Pakistan Taliban Responsible For Afghanistan CIA Bombing

The suicide bombing at a CIA base in the Khost province of  Afghanistan that killed seven intelligence officers, including a Jordanian intelligence operative was infact carried out by the Pakistan Taliban, a faction of the notorious Taliban, that has razed Pakistan’s security apparatus to the ground. In a video released by Pakistan Taliban, the suicide bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian national is seen sitting on the floor with the new chief of the organization and has claimed responsibilty for the attack.

The suicide bomber was thought to be an informant was invited by the intelligence agency at CIA’s high security facility, where the al-Balawi blew himself and killed seven CIA officials and injuring many others, Pakistan Taliban stated that, the attack was carried out in retaliation for the killing of their ex-leader, Baitullah Mehsud during a CIA sanctioned drone missile strike. This latest confession on part of a terrorist organization operating from territories under Pakistan’s jurisdiction could spark exceeded levels of pressure from the U.S to the Pakistani authorities to step up their military offensive currently underway in the largely lawless tribal areas of Northwest Pakistan.

In a statement, the bomber said,

“This jihadi attack will be the first revenge operation against the Americans and their drone teams outside the Pakistan border. We will never forget the blood of our emir Baitullah Mehsud.”

The Director of Central Intelligence, Leon Panetta has been constantly defending his officials’ actions in inviting the bomber, whom they believed to be an informer with a wealth of information and in a statement said,

“This was not a question of trusting a potential intelligence asset, even one who had provided information that we could verify independently. It is never that simple, and no one ignored the hazards. The individual was about to be searched by our security officers – a distance away from other intelligence personnel – when he set off his explosives.”

Via Associated Press

U.S Special Forces Accelerate Anti-Terror Operations In Afghanistan

Special Forces units of the United States of America have reportedly accelerated their efforts against the militant outfits such as Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other terror outfits in Afghanistan and is planning to significantly expand its covert operations in the region in an effort to uproot some of the most dreaded terrorist outfits operating from the area.

A number of U.S military commanders on the basis of anonymity have stated that, specialized units of the elite U.S Delta Force and classified U.S Navy Seals units have been conducting counter insurgency operations and thus far have been able to weaken the command structure of Sirajuddin Haqqani, one of the most ruthless and dangerous Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. As per the reports, the special forces units have been able to eliminate some of the key Taliban operatives, based on intercepted cell phone communications.

So far, the Obama administration have not provided any details on these close guarded operations, however, with the recent commitment from U.S President Barack Obama deploy additional 30,000 troops to the region, the spectrum of such covert operations is expected to increase substantially. On the other hand, with special forces and other units close on the heels of the terrorists, the militants have recently stated that, the war in Afghanistan is far from over and that they will turn Afghanistan in to a “flaming oven” to counter the increased coalition military activity.

According to Ahmed Sayedi (Political Analyst),

“They (the Taliban) will transform Afghanistan into a flaming tandoor (oven) for the foreign forces. America’s economic woes could limit resources for forces fighting a Taliban with access to funds from the three-billion-dollar-a-year Afghan opium industry and fighters from Pakistan.”

F-22 Raptors Return Home After Middle East Combat Tour

The state of the art fifth generation fighter aircraft, the F-22 Raptors returned home after completing their debut combat tour in the Middle East. The Raptors were part of the extensive air power deployed by the U.S in the region in its expanded Was on Terror.

The Middle East tour was the first operational theater for the F-22 Raptors operating out of the Langley Air Force Base, Virginia under the command of the U.S. Air Forces Central area of responsibility. Before being deployed to the Middle East, the Raptors saw overseas training exercises in Japan at the Kadena Air Base and at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam.

According to Lt. Col. Lance Pilch (Commander, 27th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron),

“We didn’t know how the jet was going to perform or react, given the temperature differences as well as the dust, sand and wind. But we were able to fly more sorties than we scheduled for, so the F-22 actually exceeded expectations.The F-22 has so many capabilities, from overall air dominance to relaying situational awareness to putting bombs on target. So when it becomes our turn to come here and support the troops on the ground, now we know: the Raptor is ready.”

