JI leader on trial
Abu Dujana, the alleged military commander of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) militant network in southeast Asia, has gone on trial in Indonesia. Under the country's anti-terrorism laws, Abu Dujana could face the death penalty. Prosecutors have linked him to attacks on Christians in the island of Poso, as well as accused him of sheltering and aiding a number of wanted Islamist fugitives. JI has routinely been affiliated with al-Qaida.
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In The American Prospect, Spencer Ackerman bites into American plans to urge Pakistani authorities to mimic the counter-insurgency strategy put in place in Anbar province in Iraq. "Anbar Awakening" empowered local groups and Sunni insurgents to take on al-Qaida fighters head-on. Ackerman is scathing about Washington's vain hopes to implement the policy in Pakistan, which, he correctly suggests, throws up entirely different challenges.
The author, however, fails to mention that Pakistan's government has already pursued similar policies with little success, as evidenced by the much-maligned Waziristan Accords of 2006.
Till death do we part?
Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, Iraq's top national security advisor, has rejected the idea of permanent American military presence in Iraq. "Permanent forces or bases in Iraq for any foreign forces is a red line that cannot be accepted by any nationalist Iraqi," he told Arab satellite television.
At least forty-two people have been killed in a triple car bombing in the southern Iraqi town of Amara. Infighting Shia factions are thought to be responsible for the carnage.
Not a victorious plot
A Human Rights Watch report has slammed the Egyptian government for its treatment of twenty-two men detained last year on terrorism charges. The New York-based activist organisation claims that police abused and tortured the detainees, even going so far as to concoct the name of the militant group - the Victorious Sect - the men supposedly belonged to. The arrests helped justify the renewal of Egypt's emergency law.
Another assassination in Lebanon
Francois al-Hajj, the general tipped to succeed Michel Suleiman as commander of the Lebanese army should Suleiman become president of the country, has been killed in a car bombing in a Baabda, a predominantly Christian suburb east of Beirut.
Gas flaring wrecking Delta
The technique of gas flaring - used by oil companies to separate crude oil from the gases associated with it - is causing widespread damage in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. According to NGO groups in the Delta, pollution caused by the practice has had deleterious effect on agriculture, housing and public health. The oil-rich, but impoverished, Delta region is home to a growing number of militant insurgent groups bent on crippling the operations of oil multinationals in Nigeria.
Musa Qala falls
Afghan forces, supported by NATO troops, secured the town centre of Musa Qala, the formerly Taliban-held city in Helmand province. At least fifty Taliban fighters are thought to have been killed in the siege of the strategically-crucial city.
