Argentina tells Iran: hand over bombing suspects (AFP)

BUENOS AIRES (AFP) – The prosecutor investigating the worst terror strike on Argentine soil, the 1994 bombing of a Jewish charities building that killed 85 people, has urged Iran to hand over any suspects in the case.

The comments came after an Iranian Foreign Ministry statement said earlier in the day that Tehran, suspected by Argentina of being behind the attack, is "ready for a constructive dialogue" in the case and to cooperate with the Argentine government.

"If the Iranians and their government are ready to cooperate, they should do so once and for all, and the only way possible: by handing over all of those accused in this terrible terrorist attack... and not making statements devoid of content which lead nowhere," prosecutor Alberto Nisman said in a statement.

Iran said it wanted "to shed all possible light within the framework of the law and to help in preventing the investigation from continuing on an erroneous course."

Monday will mark 17 years since the strike, which Argentine justice officials believe Tehran ordered. Iran has denied the allegation.

Iran "condemns all terrorist actions, especially the one against the Argentine Jewish center in 1994, and declares its solidarity with the families of the victims," the Iranian statement added.

Israel has pointed the finger at the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah for carrying out the attacks, which the Jewish state believes were masterminded by Tehran.

Argentina has issued warrants for the arrest of Iranian Defense Minister Ahmed Vahidi along with five other Iranians and a Lebanese accused of planning and carrying out the AMIA bombing.

Both Iran and Hezbollah have consistently denied any involvement in the attacks.

In the 1994 attack, the bomb that leveled the seven-storey AMIA building also wounded 300 people.

Two years earlier, the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires was hit by a bomb which killed 29 people and wounded 200.

In June, Argentina's Jewish community was outraged after a visit to neighboring Bolivia by Vahidi, noting that there had been an international arrest warrant out on Vahidi since 2007.

The La Paz government, in a letter to Argentina, said it had been unaware of any charges against Vahidi and said Bolivia "had taken steps to ensure that that Mr Ahmad Vahidi left Bolivian territory immediately."

But a leader of Argentina's Jewish community, Aldo Donzis, said the Bolivian government's actions fell far short of what was required under the circumstances.

"It's a huge farce that the Bolivian government asked him to leave the country after he had already completed his mission," Donzis said.

"What was called for was not his expulsion, but his arrest."

Earlier this year, a press report in Argentina claimed Foreign Minister Hector Timerman had offered to shelve a probe into Iran's involvement, which he strongly denied.

The March 26 report quoted a "secret" Iranian memo purportedly sent earlier this year from Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad which said: "Argentina is no longer interested in solving those two attacks, but would rather improve its economic relations with Iran."

According to the memo, allegedly written after a meeting in January between Timerman and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Buenos Aires was said to be "prepared to drop" the investigation in order to better its financial ties with Tehran.

Timerman said in April that the report was illogical and that Buenos Aires had nothing to gain economically by shelving the investigations.

"Argentina has no embargo against Iran and Iran has no embargo against Argentina, so what am I going to get by forgetting the investigation? What kind of commercial benefit?" he asked.

Argentina's Jewish community numbers some 300,000 people, the largest in Latin America.

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Fort Hood suspect's defense has few options (AP)

By ANGELA K. BROWN, Associated Press Angela K. Brown, Associated Press – Sat Jul 9, 3:08 pm ET

FORT WORTH, Texas – More than two dozen soldiers have testified about the day they were shot in a crowded Fort Hood building in November 2009. Some told of looking the gunman in the eye as he fired. A Senate investigation has announced its findings about the suspect: before the rampage, the Army psychiatrist had become an Islamic extremist and a "ticking time bomb."

Now the defense team for Maj. Nidal Hasan, who is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, faces what seems like an impossible task of preventing a conviction and potential death sentence in one of the highest profile cases in military history.

Hasan, 40, who remains jailed and was paralyzed after police shot him that day, could go to trial later this year at Fort Hood, the Texas Army post about 125 miles south of Fort Worth. On Wednesday, Fort Hood's commander ordered Hasan to stand trial after reviewing documents from last fall's evidentiary hearing.

