In a message purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda deputy called Mr Obama a “house negro” - a demeaning term implying he served white people.

Mr Obama’s plan to bolster the US military presence in Afghanistan would fail, Zawahiri said.

If genuine, the message would be the first acknowledgement by al-Qaeda of the president-elect’s victory.

The audio message appeared on militant websites.

Zawahiri, an Egyptian by birth, is often referred to as Osama Bin Laden’s right-hand man and the chief ideologue of al-Qaeda.

In the short message he warned Mr Obama of failure if he followed Bush administration policies in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

He also criticised Mr Obama - whose father is Muslim - for abandoning his Islamic roots.

“You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand with the enemies of Muslims,” he said.

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Pirates seize oil tanker off East Africa coast

In their most brazen raid yet, suspected Somali pirates operating deep in open waters have seized an oil tanker as long as an aircraft carrier, the U.S. military in the Middle East said Monday.

So audacious and unusual was the Indian Ocean attack that it caught the attention of America’s top military official, who expressed shock at the pirates’ ability to strike so far from shore.

Pirates typically attack within 200 miles of shore and go after much smaller prey, Christensen said. But in the case of the oil tanker, the assailants, who are holding hostage a multinational crew of 25, appear to be “fundamentally changing the way they’re doing business,” he said.

The Sirius Star, built in South Korea and owned by Saudi Aramco, had apparently been heading south toward the Cape of Good Hope, around Africa’s southern tip, en route to North America, when it was raided Saturday.

On Monday, it appeared to be on its way to Somalia. The pirates issued no immediate demands, Christensen said by phone from Manama, Bahrain, where the 5th Fleet is based.

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Somali pirates demand ransom for Saudi oil tanker

A man presented on Al-Jazeera television as one of the gang who seized the ship said a cash sum would be exchanged for its return.

“Negotiators are located on board the ship and on land. Once they have agreed on the ransom, it will be taken in cash to the oil tanker,” said the man identified as Farah Abd Jameh. He did not indicate the amount to be paid.

“We assure the safety of the ship that carries the ransom. We will mechanically count the money and we have machines that can detect fake money,” he said.

Salah B. Ka’aki, president of Dubai-based Vela International Marine which operates the Sirius Star and is owned by Saudi Arabia’s state oil company, said its priority was the safety of the ship’s crew of 25. He did not directly respond to the ransom demand.

The crew comprise two from Britain, two from Poland, a Croatian, a Saudi and 19 from the Philippines. They are believed to be unharmed.

“Our first and foremost priority is ensuring the safety of the crew,” said Mr Ka’aki.

“We are in communication with their families and are working toward their safe and speedy return.”

The company has set up an incident room to co-ordinate the response to the incident and it is being run by a British merchant sailor, Captain John Sparkhall.

Initial contact has been made with the pirates who are expected to demand a substantial ransom of several million pounds.

While Saudi officials have demanded that the pirates are dealt with by military force, commanders of the task force in the region gave no hint of possible action, preferrign to retain the initiative.

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Show No Mercy To Pirates

Piracy is a crime as old as seafaring. In history as in literature, it conjures up an image of brigands with eye patches, pieces of eight and hearts of gold. In truth, it was always squalid, ruthless and barbaric. Europe was terrorised by the Barbary pirates from North Africa for a century; Blackbeard tortured and mutilated those captured during his reign of terror in the Caribbean.

There is nothing romantic about modern-day piracy either. The seizure of ships off the Gulf of Aden is maritime terrorism. The hijackers hunt in packs on speedboats, using rifles and rocket-propelled grenades to force their way on board, seizing the crews and forcing ships and their cargos to divert to their strongholds off the Somali coast. Using satellite phones to co-ordinate their attacks from a mother-ship - usually a hijacked fishing vessel - they have become increasingly bold in picking off vulnerable craft: pleasure boats, cargo ships and any vessel that would yield a substantial ransom for its release.

