NEW DELHI - India is seeking the extradition of a United States citizen who allegedly played a key role in last year's terrorist attacks on Mumbai.
US prosecutors charged David Headley - aka Daood Gilani - a 49-year-old US national of Pakistani origin, last week with scouting targets for the November 2008 Mumbai attacks. A US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) probe found that he "delivered, placed, discharged and detonated explosives and other lethal devices in, into and against public places in India".
...As assistant attorney general for US national security, David Kris, put it, "This case serves as a reminder that the terrorist threat is global in nature and requires constant vigilance at home and abroad. The Headley example stands the US counter-terrorism approach on its head."
read more @ asia times
2. Obama declares war on Pakistan by Webster Tarpley
December 13, 2009
WASHINGTON, DC — Obama’s West Point speech of December 1 represents far more than the obvious brutal escalation in Afghanistan — it is nothing less than a declaration of all-out war by the United States against Pakistan . This is a brand-new war, a much wider war now targeting Pakistan , a country of 160 million people armed with nuclear weapons. In the process, Afghanistan is scheduled to be broken up. This is no longer the Bush Cheney Afghan war we have known in the past. This is something immensely bigger: the attempt to destroy the Pakistani central government in Islamabad and to sink that country into a chaos of civil war, Balkanization, subdivision and general mayhem. The chosen strategy is to massively export the Afghan civil war into Pakistan and beyond, fracturing Pakistan along ethnic lines. It is an oblique war using fourth-generation or guerrilla warfare techniques to assail a country which the United States and its associates in aggression are far too weak to attack directly. In this war, the Taliban are employed as US proxies. This aggression against Pakistan is Obama’s attempt to wage the Great Game against the hub of Central Asia and Eurasia or more generally.
read more @ there are no sunglasses
3. ties that bind: Lashkar and the global jihad (opinion from The Hindu - ideological alignment with Israel)
The Lashkar-e-Taiba, it is asserted, is a product of the India-Pakistan contestation in Jammu and Kashmir and has little interest in targeting the West. Both claims are ill-founded.
“Umm al-Qura Maintenance Company, LLC,” read the sign outside the door. Inside the sparse office, named for the Lashkar-e-Taiba’s main training base in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, the jihadist group’s top military commander was having an increasingly heated argument.
Muzammil Bhat, who investigators say supervised the training and execution of the November 2008 terror strikes in Mumbai, had arrived in Dubai to meet with a long-standing asset he hoped would facilitate operations inside India. But the former Nizambad commerce student, Abdul Razzak Masood, flatly refused to cooperate, saying India wasn’t the enemy. He demanded that the Lashkar, instead, focus its resources on targeting the United States, principal adversary of the Islamist movement.
Ever since the arrest of Pakistani-American jihadist David Headley — charged with carrying out the reconnaissance that enabled the carnage in Mumbai — intelligence services across the world have been revisiting the Masood case. Headley’s case has made clear that the Lashkar possesses transcontinental networks of global reach and lethality. Masood’s story helps to understand the complex ties that bind the Lashkar and the global jihadist movement.
4. The Hindu: high alert in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Gujarat
A top Union Home Ministry official on Monday said that Taliban-trained ‘fidayeen’ (suicide squad) have entered the country to carry out attacks at "specific" installations, including Bhaba Atomic Research Centre
Kolkata, Mumbai and the national capital, besides Gujarat, have been put on high alert following intelligence inputs that Taliban-trained terrorists have sneaked into these cities to target vital installations.
A top Union Home Ministry official on Monday said that Taliban-trained ‘fidayeen’ (suicide squad) have entered the country to carry out attacks at “specific” installations, including Bhaba Atomic Research Centre, defence establishments among others.
Bombay Stock Exchange, RSS headquarters are also among the likely targets of the “Pashtoon-looking” terrorists, the official said adding that instructions have been issued to lay a tighten security net around these installations.
He said the police forces have been put on high alert following the inputs and efforts are on to nab the terrorists at the earliest.
A book published by the Council for Social Justice and Peace, an arm of the Roman Catholic Church in Goa, India, vilifies Israeli tourists to the area, with some contributors claiming the Israeli government sends young people to the region to "recover" from their military service.
Claiming the Right to Say No: A Study of Israeli Tourist Behavior and Patterns in Goa, was authored by 11 seminarians and totals 96 pages.
The study was based on an undercover survey and personal experiences of the seminary students as they traveled around Goa finding Israelis in the many tourist spots.
Officially released by Goa Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrao on Sunday, the book critiques the behavior of Israeli tourists. Copies are available for sale at several church-supported outlets throughout Goa.
The first article, by Dr. Victor Ferrao of the Rachol Seminary entitled, "Tourism in Goa: A Narrative Construction of Hosts and Visitors" states that while performing his research on both the Israeli and Russian visitors he found there to be "disastrous socio-economic, political, environmental consequences of enclavization of tourism.
"Their motivation, expectations, travel patterns and activities have little to offer to the local communities," Ferrao wrote. "This results [in] a substantial displacement of the locals."
He went on to write that the two groups bring cultural, political, economic, social and environmental consequences on the host community.
"One can also notice many unbecoming activities like flesh trade, drug abuse, rave parties and crimes like rapes, murder, etc., making hay as the sun of tourism refuses to set on our land," Ferrao wrote.
"This loss of control of the locals over tourism activities in their localities will receive even greater momentum if the demand for an independent tourism board is realized."
Foreigners from Israel, along with those from Britain, Russia and Germany, top the number of visitors arriving in Goa every tourist season. Of the two million tourists coming to the Indian state each year, nearly 450,000 are foreigners.
The second section of the report, written by students of theology at Rachol Seminary is called "Is Goa the Rome of the East or Israel in the East." It discusses Israelis' military service and its effect on how they act once they get to Goa.
"The disciplined and strict environment, the encounters, the shoot-outs, somehow distorts their psyche and thus becomes a burden to treat," the report stated. "So these people are sent on holidays to different destinations in order to recover themselves and Goa is one of the destinations."
In Myron Jeson Barretto's article "My Experience/ Understanding of Israeli Tourists and Other Tourists at Vagator and Arambol Beach," he walked around Goa's beaches and spoke to non-Israeli tourists about how they viewed the Israelis.
In one section he quotes a tourist from the UK as saying that Israelis who come to Goa bring drugs from places like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Kashmir, and they use Goans and other Indians to sell them.
"The Israelis who sell drugs have control over the ministers from Goa to Delhi," the tourist said. "They pay them a large amount of money. They also bribe the police."
In Manuel D'Souza's article, "The Sababa Experience," he describes the creation of Israel by writing, "Americans under the guilt of Holocaust of Jews gifted Israel a state and are supporting them in their expansion.
"There is compulsory military training and service for everyone in Israel. Can you imagine young boys killing people? They go mad while in the services. The government sent these people to relaxation hubs. One of them is Goa."
An article on the front page of Gomantak Times, an English daily in Goa, reviewed the book. The article's title - "Satanic Visitors?" - says it all.
jpost: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1260447428661
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