A new allegation has emerged in the supposed plot by agents of Iran's elite Quds Force to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, which resulted in federal indictments being unsealed in Manhattan last week. Reuters reports Oct. 14 that "Saudi officials advised Argentina four months ago of an alleged Iran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires," according to an unnamed "Argentine diplomatic source." Speaking on condition of anonymity, the Argentine source reportedly told Reuters: "The Saudis advised us four months ago, at the request of the United States."

From The Villager, Oct. 13:

SUV driver arrested after assaulting pedestrian
An interaction between a driver and a pedestrian in the East Village turned violent Friday evening when the former chased the latter into the St. Mark’s Bookshop, grabbed her by the hair, tearing off one of her earrings, and put her in a headlock.

In some of the worst political violence since the fall of Moammar Qaddafi two months ago, a gun battle broke out in Tripoli Oct. 14 between supporters and opponents of the ousted dictator. The Washington Post says "truckloads of revolutionary gunmen clutching automatic rifles roared off to the Tripoli neighborhood of Abu Salim after reports emerged of a group of armed people there waving the green flag of Gaddafi's government." In the ambiguity of this lengthy transition period, it is necessary to glean from context which side are the "revolutionaries." (It's almost as bad as the lack of any consistency in the spelling of "Qaddafi.") There were no reports of casualties, but Col. Ahmed Bani, spokesman for Libya's new Defense Ministry, said: "Qaddafi's still alive, so the world is still in danger." Note the implicit play to aid from Western imperialism—Qaddafi is not just a risk to Libyans, but to "the world" (read: the West), as if he were Saddam Hussein. Never mind that for nearly the past 10 years, the West had been happy to embrace the despot as a GWOT ally and proxy.

The US Justice Department on Oct. 11 announced charges against two men allegedly working for "factions of the Iranian government" with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, and to attack Saudi embassies. The indictment, unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, identified the two as Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian-American car dealer in Corpus Christi, Tex., and Gholam Shakuri, described as Arbabsiar's cousin. Attorney General Eric Holder said Arbabsiar, who was arrested on Sept. 29 in New York, was working for Iran's Revolutionary Guard and had confessed to the plot. Shakuri, who is based in Iran, remains at large, Holder said. He allegedly is a member of the Quds Force, a special unit of the Revolutionary Guard. Holder said the case started when Arbabsiar made contact with an undercover DEA informant in Mexico and asked for assistance from Los Zetas drug cartel to assassinate the ambassador by blowing up a restaurant that he frequented. Arbabsiar allegedly wired $100,000 to the informant as a down payment on a $1.5 million assassination fee. (InSight Crime, Oct. 12; Associated Press of Pakistan, Oct. 11)

In an interview with the BBC's Pashto service, a key leader of the Haqqani network denied that the group is responsible for killing Burhanuddin Rabbani, or that it is receiving aid from Pakistan's ISI. But Siraj Haqqani asserted that he's been approached by the US to join the Afghan government as part of a peace deal with the Taliban. "Right from the first day of American arrival till this day not only Pakistani but other Islamic and other non-Islamic countries including America, contacted us and they [are] still doing so. They are asking us to leave the ranks of Islamic Emirates," he said referring to the Taliban leadership. He said that the outsiders have promised an "important role in the government of Afghanistan." (BBC News, AP, Oct. 3

The UN Security Council's Standing Committee on Admission of New Members is currently considering Palestine's application for full United Nations membership. Eight of the Security Council's 15 members have already declared their support for the Palestinian application: China, Russia, Brazil, India, South Africa, Lebanon, Niger and Gabon. But the Palestinians' bid faces a practically inevitable veto by the United States, one of the five permanent Security Council members—which, unlike the 10 rotating members, wield veto power within the Council. (KashmirWatch, Oct. 1)

This week, Libya's Berber (Amazigh) minority held the "First Libyan Amazigh Forum" in Tripoli, under the slogan: "Officialize the Amazigh language and support national unity." The unprecedented conference, which started Sept. 26, opened with the new Libyan national anthem, sung in Arabic and Tamazight, the Berber language. Thousand took part in a Berber music festival, making the Libyan capital echo with lyrics in the long-banned language, with revelers raising the yellow, blue and green Berber flag. "We...want to tell the transitional government and the government...that the Amazighs are an integral part of political life," said Fathi Abu Zakhar, chairman of the preparatory committee. "We want Tamazight inscribed as a right in the constitution."

This one is really good. The poorly named 9-11 "Truthers" (perhaps more accurately rendered "Falsers") continue to moronically assert that al-Qaeda never claimed responsibility for the 9-11 attacks—despite the fact that it has done so time and time and time again. Now the terror network takes Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to task for spouting revisionist malarky that would steal the glory from Osama and his crew by blaming the attacks on the US government. David Goodman writes for the New York Times' The Lede blog Sept. 28: