Few of us have had totally ideal childhoods, but self-aware people usually get past this stuff by the time they’ve graduated college. The scipts get more and more alike and the Law of Diminishing Returns kicks in.

If you’re altruistic types you’ll try to talk through the whole thing rationally before retreating to your separate corners in order to get your heads together. Ideally you’ll be able to part on friendly terms, but more often there are some undignified scenes ahead, complete with gouged eye sockets and your shame forever documented in a police report. From Haaretz:

Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA officers in order to recruit members of a Pakistani terror group to carry out assassinations and attacks against the regime in Iran, Foreign Policy revealed on Friday, quoting U.S. intelligence memos.

Foreign Policy’s Mark Perry reported that the Mossad operation was carried out in 2007-2008, behind the back of the U.S. government, and infuriated then U.S. President George W. Bush.

Perry quotes a number of American intelligence officials and claims that the Mossad agents used American dollars and U.S. passports to pose as CIA spies to try to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni extremist organization that has carried out a series of attacks in Iran and assassinations of government officials.

According to the report, Israel’s recruitment attempts took place mostly in London, right under the nose of U.S. intelligence officials.

“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” Foreign Policy quoted an intelligence officer as saying. “Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought.”…

[continues at Haaretz]

HONOLULU — President Obama expressed misgivings about several provisions of a sweeping defense bill he signed into law on Saturday, pledging that his administration will use broad discretion in interpreting the measure’s legal requirements to ensure that U.S. citizens suspected of terrorism are not detained indefinitely by the military.

The $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act provides funding for 2012 at $27 billion less than Obama’s request and $43 billion less than Congress authorized in 2011.

The bill also contains several detainee provisions that civil liberties groups and human rights advocates have strongly opposed, arguing that they would allow the military greater authority to detain and interrogate U.S. citizens and non-citizens and deny them legal rights protected by the Constitution.

Obama initially had threatened to veto the legislation. In a signing statement released by the White House on Saturday, Obama said he still does not agree with everything contained in the legislation. But with military funding due to expire Monday, Obama said he signed the bill after Congress made last-minute revisions at the request of the White House before approving it two weeks ago.

In several cases, the president called those changes “minimally acceptable” and vowed to use discretion when applying the provisions.

“I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists,” Obama said. “I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation.”

The president said his administration would seek to repeal any provisions that are inconsistent with his values and added that he would “reject any approach that would mandate military custody where law enforcement provides the best method of incapacitating a terrorist threat.”…

A Dutch researcher has created a virus with the potential to kill half of the planet’s population. Now, researchers and experts in bioterrorism debate whether it is a good idea to publish the virus creation ”recipe”. However, several voices argue that such research should have not happened in the first place.

The virus is a strain of avian influenza H5N1 genetically modified to be extremely contagious. It was created by researcher Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, Netherlands. The work was first presented at a conference dedicated to influenza, that took place in September in Malta.

Avian influenza emerged in Asia about 10 years ago. Since then there were fewer than 600 infection cases reported in humans. On the other hand, Fouchier’s genetically modified strain is extremely contagious and dangerous, killing about 50% of infected patients. The former strain did not represent a global threat, as transmission from human to human is rare. Or, at least, it was before Fouchier genetically modified it.

Read more here.

Federal agents arrested four suspected members of a Georgia militia on charges of plotting attacks with toxins and explosives against unnamed government officials. The four – all over 65 years old – who authorities arrested on Tuesday, were expected to appear in federal court in Gainesville on Wednesday afternoon.

Court documents state that 73-year-old Frederick Thomas told others he intended to model their actions on the online novel Absolved, which involves small groups of citizens attacking U.S. officials.

Thomas is part of a group that also tried to obtain an unregistered explosive device and sought out the complex formula to produce ricin, a biological toxin that can be lethal in small doses, according to a federal complaint.

