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/ 31 May 2008

CIA claims al-Qaeda is on the defensive

Al-Qaeda has been essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is on the defensive throughout most of the rest of the world, the CIA claimed on Friday. The upbeat assessment comes less than a year after United States intelligence reported that al-Qaeda had rebuilt its strength around the world and was well-placed to launch fresh attacks.

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/ 30 May 2008

Bin Laden turns his mind to Israel

Osama bin Laden has plenty on his mind but he managed to pay close attention this month to the events surrounding Israel’s 60th anniversary and the parallel commemoration of the ”nakba” — the catastrophe — that the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 meant for the Palestinians.

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/ 21 March 2008

Bin Laden says Gaza must be freed with ‘iron and fire’

Osama bin Laden urged Palestinians on Thursday to use ”iron and fire” to end an Israeli blockade of Gaza, in a recording after the Vatican rejected accusations by the al-Qaeda chief of a ”new crusade”. In an audiotape broadcast by the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite channel on Thursday, bin Laden urged Muslims to keep up the struggle against US forces in Iraq

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/ 11 November 2007

Morocco boosts security budget sharply

Draft Moroccan legislation has earmarked nearly 30% of the state’s 2008 budget for security, underscoring anti-terrorism concerns after spring suicide attacks, a government source said on Saturday. The state is expected to pour about 45-billion dirhams (,8-billion) into security, a 29% boost from 2007.

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/ 1 November 2007

Scores dead after Pakistan fighting, suicide blast

A suicide bomber rammed an air force bus in Pakistan on Thursday killing eight people while troops killed up to 70 militants in the north-west, as rumours swirled that President Pervez Musharraf could invoke emergency rule. Nearly 800 people have been killed in militant-linked violence and there have been more than 22 suicide attacks in the last four months.

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/ 21 September 2007

Suicide bomber rams car into Algerian convoy

A suicide bomber rammed a booby-trapped car into a convoy in Algeria on Friday, wounding two French engineers and an Italian, in an attack only hours after al-Qaeda called for an offensive against French targets. Six Algerians, five of them police, were also injured in the attack near the town of Lakhdaria.

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/ 9 September 2007

Al-Qaeda claims Algeria attacks

Al-Qaeda’s north Africa wing said it was behind two suicide attacks that killed at least 57 people in Algeria in the past two days, according to a statement posted on the internet on Saturday. It said the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb was behind Saturday’s suicide truck bombing at a coast guard barracks east of Algiers and an attack in the town of Batna less than 48 hours earlier.

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/ 8 September 2007

Bin Laden says US is vulnerable

Osama bin Laden said in a new video marking the sixth anniversary of al-Qaeda’s September 11 attacks that the United States was vulnerable despite its military and economic power, but he made no specific threats. The al-Qaeda leader said US President George Bush was repeating the mistakes of the former Soviet Union by refusing to acknowledge losses in Iraq.

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/ 7 September 2007

Website says it will show new Bin Laden video

An Islamist website said on Friday it would soon show a new video of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to mark the sixth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on United States cities. The website published a still photograph apparently from the video, which showed bin Laden appearing older compared with available pictures.