The spectacular hijacking of the Sirius Star, a Saudi supertanker laden with oil worth $100 million, takes the operations of these Somali pirates to a new level. The ship was some 450 nautical miles southeast of Mombasa, far from the approaches to the Red Sea where Western navies now patrol. Like most of the dozen ships taken to Eyl, the fishing port that has become the pirate headquarters, it was undefended. Its mixed crew had orders not to resist. It was a sitting duck.

There have been 83 attacks on ships off Somalia this year, with 33 vessels hijacked and more than 200 crew still held captive. More than 1,200 Somalis are estimated to be involved, with six major groups active at sea. Ransom demands have risen steadily, as shipowners have little choice but to pay up after lengthy bargaining. Most captured ships are not released for less than $10,000, and the opening demand for larger vessels is now $2 million. The gang leaders, protected as Robin Hood characters in impoverished and lawless coastal villages, have grown increasingly rich and sophisticated. Driving expensive cars and operating from new beach villas, they plan attacks with precision, stalking a new target after each ransom payment and ploughing back the money into new weapons and boats.

They must be stopped. The stranglehold on the world’s busy shipping lanes is pushing up insurance costs, risking lives - nine crew have been killed in attacks and nine are missing - and giving terrorists linked to al-Qaeda a robust income and a deadly way of striking at the West.

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The man called at 12:31 p.m., saying he overheard two men talking about a bomb on the 12:35 p.m. ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. That boat, which can hold 2,500 passengers and 144 vehicles, had left the dock a few minutes before the man called 911.

“He didn’t provide a name or callback number,” State Patrol trooper Krista Hedstrom said. “It does not sound like it was a credible threat, but we have to take the appropriate steps to ensure public safety.”

A clerk at the 7-Eleven, at 802 Sixth St., declined to comment.

The ferry went back to Bremerton and all the passengers got off safely, Coast Guard Petty Officer Tara Molle said.

A safety zone was established around the dock by three 25-foot Coast Guard response boats.

The 12:45 p.m. sailing from Seattle to Bremerton was diverted to Bainbridge Island. State Ferries spokeswoman Susan Harris-Huether said Kitsap Transit bus service is being provided for those passengers.

The Bremerton dock was closed for more than two hours while the State Patrol bomb squad, the Coast Guard and ferry workers investigated, Hedstrom said.

The 3:00 p.m. sailing from Bremerton to Seattle was cancelled and the 3 p.m. boat from Seattle to Bremerton was delayed.

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The video also claimed an ambush that killed 10 French troops in August was carried out by the Taliban. It was not clear when the recording was made.

“We have killed 10 French soldiers today as a message to the French so that they rectify their mistakes and withdraw from Afghanistan, and if they don’t they will hear our response in Paris,” said Mullah Farouq, identified as the commander of the unit that raided the French troops, on the video. His remarks were dubbed into Arabic by the station.

The video included footage of what appeared to be a French armoured unit being stalked by Taliban fighters. Some insurgents were later shown wearing uniforms of the French soldiers they had killed.

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A suspicious substance mailed to the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on its way to FBI headquarters in Quantico, Va., for further testing.

FBI agents in Salt Lake City said they received a final report from the state health department on the white powdery substance in an envelope mailed to Temple Square last week. Tests were conducted to ensure it wasn’t ricin, anthrax or any other biological weapon.

“It is not any kind of biological agent or toxin or even a new strain,” FBI Special Agent Juan Becerra said Monday.

Envelopes with white powder were mailed to Temple Square, the LDS Church’s temple in Los Angeles, and a printing press belonging to the Catholic-affiliated Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Conn. Both churches were heavy backers of California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in that state.

The FBI has labeled its probe a domestic terrorism investigation. Becerra would not say whether the agency had identified any suspects in the case, but reiterated Monday that the FBI had no evidence that linked the threats to Prop. 8 or its opponents.

Many gay rights organizations have also decried the threats.

