Al Qaeda in Iraq nabbed in large numbers:

April 30, 2007 — U.S. forces grabbed 72 suspected insurgents and seized nitric acid and other bomb-making materials yesterday in raids targeting the al Qaeda in Iraq terrorist group. The raids occurred in Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad, and in Salahuddin province, to the northwest, the U.S. military said.

The detainees included 36 people with alleged ties to al Qaeda in Iraq who were seized in Samarra, a Salahuddin city 60 miles north of Baghdad. In Karmah, an Anbar city 50 miles west of the capital, U.S. forces found 20 five-gallon drums of nitric acid and other bomb-making materials.

Huge rally against Islamist as single choice for Turkey’s presidential election:

Hundreds of thousands of secularist Turks took to the streets for the second time in two weeks yesterday after a dramatic intervention by the military in an attempt to stop Abdullah Gul becoming the first Turkish President with an Islamist past. Demonstrators in Istanbul carried blood-red national flags and posters of Kemal Atatürk, the founder of a secular Turkey. Banners read: “Sharia (Islamic law) shall not rise to the Presidential Palace.”

The protests came after the military gave warning that it would act to defend secularism – although the two events were not apparently coordinated. The developments, however, herald a week of high tension in which the Constitutional Court is due to rule on a challenge to Friday’s inconclusive first round of the presidential election.

The second round, in which Mr Gul is the only candidate, is scheduled for Wednesday – unless the court annuls the process beforehand.

7/7 ‘mastermind’ seized while entering Iraq from Iran now at Gitmo:

The al-Qaeda leader who is thought to have devised the plan for the July 7 suicide bombings in London and an array of terrorist plots against Britain has been captured by the Americans. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, a former major in Saddam Hussein’s army, was apprehended as he tried to enter Iraq from Iran and was transferred this week to the “high-value detainee programme” at Guantanamo Bay.
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He had a close link with another arrested al-Qaeda figure and, the sources said, would have “a wealth of information”. He is thought to have been in contact with Osama bin Laden before his capture and might be able to provide information about his leader’s whereabouts.
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“Abd al-Hadi was trying to return to his native country, Iraq, to manage al-Qaeda’s affairs and possibly focus on operations outside Iraq against Western targets,” [Pentagon spokesman Brian] Whitman said. He added that he was a key al-Qaeda paramilitary leader in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, and between 2002 and 2004 led efforts to attack US forces in Afghanistan with terrorist units based in Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia arrests 172 al Qaeda in plot with 9/11 similarity:

CNN’s Nic Robertson reported many of those arrested were Saudis who had recently return from fighting Americans in Iraq.

Annie Jacobsen asks a good question: Where were the suicide pilots trained? Editor’s note: All four of the 9/11 hijacker pilots received aviation training in the United States.

US aircrews show Taliban no mercy

Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

Smoke from the ambush they had just sprung on American special forces still hung in the air, but their attention was fixed on the two helicopter gunships that had appeared above them as their leader, the tallest man in the group, struggled to pull what appeared to be a burqa over his head.

As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley’s gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.

The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan and particularly in Helmand, where British troops last year bore the brunt of some of the heaviest fighting since the fall of the Taliban in 2001… FULL REPORT AND VIDEO AT THE LONDON TELEGRAPH