Hurricane Charley : Officials reluctant to release death toll
Bradenton Herald

CHARLOTTE COUNTY - Two refrigerated trucks sat in the wind-torn parking lot of the Best Western Water Front Inn off the tranquil waters of Charlotte Harbor, serving as a temporary morgue for the casualties of Hurricane Charley.

Four people may have been killed by the storm in Charlotte County, some reports indicate, and Charley led to at least 16 deaths statewide during its forceful push Friday through Florida.

With ongoing search and rescue efforts stretching into the evening hours Sunday, Charlotte County emergency officials declined to confirm the county's fatalities.

"We've never dealt with a mass casualty event, and we're not yet prepared to (verify) or acknowledge the number of fatalities," said Wayne Sallade, director of Charlotte County's emergency management. "Yes, there are fatalities. Yes, there are people in those refrigerated trucks at the temporary morgue, but we're not prepared to say how many. At this point, I'm not sure that I have the accurate number.

"If the toll is what I believe I'm hearing in a storm of the magnitude we went through in this county, it's a miracle," Sallade said. "It's a miracle."

While hundreds of people have been treated for injuries suffered during the hurricane, the number of missing people remains unknown, officials said.

Fears summit foreshadows US blitz
The Australian

NEW YORK: US and Pakistani authorities fear a meeting of terrorist leaders in Pakistan was the precursor to a major al-Qa'ida attack on America, according to Time magazine.

Authorities discovered a "second string" of terrorist leaders met in the remote northwestern province of Waziristan in March, the magazine reported yesterday.

"The personalities involved, the operations, the fact an explosives expert came here and went back, all this was extremely significant," Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said.

Some US officials fear the summit meeting might have been a key planning session ahead of a major attack -- just as the September 11, 2001, strike on the US was preceded by an al-Qa'ida gathering in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, 11 months earlier.

A US official described those at the Pakistan summit as "cold-blooded killers who are very skilled at what they do and have an intense desire to inflict an awful lot of pain and suffering on America".

Al-Qaida scouts work in U.S., officials say
News-Leader.Com

Washington — Al-Qaida allies are believed to be scouting U.S. targets in several states, and the terror organization is using non-Arabic recruits to avoid detection, U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials say.

The FBI has counterterrorism investigations in virtually all 56 of its field offices but has not broken up a known surveillance cell, either because agents are tailing suspects who have not committed crimes or because they have descriptions but not identities.

It is unclear how many al-Qaida scouts are in the United States.

"The FBI has their eye on or has opened several hundred investigations of people sympathetic to or supportive of al-Qaida," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said. "If we knew somebody was here as an operative — and we knew who they were or where they were — they wouldn't be on the street."

Rio Grande: Gateway to Terrorism
Front Page Mag

President Bush has launched a drive to halt illegal immigration across America's porous southern border, amid growing fears that terrorists may be using Mexico as a base camp before heading to Arizona, Texas and California.

A string of alarming incidents has convinced Bush administration officials that lax immigration rules, designed to cope with the huge numbers of illegal entrants from Mexico, have become a significant loophole in the war on terror.

Over the past month, border agents from Arizona and Texas have anonymously reported recent encounters with dozens of Arab men, who have made their way across the 2,000-mile Mexican border.

Patrol agents told one Arizona newspaper that 77 males "of Middle Eastern descent" were apprehended in June in two separate incidents. All were trekking through the Chiricahua mountains and are believed to have been part of a larger group of illegal immigrants. Many were released pending immigration hearings. According to Solomon Ortiz, the Congressman for Corpus Christi in Texas, similar incidents are "happening all over the place. It's very, very scary".

The two groups of Arab males were discovered by patrol guards from Willcox, Arizona. "These guys didn't speak Spanish," said one field agent, "and they were speaking to each other in Arabic. It's ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously. We're told not to say a thing to the media." A colleague told the paper: "All the men had brand-new clothing and the exact same cut of moustache." Local ranchers have also reported a rise in the sightings of large groups of young males.

