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On Sri Lankan TV, Lt Gen Sarath Fonsek said troops had "completely captured" Mullaitivu after a month of fighting.
There has been no comment from the Tamil Tigers, who have suffered a series of reverses in recent months.
The government has vowed to crush the rebels, who have been fighting for a separate homeland for 25 years.
At least 70,000 people have been killed during the insurgency.
Stall tactics
Announcing the capture of Mullaitivu, the general said victory in the area would render the conflict with the Tigers "95% over", the Associated Press reported.
"We have completely captured Mullaitivu," he said.
Earlier, a government spokesman said troops from the 59th division had entered Mullaitivu and that it was "a matter of time before they take full control of the area".
Tamil Tiger rebels blasted through the walls of a reservoir on Saturday in an attempt to stall the advancing troops, the military said.
There is no way of confirming any of the claims as independent journalists are barred from conflict zone.
The BBC's Anbarasan Ethirajan in Colombo says the fall of the last main town under the Tigers' control would deprive the group of a crucial military base.
The government has won a string of military victories in recent months, including the capture of the rebels' de facto capital of Kilinochchi, cornering the rebels into a tiny pocket of territory in the island's north-east.
However, even with its strong advances, the rebels have shown on many occasions their capacity to fight a guerrilla war operating from secret jungle bases.
It is not clear what has happened to the residents of Mullaitivu.
Earlier this week the military said it had designated a safe zone for civilians as it pushed ahead with its offensive in the area.
But as the fighting intensifies, aid agencies have expressed growing concern for the safety of 250,000 civilians reportedly trapped inside the conflict zones.
Many Tamils warn that the capture of territory from the rebels alone will not end the ethnic conflict and that they need a political solution for a lasting peace, our correspondent says.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/7849684.stm
The idea of a "war on terror" is a "mistake", putting too much emphasis on military force, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has said.
Writing in the Guardian, Mr Miliband said the idea had unified disparate "terrorist groups" against the West.
He said the right response to the threat was to champion law and human rights - not subordinate it.
Mr Miliband is due to repeat the views in a speech later in Mumbai, India, the scene of attacks by gunmen last year.
Mr Miliband's warning comes five days before the end of US President George Bush's administration, which has led the so-called "war on terror".
The foreign secretary wrote that since 9/11 the phrase "war on terror" had "defined the terrain" when it came to tackling terrorism and that although it had merit, "ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken".
The phrase was first used by President Bush in an address to a joint session of Congress on 20 September 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks on New York and Washington.
Mr Miliband wrote that the phrase was all-encompassing and "gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda" when the situation was far more complex.
Calling for groups to be treated as separate entities with differing motivations, he wrote that it was not a "simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil" and treating them as such was a mistake.
"Historians will judge whether [the notion] has done more harm than good", he said.
The phrase, informally dropped from use by the UK government several years ago, "implied a belief that the correct response to the terrorist threat was primarily a military one - to track down and kill a hardcore of extremists", he wrote.
But the stance he now promoted was international "co-operation".
Highlighting US President-elect Barack Obama's commitment to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, Mr Miliband said it was time to ensure human rights and civil liberties were upheld.
He suggested that the different organisations took advantage of the belief that they had one common enemy and a key way to tackle them was to stop this.
"Terrorism is a deadly tactic, not an institution or an ideology."
He is due to repeat his words in a speech later at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, in Mumbai, India, the scene of attacks by gunmen last November.
He is in the country in an attempt to mediate tensions between India and Pakistan over the attacks which killed 179 people.
He urged Pakistan's government to take "urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil" and called for a resolution over the disputed region of Kashmir.
The terrorist attacks that ripped through Mumbai on Wednesday Nov. 26 morphed into a slow-motion hostage drama on Thursday as disbelieving Mumbaikars watched their city of 12 million paralyzed for a full day — shops closed, streets emptied — by just two dozen attackers. How could this happen? The unwelcome truth is that this grand, cosmopolitan city, one that has survived two even deadlier terrorists bombings in 2003 and 2006, was caught completely unprepared.
