Kiwis buy bootleg kidney transplants

New Zealanders desperate for kidney transplants are using the internet to buy organs from Third World countries. A senior Auckland doctor said yesterday that he had dealt with two cases in which New Zealanders had bought kidneys and had the transplant operations in the Third World - and he knew there were others. "They are very rare, but it happens," said Associate Professor Johan Rosman, chief medical officer and renal physician for Waitemata District Health. "They come back to us and we say, 'Where have you been? You've been away for six months? 'Yeah, I've bought me an organ'. "I've seen two but there are many more, and I know that in the Netherlands and in the US it's very common practice. One of the NZ patients had a badly done transplant, and the other had a successful operation. "It's always the same thing - they say, 'We're going to buy a kidney', and all of a sudden they're gone, they don't come for dialysis any more. Then they show up and they have the kidney."

• "Worldwide Market Fuels Illegal Traffic in Organs", New York Times, 7/29/09.
• "Not Just Urban Legend", Newsweek, 1/10/09.
  
• "Kidney for cash: Organ trafficking poses new challenges", MedScape Today, 10/18/05.
  

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U.S. Approves Targeted Killing of American Cleric

The Obama administration has taken the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them, intelligence and counterterrorism officials said Tuesday. Mr. Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and spent years in the United States as an imam, is in hiding in Yemen. He has been the focus of intense scrutiny since he was linked to Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist accused of killing 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., in November, and then to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Dec. 25.

American counterterrorism officials say Mr. Awlaki is an operative of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the affiliate of the terror network in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. They say they believe that he has become a recruiter for the terrorist network, feeding prospects into plots aimed at the United States and at Americans abroad, the officials said. It is extremely rare, if not unprecedented, for an American to be approved for targeted killing, officials said. A former senior legal official in the administration of George W. Bush said he did not know of any American who was approved for targeted killing under the former president.

But the director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, told a House hearing in February that such a step was possible. “We take direct actions against terrorists in the intelligence community,” he said. “If we think that direct action will involve killing an American, we get specific permission to do that.” He did not name Mr. Awlaki as a target. The step taken against Mr. Awlaki, which occurred earlier this year, is a vivid illustration of his rise to prominence in the constellation of terrorist leaders. But his popularity as a cleric, whose lectures on Islamic scripture have a large following among English-speaking Muslims, means any action against him could rebound against the United States in the larger ideological campaign against Al Qaeda.

• "Anwar al-Awlaki, Times Topics, New York Times.
  
• "Interview: Anwar al-Awlaki", Al-Jazeera, 2/7/10.
• "Anwar al Awlaki: Pro Al-Qaida Ideologue with Influence in the West", NEFA Foundation, 2/5/09.

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Midwest arrests stoke memories of OKC bombing

The arrests of nine people last week in the upper Midwest no doubt sent shivers through many Oklahomans. If any state is sensitive to the threat of domestic terrorism, it should be this one. The bombing of Oklahoma City's Murrah Building on April 19, 1995, killed 168 people. It remains the country's deadliest home-grown attack. Whether the Apocalyptic Hutarees' alleged plan to attack police in April was meant to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing may never be known, the possibility is inescapable. "It's certainly suggestive," said David Cid, the executive director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, formed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing to train law enforcement officers in counterterrorism measures.

Cid, a former FBI counterterrorism specialist, said signs of potential violence had been evident for some time. "In March 2009 we felt something would happen within a year," he said. "We missed it by about a month." Cid noted a slight increase in milita-type activity around Oklahoma in recent months, but he said it is important to draw a distinction between "those who enthusiastically oppose something and those willing to kill people. We haven't seen anything that constitutes a threat," he said. Some of Oklahoma's better-known extremists and paramilitary organizations have left the state or faded from the public consciousness.

• "Famous Trials: Oklahoma City Bombing Trial", website.
• "After Oklahoma City", NewsHour Online Special, website.
  

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Naxals butcher 74 in worst blow to Indian security forces

The deadliest ever Maoist attack on security forces left 73 CRPF personnel and a local policeman dead in the thick forests of Dantewada on Tuesday, mowed down brutally, barely able to offer a fight in a dawn ambush along a road near the remote village of Chintalnar-Tarmetla. The deadly message from the Maoists comes as a battlecry, making it amply evident that all offers of truce or talks are essentially red herrings and they see their showdown with the state as a fight to the finish. It was a ferocious response to the Centre's bid to reclaim areas that Maoists have long held unchallenged and consider their domain.

Home minister P Chidambaram admitted that "something must have gone drastically wrong...They seem to have walked into a trap". Saying, "We should not have lost so many lives", home secretary G K Pillai promised that the massacre would not go unpunished. He said the search operations had been carried out on the basis of certain specific intelligence inputs.

The attacks were understood to have been carried out by several hundred Maoists, estimates ranging from 200-300 to 800-1,000. The latest chapter in the world's largest Left-wing insurgency unfolded early on Tuesday, between 6am and 7am, when 81 security personnel, including a local constable, were returning to their base in Chintalnar after an operation that spanned two nights and three days. It was a search-and-engage operation, aimed at challenging Maoists and establishing civilian control over red zones.

• "India's Maoist rebel attack sparks anger", Christian Science Monitor, 4/7/10.
  
• "India Steps Up Its Fight Against Naxalites", Time, 11/20/09.
  
• "India's Naxalites: A spectre haunting India", The Economist, 8/17/06.
• "Andhra Pradesh / Naxalite", Global Security, 8/15/06.
  

