Over the past fortnight Israeli intelligence agents have noticed something distinctly odd happening on the internet. One by one, Al-Qaeda’s affiliated websites have vanished until only a handful remain, write Uzi Mahnaimi and Alex Pell.

Someone has cut the line of communication between the spiritual leaders of international terrorism and their supporters. Since 9/11 the websites have been the main links to disseminate propaganda and information.

The Israelis detect the hand of British intelligence, determined to torpedo the websites after the London attacks of July 7.

The web has become the new battleground of terrorism, permitting a freedom of communication denied to such organisations as the IRA a couple of decades ago.

One global jihad site terminated recently was an inflammatory Pakistani site, www.mojihedun.com, in which a section entitled How to Strike a European City gave full technical instructions. Tens of similar sites, some offering detailed information on how to build and use biological weapons, have also been shut down. However, Islamic sites believed to be “moderate”, remain.
Full: timeslonline.co.uk

JERUSALEM (AP) – The Israeli military said it is changing riot control methods, replacing its sometimes-lethal rubber-coated steel pellets with compressed sand bullets.

Rubber bullets have killed dozens of Palestinians in the past two decades. The new sand bullets were originally developed for close-quarter hostage rescue situations.

An Israeli human rights groups praised the decision but said it was surprising the army had taken so long to find non-lethal means of dispersing Palestinian demonstrators.

…The military has denied the new weapons were acquired in the face of possible confrontations with thousands of Jewish protesters in next month’s Gaza Strip withdrawal.
Full:guardian.co.uk

TEL AVIV – Israel is a racist state that commits war crimes and resorts to terrorism worse than that employed by the Palestinians, former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni charged in an unusually scathing interview with Nazareth-based Arab-Israeli newspaper Kul al-Arab.

Other highlights from the interview include “(Prime Minister) Sharon should face justice,” “Israel is following Mussolini’s way,” and “some soldiers behave like animals.”

When asked how she characterizes the prime minister, Aloni responded: “Sharon is a big, arrogant nationalist. He suffers from megalomania and doesn’t mind sacrificing the lives of others, as happened in the invasion of Lebanon.”

“Sharon and the Israeli leadership always try to make Israelis believe the lie that the Palestinians want to throw us to the sea,” the former minister charged. “In fact, we are the ones who commit war crimes against humanity, and I hope Sharon will face justice.”

‘Government, settlers coordinate anti-pullout campaign’

Turning her attention to the disengagement plan, Aloni leveled more charges, saying she fears the evacuation from Gaza will turn Palestinian life in the West Bank “into hell.”

“I want to note that National Union Knesset Member Benny Elon recently said that settlers intend to embitter the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, until they emigrate from here,” she said. “I see testament to that in the existence of an IDF unit comprising radical religious soldiers, who are no different than animals in their daily behavior.”

Aloni also expressed her surprise that Israelis continue to play the “role of victims” and the American President accepts that image while declaring that “Israel has the right to defend itself, while ignoring the fact we have one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East.”

The former minister also resorted to apparent conspiracy theories, claiming the government and settlers were “secretly coordinating” anti-pullout resistance in order to create a “national shock” and convince the world of the difficulties inherent in withdrawing from the West Bank.
Full: ynetnews.com

As I write this article, Gurgaon approaches its third day of street riots. The Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pledged full support for neo-liberalism and the global war on terror upon his visit to Washington, only to see the Indian district in the state of Haryana explode, exposing the contradictions of the Indian economy.

Gurgaon is a prime example of combined and uneven development under late capitalism. The satellite-town of New Delhi, India’s capital, is host to an impressive lineup of multi-national corporations (MNCs) such as Honda, Suzuki, and IBM. Although eighty-percent of the Gurgaon population subsists by agricultural labor, the region is also a major industrial complex. Four-fifths of India’s cars and seventy-percent of India’s motorcycles are made in the area.

The rich and the affluent middle classes, who are tied to the circuits of global capital, can be found sipping away their Rs.100 lattes (about $2.50) in one of the many Starbucks-imitate coffee shops. This minority stands in stark contrast to the majority of the population that are engaged in rural, blue-collar, and informal labor and on average earn less than $2 a day.
Full: counterpunch.org

Donald Rumsfeld intends to cut the number of US troops in Iraq.

