11. juli 2004

Terrorists may target finance centres 'Chatter' intercepted by US intelligence indicates that al-Qaeda intends to attack at the core of America's economy: Wall Street. Last week's terror warning was less than specific, but intelligence sources say there is growing concern that Islamic terrorists increasingly want to target the US and Europe's economy directly. Security has been dramatically increased around the New York Stock Exchange and other high-profile financial institutions around the country since the 9/11 attacks as bin Laden himself has made clear several times that an attack on the U.S. economy is a priority. In an April 29 audio-taped message, someone purporting to be bin Laden said that "after the strike of the New York blessed days, thanks to God, their losses exceed a trillion dollars. Their budgets have been in deficits for the third year in a row." Al-Qaeda considers, rightly I think, that the economic power of the west is the dynamo behind its military and cultural power. No doubt the terrorists have also begun to feel the pressure against their own economy. 11:21:14 PM    comment []  trackback []

Military crash courses in Arabic DARPA and the US military are using computers to teach soldiers Arabic fast. 9:56:28 PM    comment []  trackback []

That intelligence report The Senate Intelligence Committee Report has 521 pages, but Dan Darling has gone through it all and provides an insightful summary and good comments Bottom line: Joseph Wilson has gone down in flames. Not even Joshua Micah Marshall can save him, even if Susan Schmidt's WaPo article doesn't come away entirely unscathed from the attempt. More importantly, the CIA has been severely bruised, and it's obvious that Tenet jumped before Bush would be forced to push him. This just reinforces a commonly held opinion, which I agree with, that Bush should have fired Tenet on 9/12-01. However, the question about links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda remains essentially unresolved, and sometimes boils down to a question of semantics over what constitutes a "link." What is a fact is that Saddam Hussein was a major sponsor of terrorism, and thus a necessary target in a global war on terror. Whether the timing was right and the method was right, is something that's been debated to death over the last year, and no doubt will continue to be discussed in the foreseeable future. Update: The full report can be downloaded in PDF from this site. Enjoy! Update 2: Daniel W. Drezner has more detail, and some comments to Marshall. 8:28:06 PM    comment []  trackback []

Terrorists celebrate World Court ruling Bus stop in Tel Aviv hit by apparent roadside bomb. One killed and twenty wounded. Arafat's own terrorists in al-Aqsa have taken responsibility, without it having any consequences for Europe's sponsorship of his regime. 10:17:05 AM    comment []  trackback []

© Copyright 2004 Jan Haugland. Last update: 01.08.2004; 12:44:52.