IRAQ: Al Qaeda in Iraq leader arrested -- not

Will the real Abu Hamza al-Muhajir please stand up? No, not the one detained Thursday near the northern city of Mosul who convinced Iraqi officials that Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is his name. It's another Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, who heads the Sunni Muslim insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq, who U.S. and Iraqi officials want.

For a few hours late Thursday and early today, it seemed the Al Qaeda in Iraq chief might actually be in custody. The Defense Ministry spokesman, Mohammed Askari, was convinced enough that he announced al-Muhajir's arrest and said he had been assured by security officials in the Mosul region that they had their man.

But U.S. military officials, who would be thrilled to announce such a catch, insisted they could not confirm the arrest.

YEMEN: Bomb attack kills and wounds scores

Police say they've already rounded up suspects in a devastating bomb blast at a mosque in northern Yemen today that killed at least eight people and injured 38, according to Yemen's official news agency.

The suspected motorcycle bomb targeted worshipers leaving the Bin Salman mosque. The official news agency took pains to emphasize that political  and tribal organizations condemned the terrorist attack.

An investigation is underway, but officials are already blaming the attack on Shiite Muslim rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who has been leading an insurgency against the government. 

A source told the news agency that Houthi and his followers "rejected all religious and moral values, imbibed criminality and terrorism and have no respect for sacred shrines."

Houthi rejected the allegation in an interview with Al Jazeera television:

We criticise and condemn this regrettable incident. We deny completely any role in this incident. It is not part of our ethics to target any mosque or any worshipers at all.

Poor, populous Yemen has been bedeviled by a years-long sectarian conflict as well as Al Qaeda attacks.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: Yemeni soldiers patrol outside a government building in Saada, Yemen. AP Photo/Mohammed Al-Qadhi

SOUTH ASIA: Al Qaeda gets deadlier

Al Qaeda used a haven in Pakistan's tribal areas to double the number of attacks in that country and kill four times as many people there in 2007, says a State Department report to Congress released Wednesday.

At a news briefing, Ambassador Dell L. Dailey, the State Department's top counter-terrorism official, stopped short of blaming Pakistan for the increase and said the terrorist network was "weaker now than it was at the 9/11 time frame."

The annual terrorism report itself, however, says that a primary reason for the terrorist network's resurgence is a much-criticized cease-fire last year between the Pakistani federal government and tribal leaders beyond its authority near the border with Afghanistan.

The agreement enabled Al Qaeda to more freely travel, train and plan attacks around the world, the report says. Overall, there were nearly the same number of terrorist attacks worldwide in 2007 as the year before -- about 14,500. But many more people were killed, especially as the number of suicide bombers rose, says the 312-page report, which is required by Congress and compiled using statistics from the National Counterterrorism Center.

Suicide bombings worldwide were up about 50%. Attackers have shifted their tactics, more often traveling on foot and using explosives-laden backpacks to strike in crowded areas rather than relying on vehicles that could be deterred by heightened security.

Click here to read more.

—Josh Meyer in Washington

MIDDLE EAST: A rift within Al Qaeda

Al Qaeda increasingly faces sharp criticism from once-loyal sympathizers who openly question its ideology and tactics, including attacks that kill innocent Muslims, according to U.S. intelligence officials, counter-terrorism experts and the group's own communications.

A litany of complaints target Osama bin Laden's network and its affiliates for their actions in Iraq and North Africa, emphasis on suicide bombings instead of political action and tepid support for, or outright antagonism toward, militant groups pressing the Palestinian cause.

The criticism apparently has grown serious enough that Al Qaeda's chief strategist, Ayman Zawahiri, felt compelled to solicit online questions. He responded in an audio message released this month. For more than 90 minutes, Bin Laden's second-in-command tried to defuse the anger.

Click here to read more.

—Josh Meyer in Washington

Photo: Ayman Zawahiri, left, Al Qaeda’s chief strategist, seen here with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998, recently responded on tape to questions, many angry. Credit: Mazhar Ali Khan / Courtesy Paladin InVision/WETA

MIDDLE EAST: Al Qaeda speaks again

Al Qaeda struggles to show that it still has its fingers on the pulse of the world, even as it hides out in the rocky mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The latest presumptive audio recording by Al Qaeda's No. 2 seems to suggest that the Islamist organization is striving to stay relevant.

In the extensive two-hour message posted on the Internet Tuesday, Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, particularly lashed out at the Iranians for their ambitions in Iraq and the Arab region, as well as their attempts to discredit the Sunni Islamist group.

EGYPT: Carter meets again with Hamas

Former U.S. President Carter whirled into Cairo today with his Middle East roadshow, calling the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza “abominable” while adding that there are “officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas” and that may happen “in the near future.”

His white eyebrows bright in the spotlight, Carter spoke to students and faculty at the American University here after talks with President Hosni Mubarak and a separate three-hour meeting with Hamas officials. The Bush administration and Israel have set rules not to talk to the militant Palestinian group but, Carter said, “I consider myself immune” from such restrictions.

He added that he wasn’t acting as a negotiator or mediator, but hoped that he “might set an example to be emulated” by others. The former president’s meetings with Hamas officials in recent days have outraged Israelis, but Carter was undeterred, even suggesting that his recent book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," was aptly named because apartheid “is the exact description of what’s happening in Palestine now.”

He played to a mostly appreciative audience, except for one American student from Amherst who suggested that by meeting with Hamas, Carter was giving legitimacy to terrorists. A murmur went through the crowd. Carter paused, and said: “My daughter was (once) arrested in Amherst.”
Laughter.

