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October 15, 2009 8:45 AM

Islamic Militant Threat Grows in Pakistani Heartland

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(AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

The Pakistani Taliban was quick to claim responsibility for Thursday's attacks in both the northwestern Kohat region and in the capital city of the Punjab province, Lahore.

A senior militant commander in the Taliban stronghold of Waziristan, along the border with Afghanistan, claimed in a phone call to CBS News Sami Yousafzai just hours after those devastating attacks that 20 cells, each consisting of between five and 20 militants, had been established in the Punjab province to carry out a wave of attacks over the next two months.

While senior intelligence officials in the Pakistani capital and foreign diplomats strongly dispute the claim that the Taliban has gained the ability to plan and execute major attacks in the Punjab, the Taliban's claim is indicative of a fast-growing threat to Pakistan's most densely populated province.

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Tags:: pakistan ,; cbsafghanistan ,; taliban ,; lahore ,; terror ,; terrormonitor

Topics:: Terror Monitor

October 14, 2009 8:19 AM

Al Qaeda's Feverish Hunt For Cash

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Posted by Khaled Wassef

This story was filed by CBS News' Khaled Wassef.

(CBS)

Al Qaeda is facing its most dire financial difficulties in years, according to the U.S. Treasury. Assistant secretary for terrorist financing, David Cohen, said that the terrorist organization is currently in its weakest financial condition.

"The influence of the network, damaged by U.S. efforts to choke funding, is waning," Cohen said.

In recent months, al Qaeda and its supporters have made repeated donation pleas and openly discussed ways to bypass efforts by international governments to bloc their financial flow.

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Tags:: terrormonitor ,; terror monitor ,; qaeda ,; qaida ,; finance ,; funding ,; terrorism

Topics:: Terror Monitor

October 9, 2009 2:54 AM

Germany Terror Attack Fervor Builds

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Posted by Khaled Wassef

This story was filed by CBS News' Khaled Wassf in London.

(AP / CBS)

Jihadi Web forums have been abuzz with anticipation over the likelihood of an al Qaeda attack against Germany, with jihadi supporters speculating eagerly over potential targets, dates, timings, and even casualty numbers.

A blogger going by the name "Yaman Mokhaddab" posted what he claimed was "Western intelligence" giving 13 hints about the upcoming attacks, warning that they would be much worse than 9/11.

On the popular al-Fallojah forums, "Mohami al-Dawla" speculated Thursday about how many would be killed and the economic damage that would be inflicted. He speculated confidently that we are likely to witness the first WMD attack in the history of modern Jihad.

This mania has hit the blogs in the wake of a far more worrying threat made against Germany almost about weeks ago by a German al Qaeda operative from Bonn named Abu Talha al-Almani.

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Tags:: terrormonitor ,; terror monitor ,; terror ,; germany ,; qaeda ,; attack ,; threat

Topics:: Terror Monitor

October 5, 2009 1:35 PM

Yemen the "New Big Magnet" for al Qaeda

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Posted by Farhan Bokhari

(AP Photo)

Hundreds of hardcore Arab fighters loyal to al Qaeda have fled the Afghanistan-Pakistan region this year, heading mainly to Yemen to bolster an Islamist insurgency targeting oil-rich Saudi Arabia, according to Arab, Pakistani and Western officials who spoke to CBS News.

The implications of such a buildup in Yemen are profound not only for the stability of Saudi Arabia — the birthplace of Islam and home to the holiest of Islamic shrines — but for the world's dependence upon a continued flow of petroleum from the largest known oil reserves.

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Tags:: al qaeda ,; militants ,; islamists ,; yemen ,; saudi arabia ,; pakistan ,; afghanistan ,; iran ,; Farhan Bokhari ,; worldwatch

Topics:: Terror Monitor

September 22, 2009 7:44 AM

Somali Terror Group Vows Loyalty to Al Qaeda

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Posted by Khaled Wassef

Somalia's largest homegrown Islamic militant group has pledged allegiance to al Qaeda for the first time, a sign that, in spite of continuing military pressure on Osama bin Laden's group, it remains a source of inspiration and its influence is spreading.

The Emir of Somalia's Shabab al-Mujahideen, Abu Zubair, lent his support to bin Laden in a new video distributed on Jihadi blogs over the weekend.

It was Shabab's the first open acknowledgment of ties to al Qaeda — made less than a week after the assassination of al Qaeda's chief of operations in East Africa, Saleh al-Nabhan, in a U.S. special forces operation in the costal city of Baraawe, southern Somalia.

"We answer your call, our sheik and our emir," read the title of the elaborately produced 48 minute video. "The Mujahideen here are fine and the winds of victory are still blowing on them and the enemy's plans are collapsing, one after another," Abu Zubair said in the video, addressing bin Laden.

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Tags:: terror monitor ,; terrorism ,; qaeda ,; qaida ,; shabab ,; somalia

Topics:: Terror Monitor

August 18, 2009 2:06 AM

"Textbook" Terrorism Comes to Russia

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Posted by Alexsei Kuznetzov

(AP Photo/Musa Sadulayev)

At least 20 people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded when a suicide bomber drove a minibus packed with more than 400 pounds of explosives through the gates of a police station in the center of Nazran, the largest city in Ingushetia, in Russia's North Caucasus.

