Daily Report
Hezbollah targets Thailand?
Israel's Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a warning to Israelis to stay away from Bangkok, citing intelligence indicating that Hezbollah militants could be preparing an attack in Thailand ahead of the Feb. 12 fourth anniversary of the assassination of the Shi'ite movement's senior commander Imad Mughniyeh. Israel reportedly informed Thai authorities on Dec. 22 that three Hezbollah operatives had entered Thailand in order to launch an attack on Israeli tourists. On Jan. 13, Thai authorities arrested Idris Hussein (also rendered Hussein Atris), a dual Lebanese-Swiss citizen, at Bangkok airport a few minutes before he was due to board a flight out of the country. Hussein was charged with possession of ammonium nitrate and other controlled chemical substances after a search of a building he had rented in Samut Songkhram, southwest of Bangkok. A manhunt is said to be underway for at least one other suspect. Following Hussein's arrest, Israel, the US and nine other countries issued travel advisories warning against visiting Bangkok. US ambassador Kristie Kenney said on Twitter the threat is "Bangkok specific" and "credible." (Bloomberg, Bangkok Post, Jan. 17; JTA, Ha'aretz, Jan. 15)
Colombia: government blinks in regional strike against hydro project
After a regional strike had shut down Colombia's central Andean department of Huila for 15 days, the protest campaign was suspended Jan. 17 when the central government agreed to public hearings on the controversial Quimbo hydro-electric project. The pact signed by protest leaders, the Huila regional government and national Environment Ministry calls for hearings to convene the first week of February in Garzón municipality, one of those affected by the project. The paro (civil strike) was called by the Association of the Affected by El Quimbo Dam (ASOQUIMBO), the Regional Indigenous Council of Huila (CRIHU) and other popular organizations. Protesters blocked equipment at the construction site, bringing work to a halt, as well as blocking the central highway through the region.
Obama denies permit for Keystone XL pipeline
President Barack Obama denied a permit for the controversial Keystone XL oil sands pipeline Jan. 18, saying the deadline imposed by Congress did not leave sufficient time to conduct the necessary review. "The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment," Obama said in a statement. Late last year, Republicans attached to an unrelated short-term payroll tax cut extension a provision that compelled the White House to make a decision on the pipeline within 60 days.
Iran: Israeli "false flag" ops behind Jundallah terror?
Does it get any murkier than this? The conspirosphere is abuzz with claims aired in Foreign Policy magazine Jan. 13 that Mossad agents recruited militants from the Iranian terrorist group Jundallah by passing themselves off as CIA agents in a "false flag" operation. Iran's Press TV and Pakistan's The Nation as well as stateside conspiranoids like Prison Planet and Antiwar.com have jumped all over it. But, predictably, the actual original report is fuzzy on the details and raises more questions than it answers. Here's the salient passage:
Libyan war spreading south
One solider was killed in northern Mali Jan. 17 in a clash with Tuareg fighters of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)—who authorities said were backed up by former pro-Qaddafi Libyan soldiers. The army said it beat back the Tuaregs and Libyans with a helicopter assault, destroying six vehicles in the skirmish at Menaka in the Gao region. (Reuters, Jan. 17) National Transitional Council forces in Tripoli are meanwhile preparing an offensive against Qaddafi-loyalist strongholds in Libya's south. Rival militias clashed near the town of Gharyan left four dead and 50 wounded before a prisoner swap was brokered to end the fighting. The clash began when a man was stabbed and stripped naked at a vegetable market. The fighting pitted the Martyrs Brigade of Gharyan against the Assaba militia, said to be Qaddafi loyalists. (AFP, BBC World Service, Jan. 17)
Mexico: local police suspected in deaths at Guerrero protest
On Jan. 12 ballistics experts and investigators from Mexico's governmental National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) carried out a reconstruction of a confrontation last month between student protesters and police on a highway in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Two students from the Raúl Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College in the nearby village of Ayotzinapa were killed on Dec. 12 when state and federal police tried to disperse some 500 protesters blocking the highway; a worker at a gas station near the road also died, in a fire reportedly caused by a Molotov cocktail thrown by a student.
Mexico: US drug agents aided the Beltrán Leyva cartel
Agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) worked with an informant and with Mexican enforcement agents in 2007 to launder millions of dollars for Mexico's Beltrán Leyva cartel, according to reports in the New York Times and the Mexican magazine emeequis. The information comes from the Mexican government's response to a US request for the extradition of Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, a Colombian drug trafficker arrested in Mexico in November 2010.
Honduras: family killed in latest Aguán massacre
Eight people, including four children, were murdered in the village of Regaderos, in Sabá municipality in the northern Honduran department of Colón, on the evening of Jan. 9. Seven of the victims were members of the same campesino family; the eighth was a man running errands. The attackers took the victims from the family's home to a field and killed them there with machetes and firearms. The youngest of the children was one year old; the others were seven, 12 and 15 years old. The attackers cut a part of the ear off each of the eight bodies. (El Tiempo, San Pedro Sula, Jan. 10)

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