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New Delhi, May14 (ANI): The Union Government on Friday extended its ban on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for another two years.
The Union Home Ministry has issued a notification in this regard.
The LTTE was banned under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
The LTTE, also known as Tamil Tigers, is a terrorists group that has waged a violent campaign against the Sri Lankan government since the latter part of 1970s in order to create a separate Tamil state in the northern and eastern part of the island nation.
The group-led by V Prabhakaran had been proscribed as a terrorist organization by several countries including the United States.
The LTTE was involved in the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 and the group has been banned by India since 1992.
India was the first country ban the LTTE followed by USA, United Kingdom, 27 European Union Countries, Canada and it is learnt that Australia as well as Malaysia are seriously contempt plating on banning this terrorists’ outfit in their soil. (ANI)
Washington, May 12 (ANI): The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is said be behind the failed plot to detonate a car bomb in Times Square, is still not in the American list of foreign terrorist organisations.
The State Department still hasn’t decided if the Pakistan Taliban should be labelled as a terrorist organization.
Senator Charles Schumer urged the Obama administration on Tuesday to add the group to the US list of foreign terrorist organizations, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“I was shocked to learn that the group was omitted from the list. They’ve declared war on the citizens of the United States. We must respond appropriately,” said Schumer.
Times Square plot suspect Faisal Shahzad has told investigators that he received bomb-making training from the Taliban in his native Pakistan.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the Pakistan Taliban “is a group that we have been focused on for some time, but I think in light of the Times Square attempt, it’s something we’re looking at very closely.”
He said the department was being “intentionally deliberate” in studying whether to add the Pakistan Taliban to its list of foreign terrorist organizations, the paper reports.
Naming the group to the list is more than a symbolic move. It allows the government to bar foreign nationals affiliated with the group from entering the US, and allows the government to seize assets traced to the group.
Most importantly, the designation also allows prosecutors to use an anti-terror statute to criminally charge those who provide support to such groups. That has helped the US crack down on people in the US who send terrorists equipment, money or recruits. (ANI)
Toronto (Canada), Apr.29 (ANI): A British lawmaker, George Galloway, was barred entry to Canada last March after the government deemed him a supporter of a terrorist organization, but surprisingly, a Kashmiri agent dubbed ‘Mr. XXXXX’ was let in despite giving 40,000 rupees to an Islamist terrorist.
Galloway scuttled his 2009 Canadian speaking tour upon being declared a persona non grata, but a man with a vastly more checkered past landed on the tarmac of Vancouver International Airport.
According to the Globe and Mail, under questioning from federal agents, the South Asian caught with a false passport revealed his secret story.
He said that he had once dreamed of dying as an Islamist terrorist. He had handled guns and fired assault rifles in his youth.
Pressed about his line of work, he told border guards he had been operating as a spy.
And during that December, 2008, interrogation, the border guards heard his views on the previous month’s carnage in Mumbai.
“It’s stupid. It’s crazy,” he said, disagreeing with the terrorists’ tactics. “ … They should not kill people in the streets. They should do it at the border.”
Nearly 18 months later, this man – referred to only as Mr. XXXXX in court documents, owing to refugee-anonymity laws – is living in Canada despite being initially declared inadmissible.
He is one of only 30-odd people that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney declared “inadmissible” that year as national-security threats, Mr. Galloway being a more prominent example.
IRB decision. (ANI)
Melbourne, Mar. 31 (ANI): An Australian Supreme Court has allowed three Australian-based backers of the Tamil Tigers to walk free after they admitted supporting the LTTE monetarily.
Tamil community newspaper editor Sivarajah Yathavan, 39, Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, 35, and Sydney accountant Arumugan Rajeevan, 43, each pleaded guilty to providing more than a-million-dollars in cash to the terrorist group, the Herald Sun reports.
They told the Supreme Court that an Australian-based charity was used as a cover to collect and send money to the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka.
Vinayagamoorthy also pleaded guilty to making electronic components available to the Tamil Tigers.
But Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan today freed all three men on bonds of good behaviour.
Police raids on their homes in 2005 found photographic evidence linking some of them to LTTE’s world leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in Sri Lanka, the report says.
Police also found dramatic video footage of Rajeevan and Yathavan firing a machinegun on a Tamil Tiger gunboat in Sri Lanka during a demonstration of the group”s firepower at sea, it adds.
In 2007, all three were charged with serious terrorism offences carrying sentences of 25 years, including that they were members of a terrorist organisation, provided support to a terrorist organisation and made funds available to a terrorist organisation.