Officials quickly promised that "policing against militants will be intensified, security around government buildings and on the roads will become tighter".

But some analysts believe that harsh enforcement of laws in the North Caucasus is fueling violence in the region, rather than effectively countering it.

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Tags:: terrormonitor ,; russia ,; ingushetia ,; kremlin ,; chechnya ,; terror

Topics:: Terror Monitor

August 17, 2009 7:15 PM

What the Afghans Really Want

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Posted by Lara Logan

This analysis was written by CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan, currently embedded with U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.

There are a few things that really annoy me about the current Afghan debate. As I head back to Afghanistan to cover the Aug. 20 presidential election, I feel compelled to write about them, in the hope that someone will be paying attention.

First is the idea that most — the popularly quoted figure is some 80 percent — of insurgents are "economic," and as such, are driven purely by money. The argument is made that poor villagers are easily recruited by Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who pay them anything from $10 to lay a single bomb, to $400 as a monthly "salary" — more cash than Afghans could earn in neglected, poverty-stricken areas.

Let us not forget that the unemployment rate is 40 percent in Afghanistan and literacy rates barely above 30 percent for men – less than half that number for women. So the argument would seem to make sense — superficially.

I disagree. It's time to blow this argument to pieces.

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Tags:: lara logan ,; afghanistan ,; war ,; taliban ,; pashtun ,; terror ,; alqaeda ,; al qaeda ,; U.S. ,; Helmand ,; marine

Topics:: Field Notes

July 29, 2009 5:10 AM

GIs Hunt Taliban Ahead of Afghan Elections

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Posted by Mandy Clark

(AP Photo/Ahmad Masoud)

CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark is embedded with U.S. soldiers trying to secure eastern Afghanistan ahead of next month's presidential elections.

Filed at 4:50 a.m. Eastern.

Operation Champion Sword is a pre-election surge of U.S. and Afghan forces in the country's volatile eastern border region. The goal is to disrupt insurgents planning attacks during the elections scheduled for August 20.

It's all happening around Khowst, one of Afghanistan's biggest cities along the border with Pakistan and a key target for suicide attacks by Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants.

The daily operations consist of precisely targeted, in-and-out missions by small groups of soldiers. The targets are pinpointed by intelligence agencies and can include militant safe-havens, weapons caches or bomb-making facilities.

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Tags:: cbsafghanistan ,; afghanistan ,; troops ,; war ,; taliban ,; bergdahl ,; terror ,; elections

Topics:: Afghanistan

July 23, 2009 3:16 AM

Pakistan Dismisses Report of Bin Laden Son's Death

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Posted by Tucker Reals

(AP)

A Pakistani intelligence officer has dismissed as "rubbish" a reported claim by an American counterterrorism official that the son of Osama bin Laden was likely killed in a U.S. missile strike.

National Public Radio quoted a senior U.S. official as saying American spy agencies were "80 to 85 percent" certain the al Qaeda boss's son had been killed in Pakistan. The source did tell NPR that it was impossible to confirm the identity, as there was no body on which to conduct DNA tests.

"People get very excited over unconfirmed information claiming the possible death of a bin Laden," a Pakistani official told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari in response to the report.

"At this point, unless proven otherwise, I am treating this news as no more than rubbish… There is no proof of Saad bin Laden's death," the official said Thursday. "Let's not forget, such claims have been made before."

A spokeswoman with the U.S. military in Afghanistan told CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark she had no information on the death of a bin Laden.

According to the NPR report, Saad bin Laden is believed to be in his 20s, and is thought to be active in al Qaeda, but not a significant player.
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Tags:

cbsterrormonitor; terrormonitor ,

bin laden ,

son ,

saad ,

pakistan ,

cbsafghanistan

Topics:

Terror Monitor

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June 25, 2009 8:54 AM
Pakistan Gearing Up To Go After Mehsud

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Posted by Farhan Bokhari

(AP Photo/Dilawar Jan)
Pakistan's three-week-old military advance into the Waziristan region along the Afghan border has made "serious inroads against the Taliban militants, but the danger of retaliation remains high," a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad warned on Thursday.

A day after U.S. national security adviser James Jones arrived in Pakistan for talks with civilian and military officials, analysts said the Pakistan' military's advance into Waziristan was the strongest push by the country since it joined the U.S.-led war against Islamic militants.

"We have had unprecedented public support in these operations. Pakistanis were just too tired of the Taliban and wanted their elimination," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told CBS News.

Government officials and Western diplomats warn, however, that it's now vital for the campaign against the Taliban to succeed in targeting Baitullah Mehsud, the Waziristan-based Taliban militant who heads the Paksitani branch of the extremist group.
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Tags:

pakistan ,

taliban ,

qaeda ,

mehsud ,

waziristan ,

terror

Topics:

World Watch

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All Blog Posts from World Watch

Islamic Militant Threat Grows in Pakistani Heartland

Al Qaeda's Feverish Hunt For Cash

Germany Terror Attack Fervor Builds

Yemen the "New Big Magnet" for al Qaeda

Somali Terror Group Vows Loyalty to Al Qaeda

"Textbook" Terrorism Comes to Russia

What the Afghans Really Want

GIs Hunt Taliban Ahead of Afghan Elections

Pakistan Dismisses Report of Bin Laden Son's Death

Pakistan Gearing Up To Go After Mehsud

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