The former governor from Georgia said he told Hamas officials that “the worst thing” they’re doing to their cause is firing rockets into Israel, which he called "abominable and an act of terrorism.” Before the college student could grin in agreement, Carter did the mathematics of bloodshed. He said that for every Israeli killed in the conflict, 30 to 40 Palestinians die because of Israel’s superior military and “pinpoint accuracy.”

He then slipped back into diplomatic mode: ‘I’m not blaming one (side) or the other. . .Any side that kills innocent people is guilty of terrorism.”   

It was almost 30 years ago that Carter, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin made peace at Camp David. In the current crisis, the former president took a moment to remember those times. He drew applause when, with a jab at the Bush administration, he mentioned that he didn’t wait until his final days in office to try to find a way to peace.

Carter said he had “an almost brotherly love for Anwar Sadat.” But Sadat and Begin didn’t get along. Carter recalled that until the last minute it was uncertain whether there would be a deal. He remembered autographing photographs for Begin’s grandchildren. He delivered them to the prime minister cabin's at Camp David. Begin flicked through the photos and read the names of the children out loud. Carter said Begin had tears in his eyes.

Begin turned to Carter and said: “Let’s try again” to make peace.

—Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Jimmy Carter with his wife, Rosalynn. Credit: Associated Press.

MIDDLE EAST: Al Qaeda as petty, pencil-pushing penny pinchers

A spate of articles in the Los Angeles Times chronicled the recent activities of the Al Qaeda network, which continues to be an unsettling force in the region.

A report in today's paper by Sebastian Rotella takes a look at Al Qaeda's lighter side. Recently declassified documents reveal inner workings of the group.

Turns out Al Qaeda operates a lot more like the dysfunctional firm in the television show "The Office" than the slick bands of bad guys in a James Bond movie.

Here's the text from one memo sent by an Al Qaeda manager to a disobedient subordinate:

I was very upset by what you did. I obtained 75,000 rupees for you and your family's trip to Egypt. I learned that you did not submit the voucher to the accountant, and that you made reservations for 40,000 rupees and kept the remainder claiming you have a right to do so. . . . Also with respect to the air-conditioning unit, . . . furniture used by brothers in Al Qaeda is not considered private property. . . . I would like to remind you and myself of the punishment for any violation.

Click here to the read the whole story.

—Times staff writer

Photo: Mohammed Atef, left, sits with Osama bin Laden, right, and Bin Laden's son Mohammed in early 2001. Documents show Al Qaeda's obsession with paperwork. Credit: AFP

IRAN: Rebel forces fighting proxy wars in Iraq

A series of conflicts with insurgent groups along Iran's borders may be impelling Tehran to back its own allies in Iraq in what it regards as a proxy war with the U.S., according to security experts and officials in the U.S., Iran and Iraq.

Dozens of Iranian officials, members of the security forces and insurgents belonging to Kurdish, Arab Iranian and Baluch groups have died in the fighting in recent years. It now appears to be heating up once again after an unusually cold and snowy winter.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: A Kurdish rebel from Pejak inspects a crater left behind by an alleged Iranian artillery attack near a mountain encampment in Qandil in northern Iraq on April 13. The group threatened to launch bomb attacks inside Iran. Credit: SHWAN MOHAMMED / AFP

MAURITANIA: Clashes with suspected Al Qaeda militants

North Africa has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism. Deadly clashes erupted Monday evening between armed forces and a group of suspected Islamists in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott.

The Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera showed footage of Mauritanian forces shooting with assault rifles at a building where the militants were apparently holed up.

According to news agencies and Arab satellite news channels, the gun battle led to the killing of a number of policemen and Islamic militants.

One of the Islamists believed to have perished in the shoot-out was the infamous Sidi Ould Sidna, a 20-year-old Al Qaeda suspect who was accused of the assassination of four French tourists in the south of the country last December.

MIDDLE EAST: Listening to Al Qaeda

With the world mostly focused on the ongoing violence in Iraq and the threat of confrontation between Iran and the United States, Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda — which sparked the confrontation between the West and the Islamic world — have almost slipped into the background.

But several stories in this week's Los Angeles Times zeroed in on Al Qaeda's operations, funding and history. What emerges is a picture of an organization, hiding in the hinterlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan, struggling mightily to stay relevant and robust.

MIDDLE EAST: Another Iran faux pas?

Sen. Joe Lieberman was trying to portray presidential contender Barack Obama as a no-nothing on Iraq. But he may have stumbled himself, inventing a whole new militant group supposedly destabilizing Iraq.

In a Fox News interview Wednesday, the Connecticut lawmaker and backer of Republican presidential nominee John McCain said that if the U.S. heeded Obama's advice,  a group called "Al Qaeda in Iran" would have taken over Iraq.

Here's what Lieberman said:

Sen. Obama doesn't come to this debate with a lot of credibility. Basically on the question of Iraq, John McCain has had the guts to stand out on his own arguing for what he thought was right. And it turned out that he was right about the surge working to improve conditions in Iraq. If we did what Sen. Obama wanted us to do last year, Al-Qaeda in Iran [NOTE: SEE UPDATE BELOW] would be in control of Iraq today. The whole Middle East would be in turmoil and American security and credibility would be jeopardized.

There's no such thing as Al Qaeda in Iran, though Al Qaeda of Iraq has given U.S. and Iraqi forces plenty of trouble.