The scale and sophistication of the attacks, which began at about 9:30 p.m. local time as gunmen stormed hotels with AK-47s and grenades, became clear today: central government authorities say there are 125 dead, including six foreigners, and 327 injured. The injured were brought to local hospitals from the sites of the attacks, which included two luxury hotels, the main railway terminus, a cafe and two hospitals. Among the police, 14 were killed, and 25 injured. The Maharashtra chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, estimates that there were 20 to 25 terrorists involved, seven of them now dead. (See photos of the chaos in Mumbai)
Unlike most of the recent simultaneous bomb attacks in India, this one continued to do its damage after the initial shock wore off, gathering strength and changing form as the smoke and noise from the blasts themselves cleared. In this case, the attackers turned hostage takers at three of the sites: the two hotels and a residential building called Nariman House. By the end of the day Thursday, at least 20 to 30 hostages were still being held at the Oberoi-Trident hotel; five hostages at Nariman House had been killed and the rest released; and 470 people — including hostages and people who had been stranded in the hotel after the police moved in-have been evacuated from the Taj Palace. Police late on Thursday confirmed that the situation at the Oberoi is much more serious than initially thought. They are preparing for a siege through the night.
Those stranded in hotels might have had a shorter ordeal if the hotel management had put into place at least some kind of emergency plan in case of a terrorist attack. About 100 people, including one man with a gunshot wound, took refuge in a conference center at the Taj when they heard shooting but were left there all night, with no communication from anyone, let alone any instructions on how to exit the building safely.
Hotel managers at the Taj are given some crisis management training but nothing that would prepare them for a situation in which the attackers were running "free and loose" inside the hotel, says Anupam Amrohi, 23, an employee of Taj hotels in Bangalore. Amrohi was on the phone with his friends trapped inside the conference center all night. "They should have pulled the alarm," he says. Instead, hotel staff advised people already inside to stay where they were. People in their rooms were told to stay put even after the firing between the police and the suspects began. Hotel operators would call them periodically to remind them to keep the lights off and the volume on the TV down.
The lack of any prior local police intelligence about the attacks — a complaint voiced by many Mumbaikars today — is particularly alarming given the meticulous planning and unusual modus operandi of the attackers. For example, an Indian Navy spokesman confirmed that the terrorists entered Mumbai without detection by taking a sea route. Starting from a base in Gujarat to the north of Mumbai, they made their way to the Gateway of India at Mumbai's southern tip, and another landing point on the peninsula 14 nautical miles away; they killed one boatman in the process.
The attack on the Leopold Cafe and Restaurant also shows intimate local knowledge. Like the Oberoi and Taj, it is a favorite of foreigners, mostly backpackers and fans of the bestselling novel Shantaram, in which the Leopold is a key setting. Coming out from the Leopold, a hard RIGHT takes you into a narrow lane, which leads directly to the back entrance of the Taj Hotel. Several people in the Apna Bidi Shop around the corner from the Leopold reported that at about 9:30 p.m. last night, immediately after the blasts, they saw two of the attackers with AK-47s running from the Leopold into the narrow lane that leads to the Taj. Either the terrorists were natives to the city, or they had time to practice, prepare and carefully plot their targets and the path they would take between them.
As the three simultaneous hostage dramas began to unfold, onlookers gathered. "It's like watching 24 in slow motion," says Vineet Pandit, 22, who lives near the Oberoi. What they would see at each of these sites was a parade of hundreds of uniformed troops over the course of several hours: from the Mumbai police, the Indian army and paramilitary groups including the Rapid Action Force and the National Security Guard's elite "Black Cat" Commandos, distinctive in their all-black uniforms. It was not always clear who was in charge. At the Taj, police officers waited idly in their Jeeps as 100 army personnel tried to take control of the hotel. At the Oberoi, the police commissioner appeared to be taking the lead.
In Colaba Market, a handful of terrorists stormed one of the apartment buildings at about 10 pm on Wednesday night, and then began randomly shooting and lobbing grenades into the street and at neighboring buildings, according to residents of the area. From the vantage point of three Black Cat snipers watching the building, I could see Nariman House's shattered windows. The couple who own the building are Jewish, giving rise to rumors throughout the day that "Israelis" were somehow involved in the attacks. The other people in the building, including an infant wearing a pink bonnet and green blanket, were held as hostages but released early Thursday. The last person to leave, a young woman, told authorities that the only remaining hostages were the couple, who had made no sound or movement since the night before. By 5 p.m., they were presumed to be dead, and the Black Cat commandos moved in a half hour later unleashing a volley of gunshots into the building. By 9:30 p.m. local time, the firing was still going on and it was not clear whether the four to five suspects inside had been killed or captured.