For the defense lawyers, "there are huge challenges in this case — challenges that may not be present in other capital cases," said Richard Stevens, a military defense attorney who is not involved in the case.

John Galligan, the lead defense attorney, has said little about the strategies he is considering for the trial. But experts in military law say his choices are limited: hope that Hasan's mental state would prompt a jury to opt for a life sentence, or watch for legal errors or complications that could cause a conviction or death sentence to be overturned.

Galligan is clearly mindful of the reversible-error prospect, and can be expected to challenge every legal decision in the trial that could be used for an appeal. Galligan said 80 percent of the military's death sentences have been commuted to life in prison without parole since the military reinstated the death penalty in 1984. No military convict has been executed since 1961 because of the lengthy appeals process.

"The reversal rate and length of time since an execution show that the military's death penalty system isn't working and shouldn't be used," Galligan told The Associated Press. "The Army here is more interested in getting a capital case and getting a death sentence and moving on, even if it sits there for 20 years."

Eight death sentences have been commuted since 1984 because of procedural or evidentiary errors in trial.

The president must approve any execution in the military court system. In 2008 President George W. Bush signed an execution order for a former Army cook convicted of several rapes and murders in the 1980s, but a federal judge has stayed that order to allow for a new round of appeals in federal court.

Despite what could be a lengthy process, many affected by the Fort Hood rampage believe death is the only appropriate punishment if Hasan is convicted in the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military installation.

"People will want to hear the other side during the court-martial, but what could he possibly say in his defense?" said Staff Sgt. Jeannette Juroff, who was working in a nearby building that day and helped wounded soldiers.

Galligan initially said he was considering an insanity defense, but then backed off after a mental evaluation of Hasan last year by a three-member military mental health panel.

Galligan has refused to disclose the panel's finding, but indications are that the evaluation would not support a contention that Hasan suffered from a severe mental illness that prevented him from knowing, during the rampage, that his alleged actions were wrong — the legal definition of insanity.

Several military law experts said they doubt Hasan will plead innocent by reason of insanity. Fewer than 10 soldiers were found not guilty by reason of insanity in more than 21,000 military trials from 1990 to 2006, according to an Army study.

But Hasan's defense team could argue that he has mental illness without using an insanity defense — especially if he's convicted and they are trying to avoid a death sentence.

"Sometimes one prong of the (mental health evaluation) report will show that a defendant has a mental issue like depression, and the defense can use whatever is in that report at sentencing as mitigating factors," said Greg T. Rinckey, a New York attorney who defends military clients and is not involved with the Hasan case.

That defense tactic was used in the 2005 trial of Sgt. Hasan Akbar. His attorneys didn't dispute that he threw grenades into fellow soldiers' tents in Kuwait in 2003 and then fired on them. But they said he was mentally ill — although legally sane. Akbar was convicted and sentenced to death. His case remains on appeal.

Prosecutors in the Hasan case have said they will not comment before the trial.

Death-penalty cases in the military require at least 12 jury members, more than in other cases. And unlike other trials, their verdict must be unanimous in finding guilt or assessing a sentence. If Hasan is convicted, jurors would decide between life in military prison without parole and the death penalty.

"The biggest challenge is the fact that there are going to be so many witnesses identifying him as the shooter, and the public perception that he's guilty, so this is very difficult from the defense side ... so the chances on appeal are probably going to be better than at trial," Rinckey said.

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Indonesia arrests 7 terror suspects (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's anti-terrorism squad has arrested seven suspects for allegedly smuggling assault rifles into the country from the Philippines.

National police spokesman Untung Yoga Ana said Wednesday the men were rounded up this week in separate raids in the capital, Jakarta, and other cities on the main island of Java.

They are accused of smuggling firearms and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from the Philippines via the Malaysian town of Tawao.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been battling terrorists since 2002 when al-Qaida-linked militants attacked two nightclubs on Bali island, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Hundreds of suspects have been arrested and convicted since then.