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So serious is the problem that counter-terrorism officials at the Home Office have written to eBay, the Internet auctioneer, asking them to stop selling emergency service vehicles, equipment and uniforms.

But eBay has insisted it can only halt the sales if a new law is passed by Parliament. That could take many months to enact.

The use of ambulances is of particular concern to Britain’s terrorist chiefs. They say the tactic has already been used in Iraq with devastating effects.

A report by Lord Carlisle–the government terrorist czar who last month warned about the possibility of private planes being used for an attack on London–has been issued to all of Britain’s 48 police forces warning of the danger of selling-off emergency service vehicles.

Lord Carlisle, who works closely with the Terrorism Analysis Centre in London set up since the 9/11 attacks, said ambulances were the ideal weapon of choice for terrorists.

“It is almost rare that police will stop such vehicles on suspicious grounds. An ambulance rigged with high explosives could drive into any ultra-sensitive target like a nuclear power station or even Whitehall”, said a senior MI5 source.

The Association of Chief Police Officers has warned that the risk could be “highly significant” if the law is not tightened.

Every year dozens of police cars, ambulances and even fire engines are sold on eBay for as little as £1,500 ($2,230).

Many are still in working order. Those that need repair can be easily fixed to pass as genuine emergency service vehicles.

“An ambulance could carry half a ton of explosives. A rigged police car could carry half that amount. So could a fire engine”, states the MI5 report.

MI5 counter-terrorism officers say such attacks have been successfully carried out in Iraq and Israel.

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The airport has been on “Orange Alert” all weekend, one step below the highest warning, the “Red Alert.”

According to the TSA website, the national threat level was yellow Sunday.

TSA officials would not comment on why they stepped up the level.

Passengers told Action News it took them longer to get through airport security over the weekend.

“It was inconvenient, but he was doing his job,” said Ronald Williams, who flew to Seattle. “I know in security, everybody has got to have a system. When the system breaks down, that’s when things happen.”

There “vehicle inspections in progress” signs posted at the airport, but Action News did not see anyone checking cars.

TSA officials did not return calls, but their website points out that threat levels sometimes rise around election time.

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Isreali intelligence news site, “Debka”, also claimed that “Obama and his team have been advised that a new al Qaeda strike is highly probable in the United States or against a key US target in Europe, North Africa or the Middle East.”

The “Debka” claim coincided with a regional intelligence report that Israeli Mossad and Indian RAW regional chiefs have held an important meeting in a European capital and discussed “possible preparatory reaction” to a new mystery yet to unfold. Regional watchers have also cautioned against fast growing strategic and secret cooperation between certain foreign elements in the neighborhood of Pakistan.

DEBKA report claimed that al Qaeda’s Yemen base, a reliable barometer for Osama bin Laden’s schemes, issued a Directive to All Fighters in Arabia on Nov. 9 presaging a major operation in the United States that will “change the political and economic world” and be “far bigger than 9/11.”

Israeli source claimed that the Al Qaeda “notice said the operation “is very near” and “precise instructions were in the hands of “the fighters, who are already on their way to America” armed with bin Laden’s orders. The pretext offered for the attack is the rejection by the US and Europe of al Qaeda’s four-year old truce offer whose original pre-condition was the withdrawal of their armies from Iraq and Afghanistan.
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The FBI has sharpened its scrutiny of some Phoenix-area Muslim leaders because of their links to two controversial incidents and a federal probe into the financing of terrorist groups.

No Arizonan has been accused of supporting terrorist groups or actions. However, a Mesa man was charged with lying to the FBI during the financing investigation.

The events that triggered the stepped-up scrutiny were the federal probe into a Muslim charity accused of funneling money to the Palestinian group Hamas; a target-shooting episode in Phoenix this year involving a large group of Muslim men and boys firing hundreds of rounds from AK-47s and other guns; and the high-profile removal in 2006 of six Arizona-bound imams from a jetliner after passengers and crew complained of their behavior.