Those charges, however, were dropped last year because LTTE wasn”t officially declared as terrorist organization by the Australian Government. (ANI)
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday to balance the constitutional rights of humanitarian aid groups with the government’s efforts to combat terrorism.
The issue arose in a challenge by aid groups and individuals to parts of a key anti-terror law that bans “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, even when that support consists of training and advice about entirely peaceful and legal activities.
The aid groups involved had trained a group in Turkey on how to bring human rights complaints to the United Nations and assisted them in peace negotiations, but suspended the activities when the U.S. designated the Turkish outfit a terrorist organization in 1997. They also wanted give similar help to a group in Sri Lanka, but it, too, was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1997.
Several justices seemed unsure how to resolve a dispute in which they acknowledged legitimate points on both sides. It is the court’s first look at a terrorism-related criminal law since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
“This is a difficult case for me,” declared Justice Anthony Kennedy, who often provides the decisive vote that delivers a court majority.
The humanitarian groups, backed in this case by former President Jimmy Carter, say the law makes a crime out of speech _ in violation of the Constitution. “The government has spent a decade arguing that our clients cannot advocate for peace,” David Cole, the lawyer for the aid groups and individuals, told the court.
The administration urged the court to reject the challenge. Any aid to terrorist groups “strengthens them in everything they do,” Solicitor General Elena Kagan said. Kagan emphasized the material support law’s importance, calling it a “vital weapon” in combating terrorism.
The argument took place a day after 25-year-old Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty in New York to providing material support to al-Qaida, among other charges, as part of a plan to attack the New York subway.
Nearly four dozen organizations are on the State Department list, including al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, Basque separatists in Spain and Maoist rebels in Peru.
The humanitarian groups, including the Humanitarian Law Project; Ralph Fertig, a civil rights lawyer; and Dr. Nagalingam Jeyalingam, a physician, want to offer assistance to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.
The government says the Kurdish rebel group, known as the PKK, has been involved in a violent insurgency that has claimed 22,000 lives. The Tamil Tigers waged a civil war for more than 30 years before their defeat last year.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was among those who suggested the law could be too broad.
“Under the definition of this statute, teaching these members to play the harmonica would be unlawful,” Sotomayor said.
Kagan replied, “The first thing I would say is there are not a whole lot of people going around trying to teach al-Qaida how to play harmonicas.”
Justice Antonin Scalia, who seemed most receptive to the government’s argument, interjected: “Well, Mohamed Atta and his harmonica quartet might tour the country and make a lot of money. Right?”
Scalia was referring to the lead Sept. 11 hijacker.
Supporters of the aid groups have invoked the specter of McCarthyism in a law they say subjects U.S. citizens to prison merely for speech.
Former President Carter, whose Carter Center seeks to mediate international disputes, said the law threatens the work of groups that share the government’s goal of ending terrorism.
“Our work to end violence sometimes requires interacting directly with groups that have engaged in it,” Carter said in a written statement.
On the other side, the Anti-Defamation League said the law is a reasonable approach to fighting terrorism that does not infringe on constitutional rights.
The administration, defending a law that has been on the books since 1996 and modified twice since then, said there is no limit on speech because people can say whatever they want in support of terrorist groups and even may, in one example Kagan batted around with Kennedy, call on a group to lay down its arms.
But that advice crosses the line into illegal activity when it becomes a manual on how to approach the United Nations and lobby for aid, Kagan said.
The reason for this, she said, is “you’ve given them an extremely valuable skill that they can use for all kinds of purposes, legal or illegal.”
The court is expected to issue its decision by late June.
The cases are Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 08-1498, and Humanitarian Law Project v. Holder, 09-89.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Washington, Sep 5 (ANI): The man who grew up in Daphne, Alabama, as Omar Hammami, but is now reported to be a member of al Qaeda-linked Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab under the name Abu Mansour al-Amriki, told a school newspaper after 9/11 attacks that it was “difficult to believe a Muslim could have done this”.
According to FOX News, eight years later he is professing to launch attacks himself and calling on others to join the fight, as terror-related charges await him at home in Alabama.
Abu Mansour al-Amriki or “The American” has become one of the most recognizable and outspoken voices of terrorist propaganda, the report said.
He has been in war-torn Somalia for several years, fighting the secular government there with a group known as al-Shabaab, which has ties to Al Qaeda and was labeled a terrorist organization by the US Government last year, but only recently has he taken on a starring and jarring role in al-Shabaab’s outreach efforts the report added.
The FBI has been looking into him for several years. In fact, a grand jury in Mobile, Alabama., has already indicted him on charges of providing material support to terrorists, a source said.