The four listed in the indictment are Thomas; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68. The men live in the north Georgia towns of Cleveland and Toccoa. On September 17, prosecutors say Crump was recorded by a confidential informant as saying he would like to make ten pounds of ricin, which would be simultaneously placed in several U.S. cities. The group had been talking about ‘covert’ operations since at least March, according to court records, discussing murder, theft and using toxic agents and assassinations to undermine the state and federal government.

Thomas is accused of driving to Atlanta with a confidential informant on May 24 and scoping out an Internal Revenue Service building there and an ATF building ‘to plan and assess for possible attacks’, the indictment states.

At a meeting in April, Thomas said the ‘civilian government operatives’ the militia members would be targeting included police officers and members of federal law enforcement groups, such as the IRS and FBI, the affidavit said.

‘I could shoot ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] and IRS all day long,’ Thomas said, according to the affidavit. ‘All the judges and the DOJ [Justice Department], and the attorneys and prosecutors.’

Thomas is accused of driving to Atlanta with a confidential informant on May 24 and scoping out an Internal Revenue Service building there and an ATF building ‘to plan and assess for possible attacks’, the indictment states. ‘We’d have to blow the whole building, like Timothy McVeigh,’ Thomas said during the Atlanta trip, referring to the man executed for bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City, the indictment states.

Iran Affairs

I’m sure you’ve heard about the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the US and bomb the Israeli embassy etc. which was supposedly “directed by factions of the Iranian government” (whatever that means.)

Simple question: Why? Suppose the alleged plot was successful – then what? Apart from risking a major diplomatic incident, what would Iran have to gain from doing any of this? Would Saudi Arabia or Israel simply disappear? Are the Iranians just crazy people who like to blow up places for no real gain?

There have been many such ‘terror plots’ foiled in the US – and the one thing they all had in common was that there was a government informant who was involved and even instigated the plot by recruiting some otherwise hapless and simple-minded “terrorists” and provided them with the tools and financing – including buying them the military boots that were later presented in their trial as evidence of their militancy, as well as the cameras that they used to photograph their intended targets.

How hapless and simple-minded? Remember Jose Padilla who was supposedly going to launch a nuclear “dirty bomb” attack? Did you know he was planning to convert plain uranium ore (i.e. rocks) into enriched uranium … by swinging a bucket of the stuff in a circle over his head? Yes folks, these are the “terrorists.”

Of course the line between informant and agent provocateur is very negligible. Some of you may remember Tommy the Traveler, a government agent who traveled to college campuses across the US and infiltrated student anti-war movements, in order to provoke them into committing acts of violence for which they could be arrested?

Prof. Martin E. Hugh-Jones

The FBI’s story about Bruce Ivins being the sole perpetrator of the 2001 post-9/11 Anthrax attacks was never very convincing, to say the least. Now three brave scientists are contradicting the FBI’s all-too-convenient version of events publicly. The cynic in me worries for their health… Report from the New York Times:

A decade after wisps of anthrax sent through the mail killed 5 people, sickened 17 others and terrorized the nation, biologists and chemists still disagree on whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.’s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.

Now, three scientists argue that distinctive chemicals found in the dried anthrax spores — including the unexpected presence of tin — point to a high degree of manufacturing skill, contrary to federal reassurances that the attack germs were unsophisticated. The scientists make their case in a coming issue of the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense.

F.B.I. documents reviewed by The New York Times show that bureau scientists focused on tin early in their eight-year investigation, calling it an “element of interest” and a potentially critical clue to the criminal case. They later dropped their lengthy inquiry, never mentioned tin publicly and never offered any detailed account of how they thought the powder had been made.

The new paper raises the prospect — for the first time in a serious scientific forum — that the Army biodefense expert identified by the F.B.I. as the perpetrator, Bruce E. Ivins, had help in obtaining his germ weapons or conceivably was innocent of the crime…

[continues in the New York Times]

There have been plenty of conspiracy theories surrounding the events of 9/11. These conspiracy theorists believe that the U.S. government manufactured the attacks while others believe that it was the Israeli Mossad who was behind them. They site claims such as the Pentagon was not hit by a plane but by a rocket, and that the World Trade center building number seven was brought down by a controlled demolition. The prescribers to these theories have been some scattered individuals here and there who do not posses the research capabilities and capacities that are only available to governments. However, there has been one exception: the government of Iran.

