Those representatives of American victims Libyan terrorist attacks who had not settled will receive substantial monetary compensation, but the settlement was not universally hailed. Some American citizens whose loved ones were killed by Libyan-sponsored terrorism were not consulted about the Act until it was about to pass Congress. Apparently one such group included American plaintiffs whose loved ones on UTA Flight 772 were murdered by a Libyan suitcase bomb in September 1989. The 51 American plaintiffs in that case were awarded $6 billion months months ago by a federal judge; they issued a statement (through their attorneys) critical of the Act.

The Act seeks to exclude foreign plaintiffs whose loved ones were killed with Americans in the same attack from participating in the settlement fund. In my paying job, I represent one of the law firms with clients in a case arising from Libyan-armed IRA terrorists. (This post presents only my views and does not necessarily reflect those of my client.) Europeans who are joined with Americans in this suit, with their claim of jurisdiction based in the Alien Tort Statute of 1789 ("ATS"), went to bed as plaintiffs and awoke as possible legal non-entities as Congress passed the Act on the evening of July 31. In his press briefing on the settlement which he negotiated for the U.S., Assistant Secretary Welch briefly stated, "Under American law, you know, only Americans can bring these kinds of suits in the United States," reflecting an apparent State Department policy of actively excluding foreign terrorism victims from U.S. courts. But for two centuries, since the enactment of the ATS, the U.S. has recognized the ability of foreign citizens to bring tort lawsuits in the United States for acts which violate customary international law or U.S. treaties; those acts would naturally include terrorist attacks. Assistant Secretary Welch’s statement undermines years of jurisprudence and victims’ attempts to hold terrorists accountable for their actions. See Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U.S. 692 (2004), on the ATS in general, and see the discussion of the ATS beginning on page 20 of the order by U.S. District Court Judge Nina Gershon denying the Arab Bank's motion to dismiss, issued January 29, 2007.

As my colleague David Schenker and I argue in this co-authored piece, while the decision to renew contacts with Hamas suggests that Amman remains concerned with Hamas-related activities in the kingdom, the timing also highlights domestic and regional pressures on King Abdullah and the Jordanian government.

Our full analysis is available here.

Second, the NEFA Foundation has released a transcript of the latest audio message from Al-Qaida’s Deputy Commander Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Addressing his plea to the Pakistani military, al-Zawahiri spoke for the first time in English and called upon low and mid-ranking soldiers to violently revolt against the leadership of Pervaiz Musharraf and his alliance with the United States. Al-Zawahiri also discussed at length his own experiences and knowledge of Pakistan, though he also conceded that his unfamiliarity with Urdu was forcing him to adopt English, the language of the “enemies of Islam.”

Third, the NEFA Foundation has obtained the responses provided by 9/11 planners Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) and "Khallad" to questions submitted by Salim Hamdan's attorneys. Asked whether Hamdan had "any involvement in the planning of attacks outside Afghanistan," KSM stated, "he was not at all a military man." He added, "as a member in Al-Qaeda Council (Shoura) the highest executive committee in Al-Qaeda, I am certain of all who works in the field mentioned..." He later said, "I personally was the executive director of 9/11, and Hamdan had no previous knowledge of the operation, or any other one." Asked about information flow in Al-Qaida, KSM responded, "so many of UBL's inner circles have no knowledge of what he was planning and so many of Al-Qaeda members and even the trainers at the military camps do not have any knowledge of the works of the outside cells. That includes the civilian employees."

Finally, the NEFA Foundation has released additional content drawn from Al-Somood, a monthly Islamic magazine published by the Taliban’s media center. In this piece, dated July 2007, Al-Somood provides a biography of Taliban military commander Mullah Dadullah, who was killed by NATO and Afghan troops in May 2007. The biography explains that "“One of the most dangerous (things) the martyr Dadullah had done against the worldwide crusader ally in Afghanistan is coaching the suicide youngsters who had overpowered the crusader forces as soldiers. The number of these youngsters reaches the hundreds and they have been spread in the different counties of Afghanistan. These youngsters have succeeded, with the kindness of the raised God, in filling the hearts of the enemy with fear from everything and in every place, and for that, the enemy saw him (Dadullah) as the master of the suicides and named him as the martyr Zarqawi, the master of the suicides in Iraq.”

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

28 August 2008: Presently, the majority of people in the U.S., including many of our political leaders and especially the media misunderstand (or intentionally misrepresent) the nature and threat of evil posed by Russian leaders. They don't get the blood-thirsty ambitions and evil intentions of Russian czar Vladimir Putin. This is especially true when it comes to the situation between Russia and Georgia.

If you are like me, you would like a clear, concise and accurate explanation. The following is excerpted from The Truth About Russia in Georgia written by Michael Totten. It's worth the read:

Excerpted:Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date.

Click here for the complete article

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

28 August 2008: Presently, the majority of people in the U.S., including many of our political leaders and especially the media misunderstand (or intentionally misrepresent) the nature and threat of evil posed by Russian leaders. They don't get the blood-thirsty ambitions and evil intentions of Russian czar Vladimir Putin. This is especially true when it comes to the situation between Russia and Georgia.

If you are like me, you would like a clear, concise and accurate explanation. The following is excerpted from The Truth About Russia in Georgia written by Michael Totten. It's worth the read:

Excerpted:Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date.

