• Pakistan thanks Taliban for not attacking Shias on holy day

    Following the deadly terrorist attacks in Afghanistan on Tuesday, Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik thanked the Taliban for not attacking Shia Muslims during their religious rituals; Tuesday marked the holy day of Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of Imam Hussain; “I am thankful to the Taliban who did not carry out any attack on Shia Muslims and showed respect to their rituals,” Makik said; “I hope they would also remain peaceful in future, lay down arms and work together with us for the security of the country”; in the past the Taliban have attacked Shia Muslims in Pakistan

  • Indian business to invest $10 billion in Afghanistan

    Indian business plan on investing more than $10 billion in Afghanistan to promote economic growth in an effort to help stabilize the country and reduce the risk of terrorism; according to S. M. Krishna, India’s external affairs minister, Indian industry will focus in particular on developing mines and building a steel plant; Krishna called for a new Marshall Plan to assist with Afghanistan’s four deficits – security, governance, development, and investment; “Afghanistan needs time, development assistance, preferential access to world markets, foreign investment and a clear end-state and strategy to make sure that it does not once again plunge into lawlessness, civil war, and externally sponsored extremism and terrorism,” Krishna said

  • U.S. to deploy drones in Bulgaria

    On Wednesday the Bulgarian government announced that it would allow the United States to operate drones within its borders; the drones will be operated from two U.S. air bases located in Bulgaria – Graf Ignatievo and Bezmer; drones have played a key role in the U.S. strategy to combat terrorism and have been widely deployed in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan

  • British explosives detected in Bahrain airport

    Bahraini airport security officials recently detected a package containing explosives; the package originated from the United Kingdom and was found at the airport in Muharraq, an island on the northern tip of Bahrain; so far no details have been released about the passenger who was transporting the package; officials did say the package arrived in Bahrain via Dubai; on 4 December a bomb planted in a minibus parked near the British embassy in Manama was detonated while Shia Muslims were holding a religious procession; no casualties were reported

  • Arabic pamphlet triggers terror alert at Indian airport

    On Wednesday the crew of a chartered plane that flew from Britain to Goa, India raised an alarm after flight attendants discovered an Arabic pamphlet left by one of the passengers; security officials promptly issued a security alert in Panaji, the capital of Goa, as the government announced on Tuesday that they had received specific intelligence about a possible terror strike in Goa; the contents of the Arabic pamphlet were not immediately known; the chartered flight carried 219 passengers, most of them tourists

  • Nine British terror suspects deny planning attacks

    Nine men accused of plotting to attack several buildings in London including the Stock Exchange, the Houses of Parliament, and the U.S. embassy along with several key religious and political figures have all denied their involvement in the terror plot; the suspects were arrested last year in a series of raids in Cardiff, London, and Stroke-on-Trent; all nine men are between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine and have all pleaded not guilty; they are charged with conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life or damage property as well as preparing for acts of terrorism

  • Two men sentenced to death in Belarus for metro bombing

    Last week a court in Belarus sentenced two men to death for bombing a Minsk metro station in April; the attack killed fifteen people and injured dozens; the two men were also linked to bombings in 2005 and 2008; Judge Alexander Fedortsov called the two men “an extreme danger to society”; Belarus is one of the few countries in Europe that maintains the death penalty; executions are carried out by a shot from a pistol

  • Two men sentenced to 14 months for aiding would-be New Year’s attacker

    A court in Moscow sentenced two Dagestani men to fourteen months in jail for harboring a female terrorist; the female was a member of a radical Islamist group and planned to carry out an attack in Moscow during New Year’s eve last year; rather than informing police, the two men offered her new clothes and a place to hide; the woman was captured after one of her fellow attackers accidentally detonated her suicide vest

  • Al Qaeda captures U.S. aid worker, held hostage in Pakistan

    Al Qaeda recently announced that it was holding an elderly U.S. aid worker captured four months ago in Pakistan hostage; Warren Weinstein, a seventy-year old man, was working in Pakistan as the country director for J. E. Austin Associates; he was captured by gunmen in August after they tricked him into letting them into his home; al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri has claimed responsibility and demanded the U.S. end its air strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen; Zawahiri also demanded that the U.S. also release the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and the relatives of Osama bin Laden in exchange for Weinstein’s release; so far U.S. officials have not received any proof that Weinstein is still alive

  • Karzai blames Pakistan for deadly terrorist bombings

    On Wednesday outspoken Afghan president Hamid Karzai blamed a Pakistani terrorist group for the deadly terrorist attacks in three Afghan cities that killed at least sixty people; “Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which is based in Pakistan has claimed responsibility for this attack … We will investigate the issue very carefully and will discuss it with the Pakistani government,” Karzai said; the largest attack occurred at a shrine in the heart of the Afghan capital, targeted the Shi’ite community; officials fear the violence may stoke further sectarian violence