The Iranian government has professed on the tongue of its president Ahmadinejad that it does not believe that al Qaeda was behind 9/11 but rather, the U.S. government. So we may ask the question: why would Iran ascribe to such a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence?

Since the start of the Iranian revolution, Iran wanted to project an image of antiAmericanism. This would serve as a rallying call for the millions of Muslims around the world who despise America for its aggression against them. Iran played this card very well and garnered a lot of support among the Muslims as being the country that is willing to stand up to America.

If Iran was genuine in its animosity towards the U.S., it would be pleased to see another entity striking a blow at the Great Satan but that’s not the case. For Iran, anti-Americanism is merely a game of politics. It is anti-America when it suits it and it is a collaborator with the U.S. when it suits it, as we have seen in the shameful assistance Iran gave to the U.S. in its invasion of Afghanistan and in the Shi`a of Iraq, backed by Iran, bringing the American forces into the country and welcoming them with open arms.

Therefore with 9/11, the Iranians saw a great operation that had brought damage to the U.S. like nothing they had ever dreamed of causing during their two decades in power. For them, al Qaeda was a competitor for the hearts and minds of the disenfranchised Muslims around the world. Al Qaeda, an organization under fire, with no state, succeeded in what Iran couldn’t. Therefore it was necessary for the Iranians to discredit 9/11 and what better way to do so? Conspiracy theories.

Iran and the Shi`a in general do not want to give al Qaeda credit for the greatest and biggest operation ever committed against America because this would expose their lip-service jihad against the Great Satan.

A 9/11 coloring book has emerged on the brink of the tenth anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. It is entitled “We Shall Never Forget 9/11: The Kids’ Book of Freedom,” and was published by Missouri-based Really Big Coloring Books.

The color book begins with Osama bin Laden plotting to attack the United States and ends with bin Laden being shot by a Navy SEAL. A spokesperson for the publisher said that seeing bin Laden get shot “provides closure” for children.

Dawud Walid, Michigan representative for the Council on American Islamic Relations, called the book disgusting because it portrays all Muslims as terrorists.

In New Brunswick, N.J., a building superintendent opened the door to apartment No. 1076 one balmy Tuesday and discovered an alarming scene: terrorist literature strewn about the table and computer and surveillance equipment set up in the next room.

The panicked superintendent dialed 911, sending police and the FBI rushing to the building near Rutgers University on the afternoon of June 2, 2009. What they found in that first-floor apartment, however, was not a terrorist hideout but a command center set up by a secret team of New York Police Department intelligence officers.

From that apartment, about an hour outside the department’s jurisdiction, the NYPD had been staging undercover operations and conducting surveillance throughout New Jersey. Neither the FBI nor the local police had any idea.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the NYPD has become one of the country’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies. A months-long investigation by The Associated Press has revealed that the NYPD operates far outside its borders and targets ethnic communities in ways that would run afoul of civil liberties rules if practiced by the federal government. And it does so with unprecedented help from the CIA in a partnership that has blurred the bright line between foreign and domestic spying.

Neither the city council, which finances the department, nor the federal government, which contributes hundreds of millions of dollars each year, is told exactly what’s going on.

The department has dispatched teams of undercover officers, known as “rakers,” into minority neighborhoods as part of a human mapping program, according to officials directly involved in the program. They’ve monitored daily life in bookstores, bars, cafes and nightclubs. Police have also used informants, known as “mosque crawlers,” to monitor sermons, even when there’s no evidence of wrongdoing. NYPD officials have scrutinized imams and gathered intelligence on cab drivers and food cart vendors, jobs often done by Muslims.

Many of these operations were built with help from the CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans but was instrumental in transforming the NYPD’s intelligence unit…

[continues at Huffington Post]

This discussion covers U.S. imperialism: wars, costs, media and government propaganda; the culture of fear, self-censorship and the erosion of privacy in the US; information as power and how communication is an important tool to strengthen and build communities.