Click here for the complete article

By Douglas J. Hagmann, Director

28 August 2008: Presently, the majority of people in the U.S., including many of our political leaders and especially the media misunderstand (or intentionally misrepresent) the nature and threat of evil posed by Russian leaders. They don't get the blood-thirsty ambitions and evil intentions of Russian czar Vladimir Putin. This is especially true when it comes to the situation between Russia and Georgia.

If you are like me, you would like a clear, concise and accurate explanation. The following is excerpted from The Truth About Russia in Georgia written by Michael Totten. It's worth the read:

Excerpted:Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date.

Click here for the complete article

…..Dutch authorities are faced with the same dilemma haunting most of their Western counterparts: can non-violent Islamists be engaged and used as partners against violent radicalization? Can Western offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood or political Salafists like those active in the Netherlands become partners against the appeal of jihadists? The Dutch seem to address these questions by drawing a clear line between engaging and empowering. All sorts of voices, as long as they do not advocate violence, should be engaged, since pushing non-violent Islamists at the margins could have negative repercussions. Nevertheless, authorities feel they cannot consider them as permanent partners, as there is a clear understanding that these forces espouse a message that clashes with the Dutch government’s ideas of democracy, integration and cohesive society.

This assessment leads to a case-by-case approach in which authorities engage non-violent Islamists when they need to and when common ground can be found. This policy was implemented, for example, during the months preceding the release of the controversial movie Fitna by Dutch MP Geert Wilders. Security services held several meetings with some of the most radical Salafist imams in the country, explaining that the Dutch government did not support Wilders and obtaining from the imams a promise, later kept, that they would have urged their followers not to react violently to the movie. Nevertheless, the security services do not consider political Salafists as reliable partners and advise local authorities from doing so. The security services’ advice is particularly important since political Salafists have been regularly approaching municipalities and provinces with offers of partnership in counter-radicalization and integration programs….

As Matt correctly stated, the reality on the ground is what dictates the policies and attitudes of authorities. Given the situation in most European countries, some form of cooperation with political Salafists/non-violent Islamists is necessary (even though that does not necessarily mean that that is the right policy in other places). What is important is to understand the real aims of our interlocutors and to keep clear in mind the difference between engaging and empowering. The Dutch seem to get both concepts.

1. Coalition forces in Diyala killed three terrorists, two of whom were wearing suicide vests, and detained an alleged al-Qaeda in Iraq leader. The AQI suspect is allegedly responsible for bombing attacks and assassinations.

2. Soldiers found 100 blasting caps, 20 rocket-propelled grenades, two 120 mm mortar rounds, a 60 mm mortar round, two anti-tank rounds and 35 parachute grenades in a Baghdad neighborhood.

3. In the best news of the day, we captured an important Iranian-linked terrorist leader responsible for killing Americans as well as Iraqis: "Coalition forces captured a suspected senior Special Groups leader Wednesday morning during an operation at Baghdad International Airport. Intelligence sources report that the captured man is part of the most senior social and operational circles of Special Groups. Most notably, he is believed to be responsible for the planning of the June 24, 2008 bombing of the Sadr City District Advisory Council meeting, where six Iraqis, two U.S. State Department employees and two U.S. service members were killed. Ten other Iraqis were wounded in the blast. The man has been known to travel in and out of Iraq to neighboring nations including Iran and Lebanon, where it is believed he meets and helps run the Iranian-backed Special Groups in Iraq."

Anybody have an idea on this guy's identity? Note his travels to Iran and Lebanon - sounds like someone with a Hezbollah passport.

As the article points out, such ties are not new, but what is more worrisome is the vast amount of cocaine being moved through Venezuela that passes through areas where the Hezbollah presence is most pronounced.

The issue is, of course, Iran's growing presence in the region, something the administration has paid surprising little attention to as the Iranian diplomatic and intelligence presence has mushroomed, not only in Venezuela, but in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua.

Even Colombia, one of the few countries that is a strong U.S. ally in the region, has felt the need to allow the Iranians to open an embassy in Bogotá, in large part to have some idea of what that country is up to in the region.

It is passing strange that a socialist revolutionary (Hugo Chavez) and a radical Shite leader (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) have become such fast strategic allies.

It is more strange that Iran is investing billions of dollars and expanding its diplomatic presence throughout Latin America, a region where it has almost no economic ties, no national interest and no historic presence.

This growth, not just in Iranian presence but in the availability of the diplomatic infrastructure to give immunity to activities of Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guard, will be a destabilizing factor in the region for years to come. My full blog is here.

As I have repeatedly stated, there is nothing illegal about the Muslim Brotherhood being here. What makes the groups that grew out of the _Ikhwan_ so interesting and perplexing is their unwillingness to admit that relationship, despite the fact there is no sanction against belonging to the organization. Why act as a covert front group when you could legally exist?

Habib also defends Sudanese president Omar Bashir against the international arrest warrant issued for him, and has various other statements of interest, particularly naming Hamas (again) as a branch of the MB.

But let's start at the beginning, the ties to U.S. organizations that those organizations have vigorously denied. It is not that this was not known. See this report for the NEFA Foundation I co-authored for a more complete picture of what the evidence is.

The Daily Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report (free subscription required) also has an archive of information on the subject.

Here is the extended key passage of the interview on this issue, so nothing is taken out of context. Read carefully, it gives an interesting and disturbing view of the MB agenda in the United States, one much more accurate than it's legacy groups present: My full blog is here.