The United States military says it is hoping to make a substantial reduction in its forces in Iraq, beginning next spring and summer. General George Casey, the senior US commander in Iraq, said that if political developments continued positively and Iraqi security forces became stronger then there could be sharp cuts in his 135,000-strong force.

The announcement will signal in Iraq that American desire to stay in the country is weakening. The latest opinion poll in the US shows that 53 per cent believe the US will not win in Iraq.

At a briefing with Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, in Baghdad, General Casey said troop reductions would come after the Iraqi elections at the end of the year.

Many Iraqi officials are sceptical about US claims that an effective Iraqi army and police force is being rapidly trained by the US. They said insurgents are capable of taking over Sunni Arab districts almost at will.

The US remains very much in charge of security in Iraq despite the nominal authority of the Defence and Interior Ministries. No military action happens except on American command. A US plan to cut the number of foreign troops in Iraq to 66,000 by mid-2006 was outlined in a British Government document leaked in the US this month.

The Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, said at a joint press conference with Mr Rumsfeld that the Americans should leave as soon as Iraqis are ready. He said: “The great desire of the Iraqi people is to see the coalition forces on their way as soon as [the new Iraqi security forces] take more responsibility.” He added that there should be no surprise pull-out.

Ordinary Iraqis in Baghdad ascribe their problems to the US military presence and say nothing would happen if they pulled out. The tendency of US soldiers to treat all Iraqis as potential suicide bombers has led to frequent shootings of innocent Iraqi.
Full: counterpunch.org

A gang of men who murdered a black teenager with an axe in an unprovoked racist attack in a park near his home in Huyton, Liverpool, were being hunted by police last night.

Anthony Walker, an 18-year-old sixth form college student, was killed by a single blow delivered with such force that the axe was left embedded in his forehead.
guardian.co.uk

New York Times: Uzbeks Order U.S. From Base in Refugee Rift
WASHINGTON, July 30 – Uzbekistan formally ordered the United States to leave an air base that has been a hub for operations in Afghanistan in protest over a predawn United Nations operation on Friday to spirit out refugees who had fled an uprising in Uzbekistan in May, senior State Department officials said Saturday.

Karshi-Khanabad Air Base was a hub for actions in Afghanistan.
The officials said Uzbekistan had given the United States 180 days to close the base, which has played a central role in rooting out fighters of the Taliban and Al Qaeda and in carrying out relief operations.

BBC News: US asked to leave Uzbek air base
…Earlier this month, Russia, China and four Central Asian states demanded a timetable for US troop withdrawal from the region, saying military operations in Afghanistan were coming to an end.

Washington’s rivals for regional dominance, Russia and China, have made it clear they do not want to see US forces in the region on a permanent basis.

The Times article doesn’t say a word about Russia and China.

ROME – A suspect in the failed London transit bombings admitted Saturday to a role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one, a legal expert familiar with the investigation said.

Osman Hussain told interrogators he wasn’t carrying enough explosives even to “harm people nearby,” the expert told The Associated Press. The expert spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation, which under Italian law must remain secret.

…He also reportedly told investigators the bombers were motivated by anger over the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

Hussain also said his cell was not linked to either al-Qaida or the cell that carried out deadly bombings July 7, Italian media reported.
Full: news.yahoo.com

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has announced the creation of a new post to help “accelerate the demise” of the Castro regime in Cuba.
Caleb McCarry, a veteran Republican Party activist, was appointed as the Cuba transition co-ordinator.

Ms Rice said for 50 years Fidel Castro had condemned Cubans to a “tragic fate of repression and poverty”.

Mr Castro accuses the US of funding unrest and vowed that dissidents would never bring down his government.
Full: bbc.co.uk

After Role Is Cut, State Dept. Official Quits
WASHINGTON, July 29 – Roger F. Noriega, an outspoken critic of Cuba and Venezuela who has been assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs for the past two years, announced his resignation on Friday, saying he had served in government long enough.

“I’ve been in government for over 20 years, and this seemed like a good time to make a change,” he said.

He resigned a day after the administration named Caleb McCarry, a Republican Congressional staff member, to a new position: “transition coordinator” for Cuba, with the mission of hastening a transition to democracy there. That took primary responsibility for Cuba, one of Mr. Noriega’s favored issues, away from him.