The above timeline is interactive. Scroll through it to find out more about the show’s music and to resources mentioned during the broadcast. To see a larger version of the timeline with clickable resources go to the soundcloud link below the player. If you would like to directly download the podcast click the down arrow icon on the right of the soundcloud display. To hide the comments to enable easier rewind and fast forward, click on the icon on the very bottom right.

For more information go to www.MediaRoots.org

A radical group that opposes nanotechnology has has claimed responsibility for at least two bombing attacks on researchers in Mexico and it praises the “Unabomber,” whose mail-bombs killed three people and injured 23 in the United States.

A manifesto posted Tuesday on a radical website mentions at least five other Mexican researchers whose work it opposes, and lauded Theodore Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence for bombs that targeted university professors and airline executives. It was issued in the name of a group whose title could be translated as “Individuals Tending Toward the Savage.”

Mexico State prosecutors’ spokesman Sonia Davila said authorities are investigating the authenticity of the manifesto, but said its description of how the dynamite-stuffed pipe-bomb was constructed matched evidence found at the scene of a small explosion Monday at Monterrey Technological Institute’s campus in the State of Mexico, on the outskirts of the capital. Officials had not revealed details of the device that injured two professors.

The manifesto expressed fears that that nanoparticles could reproduce uncontrollably and form a “gray goo” that would snuff out life on Earth.

“When these modified viruses affect the way we live through a nano-bacteriological war, unleashed by some laboratory error or by the explosion of nano-pollution that affects the air, food, water, transport, in short the entire world, then all of those who defend nanotechnology and don’t think it is a threat will realize that it was a grave error to let it grow out of control,” according to statement.

New data from polling firm Gallup shows that out of all the religious groups in the U.S., Muslims are most likely to reject violence, followed by the non-religious atheists and agnostics.

Through interviews with 2,482 Americans, Gallup found that 78 percent of Muslims believe violence which kills civilians is never justified, whereas just 38 percent of Protestant Christians and 39 percent of Catholics agreed with that sentiment. Fifty-six percent of atheists answered similarly.

The survey was designed to measure religious and non-religious attitudes toward violence 10 years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Perhaps most tellingly, 92 percent of Muslims surveyed said they did not believe any Muslim in their community had sympathy toward al Qaeda terrorists.

When Gallup put the question a bit more pointedly, asking if it would be justified for “an individual person or a small group of persons to target and kill civilians,” the responses were a bit more uniform. Respondents from nearly all groups were widely opposed to such tactics, with Protestants and Catholics at 71 percent against. Muslims still had the highest number opposed, at 89 percent. Seventy-six percent of atheists were also opposed.

There have been no credible or specific threats against the United States yet ahead of the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday.

U.S. officials have been on high alert for possible plots to reprise in some form of the September 11, 2001 attacks in which al Qaeda operatives hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

“We have no specific or credible threats involving the 9/11 anniversary to date,” she told reporters during a news conference on an unrelated subject…

I went to bed in a terrible world and awoke inside a worse one. At the time of writing, details of the Norwegian atrocity are still emerging, although the identity of the perpetrator has now been confirmed and his motivation seems increasingly clear: a far-right anti-Muslim extremist who despised the ruling party.

Presumably he wanted to make a name for himself, which is why I won’t identify him. His name deserves to be forgotten. Discarded. Deleted. Labels like “madman”, “monster”, or “maniac” won’t do, either. There’s a perverse glorification in terms like that. If the media’s going to call him anything, it should call him pathetic; a nothing.

On Friday night’s news, they were calling him something else. He was a suspected terror cell with probable links to al-Qaida …

Read more here and those of you who like a bit of Brooker should check out his shows, Screenwipe and Newswipe.