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Attack On U.S. Consulate In Pakistan Kills 3

Islamist militants attacked a U.S. consulate in northwest Pakistan with car bombs and grenades Monday, killing three people, hours after 41 people died in a suicide attack on a political rally elsewhere in the region. The assaults illustrated the resilience of militants in the country despite intense army operations and U.S. missile strikes in their northwestern havens near Afghanistan. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad said the militants attempted to enter the building and fired grenades and other weapons. It said no Americans were killed in the assault, but did not say whether the building itself was damaged. After the car bombs exploded at a checkpoint outside the consulate in Peshawar, militants dressed in security uniforms fired mortars or rocket-propelled grenades at the heavily fortified compound in an attempt to make their way inside, said a Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

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Fear and anger at killing of South African far-right leader Eugene Terre'Blanche

Far-right supporters of white supremacist leader Eugene Terre'Blanche flocked Sunday to the farm where he was hacked to death, and wept, laid flowers and displayed separatist flags. Grief-stricken and angry followers of the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB or Afrikaner Resistance Movement) leader also exchanged heated words with police as they tried to enter the farm where Terre'Blanche was murdered Saturday in a killing that heightens racial tensions ahead of the World Cup.

AWB commandant Pieter Steyn rejected suggestions that the 69-year-old Terre'Blanche, who campaigned for a separate white state, and others in the organisation were racists. "We're not racists. We just believe that you should stick to your race," he said, wearing a shirt on which was emblazoned "100 per cent boer", a reference to the Afrikaans word for "farmer". But in the quiet streets of Terre'Blanche's stronghold Ventersdorp on Easter Sunday, ugly white-black incidents were being played out. "A black guy killed a white guy. Obviously it's going to stir a lot of trouble," Kgomotso Kgamanyane, 20, a cashier at a petrol station, told AFP.

• "Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging", NationMaster, 4/6/10.
• "Eugene Terreblanche", The Telegrapgh, 4/4/10.
  

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Mexican cartels cannot be defeated, drug lord says

Mexico's war on the drug trade is futile even if cartel bosses are caught or killed as millions of people are involved in the illicit business, a senior drug chief said in an interview published on Sunday. Ismael "el Mayo" Zambada, the right hand man of Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Sinaloa cartel boss Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, blamed the government for surging drug violence and said President Felipe Calderon was being duped by his advisors into thinking he was making progress.

"One day I will decide to turn myself in to the government so they can shoot me. ... They will shoot me and euphoria will break out. But at the end of days we'll all know that nothing changed," Zambada told the investigative news magazine Proceso. "Millions of people are wrapped up in the narco problem. How can they be overcome? For all the bosses jailed, dead or extradited their replacements are already there." Mounting drug violence in Mexico has killed 19,500 people since Calderon launched an army-led attempt to crush the cartels after taking power in late 2006. Although financial markets take the daily reports of mayhem in stride, foreign companies are starting to think twice about new investments.

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Iraq bombers target foreign embassies

Reporting from Baghdad - At least 41 people were killed and 237 wounded Sunday in three suicide car bombings targeting the Iranian and German embassies and the Egyptian Consulate in a span of 30 minutes. The attacks, which Iraqi government officials blamed on the Sunni Arab extremist group Al Qaeda in Iraq, came two days after unknown gunmen in uniforms massacred 25 people in a Sunni district south of Baghdad.

The bloodshed raises fears that the security situation could unravel before Iraq's next government is formed, as armed groups and political parties look to exploit the uncertain period after last month's national elections. The conditions are reminiscent of early 2006 when Al Qaeda in Iraq took advantage of the transition between elected governments to blow up a major Shiite Muslim shrine and ignite a civil war between the country's Shiite majority and its Sunni minority, which dominated the government of President Saddam Hussein before he was toppled in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

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Moscow Remains Insecure After Ten Years of Fighting Terrorism in the North Caucasus

Thirty-nine people died and over 80 were wounded as a result of two explosions on the Moscow metro system during the morning rush hour on March 29. The insurgency in the North Caucasus has been labeled the primary suspect for what is believed to have been a double suicide attack in the central part of the Russian capital, but as of late last night, Russian police still have not presented an indisputable link or information on who was responsible. The attack appeared to come as a shock for both the Russian public and the government, given that Moscow had enjoyed a period of relative safety for the previous six years and the Russian security services repeatedly told the public that the insurgency in the North Caucasus was almost done away with.

Aside from the rhetoric, little has been offered so far to enhance the safety of Moscow’s inhabitants. Initially, the upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, made a statement that it would introduce capital punishment for terrorists, but later this was revoked by the deputy speaker, Aleksandr Torshin. If the Russian security services adopt the usual way of reacting to terrorist attacks, more suspected insurgents are likely to be killed in the North Caucasus in the next few weeks. It is symptomatic that both Russian leaders, President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, called for such measures as executions to fight terrorism. Yet, the Russian security services, as it is, rarely arrest terrorist suspects in the North Caucasus, instead preferring to kill them on the spot. So, it is difficult to imagine that these failed practices will for some reason work now.

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18 gunmen die in attack on two army bases in Mexico

Dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks targeting two army garrisons in northern Mexico, touching off firefights that killed 18 attackers. The attempts to blockade soldiers inside their bases -- part of seven near-simultaneous attacks across two northern states -- appeared to mark a serious escalation in Mexico's drug war, in which cartel gunmen attacked in unit-size forces armed with bulletproof vehicles, dozens of hand grenades and assault rifles.

While drug gunmen frequently shoot at soldiers on patrol, they seldom target army bases, and even more rarely attack in the force displayed during the confrontations Tuesday in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon -- areas that have seen a surge of bloodshed in recent months. The violence mainly involves a fight between the Gulf cartel and its former allies, the Zetas, a gang of hit men. The cartel -- which has apparently formed an alliance with other cartels seeking to exterminate the Zetas -- has been warning people in the region with a series of banners and e-mails that the conflict would get worse over the next two to three months.

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