Hunt on for bin Laden's latest No. 3 man
MSNBC

Pakistani officials are seeking a man they and U.S. officials believe has taken over responsibility for planning al-Qaida attacks on the United States. They say he is the new No. 3 man in the terrorist network and may know the general whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri — al-Qaida's No. 2 man.

Abu Faraj al Libi, a Libyan citizen who has long worked with bin Laden, is believed to have taken over the No. 3 job with the capture of his mentor, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, in March 2003, a senior U.S. official told NBC News. Like all of the officials interviewed for this story, the official spoke on condition of anonymity.

As Mohammed's top deputy, Abu Faraj is believed to have played a role in organizing the 9/11 attacks.

Today, he is believed to be in charge of all al-Qaida's U.S. and United Kingdom operations, including any current plots. Abu Faraj is also believed to know at least the general whereabouts of bin Laden and al Zawahiri, and to be the mastermind of the Dec. 14 and 25 assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Italy's Sleeper Cells
MSNBC

Aug. 20 - Who’d have thought laid-back Italy would be a major hub for Al Qaeda operatives? But their reach extends from Casablanca to Baghdad to Milan.

With growing frequency and ferocity, Web sites supposedly linked to Al Qaeda threaten Italy with gruesome terrorist attacks “hitting quality targets with nonconventional weapons that will cause a huge disaster.” If Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi doesn’t pull his troops out of Iraq, bloggers from hell say they’ll call on secret sleeper cells to raze Italy’s cities to the ground, make people “taste the bitter fruits of blood” … and so on.

Well, some people get to a point where they’ve been scared so long, they just can’t be scared anymore. And some folks just aren’t sharp enough to be scared in the first place. Italians may qualify in both categories—at least this month. After all, it’s August, and this was the week of ferragosto, when a lot of Italians go to the beach, and those few who are still on the job often act as if they’re not. Reuters reported that an e-mailed threat to blow up Rome's Fiumicino Airport on Monday, sent directly to security officers, wasn’t actually opened and read for 24 hours.

S Arabia launches ad campaign to prove loyalty with US
Hi Pakistan

WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia has launched a radio advertising campaign in the United States in a bid to persuade Americans it does not have ties to terrorists, a Saudi Embassy official said on late Wednesday. The ads will air until September 6 in 19 of the largest US cities, including Washington, Boston, Chicago and Dallas.

However, the advertisements will not run in New York, to avoid charges of trying to influence US politics during the Republican National Convention to be held there from August 30 to September 2, embassy spokesman Nail al-Jubeir said. "The issue is to highlight the 9/11 commission, which exonerated Saudi Arabia, the government as well as senior officials of funding terrorism," the spokesman said.

More from Arabic News...

UK terror arrests the `tip of the iceberg,' court told
Taipie Times

A British prosecutor said on Wed-nesday that authorities seized 100 computers containing thousands of files and had issued 52 terrorism-related warrants in the investigation that led to charges against eight men for conspiracy to commit murder in an alleged terror plot.

The prosecutor, Sue Hemming, emphasized that investigators were at "the very early stages of a complex investigation," and described the inquiry to date as only the "tip of the iceberg."

In charges announced on Tuesday by Scotland Yard, all eight of the men were accused of conspiring together and with "other persons unknown" to use radioactive materials, toxic gases and chemicals or explosives to "cause disruption, fear or injury."

Two have been charged with possessing a reconnaissance plan of the Prudential Building in Newark, New Jersey, which was part of the terror alert announced by US officials this month. One of these men is Dhiren Barot, whom US officials have identified as Issa al-Hindi and have described as a senior al-Qaeda operative in the UK.

At a hearing at Belmarsh Prison in Southeast London, Hemming suggested that some defendants might have tried to obtain the dangerous materials described in the charges.

Israel said to be preparing strike against Hizbullah
The Daily Star - Lebanon

BEIRUT: A Western European diplomatic source said Friday that his country had information that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was poised to strike at Hizbullah.

The military strike, which is likely to precede the Nov. 8 US presidential elections, could be a serious blow to the Lebanese side, unless the Lebanese government acts wisely to prevent such an attack.

The Western European state, which carries significant political weight in Europe and abroad, is not opposed to Lebanese anti-Israeli resistance activities, although the source said the Lebanese should not take any retaliatory measures that would justify an Israeli military response.

The Western European state also called for "maintaining peace and quiet" along the border following UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's recent message to the Security Council, in which he described the Lebanese-Israeli cross-border situation as unstable.

Shrine standoff appears near resolution
MSNBC

NAJAF, Iraq - Iraq’s highest Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, agreed to take control of the Imam Ali Shrine, which rebel Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s militia turned into a stronghold and refuge during their fight with U.S. forces.

An aide to al-Sistani said the keys to the shrine could be handed over later Friday to religious authorities under al-Sistani, although details were still being worked out.

The aide, Sheik Hamed Khafaf, told the Associated Press from London: “The mechanism of the handover should be studied, and this has not happened yet.”

Asked whether al-Sistani had basically agreed to take over the shrine, he said, “Yes.”

Nuclear data reported missing from government office
IndyStar.Com

WASHINGTON -- An inventory has found another case of missing data involving nuclear weapons, this time at the Energy Department's regional office in Albuquerque, N.M., the department disclosed Thursday.

The Energy Department said that an "accounting discrepancy" involving three copies of a "controlled removable electronic media" -- or CREM -- was found there as part of a nationwide inventory of such devices.

The inventory was ordered a month ago after two CREM data devices were reported missing at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, also in New Mexico.

The Albuquerque facility, part of the DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, coordinates activities with the Los Alamos weapons lab.