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Indonesia holds seven terror suspects (AFP)

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia has arrested seven terror suspects who allegedly smuggled weapons into the country from the Philippines through Malaysia, the national police spokesman said Tuesday.

"They were rounded up in the capital Jakarta and Surabaya city for their alleged involvement in firearms smuggling from the Philippines," Boy Rafli Amar said, adding that they had passed through Tawau in Malaysian Borneo.

"They are now being questioned by the counter-terrorism Detachment 88," he said.

Seven firearms were seized along with about one hundred rounds of ammunition, he added.

An unnamed police source said that the arrested group had planned to mount an armed bank robbery to fund their terror activities.

Police last month arrested 16 terror suspects for a plot to poison police personnel with cyanide at station canteens. According to investigators they planned to inject the poison into mineral water bottles.

In the last few months dozens of suspects have been held who are allegedly part of a new militant cell behind a series of recent incidents, including book bombs sent to Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.

The cell was linked to an April suicide bomb attack in a prayer room at a police compound in Cirebon in West Java.

Police also foiled a bid to set off a huge bomb near a church on the outskirts of Jakarta at Easter. No one was killed in those incidents.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by the regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

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Suspects on trial over Morocco cafe bombing (AP)

RABAT, Morocco – Seven people went on trial in Morocco Thursday for the bombing of a Marrakech tourist cafe that killed 17, one of the worst terrorist acts to hit the North African kingdom.

The proceedings were postponed until Aug. 18 to allow lawyers for both the victims and the defense more time to prepare. Both sides pleaded their cases on Thursday's opening day.

The April 28 explosion tore through the Argana cafe in Marrakech's old town, a popular tourist destination. Several of those killed were foreigners.

Defense lawyers asked that the suspects be released pending the next court session, but the court refused.

The defense lawyers also complained about the conditions of detention, comparing them to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo. The prosecutor responded angrily that the claim was exaggerated.

The chief suspect, Adel Othmani, appeared relaxed in the courtroom, and turned several times to wave and smile at family members. He was arrested three days after the explosion, and Moroccan police say he has loyalties to al-Qaida and tried to travel to Iraq and Chechnya.

Families of the suspects staged a protests in front of the court, complaining that they had not been able to visit their loved ones behind bars.

Among the charges facing the suspects are premeditated murder, explosives possession, and membership in a banned religious group, according to the state news agency MAP.

The dead included Moroccan, French, British, Swiss and Portuguese victims.

The attack shook relatively peaceful Morocco, a staunch U.S. ally that drew nearly 10 million tourists last year to its sandy beaches, desert and mountain landscapes, and historic sites.

The blast came several weeks after King Mohamed VI promised constitutional reforms to shepherd in more democracy amid a push across the Arab world. Moroccans vote in a referendum on the reforms Friday.

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Woman: I saw body in serial killing suspect's home (AP)

CLEVELAND – A woman recounted a night of terror Wednesday in the trial of a man charged with killing 11 women, telling jurors that she was brutally raped for several hours and that she saw a decapitated body in his home.

Struggling to speak between sobs, the 37-year-old woman said she was attacked by Anthony Sowell in September 2008 after she met him on the street while she was out looking for drugs. She said he invited her back to his home on Imperial Avenue, where police later unearthed the remains of 11 women in late 2009.

The woman said Sowell, 51, suddenly attacked her after he took a hit from a crack cocaine pipe.

"He turned around and punched me in my face," she said, sobbing. "And told me to take my clothes off."

The woman said Sowell raped her for several hours and threatened to lock her in a closet if she didn't do what he wanted. Throughout the alleged attack, she said he kept ranting about his ex-girlfriend and women who smoked crack who "did him wrong."

"He told me nobody could hear me, nobody would hear me scream," she said. "He would tell me, `you weren't like the others.'"

Sowell watched the woman's testimony impassively, sitting with his chin propped on his hand.

