New Hakimullah Mehsud Video Threatens Strikes on US ‘Within a Month'
The new video shows Hakimullah Mehsud threatening attacks on the US. Photo: Times Online
TIMES ONLINE: The Pakistan Taleban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, who was believed to have been killed in a US drone attack in January, has threatened attacks against the US in a video apparently made last month, according to the intelligence monitoring group SITE.

The video comes in the wake of the attempted car bombing in Times Square, New York on Sunday and follows another video by Mehsud's terror organisation Tehreek-e-Talebn in which the group claimed credit for the failed attack.

U.S. authorities have played down the potential connection between the Pakistani militant network and the car bomb, saying the group does not have the global infrastructure to carry out such a strike. Tehreek-e-Taleban frequently claim responsibility for terror attacks in which they have no involvement.

In the nine minute video allegedly made on April 4, Mehsud, the man who was once Pakistan's most feared commander makes no specific mention of an attempt on New York but threatens strikes on the United States within a month for the killing of militant leaders.

"The time is very near when our fidaeen (soldiers) will attack the American states in the major cities," says Mehsud, who is flanked by two armed and masked men. >>> | Monday, May 03, 2010

General Election 2010: Islamists in Phil Woolas Slur
SUNDAY EXPRESS: IMMIGRATION Minister Phil Woolas has launched a desperate attempt to save his seat by distributing 45,000 leaflets saying he has had death threats and that he is being targeted by an Islamic group.

He has placed concerns over forms of Islam at the centre of the campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth, which is becoming the dirtiest of the general election.



The leaflets are in the form of a hard-hitting eight-page newspaper whose front page has a picture of Mr Woolas caught in a rifle’s crosshairs.



They say the Islamic group, which cannot be named for legal reasons, is swamping the constituency with its own leaflets that brand Mr Woolas and his supporters as “bum kissers”.



One leaflet by a smaller group offered a hamper for anyone devising the “most creative” death threat against him, Mr Woolas said. 



He is reporting those threats to the police.

He told the Sunday Express last night: “Mainstream Muslims will be sickened by these people who are giving Islam a bad name. We’ve got to stand up to them.”



The minister, whose majority is about 3,600, believes his Lib Dem challenger Elwyn Watkins, 46, will be the beneficiary of the group’s smear campaign.



Mr Watkins spent the bulk of his business career as a “personal adviser” to a wealthy Saudi sheikh. >>> Ted Jeory, Whitehall Editor | Sunday, May 02, 2010

Israel Tells Nationals: Leave Sinai Immediately
HAARETZ: Counterterrorism unit warning of planned attacks during the upcoming Jewish holiday period.

Israel on Tuesday issued a travel warning for its nationals visting the Sinai peninsula in Egypt, advising them to leave the area immediately.

The warning came from the government's counterterrorism unit. The unit warned Israelis of planned attacks during the upcoming Jewish holiday period, which begins with Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), at sundown on September 18.

The announcement mentioned tensions along the northern border of Sinai with the Gaza Strip, as well as recent threats from Hezbollah to strike at Israelis. >>> Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent | Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Death in the Dorms: Iranian Students Recall Horror of Police Invasion
THE GUARDIAN: Victims tell of arrests, threats and beatings / Two women among five killed by officers

They came in the small hours, just as the dormitories were settling down for the night. Outside, Tehran was still in ferment, a city gripped by fury two days after a "stolen election". Inside the dorms on Amirabad Street, students were trying to sleep, though nerves were jangling; just hours earlier several had been beaten in front of the main gate to the university.

What happened next developed into one of the seminal events of Iran's post-election unrest: police broke locks and then bones as they rampaged through the dormitories, attacked dozens of students, carted off more than 100 and killed five. The authorities still deny the incursion took place. But the account pieced together from interviews with five of those present tells a different story.

"We were getting ready to go to sleep when we suddenly heard them breaking the locks to enter our rooms," said one of the 133 students arrested that night. "I'd seen them earlier beating students but I didn't imagine that they would come inside. It's even against Iranian law."

Forty-six students from one dorm were arrested and taken to the basement of the interior ministry on nearby Fatemi Street. It was there, on the building's upper floors, that the vote-counting and – claim opposition supporters – the rigging, was going on. Another 87 were taken to a security police building on Hafez Street. Students spoke of torture and mistreatment.

Five died: they were Fatemeh Barati, Kasra Sharafi, Mobina Ehterami, Kambiz Shoaee and Mohsen Imani – buried the following day in Tehran's famous Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery, reportedly without their families being informed. Their names were confirmed by Tahkim Vahdat, a student organisation.

Witnesses said the two women and three men were repeatedly beaten on the head with electric batons. Their families were warned not to talk about their children or hold funerals – like the parents of Neda Soltan, whose face became synonymous with the protest movement after she was filmed being shot dead in the street. >>> Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Sunday, July 12, 2009