So who are the terrorists? That too is unclear. A group calling itself the "Deccan Mujahideen" sent an email to news organizations early Thursday morning claiming responsibility for the attacks. Two of the terrorists spoke to a local news channel, India TV, to air their grievances: "When so many of us were killed, who did anything for us?" a man called Shadullah asked, referring to anti-Muslim riots in northern India in 1992 and 1993. He said he was among seven people holding hostages at the Oberoi but didn't make any specific demands, other than for the release of other "mujahideen" jailed in India and for an end to the persecution of Muslims. He did not reveal where the group comes from, though the Deccan in its name presumably refers to the plateau that stretches across southern India.
Officals have hinted that there may have been a foreign power involved, rejecting the widespread belief among defense and political analysts that there is an able network of homegrown terrorists in India. (Major General R.K. Hooda, an army officer who was the commander for today's military operations, hinted that their accents might have been Pakistani.) So far there has been little more than hints and platitudes from the steady stream of high-profile visitors to south Mumbai: the local strongman Raj Thackeray, Maharashtra state chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, member of parliament Murli Deora. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi are said to be on their way to the city, as is opposition BJP leader L.K. Advani. The question is, will they do anything to better prepare this city, and the rest of India, for the next time?
Ugh. A rather jarring reminder that I do have a lot to be thankful for today. :(
My thoughts are with the Indian people, and the families of the victims. It's just all so senseless...
For all its terrorist bravado, the story of the Red Army Faction (a.k.a. the Baader-Meinhof gang) ended with a whimper. On November 16 1982, German policemen hiding in the soil and foliage of a cold, wet forest near Hamburg, spotted a skinny man in a tracksuit moving erratically toward them. "Don't shoot!" the man shouted as the policemen armed with machine guns jumped out of their hiding places to arrest the completely exhausted Christian Klar, the last member of the so-called "second generation" of the R.A.F. still on the loose. But if Klar's arrest and conviction was meant to close one of the most traumatic chapters of postwar German history, his imminent release has forced the country to revisit the R.A.F.'s legacy of leftist terror.
A German court ruled Monday that Klar, serving a life sentence for his involvement in the murder of nine people, among them former Dresdner Bank chief Juergen Ponto, attorney general Siegfried Buback and industrialist Hanns-Martin Schleyer, as well as in 11 attempted murders, will be released on parole at the beginning of next year after 26 years in prison.
The verdict brought a storm of protest e-mails and phone calls to the court. Politicians and relatives of the victims expressed outrage, and Juergen Vietor, co-pilot of a Lufthansa plane hijacked by the R.A.F. in 1977, sent a protest letter to president Horst Koehler and returned the Federal Cross of Merit he had been awarded by the state. "Why", Vietor's letter says, "do perpetrators receive more care and attention in our state, than victims?"
Critics of the court's decision note that Christian Klar has never apologized for his deeds, and to this day refuses to divulge the identity of the mysterious man on a motorbike who fired the shots that killed Siegfried Buback. Klar had also made public statements from prison expressing anti-capitalist beliefs, which some claim are proof of his continued ideological zeal.
The court defended its ruling in a statement citing expert testimony to the effect that Klar no longer represents any danger to society. Justice Minister Brigitte Zypris called the verdict "an act entirely in accordance with the rule of law."
In 2003, Klar had filed a clemency plea with then-president Johannes Rau, who declined to made a decision. His successor, Horst Koehler, after a heated public debate, finally rejected Klar's appeal in May last year. Klar's accomplice, Brigitte Mohnhaupt, had earlier been released on parole after serving a 24 year sentence.
The discussion shows that Germany still struggles with the events that took place in the autumn of 1977, the "Deutscher Herbst" (German Autumn) when the second generation of the left-wing terrorist group R.A.F., composed mostly of young, well-educated, middle-class Germans, brought the country to the verge of a state of emergency. The main aim of the campaign of violence by the "second generation" was to free the imprisoned leaders of the group's founding generation — Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, Ulrike Meinhof and others — who regarded themselves as part of a global fight against imperialism and capitalism. The R.A.F. was born out of the non-violent left-wing student movement of the 1960s, which became steadily radicalized in response the Vietnam war and repression of student protest. Having turned to violence, the smaller conspiratorial group carried out several bank robberies as well as bomb attacks on U.S. military facilities in Germany and on German security institutions, in the course of which four people were killed and 41 injured. Many young Germans at the time, among them former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer, who in 2000 was even questioned as witness in a trial over a 1975 attack on the Opec conference in Vienna, had been initially sympathetic to the goals of R.A.F., but were later disillusioned by the group's excessive use of violence.
