WORLD IN BRIEF
British soldiers wrap up tents, food and other supplies for earthquake victims in Pakistan before an airlift by British helicopters from an airport in Muzaffarabad.
(Achmad Ibrahim - AP)
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Afghan Minister Says Smuggling Of Insurgent Arms, Cash Is Rising
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Al Qaeda and other militant groups have smuggled explosives, weapons and millions of dollars in cash into Afghanistan for a resurgent terrorism campaign, the country's top defense official warned on Wednesday.
The comments by Defense Minister Rahim Wardak came after an unprecedented spate of suicide assaults -- the latest on Wednesday when a bomber attacked a U.S. military convoy in the southern city of Kandahar, killing three civilians.
Intelligence indicates that a number of Arabs and other foreigners have entered Afghanistan to launch suicide attacks, Wardak said. Besides explosives, the weapons smuggled into Afghanistan include remote-controlled timing devices and other computerized detonators, he said.
"There has been . . . more money and more weapons flowing into their hands in recent months," Wardak said. "We see similarities between the type of attacks here and in Iraq."
He said al Qaeda militants were increasingly teaming up with local rebels from the ousted Taliban movement to undermine President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government because they have realized their influence is waning.
"There is no doubt that there is a connection between Taliban and al Qaeda and some other fundamentalists," he said. "In most cases, the suicide bombers are foreigners . . . from the Middle East, from neighboring countries. . . . It is a new trend."
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the middle east
AMMAN, Jordan -- The Iraqi woman who failed to detonate her explosive belt in an Amman hotel was arrested in the northeastern city of Salt, where she had sought the help of relatives, not in Amman as previously announced, the prime minister said.
The announcement raised the possibility that the woman was handed over to authorities by her sister's relatives, presenting a new twist in last week's triple hotel bombings, which killed 58 people, plus the three bombers.
Sajida Rishawi, who confessed on television Sunday to planning to blow herself up at the Radisson SAS Hotel on Nov. 9, fled from the hotel to an apartment that she and the three other Iraqis involved in the attacks had rented in the suburbs, Prime Minister Adnan Badran said. "But she went on to Salt because one of her relatives" lived there, he said.
EUROPe
BERLIN -- Germany has charged three Iraqis with plotting to kill former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi during a state visit to Germany last year, federal prosecutors announced. The three -- German residents identified as Ata A.R., 31, Mazen A.H., 23, and Rafik M.Y., 31 -- are suspected of being members of the radical Islamic group Ansar al-Islam. They were arrested Dec. 3, hours before they allegedly planned to attack Allawi in Berlin.