Shooting Incident

Shortly before noon on a sunny Sunday in March, two Toyota SUVs rolled to a stop along a dirt road in north Phoenix.

About 20 young Muslim males climbed out, armed with assault rifles, a shotgun, a sniper rifle and handguns. The location near Happy Valley Road and 51st Avenue is a desert recreation site for off-road motorists, hikers and bikers, dozens of whom were enjoying the spring-like weather.

For more than an hour, the shooters blasted away at a granite rock and empty cans in front of a hill.

Officials estimate the fusillade totaled 500 to 1,000 rounds. Some shooters left before police arrived and detained 10 adults and five boys, including an 11-year-old.

The young men and boys told officers the weapons belonged to their parents. They said they were not aware it was illegal to use firearms in the residential area.

Six were arrested and charged with felony weapons violations in Maricopa County Superior Court. Among them were the 20- and 21-year-old sons of two imams at Phoenix-area mosques, as well as the 20-year-old son of Abdallah.

[...]

The Abdallah case

The FBI’s scrutiny of Abdallah came to light in January 2007, when agents raided his Mesa house and loaded what a neighbor said was two vans full of evidence.

Court records show that Abdallah, a 54-year-old Palestinian, denied during interrogation that he had been a fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation during the 1990s, when the Islamic charity could still legally receive donations.

At the time of the raid, federal investigators were pursuing a criminal case against the foundation based on allegations that it had channeled money to Palestinian terrorists. The organization had been banned after the 9/11 attacks.

The Abdallah case points to the FBI’s continued interest in Arizonans who have raised money for any charity suspected of supporting militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

[...]

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Barack Obama is being given ominous advice from leaders on both sides of the Atlantic to brace himself for an early assault from terrorists.

General Michael Hayden, director of the CIA, this week acknowledged that there were dangers during a presidential transition when new officials were coming in and getting accustomed to the challenges. But he added that no “real or artificial spike” in intercepted transmissions from terror suspects had been detected.

President Bush has repeatedly described the acute vulnerability of the US during a transition. The Bush Administration has been defined largely by the 9/11 attacks, which came within a year of his taking office.

His aides have pointed to al-Qaeda’s first assault on the World Trade Centre, which occurred little more than a month after Bill Clinton became President in 1993. There was an alleged attempt to bomb Glasgow airport in Gordon Brown’s first days in Downing Street and a London nightclub attack was narrowly thwarted.
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Lord West of Spithead, the Home Office Security Minister, spoke recently of a “huge threat”, saying: “There is another great plot building up again and we are monitoring this.”

Intelligence chiefs on both sides of the Atlantic have indicated that such warnings refer more to a general sense of foreboding than fear of an imminent or specific plan.

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The Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association has been advised to keep their eyes open for anything suspicious, or out of the ordinary related to missing or stolen fertilizer.

The FBI informed the IFAC that several lawn and garden facilities, as well as agriculture retail facilities in the Midwest have experienced the theft of ammonium nitrate fertilizers.

No thefts have been reported yet in Illinois.

If you have any information, or you are a retailer that has experienced theft of fertilizer, please contact the FBI regardless of how large or small the theft may have been.

FBI Tips

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US intelligence officials are concerned the current financial crisis could weaken pro-Western governments around the world and diminish the US government’s ability to respond to new security threats, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

Citing unnamed US government officials and private analysts, the newspaper said the economic downturn has increased the risk of a terrorist attack in the short term as radical groups look for new gaps in defenses.

Meanwhile, intelligence experts believe that a protracted crisis could threaten the very survival of friendly governments in Pakistan and the Middle East because Western nations will be forced to cut spending on defense, intelligence, and foreign aid, the report said.

The paper said the crisis could also accelerate the shift to a more Asia-centric globe as China and other Asian nations gain more influence in international financial institutions.

Experts are particularly worried about Pakistan, which since September has seen its national currency devalued and its hard-currency reserves nearly wiped out, The Post said.

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