The woman dissolved into hysterics when Prosecutor Richard Bombik asked her to describe what she saw when Sowell allowed her to use the bathroom at one point during the alleged attack. She told the court that she was walking down the hall when she passed a room that had plastic hanging from the ceiling to the floor.

"The plastic was pulled up. And I saw something on the floor," she said. "It looked like it was a body. And it had no head on it."

The woman struggled to speak as she recalled that the body was "propped up sitting on the floor and it was taped up."

"I kept thinking to myself, I couldn't have seen what I saw," she said. "This is not possible, this is not real."

She told jurors that at various times during the attack, Sowell would "pop out of it" and go back to talking normally. At one point, she said, he told her that he had an "insatiable sexual appetite."

"All I could do was pray," she said. "And try and keep calm and agree with what he said."

The Associated Press generally does not identify sexual assault victims. The woman said she struggled with drug addiction for years but recently sobered up.

The woman said Sowell raped her many times throughout the night. At some point in the morning, she said, he called his sister and talked about plans to get together for dinner and make macaroni and cheese.

The woman said the attack occurred on the third floor of the home, which she described as "stale, just musty, stinky, dirty."

"It was just like dark and gloomy," she testified. "You could feel the gloom."

Sowell has pleaded not guilty to killing the women and faces the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors say he lured the women into his home with the promise of drugs and alcohol. The bodies were found in late 2009 after a SWAT team showed up to arrest Sowell on a separate rape and felonious assault warrant.

The woman said Sowell allowed her to leave the morning after the attack. She said she called police and tried to file a report and was told that she needed to come down to the station in person, but she refused. She didn't officially report the attack until after the bodies were found in Sowell's home.

The woman broke down again when Bombik produced a photograph of Leshanda Long, one of the victims, whose skull was found in a bucket in Sowell's basement. When Bombik asked if she knew Long, the woman nodded and began to cry again.

"That was my girl Thick," she said, using Long's nickname. The woman said she and Long used to roam the streets on drugs together.

Long, 25, disappeared in August 2008. The rest of her body was never recovered.

Bombik also showed the woman a photograph of Kim Yvette Smith, whose body was unearthed in Sowell's backyard. The woman testified that she also knew Smith, whom she referred to as "Candy."

"We used in a common place," the woman said. "And she was always there. She was always there."

Testimony is expected to resume on Thursday.

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Pakistan indicts seven suspects over park killing (AFP)

KARACHI (AFP) – A Pakistani court on Wednesday indicted six paramilitary soldiers and a civilian on murder and terrorism charges after an unarmed man was shot dead on camera in a public park, lawyers said.

If convicted, the seven accused could be sentenced to death.

Members of Pakistan's Rangers paramilitary force were caught on film killing Sarfaraz Shah, 22, after a civilian dragged him over to the troops, accusing him of robbery in Karachi on June 8.

The daylight murder was filmed by a cameraman and broadcast round the clock on television, shocking the country with the apparent brutality of trained officers in a country awash with violence blamed on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

"The court has formally framed charges of murder and terrorism against all the accused," public prosecutor Mohammad Khan Buriro told reporters.

The accused pleaded not guilty and will contest the charges after appearing before judge Bashir Ahmed Khoso on Wednesday, lawyers said.

Buriro said the trial would begin on Thursday and that a total of 46 witnesses would be called to the stand.

"They are innocent and will contest the charges," said M R Sayed, one of the lawyers for the defence.

"We have asked the court to provide the investigation report compiled by the government joint investigation team," he added.

The formal indictment had been repeatedly delayed to allow the accused time to hire lawyers.

Facing down a media tirade, the government has already taken the rare step of removing the provincial chiefs of police and Rangers in Karachi.

The widely aired footage of the killing showed a clean-shaven and unarmed Shah, wearing black trousers and a navy shirt, pleading for his life before he was shot twice.

He then begged for help while the soldiers appeared to do nothing but watch him fall slowly and lapse into unconsciousness.

