Greenland a CIA hotspot?
Denmark has expressed concern over allegations that the CIA used a clandestine airstrip in Greenland, the semiautonomous Danish territory, to ferry terrorist suspects in so-called "extraordinary renditions". In 2005, Copenhagen confirmed that at least 14 CIA aircraft had entered Danish airspace or touched down on Danish soil. The European Parliament claims at least 1,245 undeclared flights passed through European airspace.
Talking with Hamas Keep up to date with the latest developments and sharpest perspectives in a world of strife and struggle.
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In a far-ranging interview, Hamas' political leader Khaled Meshaal sits down with Foreign Policy magazine to decry the trajectory of diplomacy in the middle east. Hamas has been sidelined in the current process, dismissed as a terrorist group by Tel Aviv and Washington, with Gaza besieged by Israeli forces. Yet, it is difficult to imagine a way forward towards Palestinian statehood that doesn't include Hamas, which won democratic elections in the Palestinian territories in 2006.
George Habash, the Arab nationalist and founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, died while in enforced exile in Jordan. Habash was an archetypal anti-colonial revolutionary, inspiring a generation of Palestinian rebels.
Tajik Islamist leader dies in jail
Shamsuddin Shamsuddinov, a former leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, has died in jail outside the capital Dushanbe. Officials claimed he died of cancer, though Shamsuddinov's relatives do not believe the given reasons for his death. Tajikistan endured a bitter civil war in the 1990s that claimed over 100,000 lives. As part of the truce brokered to end the war, the IRP became central Asia's only legal Islamist party, and their leaders granted amnesty. Since Shamsuddinov's imprisonment in 2004 - for alleged ties to "criminal groups" - members of the IRP have protested, claiming that his arrest was politically-motivated and violated the amnesty laws passed at the end of the civil war.
Predator strike kills Qaida militant
An American missile strike has killed an al-Qaida leader in the northwest of Pakistan. Abu Laith al-Libi, a Libyan militant, was targeted by an unmanned Predator aircraft which struck his house outside the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan. According to Rohan Gunaratna, author of "Inside al-Qaida", claimed that al-Libi helped glue al-Qaida and Uzbek, Libyan, Algerian and Turkmen radical groups together.
Lebanese army shoots protestors
Hizbollah has criticised the Lebanese army's use of force in handling protests in Beirut earlier this week. Opposition demonstrators in a predominately Shia suburb of Beirut came under fire from soldiers in clashes that left six protestors dead. The incident has fuelled further doubts over the suitability of army chief Michel Suleiman for the position of president.
Rebels reject violence ahead of Kashmir's elections
The United Jihad Council, a Pakistan-based alliance of militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has pledged not to use violence in order to force a boycott in upcoming elections in the region. Though it was opposed to the elections, UJC promised that "guns will not be used to force the people to boycott the polls".
US court sentences FARC leader
A prominent member of the Colombian leftist guerrilla group FARC has been sentenced to sixty years in prison by a US court for his role in the kidnapping of three US military contractors. US prosecutors described the kidnapping a "heinous" and "barbaric" "act of terrorism", but Ricardo Palmera - the FARC leader extradited to the US in 2004 - believed that his actions were in keeping with the demands of military revolution. "My conscience absolves me and I join the ranks of so many other who history can and will absolve".