Last month, border patrol agents at McAllen airport, Texas, arrested a woman believed to be Pakistani, who was carrying a false South African passport. The woman, Farida Ahmed, is still being questioned by the FBI. She was travelling to New York, and admitted to having illegally crossed the Mexican border. She was still carrying a pair of wet jeans in her travel bag.

Imams to issue guidelines on UK terror alert
The Peninsula : Qatar

LONDON: Britain’s most senior Muslim clerics have secretly met to prepare their communities for the aftermath of a September 11-style terrorist attack in Britain.

In an acknowledgment of the imminent danger of an Al Qaeda atrocity, 13 leading imams held emergency consultations here and warned Britain’s 1.6m Muslims of a likely backlash in the event of an attack. They told communities to be vigilant for terrorists in their midst.

The clerics concluded that some sections of the Muslim community in Britain have become more sympathetic to terrorism because of the continuing Iraq war.

As a result of the meetings, a guide is to be sent next month to every Muslim household, calling on them to report suspicious activities on a police anti-terrorist hotline.

“For Muslims, averting a terrorist attack that could harm many innocents is an Islamic imperative,” it says. “If you are aware of any suspected terror-related activity, then bring that information to the immediate attention of the police.”

Abdul Jalil Sajid, the imam of Brighton mosque and one of the country’s most senior clerics, said the imams were responding to warnings from police and the recent arrests of terror suspects.

Cyberspace Gives Al Qaeda Refuge
Yahoo News

ISTANBUL, Turkey — In December, Al Qaeda operatives posted a manifesto on the Internet calling for attacks inside countries allied with the United States in Iraq. Spain, with elections approaching, was singled out as a target.

On March 11, terrorists set off bombs on four commuter trains in Madrid and killed 191 people. Three days later, Spanish voters replaced the pro-war government with a party whose leader had promised to withdraw the country's 1,300 troops from Iraq.

The posting of the strategy and the timing of the Madrid bombings shocked even the most hardened Al Qaeda watchers recently when they reviewed the little-known manifesto.

"It's quite extraordinary in that you have a group of people … talking about influencing a political process and then having it happen," said a U.S. national security official who analyzed the 54-page posting and spoke on condition that his name not be used. "Reading through this thing, it is just mind-blowing."

Since Osama bin Laden and his followers were driven from their bases in Afghanistan, the Al Qaeda terrorist network has demonstrated an increasing ability to exploit the Internet as it reconfigures itself as a semi-leaderless global extremist movement far more elusive than the original incarnation.

Websites run by Al Qaeda and its backers have become virtual classrooms for terrorists, offering instructions for activities such as kidnapping and using cellphones to set off bombs, like the ones used in Madrid. Independent Al Qaeda cells and the network's loose hierarchy use easily available encoding programs and simple techniques to exchange virtually undetectable messages between Internet cafes in Karachi and libraries in London.

Italy, Netherlands get terror threats
Straits Times

DUBAI - An Islamic group has threatened to attack Italy and the Netherlands if they do not withdraw their troops from Iraq.

The threat from a group calling itself Islamic Tawhid was posted on its website on Sunday as a deadline set by another Islamic militant group, Abu Hafs Al-Masri Brigades, for a pullout by Italian troops expired.

It was not possible to verify immediately the authenticity of the latest statement.

'We are ready and waiting for the right time to shake all European states which sent troops to Iraq, and advise the Dutch to withdraw troops from Iraq or we will not be responsible for what happens,' Islamic Tawhid said.

This Week : Terror Drills in Alaska
Kenai Peninsula Online

Central Kenai Peninsula residents will see a higher than normal level of activity from emergency responders this week as public service agencies practice for responding to possible disasters.

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According to Kenai Police Chief Chuck Kopp, people will see extra activity, but it will not be in the form of helicopters overhead, Army truck convoys or people patrolling in camouflage outfits.

The drills are designed to test the readiness of communities' disaster response plans and evaluate responses to weapons of mass destruction disasters and other incidents that might cause chemical spills or large-scale chemical leaks.