Despite no evidence in the video that Shah had a weapon, Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik, whose ministry is responsible for the Rangers, claimed last week that the victim had been carrying an unlicensed weapon.

The killings last month by security forces of five unarmed Chechens, one of them a pregnant woman, in the city of Quetta are also under investigation.

Answerable to the interior ministry, more than 10,000 paramilitary troops patrol Karachi, Pakistan's financial capital, and its surroundings to combat routine ethnic, political and Islamist violence in the city of 16 million.

Human rights activists condemned Shah's killing and complain that the Rangers, established for combat and border duty, are neither equipped nor trained for civilian areas.

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Ky gov 'fine' with moving Iraqi terror suspects (AP)

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear says he supports having two Iraqis face terrorism-related charges at Guantanamo Bay rather than in his state's courts.

The Democrat's comments on Thursday come after some leading Kentucky Republicans, including his opponent in the November election, urged federal officials to send the two men to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The governor said in a short statement that he's "fine" with sending the suspects to Guantanamo Bay. He says his main concern is to "get them out of Kentucky." Beshear says he has reached out to federal authorities to ensure that Kentuckians aren't put at risk.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said recently the two suspects should be subject to the same system as combatants caught on a battlefield.

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NYC synagogue terror plot suspects due in court (AP)

NEW YORK – Two men charged with scheming to blow up synagogues in New York City are due in court in the unusual terrorism case, brought under state laws.

Ahmed Ferhani and Mohamed Mamdouh have a court date Wednesday. Both have denied initial charges including conspiracy as a crime of terrorism.

Prosecutors have said the 26-year-old Ferhani has been indicted. They will likely disclose Wednesday what charges the grand jury found appropriate. Prosecutors haven't said whether the 20-year-old Mamdouh has been indicted.

Prosecutors say an undercover detective secretly recorded both men discussing their hatred of Jews, their views that Muslims were mistreated and their interest in attacking a synagogue. Prosecutors say Ferhani was arrested last month buying guns, ammunition and an inert grenade, and Mamdouh was picked up soon afterward.

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Top US senator urges Guantanamo for Iraqi suspects (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, called Tuesday for two Iraqis facing terrorism charges in his home state to be shipped to the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

"Get these men out of Kentucky. Send them to Guantanamo where they belong. Get these terrorists out of the civilian system and out of our backyards and give them the justice they deserve," said the Republican minority leader.

Waad Ramadan Alwan and his cousin Mohanad Shareef Hammadi have pleaded not guilty to 23 terrorism charges, but could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The two men were arrested after a lengthy and elaborate sting operation in which they allegedly schemed to ship missiles, guns and money to their home country for use in attacks on US troops, according to the US Justice Department.

"We are prosecuting these two alleged terrorists in federal court because it is the most proven method for keeping our country safe," countered a spokesman for the department's national security division, Dean Boyd.

McConnell, a frequent and forceful critic of President Barack Obama's stalled efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay facility, said the two suspects "are foreign fighters -- unlawful enemy combatants who should be treated as such."

"Sending them to Gitmo is the only way to ensure that they will not enjoy all the rights and privileges of US citizens. Sending them to Gitmo is the only way we can be certain there won't be retaliatory attacks in Kentucky," he said.

"Sending them to Gitmo is the only way we can prevent Kentuckians from having to cover the cost and having to deal with the disturbances and disruptions that would come with a civilian trial. And sending them to Gitmo is the best way to ensure that they get what they deserve," he said.

"Since 9/11, there have been hundreds of defendants convicted in our federal court system of terrorism or terrorism-related violations. In none of these cases has a judicial district suffered retaliatory attacks," said Boyd.

"The successful investigation, arrests, and interrogation in this case show the effectiveness of our intelligence and law enforcement authorities in bringing terrorists to justice and preventing them from harming the American people," said the spokesman.

"Abandoning those proven methods would do nothing but risk the safety of the American people," he added.

