Moroccan security services broke up a 27-member terrorist network, authorities announced Jan. 5. According to the Interior Ministry, the cell's Moroccan ringleader aimed to set up an al-Qaeda base in the kingdom and send recruits to AQIM training camps in Algeria and Mali. Police found three arms caches near Amghala, "comprising 30 Kalashnikov machine guns, three sub-machine guns, one 82-mm bazooka, two RPG-7 type rocket grenade launchers, several pieces of live ammunition, plus 66 strong-boxes for storing weapons and other munitions", according to Interior Minister Moulay Taieb Cherkaoui. (Magharebia, Jan. 6)

The powerful Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ended his self-imposed exile in Iran and returned to his stronghold hometown of Najaf in central Iraq this week. Al-Sadr fled Iraq in 2008 after the government issued an arrest warrant for him. His return was seen as evidence that his faction struck had struck a deal to have the warrant cancelled in exchange for al-Sadr's movement joining the new government led by Nouri al-Maliki.

More than 1,000 protesters took to the streets in Erbil, Iraq's Kurdish regional capital, to condemn a new law requiring all public demonstrations to have government permits. Protesters said the law is part of a broader crackdown on free speech in the autonomous Kurdistan region. In the past six months, the government has sued at least 60 writers or media organizations for publishing work critical of the government, according to the Kurdistan Journalists' Syndicate. Aso Karim, a legislator with the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said the restrictions were necessary because "Iraq is not politically stable." (NYT, Jan. 4)

The Jan. 4 assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer, who angered Islamists by calling for a revision of Pakistan's blasphemy laws, reveals escalating polarization between secular and fundamentalist forces. Shahbaz Bhatti, federal Minister for Minorities, said Taseer sacrificed his life for religious freedom and equality. "Those who issued [the] decree for killing should be investigated and blasphemy laws should be reviewed to control the increasing intolerance in society," Bhatti said. (Associated Press of Pakistan, Jan. 5)

Spanish National Court judge Fernando Andreu on Jan. 4 issued a writ to pursue an investigation against Iraqi Lt. Gen. Abdol Hossein al-Shemmari for allegedly ordering a July 2009 strike against Iranian exiles at Camp Ashraf in which 11 unarmed civilians were killed, 36 were detained and approximately 500 were injured. Most of the citizens of the camp are members of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK), the largest Iranian opposition organization, whose members are considered protected persons under the Geneva Conventions.

The biblically-obsessed are already calling it a prophecy of the End Times. (Examiner.com, Jan. 4) (Actually, contrary to the breathless and spelling-challenged spewings of the paranoid, there is no reference to birds falling from the sky in Revelations. It is in the far less sexy pseudepigraphic Apocalypse of Elijah.) But does anyone else out there find the official explanations singularly implausible? From the PBS News Hour, Jan. 4:

Among the documents released by WikiLeaks—none of which, their supporters insist, is indiscriminate—is an August 2006 classified US diplomatic cable on the lavish wedding party thrown by Gadzhi Makhachev, political boss of the Avar ethnic group in Russia's Caucasus republic of Dagestan, for his 19-year-old son. Makhachev is a Duma member, chief of the Dagestan Oil Company, and warlord who gained fame for leading the defense of Dagestan against the incursions of Chechen guerilla fighter Shamil Basayev ten years ago. The leaked cable contains much juicy gossip on Caucasus politics, and unflattering depictions of local political figures. Despite WikiLeaks' stated policy of only releasing documents that reveal newsworthy official malfeasance, we see nothing in this lengthy cable that meets that standard. However, the text is certain to be deeply embarrassing for the US diplomatic corps in Russia and the Caucasus. Ultimately, it may say more about hidden agendas behind WikiLeaks than about US designs...

For the first time, Coptic Christians took to the streets in Egypt in a series of angry protests after a bomb blast during New Year's Eve midnight mass at Alexandria's al-Qiddisin (Saints) Church left 32 dead and some 100 injured. Chanting "With our souls and blood we save the cross," Copts marched through Cairo and tried to storm the Radio and TV headquarters in Maspero.