In regards to Dominionist linkages to the bloody slaughter in Norway, here are our findings so far:

a) In particular, with a video manifesto (which has been linked on YouTube until it was pulled there, and which has since shown up on LiveLeak) the shooter makes some very specific references that show he has familiarity with, and probably shares terminology with (if not overtly sharing intel with) “Christian patriot” militia groups in the US (including material that has been posted on racist and far right-wing forums in the US, use of particular catch phrases associated with the “Christian Patriot” movement in the US, and others).  I’ve just spent nine hours typing up an extensive analysis of the video; he is clearly connected with religious-nationalist groups in Europe and in the US.  The degree of references to material originating in the US, in fact, indicate he has been in somewhat regular contact with anti-Muslim racists in the “Christian Patriot” movement in the US, rather than obtaining racialist material from racist groups elsewhere in the world.

b) One thing that stands out (if one is unaware of racialist movements in Europe)–most racist activity in Europe so far has been from “Odinists” and “Satanists” in the black-metal community (and are largely doing it in a pattern of occasionally bloody attention-whoredom) or from blatantly neo-Nazi groups.  A group or person claiming a “Conservative Christian” basis for this, especially in Europe, stands out like a sore thumb; generally (unlike the US) there has not been a tradition of “racist right” churches like Christian Identity that claim to be “Bible-based”.

c) One thing that stands out in the killer’s videos and writings is a certain obsession with the Knights Templar, the Third Crusade, and the idea of setting up what amount to European “Christian Patriot militias” (often using the very same terminology, of note, as “Christian patriot” groups associated with Dominionism and the racist right use in the US) to foment a revolution in the same way as planned by “Christian Patriot militias” here in the US.

d) In particular, the killer is a known guest writer on the site “Jihad Watch”, which has had very close linkage with Dominionist groups (including NAR groups).  Jihad Watch is sufficiently infamous (and sufficiently tied to Dominionist activity, particularly among the NAR) that it is one of those groups that Southern Poverty Law Center keeps a very careful watch on (and is on verge of listing it formally as a hate site), and writers to that site almost inevitably have ties to NAR groups.

e) There is a known NAR movement in Norway, which is similar in extremism to the US and which has known linkage to NAR extremists in the US, particularly in C. Peter Wagner’s network (in particular, Jan Torp who has known linkage to Sarah Palin via the Wagner NAR network among others); Norway, a relatively religiously conservative country, has been aggressively targeted by the NAR in an effort to establish a bench-head in Scandinavia.  (Of note–Wagner’s lineage of NARasites is the most closely connected to the “racist right” along with Christian Reconstructionists; there is clear evidence that Christian Identity groups and NAR groups have traded theological terminology related to domestic terrorism as recently as the late 1980s and early 1990s.) I wrote about Torp’s connection to Sarah Palin at God’s Own Party? in November 2008.

It is important to recognize that C. Peter Wagner who we are speaking of is one of the main endorsers of Governor Rick Perry’s “The Response” event in Houston.

Read more here.

Anders Behring Breivik, is Norway’s candidate for the new world’s top living evil-doer and terror supremo having admitted to killing 93 young people and blowing up buildings in Oslo.

While Bin Laden castigated crusaders, Breivik salutes them in a 1518 page manifesto of madness. And his lawyer has rationalized his murder spree in a similar way to those who defended Al Qaeda as defending Islam.

The two are almost carbon copies. The Norwegian posted videos on You Tube while Bin Laden relied on TV communiqués.

One was killing in the name of Islam, the other in the name of Christianity.

Foreign Policy reports, ”Breivik’s lawyer said that his client admitted to the killings, but rejected ‘criminal responsibility.’” He described Breivik as being motivated to carry out the attacks by a desire to force radical change on Norwegian society.

“He has said that he believed the actions were atrocious, but that in his head they were necessary,” the lawyer said.

And now he’s pled not guilty. Of course!

Brievil has taken Islamaphobia to a new level of violence and killing, hoping to spark an uprising in Europe. He quotes from American websites that view all Muslims as Jihadists, and even the tract of the Unibomber.

The “Made in USA” stamp is all over this despicable act.

We can see how easily hate mongers abandon argument for agitation and vow death for all perceived enemies.

We can also see how quickly major media outlets jumped to the assumption that the perpertrators were Muslims, Al Qaeda killers or worse. All the “terror” experts did what was done before after the Oklahoma City bombings—blame the “other.”