The F-22 Raptors conducted training sorties in the Middle East alongside fighters from other participating countries such as France, Jordan, Pakistan and England. After the flawless performance given by the Raptors, the U.S Air Force is keen on deploying the fighters on more training exercise, at the same time, extending the air superiority of the coalition forces in the theater.

Via Defense Talk.

Iran Detains Bodies Of Slained Protesters

Iranian authorities said Monday that they were holding the bodies of five slain anti-government protesters, including the nephew of the opposition leader, in what appeared to be an attempt to prevent activists from using their funerals as a platform for more demonstrations.

In the bloodiest protests in months, groups of emboldened demonstrators on Sunday chanted slogans against Khamenei, casting aside a taboo on personal criticism of the leader. In outbursts of fury rarely seen in past street confrontations, they burned squad cars and motorcycles belonging to security forces who had opened fire on the crowds, according to witness accounts, opposition Web sites and amateur videos posted on the Web.

“I believe we are moving toward a more militarized and repressive confrontation. Things are going to get worse,” said Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political science professor at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaei University.

IRNA, Iran’s state-run news agency, said the bodies of five protesters, including the nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, were being held pending autopsies. The family of the nephew, Ali Mousavi, alleged that he was shot by security forces or government-backed militiamen, and his funeral would likely galvanize another outpouring of opposition anger.

The nephew’s brother, Reza Mousavi, earlier said the body was taken overnight from a Tehran hospital.

“Unfortunately, they have taken the body of my brother from the hospital, and however much we search, we can’t find the body,” Reza Mousavi had told the reformist Web site Parlemannews.ir.

Islamic tradition calls for bodies to be buried within 24 hours of death.

The opposition has alleged that Mousavi’s nephew had received death threats in recent days and was shot by assassins who drove to his house. Reformists believe the killing was an attempt to pressure Mousavi to back down, and that the government took his nephew’s body to prevent mourners gathering in the street for his funeral.

Iranian state television reported that eight people died in the violence in Tehran, a higher toll than the five deaths reported by some opposition Web sites. The television also cited the Health Ministry as saying 60 people were injured, and many had been released from hospitals after treatment.

Independent confirmation of the casualties was virtually impossible because of state restrictions on media coverage of the upheaval that has gripped Iran since a disputed election in June.

Iranian authorities have said 300 people were arrested in the protests, but did not specify where they were detained. The opposition Jaras Web site said several hundred were arrested in Tehran, and a similar number were detained in the central city of Isfahan.

Tehran residents say limits on Internet access have been tightened since Sunday, and Iranians were unable to see opposition Web sites. Cell phone and text messaging services were sporadic. Communication problems are common around the time of demonstrations, likely a government bid to prevent negative publicity and disrupt coordination among protesters.

The Parlemannews.ir site said three Mousavi aides were detained Monday, including top adviser Ali Riza Beheshti.

Security forces also arrested two people in a raid on a foundation run by the reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, a foundation official said on condition of anonymity because of fears of police reprisal. The Baran Foundation works to promote dialogue between cultures.

Former Foreign Minister Ebrahim Yazdi and human rights activist Emad Baghi were arrested, according to the Rah-e-Sabz Web site. Yazdi, who served as foreign minister after the 1979 Islamic revolution, is now leader of the banned but tolerated Freedom Movement of Iran. One of his aides was also detained.

Bakhshayesh, the Tehran professor, said the best way to defuse the crisis was for Khamenei to ask Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president close to the reformists, to mediate between the two sides. He said Khamenei’s absolute support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is accused of stealing the election from Mousavi through massive vote fraud, was proving costly for the supreme leader.

Mahdi Karroubi, an opposition figure who also ran in the election, asked how the government could spill the blood of its people during commemorations of Shiite Islam’s most important observance, Ashoura. The observance commemorates the seventh-century death in battle of one of Shiite Islam’s most beloved saints, and it conveys a message of sacrifice in the face of repression.

He told the opposition Rah-e-Sabz Web site that even the government of the shah, overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, respected the holy day. Comparing a rival to the shah is a serious, though common, insult in Iranian politics.

The government crackdown drew sharp criticism from the West, which is already locked in a dispute with Iran over its suspected efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

Speaking from Hawaii, where he is on vacation, President Barack Obama said the turmoil in Iran “is not about the United States or any other country. It’s about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves. And the decision of Iran’s leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away.”

