Russia’s president has defended the purchase of Yukos’ key production unit by state-owned oil firm Rosneft, saying it followed free market principles. Vladimir Putin said it was quite within the rights of a state-owned company to ensure its interests were met. Rosneft bought 100% of Baikal Finance Group, in a move that amounts to the renationalisation of…
Qatar says it has agreed to hand over to Moscow two convicted Russians to serve out the remainder of their life sentences in their homeland. A Qatari foreign ministry official did not name the Russians when he spoke to the Gulf state’s official news agency. But the men are likely to be two intelligence officials found guilty of murdering an exiled Chechen…
The United States, on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is augmenting counterterror operations in Pakistan with scores of former special-operations warriors who work for the CIA and other agencies under contract.Thousands of U.S. troops are openly fighting in Afghanistan along the Pakistan border. The stated U.S. policy, however, is that no American troops ar…
LONDON (Reuters) – The revelation that a mole within al Qaeda was exposed after Washington launched its “orange alert” this month has shocked security experts, who say the outing of the source may have set back the war on terror. Reuters learned from Pakistani intelligence sources on Friday that computer expert Mohammad Naeem Noor Khan, arrested secretly…
FORWARD OPERATING BASE RIPLEY, Afghanistan (May 6, 2004 ) — Marine helicopters swooped into the central Afghanistan valley and dropped off Marines from the 22d Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special Operations Capable), marking the MEU’s second major push into Afghanistan earlier this week.The Marines arrived in Afghanistan last month and have now moved deep…
After a hiatus of nearly 30 years, the Pentagon’s elite Special Forces soldiers are preparing to fight in the shadowy world of “actionable intelligence,” covertly collecting information against terrorists and – most importantly – acting on that information with clandestine raids and attacks. Recognizing the seriousness of the threat from non-state terrori…
Two Russian intelligence agents have been charged in Qatar with the murder of Chechen rebel figure Zelimkhan Yanderbiyev, local officials say. The men were detained five days after Mr Yanderbiyev, wanted by Moscow for terror offences, was killed by a car bomb in the Gulf state’s capital Doha. Three Russians were initially detained but the third has been s…
The top bomb-maker for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed in Fallujah, Fox News learned Monday.The bomb-making lieutenant, whose name wasn’t released, died in a gun battle at a terrorist safe house late last week, military sources told Fox.The military officer’s death is significant because Al-Zarqawi is the man believed to have masterminded a number o…
KABUL/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts remain a mystery to U.S. and Pakistani forces as they crank up efforts to flush out al Qaeda and Taliban rebels hiding near Afghanistan’s eastern frontier, officials said on Monday.U.S. military officials in Kabul have boldly predicted his capture in 2004, and Britain’s Sunday Express weekly report…
An unarmed Russian intercontinental ballistic missile self-destructed Wednesday as it veered off course shortly after its launch from the Barents Sea on Wednesday, in a second blow to the country’s nuclear forces in two days.The missile was destroyed 98 seconds into its launch from an underwater nuclear submarine in the Arctic waters, Russia’s Northern Fl…