Fox News led the rush to judgment with predictable Muslim bashing. CNN’s Ton Lister was not far behind, speculating early on:

“You’ve only got to look at the target–prime minister’s office, the headquarters of the major newspaper group next door. Why would that be relevant? Because the Norwegian newspapers republished the cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that caused such offense in the Muslim world….That is an issue that still rankles amongst Islamist militants the world over.”

Hmmm….

A resort to violence escalates when underlying prejudice is legitimated and is recycled adinfitem. Recently, members of Congress condemned a “ground Zero Mosque that was neither a mosque nor at Ground Zero. Demagogues whipped up anti-Islamic passions and promulgated stereotyping.

Protests against the protesters went largely unreported. Today, one time pizza company executve, Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate spews disdain of all Muslims.

Anwaar Hussain, a Pakistani by birth and blogger by vocation, offers a perspecvtive worth contemplating. May I quote him at length:

“Condolences, Norway. Our hearts ache for you in this time of incredible sadness and shock. As more than 90 of your families bury their dead, we stand with you in solemn sorrow.

And welcome to the world of right wing zombies.

These are words written by the citizen of a country that continues to reel from the onslaught of these androids. We understand your grief and your disbelief. But please understand that these human low-lifes go by many different names (i.e. fundamentalists, jihadists, radicals, extremists etc.), yet they all claim to get their instructions straight from their god.

Afterward, they go out to slaughter some children in the name of that god. We are sorry that you had to taste firsthand what we’ve been living through for the past twenty years. We were taken there, we have seen it all, we are still there.

From the Oslo carnage, three facts emerge as usual.

Firstly, these cowards always turn on their own first, attacking the most defenseless of the society for starters. It may be called the terror stage.

Secondly, the victims always refuse to believe that killer/s could be one/s of their own. In Pakistan, for a long time people said, “these killers can’t be Muslims”. And in Norway now when the killer is even confirmed as a blond, blue-eyed, indigenous Norwegian white right-wing extremist, their very own Anders Behring Bin Laden, people are saying, “he can’t be a Christian”.

Let us call it the denial stage which may linger on, as is in Pakistan, for decades before the victims can differentiate between their Messiahs and killers.

Thirdly, extremists come in every hue. What they have in common is extreme views and the conviction that they know what’s good for the rest of us.”

And here we are at a time of financial collapse and political stalemate when so many want simple explanations and symbolic enemies to go after. As our politics polarize in the USA, so does the world’s.

It’s shocking, but all too predictable.

Its time to take a stand for tolerance and mutual respect, and reject the simplistic attacks on multi-culteralism that stirs prejudice and reinforces racism by pandering politicians who play to the public’s fears.

It is a time to call a fascist a fascist and condemn this outbreak of violence that stains a great nation and troubles the world.

May our artists and politicians speak out before there are more copycat incidents.

May our educators stop their lesson plans and focus on the lessons of this dastardly deed against the youth of the county that gives us the Nobel Prize and helps poorer countries while the more affluent stand by and do nothing.

We can’t let this “incident” pass without a global media-led teach-in to turn the madness around. This happened in Norway, but the extremists are everywhere and will be emboldened unless a universal chorus of condemnation arises.

It will happen again and again until the teachers of hate are challenged and stopped. Journalists have a responsibility to take on the machinations of extremist views and groups and expose them for what they are.

Only then can we say that those young people at a Norwegian summer camp did not die in vain.

How many more of these ‘templars’ in fantasy costumes armed to the teeth are ready to destroy what democratic societies remain? With their fertilizer they make bombs out of bullshit.

One warning: Incidents like this invite armed overreactions as 9/11 did with military establishments. The beneficiary, even as the threat, is not a military one in the end.

We are all Norwegians now. Their loss must become our own. The duty to respond belongs to every person of conscience. Show some solidarity. Speak now or forever say goodbye to peace and justice.