"People had the experience that the state was powerless; it was an feeling of complete helplessness," says Butz Peters, a lawyer and author of several books on the R.A.F. about its reign of terror. "For those who were around at the time, many things are now cropping up again," he says, of the emotional reactions to the Klar ruling.
The court decision on Klar's release stoked a debate that flares up periodically in Germany. Last year, the issue was the release of Klar's colleague, Mohnhaupt. Another R.A.F. member, Eva Haule, who studied photography in prison and even had her work there exhibited, was also released last year, and other members who had hidden in East Germany but were arrested after its collapse have also been released after serving relatively short sentences, and are living unobtrusively. But Germany's ongoing fascination with the R.A.F. episode of its history was underscored by the movie The Baader Meinhof Komplex, which was a box office success but was denounced by Ignes Ponto, widow of Juergen Ponto, as distorting history and glorifying violence.
After Klar's release there will be only one former R.A.F. member left in prison — Birgit Hogefeld, who is unlikely to be released before 2011. But Peters doesn't expect Germany to exorcise the ghosts of its homegrown terrorism anytime soon: "The German soul," he says, "definitely hasn't yet coped with the trauma of the R.A.F."
Ugh... What an effing travesty. How could this man and any of his accomplices ever be eligable for parole? Ever? Have they really "paid their debt to society"? How could they in only one lifetime? Much less only 26 years.
Tragic. Just tragic. I feel horrible for everyone with personal or familial ties to those murdered. This must be unimaginably difficult for them, knowing that while a loved still lies in a grave, those responsible are walking out of prison completely unrepentant. It makes me sick.
France
Key tactics: Though many Americans view them as softies when it comes to the war on terror, the French actually have some of the world’s toughest and arguably most effective antiterrorism laws. In France, terrorist investigations are overseen by a special unit of magistrates with unprecedented powers to monitor suspects, enlist the help of other branches of law enforcement, and detain suspects for days without charges. Additionally, prosecutors have a mandate to pursue terrorists abroad if the suspect or victim is French. France is also not shy about deporting Muslim clerics it views as threatening. It shouldn’t be surprising that French law enforcement is well set up for counterterrorism: France was the first European country to fall victim to Middle Eastern terrorism during the Algerian war in the 1950s.
In action: France has not had a terrorist attack on its soil since 9/11, but it claims to have foiled several, including a chemical attack planned by Chechen operatives against Russian targets in Paris, a planned bombing of one of Paris’s airports, and a 9/11-like airline plot against the Eiffel Tower.
Concerns: French civil libertarians have raised concerns about detentions that, in some cases, can last for years without trials. Allegations of police brutality are also common in France’s predominantly Muslim suburbs.
Jordan
Key tactics: Since the November 2005 hotel bombings carried out by al Qaeda in Amman, Jordan’s King Abdullah II has made it a priority to stop the infiltration of terrorists from neighboring Iraq and Syria. Jordan’s intelligence service, the General Intelligence Department, has exploited close ties with Sunni tribes in Iraq’s Anbar province to provide its U.S. and Israeli counterparts with valuable intelligence about the structure and financing on terrorist organizations. Jordan also takes pride in the prowess of its Special Forces units and has opened a special operations training center to teach counterterrorism tactics to elite military units from around the world.
In action: It’s widely suspected that Jordanian spies tipped off the U.S. military to the location of al Qaeda in Iraq’s Jordanian-born leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leading to the U.S.-Iraqi military raid that killed him.
Concerns: Jordan has been criticized by human rights groups for its alleged participation in the “rendition” of U.S. terrorist suspects for torture.
Egypt
Key tactics: No less an authority than al Qaeda’s No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri recently said of Egypt’s State Security, “They know more about the Islamic movements than many of those movements’ members know about them.” Zawahiri’s followers have good reason to worry. After a wave of terrorist attacks and political victories for the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1990s, Hosni Mubarak’s government opted for a strategy of ruthless repression in combating the threat from terrorism and political Islam. The state’s strategy is to inhibit the Brotherhood from participating in the political process while carrying out wide-ranging arrests of militants and routinely using torture on prisoners.
In action: During the 1990s, the Egyptian regime essentially eliminated the domestic threat of groups such as the Islamic Group and Zawahiri’s Egyptian Islamic Jihad, largely by attacking their bases of operations and blocking their ability to transform into legitimate political movements. Overreaches by the groups themselves contributed greatly to their downfall.
Concerns: Human Rights Watch has complained that the Egyptian regime’s liberal use of torture simply leads prisoners to “confess to crimes real or imagined.” Analysts also question the strategy of repressing the Brotherhood, which they say only strengthens the group’s appeal.
Singapore
Key tactics: Singapore, which is 15 percent Muslim, has had enormous success in combating regional terrorist groups such as the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah through a combination of tough Special Forces tactics and savvy rehabilitation programs. After 9/11, the island country strengthened its crackdown on terrorist funding, and it recently passed legislation giving the Army wide-ranging powers to pursue terrorists domestically. But Singapore’s approach goes beyond enforcement. Since 2003, a landmark government program has aimed to rehabilitate arrested militants. The state employs volunteer clerics who counsel detainees and rebut extremist arguments. The United States has studied the approach as a possible alternative to indefinite detention.
In action: A major operation in 2001 resulted in the arrest of 15 Jemaah Islamiyah operatives who were planning terrorist attacks within Singapore. Around 70 people have been detained since then, and about one third have been released after rehabilitation. Police continue monitoring those who are released.
Concerns: Democracy activists argue that the Singaporean government plays up the terrorist threat to justify its authoritarianism. The police also suffered a major embarrassment in February when a Jemaah Islamiyah militant escaped through the bathroom window of a detention center.
Russia
Key tactics: In 1999, Boris Yeltsin elevated an obscure midlevel politician named Vladimir Putin to the rank of prime minister and entrusted him with putting down a raging insurgency in the breakaway region of Chechnya. Ever since, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism have been the hallmarks of Putin’s tenure, and he has largely built his popularity around his success in these areas. Russia has carried out a ruthless campaign of military suppression in Chechnya, and when it hasn’t been attacking militants, it has joined with them by elevating former rebel Ramzan Kadyrov to the presidency of the now largely peaceful region. Russian security forces were also willing to put down terrorist sieges by force even at the expense of high civilian casualties.
In action: After Chechen rebels took a Moscow theater hostage in 2002, Russian Special Forces pumped an unknown gas into the theater’s ventilation system and then stormed the building, killing nearly all the hostage-takers along with hundreds of hostages.
Concerns: Though Russia has largely succeeded in pacifying Chechnya, the neighboring regions of Dagestan and North Ossetia remain havens for militant groups. The government was widely criticized for the secrecy surrounding the Nord-Ost and Beslan school operations and the high number of hostages killed during the rescues.
From Foreign Policy Journal web exclusive week of June 1.The Merkaz Herav Yeshiva - a Jewish religious seminary - is the place from where the religious-inspired Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank sprang.
It is the very centre of religious Jewish nationalism and its symbolic importance may well not have been lost on the organisation which ordered this attack.
The Israeli authorities already know the identity of the gunman - a resident of Jabel Mukaber in East Jerusalem. This is especially worrying for security chiefs given the fact that East Jerusalem residents have much greater freedom of movement than Palestinians from the West Bank.
| | The attack on the Yeshiva is a grim development in the litany of violence |
If there is an active Palestinian militant group operating out of East Jerusalem this also underlines one of the limitations of Israel's security barrier in the West Bank.
There will also be questions about why the Israeli intelligence services had no apparent warning of this attack.
But what matters most is who gave the gunman his orders.
Wider consequences
According to Hezbollah television in Lebanon, a so far unknown organisation has said it carried out the attack. The group was named after a prominent Hezbollah leader, Imad Mughniyeh, who was blown-up by a car bomb in Damascus in mid-February.
Hezbollah held Israel responsible. Israel believes that Hezbollah has significant links with Palestinian groups in the West Bank, especially with the militant wing of the Fatah organisation - the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
This is a plausible connection. But claims of responsibility may amount to little.
