Militants Overtake India as Top Threat, Says Pakistan's ISI

Pakistan's main spy agency says homegrown Islamist militants have overtaken the Indian army as the greatest threat to national security, a finding with potential ramifications for relations between the two rival South Asian nations and for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. A recent internal assessment of security by the Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's powerful military spy agency, determined that for the first time in 63 years it expects a majority of threats to come from Islamist militants, according to a senior ISI officer.

The assessment, a regular review of national security, allocates a two-thirds likelihood of a major threat to the state coming from militants rather than from India or elsewhere. It is the first time since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947 that India hasn't been viewed as the top threat. Decades into one of the most bitter neighborly rivalries in modern history, both countries maintain huge troop deployments along their Himalayan border. "It's earth shattering. That's a remarkable change," said Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism specialist and professor at Georgetown University. "It's yet another ratcheting up of the Pakistanis' recognition of not only their own internal problems but cooperation in the war on terrorism

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FSB Prevented Moscow Suicide Attacks

Russian authorities said on Tuesday that they had prevented a series of suicide attacks on the capital Moscow last month, underscoring analysts' fears that a simmering Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus region could reach Moscow. "According to documents from law enforcement services, the activities of five militants trained for suicide attacks were prevented," Alexander Bortnikov, the head of the FSB, the successor to the KGB, told Russian media.

Referring to one man who was detained in Moscow, Bortnikov said he was planning a "terrorist attack" during a public holiday on Sept. 5, when tens of thousands of Muscovites strolled car-free streets in the heart of the city near the Kremlin. An investigation has been launched into the five men's activities, the head of the security services added.

A series of suicide bombs and armed attacks on police and security forces in Chechnya, where Russia has fought two separatist wars, and neighboring Ingushetia and Dagestan, have shattered a few years of relative calm in the North Caucasus. Fears among officials and analysts have grown in recent weeks that the violence along Russia's southern border — a major headache for the Kremlin — could spill over into other parts of Russia.

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Indonesian terror network 'larger than thought'

Analysts at the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said the group led by Malaysian Islamist Noordin Mohammed Top was finding it "disturbingly easy" to recruit members to carry out fresh attacks.

"More than a month after the 17 July 2009 hotel bombings in Jakarta, Noordin Mohammed Top remains at large, but his network is proving to be larger and more sophisticated than previously thought," the ICG said in a report.

"Noordin may still be the commander, but he has some exceedingly well-connected lieutenants who made their debut in the hotel bombings."

The twin suicide blasts at the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels killed nine people including two bombers and six foreigners. They marked the bloody end of a four-year hiatus in such attacks in the mainly Muslim country.

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Egypt 'Hezbollah cell' on trial

A group accused of plotting attacks in Egypt for the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah has gone on trial in Cairo. The 22 defendants in court deny spying on ships in the Suez Canal and plotting attacks on holiday resorts popular with Israelis in Sinai.

Hezbollah's leader has admitted one of the men was an agent for the movement but denied any plan to harm Egypt. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said the Hezbollah member was tasked with smuggling weapons to Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

The 26 men - two Lebanese, five Palestinians and 19 Egyptians - are charged with spying for a foreign group and planning attacks against tourists and shipping in the Suez Canal. They are also accused of sending operatives into the occupied Gaza Strip to help Palestinian militant groups there. At least one defendant said he had been tortured. Another four are on the run and being tried in their absence.

Hezbollah have become a very busy political and terror organization in recent years. There have been documented reports of cells active in Asia, Europe, North and South America as well as Africa.

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Perfect Result: Hamas destroys Al-Qaida faction - Update 1

Jund Ansar Allah group was armed by Fatah operatives, Hamas claims

Jund Ansar Allah is one of several tiny radical Islamist groups that have popped up in the Gaza Strip in the past few years. These groups have openly challenged the Hamas government on the grounds that it has not imposed Islamic law (Shari'a).

The radical groups want to see a regime similar to the one in Sudan and other Islamic countries, where thieves have their arms amputated and those found guilty of adultery are stoned to death. Some have claimed that these groups are either linked to or inspired by al-Qaida, but so far there is no evidence to back up their claim. Hamas officials, however, say that many of the leaders and members of these groups were in fact affiliated with the former Fatah-controlled security forces or with militias belonging to Fatah in the Gaza Strip.

A senior Hamas official told The Jerusalem Post over the weekend that Jund Ansar Allah received its weapons from former Fatah policemen and security officials in the southern Gaza Strip. The official said he did not rule out the possibility that Fatah leaders in the West Bank were trying to use radical Islamic groups to undermine the Hamas government.

This was not the first time that an extremist group has engaged in an armed confrontation with Hamas. In the past, Hamas managed to crush other groups such as Ansar Bet al-Maqdes, Tawheed and Jihad, Army of Islam and Jund Muhammad.

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A Call to Jihad, Answered in America

For a group of students who often met at the school, on the University of Minnesota campus, those words seemed especially fitting. They had fled Somalia as small boys, escaping a catastrophic civil war. They came of age as refugees in Minneapolis, embracing basketball and the prom, hip-hop and the Mall of America. By the time they reached college, their dreams seemed within grasp: one planned to become a doctor; another, an entrepreneur.

But last year, in a study room on the first floor of Carlson, the men turned their energies to a different enterprise.

“Why are we sitting around in America, doing nothing for our people?” one of the men, Mohamoud Hassan, a skinny 23-year-old engineering major, pressed his friends.

In November, Mr. Hassan and two other students dropped out of college and left for Somalia, the homeland they barely knew. Word soon spread that they had joined the Shabaab, a militant Islamist group aligned with Al Qaeda that is fighting to overthrow the fragile Somali government.

To read the entire New York Times article, click here.

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