The case raised questions about the US government's screening practices given that Alwan's fingerprints were found on an unexploded roadside bomb in Iraq and registered in a Department of Defense database long before he was granted refugee status.

The United States has since identified and corrected "specific gaps" in the vetting process and has rescreened refugee applicants, a Department of Homeland security official who declined to be named said after Alwan's arrest.

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Pakistan's bin Laden Suspects (The Daily Beast)

NEW YORK – A new terrorism trial will spotlight the shadowy wing of Pakistan's spy agency—and could help determine who was harboring bin Laden. Philip Shenon reports.

Among the world's spy agencies, few have more secrets than Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, Washington's often unreliable ally in the war on terror. And within ISI, no secrets are more closely held than those of "S Wing," the notorious "black operations" unit that is reported to serve as Pakistan's liaison to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and the homegrown anti-India extremist group that carried out the 2008 terrorist siege of Mumbai, India's largest city; there is widespread suspicion in Pakistan that S Wing played a role in providing sanctuary there to Osama Bin Laden.

This week, however, the secrets of S Wing are threatening to spill out in a Chicago courtroom when jury selection begins in the trial of a Pakistani-born businessman accused of using his U.S. visa-processing company to provide logistical cover for the attacks in Mumbai, where 170 people were killed, including six Americans.

Law-enforcement and national-security officials tell The Daily Beast that the trial will offer the fullest public accounting—anywhere—of the deadly treachery of S Wing, which is believed to have had a key role in organizing the Mumbai attacks. (Within ISI, operations are divided into lettered sections, with S managing the spy agency's operations in neighboring Afghanistan and India.)

"I'm not sure you'll hear the prosecutors refer to S Wing by name, but that's the part of ISI that is tied into this case," said an American national-security official in Washington who requested anonymity discussing sensitive matters. "S Wing is the black-ops part of ISI. And nothing would have been more black ops for the ISI than" the Mumbai attacks, he said.

The official said it was widely assumed in Washington—though unproved—that if any element of ISI was responsible for providing sanctuary for Bin Laden during his years in Pakistan, "it had to have been S Wing at work."

If any element of ISI was responsible for providing sanctuary for Bin Laden during his years in Pakistan, says one U.S. national-security official, "it had to have been S Wing at work."

The ISI has denied any support for terrorist groups, Al Qaeda in particular, and has insisted that it had no knowledge of Bin Laden's presence—apparently, for years—in the city of Abbottabad, home to the military academy that is Pakistan's equivalent to West Point.

On Friday, Pakistan's spy chief, Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, lashed out at the United States, angrily denouncing the American raid that killed Bin Laden as a violation of Pakistan sovereignty. He acknowledged, however, that Bin Laden's ability to hide out in Pakistan represented an embarrassing intelligence failure for ISI.

The United States has expressed alarm for years over evidence of ties between ISI, which functions as Pakistan's equivalent of the CIA, and the Taliban and Al Qaeda. There has been special alarm in Washington over the operations of S Wing, which appears to exist as a power unto itself within ISI, maintaining close ties with militant groups that the Pakistani government otherwise purports to consider its enemies. S Wing is alleged by American officials to have been involved in arming the insurgents in Afghanistan who are at war with—and killing—American troops.

Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence analyst on Pakistan, said that even after pumping billions of dollars into the Pakistani military and the ISI since the 9/11 attacks, Washington still knows remarkably little about the ISI's inner works—and even less about S Wing.

He said that S Wing oversees the ISI's most sensitive operations and that its leadership includes several military officers who go through the motions of retirement so they can serve in the shadowy unit.

"It's a retirement of convenience," said Weinbaum, now a scholar at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. "They conveniently retire people for the purpose of association with the unit, so there's plausible deniability for the military with these operations. The Army can claim they had no part in them."

In the Chicago trial, the defendant, Tahawwur Rana, is accused of providing logistical support to the terrorist scouting operations of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani group that mounted the attacks in Mumbai three years ago.