Assuming that the attacker was not just an enraged individual, Israel's first goal will be to roll up the specific cell and network from which the gunman came.
But depending upon whose fingerprints are on the operation, the wider consequences could be considerable.
'We will fight extremists'
In the short-term there will be stepped-up security in Jerusalem and more checkpoints in the West Bank.
Talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are likely to survive this incident.
| | |
After all they also survived Israel's recent large-scale incursion into the Gaza Strip, though a flying visit by the US secretary of state was needed to patch up the diplomatic battle damage.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev signalled as much when he sought to distinguish between the reaction of Hamas and the mainstream Fatah movement.
"The Palestinian leadership under President Abbas, condemned last night's atrocity, last night's massacre," he told the BBC.
"It was Hamas in Gaza that was celebrating, and I think we have to distinguish between these two different views on the Palestinian side. One side says it wants to negotiate with us - it wants peace, it wants reconciliation. Of course we have to try to reach a historic agreement with them."
"The other side," he went on, "the extremists - those hard-core Jihadist elements who oppose peace - who oppose reconciliation - we have to fight them."
Hezbollah connections
Quite where these talks will lead given the divisions between Hamas and Fatah and given Israel and Washington's insistence that Hamas must be isolated, is far from clear.
The deadline for progress of the end of this year, when President George W Bush prepares to leave office looks more and more unattainable.
Whoever ordered this gun attack, the emotions raised by this incident will inevitably influence Israel's response to continuing rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.
A potential Hezbollah connection could raise tensions on the northern border as well. And if there is a connection with militants in Fatah on the West Bank, then that could greatly complicate Mr Abbas's position.
There could be domestic political implications in Israel too.
If talks with the Palestinians continue there will be strong pressure from within orthodox religious circles for the Shas party to leave the government.
It is ambivalent about the talks with Mr Abbas to say the least and it has set itself firmly against any discussion of the future division of Jerusalem.
It will have to weigh up the benefits of being inside the coalition, in terms of patronage and power, with the demands of the broader religious community.
The attack on the Yeshiva is a grim development in the litany of violence.
Anyone counting on progress on the peace front this year looks to be betting against the prevailing trend.
Associate Professor of Public Policy Alberto Abadie examined data on terrorism and variables such as wealth, political freedom, geography, and ethnic fractionalization for nations that have been targets of terrorist attacks.
Abadie, whose work was published in the Kennedy School's Faculty Research Working Paper Series, included both acts of international and domestic terrorism in his analysis.
Though after the 9/11 attacks most of the work in this area has focused on international terrorism, Abadie said terrorism originating within the country where the attacks occur actually makes up the bulk of terrorist acts each year. According to statistics from the MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base for 2003, which Abadie cites in his analysis, there were 1,536 reports of domestic terrorism worldwide, compared with just 240 incidents of international terrorism.
Before analyzing the data, Abadie believed it was a reasonable assumption that terrorism has its roots in poverty, especially since studies have linked civil war to economic factors. However, once the data was corrected for the influence of other factors studied, Abadie said he found no significant relationship between a nation's wealth and the level of terrorism it experiences.
"In the past, we heard people refer to the strong link between terrorism and poverty, but in fact when you look at the data, it's not there. This is true not only for events of international terrorism, as previous studies have shown, but perhaps more surprisingly also for the overall level of terrorism, both of domestic and of foreign origin," Abadie said.
Instead, Abadie detected a peculiar relationship between the levels of political freedom a nation affords and the severity of terrorism. Though terrorism declined among nations with high levels of political freedom, it was the intermediate nations that seemed most vulnerable.
Like those with much political freedom, nations at the other extreme - with tightly controlled autocratic governments - also experienced low levels of terrorism.
Though his study didn't explore the reasons behind the trends he researched, Abadie said it could be that autocratic nations' tight control and repressive practices keep terrorist activities in check, while nations making the transition to more open, democratic governments - such as currently taking place in Iraq and Russia - may be politically unstable, which makes them more vulnerable.
"When you go from an autocratic regime and make the transition to democracy, you may expect a temporary increase in terrorism," Abadie said.
Abadie's study also found a strong connection in the data between terrorism and geographic factors, such as elevation or tropical weather.
"Failure to eradicate terrorism in some areas of the world has often been attributed to geographic barriers, like mountainous terrain in Afghanistan or tropical jungle in Colombia. This study provides empirical evidence of the link between terrorism and geography," Abadie said.