Germany’s foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, condemned what he called the “brutal action” by security forces.

“I am calling on those responsible in Tehran to do everything in order to avoid a further escalation of the situation and to end the violence,” Westerwelle said.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband of Britain said it was “particularly disturbing” to hear reports of the crackdown by security forces on the sacred occasion of Ashoura. The French Foreign Ministry criticized what it described as arbitrary arrests and violence against demonstrators.

The Dec. 20 death of the 87-year-old Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a harsh critic of Iran’s leaders, gave renewed momentum to opposition protests. Opposition leaders have used holidays and other symbolic days in recent months to stage anti-government rallies.

Also Monday, a Dubai television company said it had not heard from its correspondent in Iran since he went missing near his Tehran house on Sunday.

Dubai Media Inc. said it was in touch with Iranian officials about the fate of Reza al-Basha, a 27-year-old Syrian. Dubai Media is the government-owned parent of a handful of television stations in the emirate.

Via Yahoo! News.

Osama Bin Laden Urges Coalition Troops in Afghanistan To Withdraw.

In a first of its kind, non-violent audio tape message, the leader of perhaps the most notorious terror outfit, Al-Qaeda, has urged the coalition forces stationed in Afghanistan to withdraw and end the bloodshed once and for all. The message primarily reaches out to the leaders of the nations that have committed their forces to the coalition alliance under the NATO umbrella.

The audio message named, “A message to the people of Europe”, emphasizes on the shortcomings of the administration in Washington and states that the European leaders are wasting their men, women and resources on fighting a war, that is stemmed from ‘ego’ and not from ‘reason’.

In a statement, Osama Bin Laden said,

“We are not demanding anything unjust. It is just for you to end injustice and withdraw your soldiers (from Afghanistan). One of the greatest injustices is to kill people unjustly, and this is exactly what your governments and soldiers are committing under the cover of the NATO alliance in Afghanistan. An intelligent person does not waste his children and wealth for the sake of a gang in Washington. It is shameful to be part of an alliance whose leader does not care about spilling the blood of human beings by bombing villages intentionally. If you had seen (the mass killings) of your American allies and their helpers in northern Afghanistan…then you would understand the bloody events in Madrid and London.”

In related events, German authorities have reported the arrival of three new videos from Al-Qaeda on the German internet networks, posted by, Moroccan Bekkay Harrach, a native German, who is known to be an Al-Qaeda emissary. The videos clearly warn the citizens of Germany to vote cautiously in the upcoming elections and has threatened of more serious and deadly terror strikes.  The video explicitly states,

“Germany will pay a price if voters back a government that supports the deployment.”

Via Reuters.

Dynamic URLs vs. Static URLs

Chatting with webmasters often reveals widespread beliefs that might have been accurate in the past, but are not necessarily up-to-date any more. This was the case when we recently talked to a couple of friends about the structure of a URL. One friend was concerned about using dynamic URLs, since (as she told us) “search engines can’t cope with these.” Another friend thought that dynamic URLs weren’t a problem at all for search engines and that these issues were a thing of the past. One even admitted that he never understood the fuss about dynamic URLs in comparison to static URLs. For us, that was the moment we decided to read up on the topic of dynamic and static URLs. First, let’s clarify what we’re talking about:

What is a static URL?
A static URL is one that does not change, so it typically does not contain any url parameters. It can look like this: http://www.example.com/archive/january.htm. You can search for static URLs on Google by typing filetype:htm in the search field. Updating these kinds of pages can be time consuming, especially if the amount of information grows quickly, since every single page has to be hard-coded. This is why webmasters who deal with large, frequently updated sites like online shops, forum communities, blogs or content management systems may use dynamic URLs.

What is a dynamic URL?
If the content of a site is stored in a database and pulled for display on pages on demand, dynamic URLs maybe used. In that case the site serves basically as a template for the content. Usually, a dynamic URL would look something like this: http://code.google.com/p/google-checkout-php-sample-code/issues/detail?id=31. You can spot dynamic URLs by looking for characters like: ? = &. Dynamic URLs have the disadvantage that different URLs can have the same content. So different users might link to URLs with different parameters which have the same content. That’s one reason why webmasters sometimes want to rewrite their URLs to static ones.