Al-Amriki first surfaced in October 2007, when Al-Jazeera TV aired a report about the “common goal” of al Qaeda and hard-line militants in Somalia. The report described al-Amriki as a fighter and military instructor, but he concealed his face with a cloth wrap throughout the report.
In April, he showed his face for the first time, during a highly polished, 30-minute recruitment video posted online. It featured anti-American hip-hop and sporadic images of Osama bin Laden.
In the video, he purportedly led a group of al-Shabaab militants in an ambush of pro-government forces in Somalia.
Speaking about one man killed in the fight, he said: “We need more like him, so if you can encourage more of your children and more of your neighbors, anyone around, to send people like him to this jihad, it would be a great asset for us.” (ANI)
Dubai, Sep.2 (ANI): The Al Arabiya satellite television channel has come up with a popular program titled “Death Making,” that exposes another side of Al Qaeda.
Hosted by female correspondent Rima Salha, the Dubai-based show is heading into its third year on Al Arabiya and aims to influence how the Arab world views Al Qaeda, reports Fox News.
It is a unique program that lets jihadists tell their stories, and then shows the results of their actions.
“It’s not enough to tell you that Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization. You have to understand why, what it means, how everything works, and what the end goal is for them,” Al Arabia’s general manager Abdul Rahman al-Rashed explains.
For her work, Salha, who is Lebanese, gets death threats, including when Osama bin Laden’s number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, singled the show and Al Arabiya out, by weaving video of both into one of his multi-media diatribes against mass media.
Despite the threats, Salah is undeterred. She goes to the jihadists, wherever they are: in refugee camps off limits even to security forces and to Iraq. She and her team convince subjects to talk to them. It’s not easy, but some of these militants apparently think they stand to benefit from a bit of publicity.
The topic of terrorism is so hot that Salha gets attacked from all sides. (ANI)
New Delhi, Aug.13 (ANI): China continues to remain reluctant about supporting India’s proposal at the United Nations to place sanctions on the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
ANI has learnt that in the recent meeting between the Special Representatives of the two countries led by National Security Adviser M K Narayanan and Chinese State Councillor Dai Bingguo, the Chinese Representative cited “technical” reasons for not supporting the ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
China is the only country in the Security Council which is blocking sanctions on the Jaish and its chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
New Delhi’s argument has been that Azhar benefited from a terror act – the hijacking of IC 814 – and, therefore, there can be no objections on the grounds of evidence.
According to sources, during the 13th round of Special Representatives talks in New Delhi, India handed over more details and documents about Azhar which establish that he is a terrorist.
Beijing’s response, however, was tepid.
India has already submitted detailed documents on the Jaish-e-Mohammad’s terrorist activities to the United Nations, which in turn has been circulated to other nations, including China.
Beijing, however, has been denial mode about receiving the document.
The Maulana Masood Azhar led Jaish-e-Mohammed is a Pakistan based terrorist organization which has orchestrated series of attacks against India.
Once sanctions on an individual or the origination are imposed under UN resolution 1267 which is also known as Al qaeeda and Taliban sanctions, it empowers India to demand action from Pakistan.
After being released from the Indian jail, Masood has been seen in various Pakistani cities addressing huge congregations and is reportedly living undercover within the patronage of the ISI.
Security experts believe that Pakistan is using its close tactical and strategic relations with China to block India’s attempts in the UNSC to ban the Jaish-e-Mohammad.
Earlier, the United Kingdom had shown reluctance to support the ban on the Jaish, but once India submitted details about the group, it agreed to come onboard and support the ban. By Naveen Kapoor (ANI)
Jerusalem, June 26 (ANI): A top US counter-terrorism official has claimed that Hizbullah is capable of inflicting greater damage on the United States than the Al-Queda, and direct US military operations against Iran or the Hizbullah leadership may trigger exactly that.
“Hizbullah at the strategic level, with its state sponsors, more or less decided not to attack the United States interests directly in the continental United States at all. But our assessment is, if they ever change their minds, they have the capacity to inflict terrible damage on the United States,” The Jerusalem Post quoted Deputy Commissioner for Counter terrorism Richard Falkenrath of the New York Police Department, as saying.
“We haven’t seen it yet, but I don’t like to be in a position where our defense lies in the strategic decision of a terrorist organization,” he added.
Speaking at the Washington Institute for Near East Affairs this week, Falkenrath said he had seen various intelligence assessments on what would cause Hizbullah to change that strategic decision and that “direct US military operations against the Hizbullah leadership are regarded as one,” as well as attacks against its state sponsor, Iran.