In Abadie's opinion, the connection between geography and terrorism is hardly surprising.
"Areas of difficult access offer safe haven to terrorist groups, facilitate training, and provide funding through other illegal activities like the production and trafficking of cocaine and opiates," Abadie wrote in the paper.
A native of Spain's Basque region, Abadie said he has long been interested in terrorism and related issues. His past research has explored the effect of terrorism on economic activity, using the Basque country as a case study.
Abadie is turning his attention to the effect of terrorism on international capital flows. Some analysts have argued that terrorist attacks wouldn't have much of an impact on the economy, since unlike a war's widespread damage, the damage from terrorist attacks tends to be relatively small or confined to a small area.
In an era of open international capital markets, however, Abadie said terrorism may have a greater chilling effect than previously thought, since even a low risk of damage from a terrorist attack may be enough to send investors looking elsewhere.
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/11.04/05-terror.html
Earlier reports said Ms Bhutto had only been injured and taken to hospital.
Ms Bhutto had just addressed a pre-election rally in the town of Rawalpindi when the bomb went off.
At least 15 other people are reported killed in the attack and several more were injured. Ms Bhutto had twice been the country's prime minister.
She had been campaigning ahead of elections due in January.
The BBC's Barbara Plett says the killing is likely to provoke an agonised response from her followers, especially from her loyal following in Sindh Province.
The PPP has the largest support of any party in the country.
Scene of grief
The explosion occurred close to an entrance gate of the park in Rawalpindi where Ms Bhutto had been speaking.
Wasif Ali Khan, a member of the PPP who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital, said she died at 1816 (1316 GMT).
Supporters at the hospital began chanting "Dog, Musharraf, dog", referring to President Pervez Musharraf, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Some broke the glass door at the main entrance to the emergency unit as others wept.
A man with a PPP flag tied around his head could be seen beating his chest, the agency adds.
An interior ministry spokesman, Javed Cheema, was quoted as saying by AFP that she may have been killed by pellets packed into the suicide bomber's vest.
However, AP quoted a PPP security adviser as saying she was shot in the neck and chest as she got into her vehicle, before the gunman blew himself up.
Excerpted From: BBC online
Turkey has threatened to send troops across the border to hit bases used by the Kurdish PKK rebels unless the US and Iraq does more to stop attacks.
The Turkish government is under public pressure to use force against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party).
But Washington has urged Ankara not to launch cross-border strikes.
Impatience
Before leaving for Washington, Mr Erdogan warned the meeting came at a critical time.
"Our visit comes at a time when [Turkish-US] relations are undergoing a serious test," Mr Erdogan told reporters on Saturday, before departing from Istanbul.
"We have run out of patience with the terrorist attacks being staged from northern Iraq," he said, expressing hope that his talks with Mr Bush would produce "concrete measures".
In spite of promises of action from the Iraqi government and the US, who regard the PKK as the "common enemy", Mr Erdogan did not seem reassured.
On a stop in Italy on his way to Washington he told the newspaper La Repubblica "there hasn't been any concrete step" from the US administration to stop Kurdish violence.
The Kurdish rebels have intensified their campaign during the past month, killing at least 40 people, military and civilians, in Turkey.
The PKK has waged a violent campaign in the south-eastern region of Turkey since 1984, resulting in more than 30,000 deaths.
The announcement was made on an Islamist website, where al-Qaeda's media arm frequently posts messages.
US homeland security officials could not confirm the existence of a tape, and said there was "no credible information of an imminent threat".
Al-Qaeda has put out similar statements in the past but no video has followed.
Bin Laden has not been seen in a video since October 2004, when he threatened new attacks against the US on the eve of the presidential election.
An audio tape was released in January 2006.
Dyed beard?
A banner advertisement for the video, written in Arabic, read: "Soon, God willing, a video tape from the lion sheikh Osama Bin Laden, God preserve him."
It carried an al-Sahab logo - regarded as a signature of al-Qaeda recordings.
There were no indications of the content of the video or when exactly it might appear.
The website also included a photograph, which appeared to show Bin Laden has aged compared with previous pictures - although his beard now looks dark rather than greying.
Correspondents say a new video - if indeed one does appear - would serve to dispel persistent rumours that the al-Qaeda leader might have died.