…Senior State Department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have said that they have been upset by Mr. Noriega’s outspoken attacks on Mr. Chávez even while others in the department have been trying to reduce tensions between the United States and Venezuela.

We’ll have to wait and see what wicked mischief is going on here. Time will tell.

07/29/05 “MotherJones” — — Eight months after the second invasion of Falluja, there is hardly a street that does not still feature a building pulverized during the assault. I had not been in the city since last July, when I was escorted out by three cars of mujahedeen — that’s when things were still relatively nice — and though I had expected it, the destruction was still shocking.

The dome of one mosque I had previously used as a landmark was completely missing, large holes had been blown in others. Houses have been pancaked, it is hard to find a façade without the mark of at least small arms fire. As many as 80 percent of the city’s 300,000-plus residents have returned, but the city has by no means returned to normal. On Sunday, the police were hard at work adding razor wire and new concrete blast barriers to the already sprawling fortifications around their main station in the center of town while US and Iraqi army patrols traversed the main street, the Iraqis firing their rifles in the air to clear traffic. Small arms chattered in the distance, followed by a response from a larger gun. The tension is palpable. Curfew begins at 10 p.m. but low-level fighting continues.

“They are killing one or two of us everyday,” says an Iraqi soldier at one of the checkpoints into the city, a claim confirmed by local doctors.

I have heard Iraqis make comparisons between their occupation and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, but it wasn’t until I saw families walking through the kilometer-long checkpoint, from a parking lot outside Falluja to one on the other side, that it seemed apt. Once inside, seeing the life continuing amidst the rubble, it was harder still to ignore the physical similarities.

A child jumps into the Euphrates from a one-lane bridge, the same bridge from which angry residents hung the charred and beaten bodies of four American contractors in March 2004, the same bridge that connects the center of town to Falluja General hospital, the first objective taken by the Marines in November’s invasion. Doctors Ahmed and Salam, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that their names be changed, lamented the condition of the city and its people. In the last week, they have received three civilian casualties of US fire, and say that this week has been below average — normally, says Ahmed, they see one or two dead civilians every day, and that hundreds have been killed by coalition forces since the city was taken over by the US.

“Just yesterday a middle-aged lady was brought here by coalition forces — she was killed by a single shot to the head,” Ahmed says. “The coalition forces came to the hospital and took her name and all her information.”

“The people of Falluja feel depressed because they can’t move freely from place to place, because the coalition forces and the Iraqi national guard make new checkpoints every day, make new obstacles,” says Salam. “They cannot move freely at night. There are medical cases at night that result in casualties because they cannot reach us.”

At Al-Furqan Mosque, one of the city’s moderate places of worship, some of the men stay after the prayers to discuss the situation. Even more than the US military, they feel the new, government, dominated by conservative Shiite parties, has laid siege to their city.

“They use their weapons to clear traffic,” says Imam Abdul Majid. Some of the men cry during his sermon, when he asks god to save Falluja and Iraq. “We can say the Americans are better than them. Let me speak frankly — the new government has failed.” They complain of continued raids and arrests, missing persons, harassment, he says. “Before we were oppressed by invaders. Now it’s getting worse.”

“Shops are broken into at night,” one of the men says. “Tell me, if there is a curfew and the army and the police control the streets, who is breaking into our shops?”

The men are afraid of the Iranian influence on the new government, the government that has failed to continue sending aid, something which US-appointed prime minister Ayad Allawi’s government, despite supporting November’s invasion, did do.

Back at the hospital, Ahmed says he expects the fighting to continue. “Even civilian people will change to be fighters,” he says. “We regard Falluja as a large prison.” (People in Falluja will not talk directly about fighting, though all indications are that the new attacks are homegrown.)

The Iraqi army in Falluja, who don’t mind telling a journalist that they are all from cities in the south, don’t seem particularly thrilled to be here. (When the US tried recruiting Fallujis to fight in Falluja, they turned their guns on the US or turned them over to the guerillas.)

“Falluja — death,” says one of them, drawing a finger across his throat, a motion that I would like to go one day in Iraq without seeing someone make.
Full: informationclearinghouse.info