So long the Hizbullah has remained “dormant,” Al-Qaida remained the most serious external terrorist threat to America, Falkenrath said, adding that Obama administration was not sufficiently emphasizing terrorism prevention in their budget priorities.
“We’ve seen these budgets slowly trickle down. The levels are shrinking; the competition for grant funding is becoming more fierce; and, frankly, the bureaucracy and the bureaucratic process that we have to go through to actually get the monies dispersed and spend them is becoming ever more onerous,” he said
Another terrorism expert, Daniel Byman of the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center, said Hizbullah had so far calculated that it wouldn’t be worth the blowback from the United States when its main agenda focuses on Israel.
“From their point of view, the United States is a place you raise money and can use for propaganda,” the paper quoted Byman, as saying. (ANI)
Istanbul – Six Turkish soldiers were killed in a landmine explosion in the south-east of the country, local television reports said Thursday.
Several people were injured when the landmine that had been placed beside a road in the province of Hakkari exploded on Wednesday night, according to the reports.
A month ago, nine soldiers were killed in a bomb attack carried out by members of the banned separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in the same region.
Officially, the organization that has been waging an armed struggle for self-rule since the 1980s, has declared a ceasefire.
The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union and the United States.(dpa)
Islamabad – Three policemen were killed Tuesday in Pakistan’s north-west when gunmen attacked officers deployed outside the house of a suspected Islamist militant who was arrested last week, police said.
The pre-dawn raid took place in the district of Haripur, located some 65 kilometres north of the capital city, Islamabad.
“Heavily-armed men raided the building at around 2:30 am (2030 GMT) and fired indiscriminately at the policemen guarding the place,” a senior police officer told the German Press Agency dpa on the phone.
“Three policemen died on the spot and two more sustained bullet wounds,” the officer said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the incident.
The officer said the house belonged to an Afghan national who was arrested on Thursday for suspected links with the Taliban and the al-Qaeda terrorist organization. He was later handed over into the custody of the intelligence agencies.
The suspect’s family remained in the house under police guard.
“Apparently, the attack was carried out to avenge the arrest,” according to the officer.
Haripur borders the insurgency-hit district of Buner, where the security forces have been battling Taliban fighters since April 28.
Militants, emboldened by a controversial peace deal, overran Buner early last month, expanding their control to territory just 100 kilometers from Islamabad.
The advance, which sparked serious concerns in the West about the future of the nuclear-armed country, forced the Pakistani government to launch a military operation to re-establish its writ.(dpa)
Bilbao, Spain – The Basque terrorist organization ETA is plotting a new strategy to overcome what it sees as weaknesses in its organization, it was reported Monday.
Plans on developing the new strategy were shared by two ETA members in an interview with Spanish newspaper Gara.
The two interviewees, identified as Gaueko and Argi, were pictured, masked, in the paper.
ETA will embark on a process of “reflection and counsel” with a goal toward creating a “workable political and military strategy by the summer, the pair said.
The separatist group, which is active in the border area of Spain and France, has been hard hit by a series of arrests of leading members in both countries.
It has been almost six months since the group’s last assassination – of a Basque construction businessman in December.
However, the two members insisted the group is only prepared to lay down its weapons once there is a clear path toward an independent Basque homeland.
They also confirmed attempts by ETA to down airplanes using ground-to-air missiles, a tactic they used three times between 1996 and 2004 in attempts on the life of then Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. (dpa)
New Delhi – India’s Supreme Court on Monday ordered the release on bail of human rights activist Binayak Sen who has been jailed for over two years in the central state of Chhattisgarh.
Sen, 59, has been in jail since May 14, 2007 after he was charged by the state government with having links with Maoist rebels in the state. He denied the charge.
Justices Markandey Katju and Deepak Verma ruled after Sen applied for bail on grounds of ill health. He had been suffering from a heart condition and doctors advised treatment in a hospital in southern India.
“It’s the happiest moment in my life. He has been in jail for over two years without any reason and that caused a lot of trauma,” his daughter Aparajita Sen told reporters. “It is a big relief for our family”.
Sen was booked under the unlawful activities act and a state public security act.
Local media reported that Sen had been charged with being a member of a terrorist organization after Sen criticized the manner in which the Chhattisgarh government was dealing with the Maoist insurgency.
The reports said that the charges on Sen were serious enough for him to be punished with a life sentence or the death penalty.
His arrest provoked several protests in India and abroad, with human rights organizations calling Sen’s arrest a “dark spot” on Indian democracy.
Last year, 22 Nobel laureates appealed to the Indian government to release Sen. They argued that the two internal security laws under which Sen was charged did not conform to international human rights standards.(dpa)
New Delhi, May 6 (ANI): External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that there is no confusion regarding status of the LTTE, and added that every year India seeks the extradition of Tamil Tigers chief V. Prabhakaran.
