigeria – Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, long plagued by poor health, has died at age 58, his spokesman said.

Yar'Adua died at 9 p.m. (2000 GMT) Wednesday at the Aso Rock presidential villa, presidential spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi told The Associated Press. Adeniyi, his voice cracking, said Yar'Adua's wife Turai was at his side when he died. Adeniyi did not give a cause of death.

Yar'Adua, a Muslim, will be buried Thursday, Adeniyi said.

Nigeria President Yar'Adua dies after long illness | Nation/World News - The News Tribune

No-Fly List Procedures Changed Following Terror Attempt

Sorry, but does anybody think this guy Doesn't Look Like a Terrorists!!

Is there such a thing as a terrorist face...

In the wake of Faisal Shahzad's arrest aboard an airplane at JFK airport on Monday night, the Obama administration has changed the procedures for the no-fly list.

A White House official told CBS News that airlines will now have to check the list within two hours of notification of an update with special circumstances, such as happened on Monday. Previously, airlines only were required to check within 24 hours.

The changes come following questions about how the alleged attempted Times Square car bomber was able to board an Emirates flight bound for Dubai despite being identified as a suspect and added to the no-fly list earlier in the day.

The White House official said Emirates seemingly didn't check the new update for Shahzad before he was allowed to purchase a ticket and board the plane. He was captured after a customs agent noticed the name and called the plane back to the gate before takeoff.

The new rules go into effect today.

No-Fly List Procedures Changed Following Terror Attempt - Political Hotsheet - CBS News

Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999

Sources tell CBS News that would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad appeared on a Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list - Traveler Enforcement Compliance System (TECS) - between 1999 and 2008 because he brought approximately $80,000 cash or cash instruments into the United States.

TECS is a major law enforcement computer system that allows its approximately 120,000 users from 20 federal agencies to share information. The database is designed to identify individuals suspected of or involved in violation of federal law.

CBS News Exclusive Picture of Shahzad

The system has been recently called inefficient by members of Congress. In late March, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Susan Collins of Maine criticized the system in a letter to DHS, writing that, 'Current functionality does not allow interoperability among databases, fast searching of information, modern interfaces for users of the system, or sufficient security to protect critical terrorist travel data.'

A modernization of the system began in 2008 and is expected to be completed by 2015.

Exclusive Image of bomber suspect Faisal Shahzad, far right, in Times Square

 (Credit: CBS News)

Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999 - CBS News Investigates - CBS News

Times Square: Taliban lackey's twisted mission

The Connecticut man charged yesterday with the botched Times Square car bombing confessed to trying to slaughter innocent people in retaliation for US drone attacks that wiped out the leadership of his beloved Taliban, The Post has learned.

Admitted terrorist Faisal Shahzad -- who copped to training in explosives in the past year with Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, the leading extremist Islamic group in his native Pakistan -- said he was driven to evil by the slew of deaths among leaders of the terror group, law-enforcement sources revealed yesterday.

His training came in a tribal area where American drone aircraft have pummeled members of the Pakistan Taliban and al Qaeda in the past year.

Sources said he was an eyewitness to the onslaught throughout the eight months he spent in Pakistan beginning last summer.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the Times Square bombing attempt immediately after it occurred, saying it was in response to the drone killing of one of its leaders in August -- but that claim had been roundly discounted by US authorities at the time.

But by yesterday, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Qureshi said, "This is a blowback. This is a reaction. This is retaliation. And you could expect that," according to CBS News.

READ THE COUNTS AGAINST SHAHZAD

"Let's not be naive. They're going to fight back."

Shahzad's motive came to light as he admitted leaving a smoldering makeshift bomb containing propane tanks, gasoline canisters, fertilizer and fireworks in a Nissan Pathfinder at West 45th Street and Broadway Saturday evening.

The married father of two young children was slapped with a slew of charges, including acts of terrorism, attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and transporting and using explosives.

In other developments:

* When lawmen pulled Shahzad off an Emirates Airlines flight about to take off from JFK for Dubai, he told them, "I was expecting you. Are you NYPD or FBI?" Newsweek quoted him asking.

