Country Intelligence and Analysis
A popular website that hosted more than 70,000 bloggers was shut down suddenly last week after the FBI informed its chief technology officer that the site contained hit lists, bomb-making documents and links to Al Qaeda materials, it was reported on Monday. When the WordPress platform Blogetery.com went dead, the initial explanation from the site’s…
Hezbollah readying for urban war in southern Lebanon IDF aerial photo marking alleged Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, released on July 7, 2010 Photo by: IDF Israel’s military on Wednesday offered evidence of what it says is a growing threat from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, using aerial images to highlight the militants group’s activities in…
Wednesday, Jul 14, 2010 09:15 ET The motive behind whistle-blower prosecutions By Glenn Greenwald One of the more flamboyant aspects of the Bradley Manning arrest was the claim that he had leaked to WikiLeaks 250,000 pages of “diplomatic cables.” Those were the documents which anonymous government officials pointed to when telling The Daily Beast‘s Philip Shenon that…
A surprise announcement, a judiciary official in provincial Iran said a woman who had been convicted and sentenced to stoning for adultery had also been convicted of murder. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two in the Tabriz area, had been convicted of cheating on her late husband, apparently a murder victim, and sentenced…
What happens when all sides of a conflict are mired in hypocrisy? Two millennia ago, the great Chinese military leader and strategist Zhuge Liang admonished his fellow military men that “when hypocrisy sprouts, even if you have the wisdom of ancient warrior kings you could not defeat a peasant, let alone a crowd of them”….
Soldiers stand on a submarine found hidden in the Ecuadorian jungle. Officials say the vessel is the first of its kind capable of transporting drugs on transoceanic journeys. Law enforcement officials have already had to deal with drug traffickers using an increasing number of semi-submersible vessels, which just barely peeked above the surface of the…
3 die as Indian forces fire on Kashmiri protesters Indian forces opened fire on hundreds of rock-throwing protesters in Kashmir killing three people as authorities re-imposed a curfew in the region’s main city amid increasingly violent demonstrations against alleged human rights abuses. Security forces initially used tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, a police officer…
The Israeli military has announced it will charge an army sniper with killing a person during the Gaza offensive, when hundreds of Palestinians died. It said there were grounds for trying the staff sergeant for manslaughter in a military court. Evidence was found that the soldier had opened fire as the victim walked with a…
At least 41 people have been killed and hundreds injured after suicide attacks in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore. Police have confirmed that at least two suicide bombers blew themselves up at a Sufi shrine in the centre of the city, and officials say the cause of a third blast is still being investigated….