News Dissector Danny Schechter writes the News Dissector.com blog. Comments to dissector@mediachannel.org

That was not the case and it's a lesson learned that one should not believe everything one reads on the disinformation website or, indeed, any other news source, including the New York Times, the source of the story. Read as many different sources as you can and then form your own opinion is never bad advice for us or anyone on this planet.]

The big story of the day so far, developing of course via multiple news channels. From the New York Times and CNN (video):

OSLO — Powerful explosions shook central Oslo on Friday afternoon, blowing out the windows of several government buildings, including one housing the office of the Norwegian prime minister. The state television broadcaster, citing the police, said seven people were killed and at least 15 injured; a spokeswoman for the prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, said he was “safe and not hurt.”

Shortly after the explosions, which appeared to be a bomb attack, a man dressed as a police officer opened fire on a summer camp for young members of the ruling Labor Party on the island of Utoya in the Oslo fjord, about 25 miles from the city, and wounded at least five, a Norwegian security official said…

A terror group, Ansar al-Jihad al-Alami, or the Helpers of the Global Jihad, issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack, according to Will McCants, a terrorism analyst at C.N.A., a research institute that studies terrorism. The message said the attack was a response to Norwegian forces’ presence in Afghanistan and to unspecified insults to the Prophet Muhammad. “We have warned since the Stockholm raid of more operations,” the group said, according to Mr. McCants’ translation, apparently referring to a bombing in Sweden in December 2010. “What you see is only the beginning, and there is more to come.” The claim could not be confirmed…

[continues at the New York Times]

The government has warned airlines that terrorists are considering surgically implanting explosives into people in an attempt to circumvent screening procedures, according to U.S. officials.

There is no indication of an immediate plot, but the new information could lead to additional screening procedures at the nation’s airports. Existing scanners would not necessarily detect bombs implanted under a person’s skin, experts said.

While the information suggests such a threat would come from overseas rather than domestic groups, federal officials are ordering precautions both in the U.S. and abroad, the official said.

The idea of surgically implanting bombs has been examined by intelligence agencies in the past, but new information has suggested that terrorist groups are seriously considering the technique, officials said.

A spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, Nicholas Kimball, said that passengers flying to the United States are likely to face additional screening measures…

[continues in the LA Times]

The clandestine American military campaign to combat Al Qaeda’s franchise in Yemen is expanding to fight the Islamist militancy in Somalia, as new evidence indicates that insurgents in the two countries are forging closer ties and possibly plotting attacks against the United States, American officials say.

An American military drone aircraft attacked several Somalis in the militant group the Shabab late last month, the officials said, killing at least one of its midlevel operatives and wounding others.

The strike was carried out by the same Special Operations Command unit now battling militants in Yemen, and it represented an intensification of an American military campaign in a mostly lawless region where weak governments have allowed groups with links to Al Qaeda to flourish.

The Obama administration’s increased focus on Somalia comes as the White House has unveiled a new strategy to battle Al Qaeda in the post-Osama bin Laden era, and as some American military and intelligence officials view Qaeda affiliates in Yemen and Somalia as a greater threat to the United States than the group of operatives in Pakistan who have been barraged with hundreds of drone strikes directed by the Central Intelligence Agency in recent years.

Article continues at The New York Times.

The Terror Chess sets feature hand-painted Taliban militants with a woman in a burka as the queen.

In the British set, the king is Tony Blair and the queen is the Queen, while the rook is Big Ben.

Jeffrey Train, a 48-year-old former Canadian soldier who designed the figures, said he had sold around 1,500 sets, mainly as souvenirs to troops serving in the 140,000-strong international coalition in Afghanistan.

In the American set they are replaced by Barack Obama, the Statue of Liberty and the twin towers of the World Trade Centre.

Ranged against the insurgents are soldiers from a choice of coalition countries including American, Canada and Britain.

[Continues at The Telegraph]

The Pakistani journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad knew he was a marked man. Mr. Shahzad, who covered national security and terrorism, had received repeated threats from Pakistan’s powerful spy agency. Yet he courageously kept doing his job — until somebody silenced him. His body, his face horribly beaten, was buried on Wednesday.