* The 30-year-old suspect earlier had managed to slip FBI surveillance. Agents supposed to be tailing him in Bridgeport, Conn., Monday saw him leave a grocery store near his home at 3 p.m. and followed him but later lost him. The plan had been to arrest him at his apartment Monday evening.

Instead, Shahzad was nabbed in the nick of time as he sat on the jet at 11 p.m. He'd managed to board even though his name had been placed on the federal no-fly list at around noon Monday.

* Authorities in Pakistan rounded up as many as eight people in connection with the plot -- some of whom are Shahzad's relatives -- although the suspect has insisted that he acted alone.

* President Obama noted that "hundreds of lives" were saved after street vendors notified cops about Shahzad's smoking Pathfinder. "As Americans and as a nation, we will not be terrorized. We will not cower in fear. We will not be intimidated," he said.

* Shahzad did not appear before a judge in Manhattan federal court, and sources said he might not be presented until later this week -- partly because he's still talking to authorities about what he knows. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said the suspect is providing "significant information."

* Sources told The Post that Shahzad had been known to authorities before the attempted Times Square bomb bid, but did not say why he had come to their attention.

* An Isuzu he left at a JFK parking lot contained a 9mm handgun and two magazine clips of ammunition. It was described as a Kel-Tec automatic pistol with a folding stock and rifle barrel.

When grilled by investigators, Shahzad "admitted he had attempted to detonate a bomb in Times Square. He also said he had recently received five months' worth of bomb-making instruction in Waziristan, Pakistan," a criminal complaint says.

Shahzad traveled to Pakistan last July and stayed there until early February, when he returned to Bridgeport.

Among those arrested in Pakistan was Tauhid Ahmed, with whom Shahzad had been communicating via e-mail and whom he'd met at least once.

Also busted was Muhammad Rehan, who was picked up at a mosque associated with militant activity. Shahzad during his trip to Pakistan had met with Rehan.

Investigators were also looking at possible ties between Shahzad and David Headley, another Pakistani American, who pleaded guilty to the 2008 bombings in Mumbai, India, The Daily Beast Web site reported.

The criminal complaint says Shahzad bought the 1993 Pathfinder on April 24 from a person in Connecticut to whom he paid $1,300 in $100 bills after test-driving it in a parking lot.

Shahzad made sure to inspect "the interior seating and cargo area of the Pathfinder, but not the engine" -- even though the seller told him the car had some mechanical problems.

Shahzad refused to take a bill of sale for the purchase, showing the seller license plates he already had stolen, the complaint says. He later tinted the windows.

The same day as the purchase, Shahzad received four calls from a telephone in Pakistan on a prepaid cellphone he had bought.

The next day, that phone was used to call a Pennsylvania fireworks store that sells M-88s, like those later found in the Times Square bomb.

Kelly lauded the police work that wrapped up the investigation in 53 hours, 20 minutes -- and could think of only one man who could have done it better.

"Now we know that Jack Bauer can do it in 24 minutes," he said, clearly meaning to say "hours." "But in the real world, 53 hours . . . is a pretty good number."

Times Square bomber charged - NYPOST.com

LEGOLAND in Britain let Clegg and Cameron chuck Brown out of 10 Downing Street

LEGO has apologised for a somewhat premature staging of Prime Minister Gordon Brown being evicted from 10 Downing Street by Messrs. Cameron and Clegg.

Irrespective of the outcome of tomorrow’s UK election, the company, which privately staged the ‘event’ at LEGOLAND Windsor for a Press Association photographer, says it should not have done so.

“The Press Association asked if we could help with some different scenarios for pictures of the British election campaign. We did, but in reflection it probably wasn’t the right thing to do. Lego has a clear principle of not commenting on politics,” says LEGO Head of Corporate Communications Charlotte Simonsen, adding that the pictures were not made public by LEGO.

“We do not expect this to happen again. It is unfortunate because it now seems that we have a political point of view,” she adds.

The scene, which shows David Cameron holding Prime Minister Brown’s legs and Nick Clegg holding his arms and carrying the Labour leader out of 10 Downing Street to a Brown’s Removals van, was itself removed some time ago.

LEGO dumped Brown – and apologised - Politiken.dk