Capture of Insurgent Leader Reported

The U.S. military announced the capture Saturday of an insurgent leader who was recruiting and training women, including his wife, to wrap themselves in explosives and blow themselves up. This is the latest sign that al-Qaida in Iraq plans to keep using women to carry out suicide attacks. In southern Iraq, A British airman was killed in a rocket attack on a base near Basra late Friday, according to a British military spokesman. The U.S. military said it had killed six insurgents and detained 13 suspects Friday and Saturday during operations against al-Qaida in Iraq in central and northern Iraq.

Al-Qaida Creating Cells in Other Countries

Al-Qaida, increasingly tamped down in Iraq, is establishing cells in other countries as Osama bin Laden's organization uses Pakistan's tribal region to train for attacks in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa and the United States, the U.S. intelligence chief said last Tuesday. Mike McConnell told a Senate hearing more than six years after the Sept 11 attacks that Al-Qaida remains the pre-eminent threat against the United States. McConnell said that fewer than 100 al-Qaida terrorists have moved from Iraq to establish cells in other countries as the U.S. military clamps down on their activities, and the organization "may deploy resources to mount attacks outside the country". He also said while the level of violence in Iraq has dropped sharply since last year, it is going to be years before Iraq is stable. He said it is not going to be over in a year. It is going to be a long time to bring it to closure.

Violence in Pakistan Escalates

Militants in northwest Pakistan disavowed a peace pact with the government and launched two days of suicide attacked and bombings that killed at least 70 people, dramatically escalating the violence in the al-Qaida infiltration. The attacks followed strident calls by extremists to avenge the government's bloody storming of Islamabad's Red Mosque and a declaration of Jihad, or holy war, by at least one pro-Taliban cleric.