Suspicion inevitably falls on Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s chief intelligence agency. For the sake of justice, and the shredded credibility of Pakistan’s government, his murderers must be found quickly and held accountable.

Mr. Shahzad disappeared from Islamabad on Sunday, two days after he published an article suggesting a militant attack on a naval base in Karachi was retaliation for the navy’s attempt to crack down on Al Qaeda militants in the armed forces. American analysts doubt an Al Qaeda cell infiltrated Pakistani security, but they have long worried about individual sympathizers.

Whatever the case, the attack humiliated the ISI and the armed services. They were already fending off allegations that they sheltered Osama bin Laden and criticism for failing to stop the American raid that killed him.

For more information, see original article.

Can the cute, popular toy Furby be a threat to national security? The government thinks so, and has banned it from National Security Agency premises in Maryland.

Furby is embedded with a computer chip that allows it to record words. Because of that ability, NSA officials were worried “that people would take them home and they’d start talking classified,” one Capitol Hill source told The Washington Post.

In a warning to employees, the NSA said, “Personally owned photographic, video and audio recording equipment are prohibited items. This includes toys, such as ‘Furbys,’ with built-in recorders that repeat the audio with synthesized sound to mimic the original signal.”

“We are prohibited from introducing these items into NSA spaces. Those who have should contact their Staff Security Office for guidance,” a memo said.

Photo: Joy (CC)

This is quite a sweet hack. The Telegraph reports:

The cyber-warfare operation was launched by MI6 and GCHQ in an attempt to disrupt efforts by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular to recruit “lone-wolf” terrorists with a new English-language magazine, the Daily Telegraph understands.

When followers tried to download the 67-page colour magazine, instead of instructions about how to “Make a bomb in the Kitchen of your Mom” by “The AQ Chef” they were greeted with garbled computer code.

The code, which had been inserted into the original magazine by the British intelligence hackers, was actually a web page of recipes for “The Best Cupcakes in America” published by the Ellen DeGeneres chat show.

Written by Dulcy Israel and produced by Main Street Cupcakes in Hudson, Ohio, it said “the little cupcake is big again” adding: “Self-contained and satisfying, it summons memories of childhood even as it’s updated for today’s sweet-toothed hipsters.”

It included a recipe for the Mojito Cupcake – “made of white rum cake and draped in vanilla buttercream”- and the Rocky Road Cupcake – “warning: sugar rush ahead!”

[Continues at The Telegraph]

This is a story about a group of Americans you’ve likely never heard of: they’re called “sovereign citizens.” Many don’t pay taxes, carry a driver’s license or hold a Social Security card. They have little regard for the police or the courts, and some have become violent.

The FBI lists them among the nation’s top domestic terror threats.

By some estimates, there are as many as 300,000 sovereign citizens in the U.S. And with the sluggish economy and mortgage mess, their ranks are growing.

More on 60 Minutes

Flag of Al-Qaeda in Iraq

Hindustan Times reports:

A fierce succession battle appears to be gripping the senior ranks of al Qaeda in the wake of the death of leader Osama bin Laden, pitting regional affiliates against the central “hardcore” of the organisation. Reports from Pakistan have named an Egyptian former special forces officer, ,as the acting leader of al Qaeda.

Adel, who is in his late 40s, is a veteran militant who was close to bin Laden in the 1990s. He was detained in Iran after fleeing Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. According to Noman Benotman, a former Libyan militant now living in London, al-Adel, also known as Muhamad Ibrahim Makkawi, was released from Iranian detention and returned to Pakistan last year.

The report in the News newspaper of Pakistan identified al-Adel as having been chosen as “interim leader” after a meeting at “an undisclosed location”. It said none of the sons of bin Laden had shown willingness to take up a formal position within the organisation.

If confirmed, the appointment of al-Adel is a major blow to bin Laden’s close associate Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian extremist who has long been seen as the group’s number two and key strategist.

[Continues at Hindustan Times]

View the creepily fascinating Flickr set and bid here.