A July 9 letter from al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to the organization's supposed leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has allegedly been obtained by US forces in Iraq. The letter, released to the media, calls for the establishment of local emirates as an interim measure towards re-establishment of new Caliphate. It also appears to take issue with the tactic of mass murder of Shi'ites, even while demonizing Shi'ites as collaborators with the "Crusaders."

Despite Indian aid to Pakistan-controlled Kashmir in the wake of the devastating earthquake which has claimed some 25,000 lives, news reports indicate concerns persist in New Delhi about how the divided region's militant organizations are exploiting the disaster. An account in The Australian raises fears that such organizations are involved in the relief effort, and that "General Musharraf and his army would be too preoccupied with initially managing the enormity of the tragedy to worry about taking on militants."

The US military, recently booted from Uzbekistan, has been granted long-term access to Kyrgyzstan, BBC reported Oct. 11. The deal followed talks between US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Kurmanbek Bakiev in Bishkek. Kyrgyzstan had earlier urged the US to set a timetable for its withdrawal from military bases in Central Asia.

Presumed Chechen resistance fighters carried out a series of attacks in Nalchik, capital of the Russian Federation's Kabardino-Balkaria Republic, on the morning of Oct. 13. Facilities targeted included the local headquarters of the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB), and the city's airport. A statement posted on the kavkazcenter.com website identified the attackers as fighters from the Kabardino-Balkar sector of the [Mujahedeen of the] Caucasus Front.

US immigration judge William L. Abbott issued a written ruling on Sept. 26 in El Paso, TX, that the Convention Against Torture (CAT) bars the US from deporting Cuban-born right-winger Luis Posada Carriles to Venezuela. Abbott accepted the contention by Posada's legal team that he might be tortured in Venezuela, where he is a naturalized citizen. Abbott also ruled out Cuba as a destination for Posada but didn't rule out deportation to a third country.

On Oct. 5, a group of seven Mapuche indigenous students from the Frontier University in Temuco, Chile—on hunger strike since Sept. 29—began an occupation of the Temuco cathedral. Another two hunger strikers did not participate because they were hospitalized on Oct. 4. The action was the latest in a series of protests started at least three weeks earlier by some 120 students demanding repairs to the Las Encinas Mapuche student residence, where they live, and autonomy in its administration.

On Oct. 3 some 300 Paraguayan indigenous people from the departments of Canindeyu, Alto Paraguay, Caaguazu, San Pedro and Caazapa arrived in Asuncion and began a protest encampment in the Plaza Italia to demand that Congress approve reforms to Law 904/81, the Statute of Indigenous Communities. The Chamber of Deputies is currently debating the reforms, which would allow the country's indigenous communities to participate in decisions affecting them; an indigenous council's role in decision-making was eliminated under a separate law passed last year.

On Sept. 26 Puerto Rican governor Anibal Acevedo Vila told reporters that US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director Robert Mueller had ordered an inquiry into the fatal Sept. 23 shooting of nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios by FBI agents in the western town of Homigueros. The announcement came as questions grew about how and why Ojeda Rios died when FBI agents assaulted the farmhouse where he was living, ostensibly to arrest him for his role in a 1983 robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Connecticut.