“Every year we ask for extradition of Prabhakaran. LTTE is a terrorist organization. It is banned in India, it is banned in Sri Lanka,” Mukherjee said.
The senior Congress leader was clarifying his party’s stand on LTTE being a terrorist organization while speaking exclusively to NDTV.
Commenting on the tie up with Left, Mukherjee said: “It is Left who deserted us by withdrawing support and that on an issue where we tried to resolve the differences by series of discussions.”
He also added: “What would happen after the Elections will depend on numbers. After all ours is a multi-party system. Which political party holds how many seats in a vast electorate of more than 710 million voters, it is very difficult to make any assessment, precise assessment before the poll results are out and even two phases elections have not yet taken place.” (ANI)
Washington, May 1 (ANI): Ali Al-Marri, a Qatari man held without charge by the Bush administration for seven years on suspicion that he was an Al Qaeda sleeper agent, has admitted in a US District Court that he was a member of the terrorist outfit and provided material support to a terrorist organization.
Al-Marri’s plea was entered in federal court in Peoria, Ill., after the Obama Administration indicted him and ended his detention at the Navy Brig in Charleston, S.C. He faces a possible sentence of up to 15 years in prison.
“Without a doubt, this case is a grim reminder of the seriousness of the threat we as a nation still face,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a written statement.
“But it also reflects what we can achieve when we have faith in our criminal justice system and are unwavering in our commitment to the values upon which the nation was founded and the rule of law.”
Papers filed in connection with Al-Marri’s guilty plea paint an unusually detailed portrait of his dealings with al Qaeda and, in particular, with one of the group’s leaders, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, known as KSM, Politico reports.
Al-Marri admitted to attending terrorist training camps run by al Qaeda and that he traveled to the United States at the direction of KSM, who told him to enter the US no later than September 10, 2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Court papers also say Mohammed arranged for Al-Marri to meet in Dubai with a financier of the September 11 attacks, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who gave Al-Marri 10,000 dollars to fund his travels to the US.
Al-Marri entered the US on September 10, 2001 and enrolled at Bradley University in Illinois. After the 9/11 attacks, he made repeated but unsuccessful efforts to contact KSM and al-Hawsawi by phone and e-mail, the documents say.
The plea agreement also says that Al-Marri conducted research on the effect of cyanide gas and on waterways, dams and tunnels where a terrorist attack could have been mounted. (ANI)
New Delhi – Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone Pakistani gunman suspect captured during the Mumbai terrorist attacks, has confessed before a court that he and his colleagues were trained under the supervision of a Pakistani army official, the public prosecutor said Friday.
The trial of Kasab, who the prosecution accused of killing 166 people during the attacks, opened Wednesday and resumed on Friday after the special court in Mumbai appointed a new lawyer for the leading suspect.
Twenty-one-year-old Kasab, allegedly a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization, is being tried along with two Indian suspects in the case.
Prosecutor Ujwal Nikam said this was a conspiracy hatched in Pakistan to wage war on India by attacking several cities. Over 170 people including nine gunmen were killed in the attacks last November.
Nikam said Kasab in his confessional statement before the special court said a Pakistani army official of major-general rank had visited during the training organized by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the IANS news agency reported.
“He disclosed that he got a special pat from the major general for coming first in shooting training and told others who were not up to par to practise more,” Nikam was quoted as saying by IANS after Friday’s hearing in the case.
Earlier, Kasab had petitioned the court that he was a minor and, therefore, should be tried by a juvenile court. “I strongly objected and told the court that he was lying,” said Nikam, pointing out that Kasab had described himself at 21 years of age at various events. The court dismissed the petition.
“Accused Kasab had disclosed that it was decided to target Mumbai with the aim of capturing Kashmir, so that the Indian government will become weak. Not just Mumbai, but other metropolitan cities were also planned to be attacked similarly,” Nikam said.
Nikam added that Colonel Sadatullah of the Pakistan government’s Special Communications Organisation had accessed email accounts opened by the terrorist group in the fictitious name of Kharak Singh.
“What information he wanted to access and why, is part of further investigation,” Nikam said.
Indian police have filed an 11,000-page charge sheet against 38 people including Kasab. A total of 2,202 witnesses have been identified but it is not yet clear how many will be called to testify.
The charges allege key planners of the assaults included Pakistan-based LET leaders Hafeez Sayyid, Fahim Ansari, Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi and Zarar Shah. Those men are in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, and have been listed as “wanted absconders.”(dpa)