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/ 1 November 2007
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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/ 31 October 2007
A Spanish court on Wednesday convicted 21 people of involvement in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, but acquitted a man accused of helping mastermind the al-Qaeda-inspired attack that claimed nearly 200 lives. The heaviest sentences were handed out to two Moroccans and a Spaniard, Jose Emilio Suarez Trashorras.
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/ 24 October 2007
Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden called for a holy war against a proposed peacekeeping force in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur in a message that appeared on jihadi websites on Tuesday. The audio recording was accompanied by a still picture and excerpts were aired by pan-Arab satellite news channel al-Jazeera on Monday.
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/ 12 October 2007
It is an intriguing image. Shot among the birch trees and snow of a Siberian forest, two policemen kiss each other passionately on the lips. They hold and possibly caress each other’s buttocks. But the work by a Russian art collective has proved too much for Russia’s Culture Minister, Alexander Sokolov.
Pakistani jets pounded militant hideouts near a troubled tribal town for the third day on Tuesday as officials said about 250 people had died in some of the heaviest clashes since 2001. The fighting has forced thousands to flee from Mir Ali, a town that President Pervez Musharraf has previously pinpointed as a den of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.
Two suicide car bombs killed at least 22 people in northern Iraq on Tuesday in attacks targeting a police chief and a Sunni Arab tribal leader working with United States forces to fight al-Qaeda, police said. ”Look at this. Is this acceptable? Does God accept this?” said a youth hold ing torn, blood-splattered pages of the Qu’ran.
About 50 Pakistani troops are missing in a tribal area bordering Afghanistan after fierce battles with Islamic militants that have already claimed 80 lives, the army said on Monday. The soldiers have been out of radio contact since early on Monday in rugged North Waziristan, where the United States says Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network is regrouping.
Pakistani lawmakers began voting on Saturday in a presidential election that Pervez Musharraf is set to win despite a court ruling that delays the declaration of a result and could yet deny him victory. Musharraf, who seized control of the world’s only nuclear-armed Islamic nation in a 1999 coup, is assured of the votes he needs for another five year-term.
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/ 21 September 2007
There are days when even the World’s Most Wanted Man looks in the mirror and just feels like the world’s most unwanted man. He stares at his grey beard, sighs wearily at a FedEx-ed package of cave-floor carpet samples Mullah Omar wants him to pick between, and thinks: is there some sharia law loophole that means I could hang out with Scarlett Johansson for a few days, as long we just laugh at funny little Japanese people together and don’t get it on?
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/ 21 September 2007
Take one historic event, add a famous political activist and make it on to the Booker Prize shortlist. Mohsin Hamid speaks to Decca Aitkenhead about his second novel.
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/ 21 September 2007
Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf appointed a new military spy chief and made several other promotions on Friday, days after announcing his plan to step down as head of the army. Appointments are closely watched in Pakistan, as generals have ruled for more than half of the 60 years since the country was founded.
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/ 20 September 2007
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden called on Muslims in Pakistan to wage holy war against the government of President Pervez Musharraf in a new audio message issued on Thursday. Bin Laden declared al-Qaeda’s intention to retaliate for the blood spilled of "champions of Islam".
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/ 20 September 2007
Al-Qaeda’s second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Sudanese Muslims in a video posted on Thursday to fight a force of African Union and United Nations peacekeepers. Al-Zawahri accused Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of abandoning his Muslim brothers to appease the United States.
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/ 13 September 2007
Dotted throughout the world are ”ungoverned territories” outside the control of the states in which they lie and which provide havens for extremists, according to a United States military-financed study by the Rand Corporation think tank. ”The world is full of safe havens for potential terrorists,” Angel Rabasa, director of the study, said this week.
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/ 12 September 2007
Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded pro-Taliban militant hide-outs in a tribal region near the Afghan border, killing up to 40 insurgents, the army said on Wednesday. Hours earlier, dozens of Islamist fighters attacked a check post and kidnapped 12 troops a few kilometres away in the country’s north-west.
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/ 12 September 2007
Americans stood in silence to remember the nearly 3 000 people killed in the September 11 attacks on Tuesday as Osama bin Laden resurfaced to praise the suicide hijackers who carried them out six years ago to the day. New Yorkers observed silent moments at the very times jets crashed into the World Trade Centre towers and when each tower collapsed.
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/ 11 September 2007
Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden praised as a ”champion” one of the September 11 hijackers in a new video released on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the devastating attacks on the United States. He also called on Muslim youths to join a ”caravan” of martyrs, in the second al-Qaeda video in just five days featuring the Western world’s most wanted man.
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/ 11 September 2007
One of the world’s most sought after cocaine kingpins was hunted down and captured in Colombia on Monday in the toughest blow against the country’s drugs trade in more than a decade. Diego Montoya, who goes by the alias ”Don Diego”, was the top boss of the Norte del Valle cartel, believed to be responsible for two-thirds of the cocaine exported from Colombia to Europe and the US.
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/ 10 September 2007
The top United States commander in Iraq on Monday said the number of US troops in Iraq could be cut by next summer to roughly 130 000, its level before this year’s ”surge” of 30 000 forces. General David Petraeus also strongly endorsed US President George Bush’s decision to add forces this year.
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/ 8 September 2007
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
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.
Iraq’s radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday ordered his Mehdi Army militia to suspend its activities for six months in a bid to reorganise the militant group. ”I direct the Mehdi Army to suspend all its activities for six months until it is restructured in a way that helps honour the principles for which it is formed,” Sadr said in a statement.