American officials say Lashkar is largely a creation of the ISI and has often been used as a proxy to mount attacks on India, which is still seen by the Pakistani military as their nation's existential threat. Although labeled a terrorist group by the United States, Lashkar has broad public support in Pakistan.

The star prosecution witness against Rana is expected to be a childhood friend, David Headley, a 50-year-old Pakistani-American who has already pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and confessed that he used Rana's visa-processing company as a front to travel to India and scout the Mumbai targets.

According to American officials, Headley will testify that he was recruited for the operation by an ISI officer associated with S Wing—identified in court papers as "Major Iqbal"—and that the officer served as his handler throughout.

The Justice Department announced last month that Major Iqbal, who remains at large, apparently in Pakistan, has also been indicted in the case. In what was seen by officials elsewhere in the U.S. government as an effort to avoid new damage to relations with Pakistan, the department did not identify Major Iqbal as an ISI officer, citing him in the indictment only as "a resident of Pakistan who participated in planning and funding attacks by Lashkar."

Philip Shenon is an investigative reporter based in Washington D.C. Almost all of his career was spent at The New York Times, where he was a reporter from 1981 until 2008. He is the bestselling author of The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. He has reported from several warzones and was one of two reporters from The Times embedded with American ground troops during the invasion of Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

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Two terror suspects killed in Indonesia raid (AFP)

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesian police killed two terror suspects during a raid early Saturday, following an arrest of four suspected terrorists a day earlier over a series of recent terror incidents.

"The two men on a motorcycle tried to escape and opened fire on police personnel," national police deputy spokesman I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana told AFP, adding that the suspects were killed on the spot.

The incident took place in Sukoharjo in Central Java province at 01:15 am (1815GMT). During the exchange of fire, one of the suspected terrorists shot dead a food seller on the street, the police said.

Police have arrested dozens of suspects allegedly part of a new militant cell believed to have been behind a series of recent incidents, including book bombs which were sent to Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.

The cell was also linked to a suicide bomb attack last month in a prayer room at a police compound in Cirebon of West Java.

Police also foiled a bid to set off a massive bomb near a church on the outskirts of Jakarta at Easter. No one was killed in those incidents.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

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2 suspects, vendor killed in Indonesia terror raid (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's anti-terrorism forces killed two suspected militants in a predawn raid in Central Java on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

A nearby rice vendor was killed in crossfire during the raid early in the day in Sukoharjo district, said national police spokesman Col. Boy Rafli Amar.

He identified the suspects as Sigit Qurdowi, a leader of a little-known Islamist militant group called Hisbah, and his bodyguard, Hendro Yulianto.

Amar says the two suspects are among fugitives wanted for a church attack in Central Java last year. He says they are also believed to have links to a terrorist network in the West Java district of Cirebon.

"They have planned attacks against police," Amar said, adding that the two resisted arrest.

A number of terrorist suspects have been arrested following a suicide bombing last month at a mosque in Cirebon that wounded 30 people, mostly policemen.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been battling extremists since 2002 when al-Qaida-linked militants attacked two nightclubs on Bali island, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Saturday's raid came two days after the arrest of four other suspects in nearby district of Solo. Their arrest brought to 10 the number of terrorist suspects arrested in connection with the April 15 bombing.

They include Muhammad Basuki, a younger brother of suicide bomber Muhammad Syarif.

Last week, police retrieved six bombs similar to the one used by Syarif, dumped into a river in Cirebon by a suspect after he knew that police were looking for him.

Police believe one of the bombs was prepared for another suicide attack by Basuki.

Police confiscated a number of firearms, grenades and more than 500 bullets and jihad books in the arrests and latest raid.

Brig. Gen. Untung Yoga Ana said the rice vendor, Nur Iman, was believed to be hit by a gunshot fired by Qurdowi on Saturday.

Also last month, police arrested some 20 suspects in connection with a series of mail bombs sent to liberal Muslim activists and a former anti-terrorism chief in March and plot to attack a church during Easter celebrations.

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