Should I try to make my dynamic URLs look static?
Following are some key points you should keep in mind while dealing with dynamic URLs:
1.It’s quite hard to correctly create and maintain rewrites that change dynamic URLs to static-looking URLs.
2.It’s much safer to serve us the original dynamic URL and let us handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters.
3.If you want to rewrite your URL, please remove unnecessary parameters while maintaining a dynamic-looking URL.
4.If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.

Which can Googlebot read better, static or dynamic URLs?
We’ve come across many webmasters who, like our friend, believed that static or static-looking URLs were an advantage for indexing and ranking their sites. This is based on the presumption that search engines have issues with crawling and analyzing URLs that include session IDs or source trackers. However, as a matter of fact, we at Google have made some progress in both areas. While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.

Let’s now look at some of the widespread beliefs concerning dynamic URLs and correct some of the assumptions which spook webmasters.

Myth: “Dynamic URLs cannot be crawled.”
Fact: We can crawl dynamic URLs and interpret the different parameters. We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. One recommendation is to avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static. It’s always advisable to use static content with static URLs as much as possible, but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content, you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure and not remove information by hiding parameters and making them look static.

Myth: “Dynamic URLs are okay if you use fewer than three parameters.”
Fact: There is no limit on the number of parameters, but a good rule of thumb would be to keep your URLs short (this applies to all URLs, whether static or dynamic). You may be able to remove some parameters which aren’t essential for Googlebot and offer your users a nice looking dynamic URL. If you are not able to figure out which parameters to remove, we’d advise you to serve us all the parameters in your dynamic URL and our system will figure out which ones do not matter. Hiding your parameters keeps us from analyzing your URLs properly and we won’t be able to recognize the parameters as such, which could cause a loss of valuable information.

Following are some questions we thought you might have at this point.

Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?
That’s our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems. If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases. If you want to serve a static equivalent of your site, you might want to consider transforming the underlying content by serving a replacement which is truly static. One example would be to generate files for all the paths and make them accessible somewhere on your site. However, if you’re using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good. Feel free to serve us your standard dynamic URL and we will automatically find the parameters which are unnecessary.

Can you give me an example?
If you have a dynamic URL which is in the standard format like foo?key1=value&key2=value2 we recommend that you leave the url unchanged, and Google will determine which parameters can be removed; or you could remove uncessary parameters for your users. Be careful that you only remove parameters which do not matter. Here’s an example of a URL with a couple of parameters:

www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3&sid=98971298178906&query=URL
language=en – indicates the language of the article
answer=3 – the article has the number 3
sid=8971298178906 – the session ID number is 8971298178906
query=URL – the query with which the article was found is [URL]
Not all of these parameters offer additional information. So rewriting the URL to www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3 probably would not cause any problems as all irrelevant parameters are removed.

The following are some examples of static-looking URLs which may cause more crawling problems than serving the dynamic URL without rewriting:
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3/98971298178906/URL
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language=en/answer=3/sid=98971298178906/query=URL
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language/en/answer/3/
sid/98971298178906/query/URL
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en,3,98971298178906,URL

Rewriting your dynamic URL to one of these examples could cause us to crawl the same piece of content needlessly via many different URLs with varying values for session IDs (sid) and query. These forms make it difficult for us to understand that URL and 98971298178906 have nothing to do with the actual content which is returned via this URL. However, here’s an example of a rewrite where all irrelevant parameters have been removed:
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3
Although we are able to process this URL correctly, we would still discourage you from using this rewrite as it is hard to maintain and needs to be updated as soon as a new parameter is added to the original dynamic URL. Failure to do this would again result in a static looking URL which is hiding parameters. So the best solution is often to keep your dynamic URLs as they are. Or, if you remove irrelevant parameters, bear in mind to leave the URL dynamic as the above example of a rewritten URL shows:
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3

Yahoo! Features New Products for Yahoo! BOSS Users!

In the month of July this year, Yahoo! had launched an entirely new powerful search API (Application Programming Interface), called Yahoo! BOSS. It was designed to enable the third party websites to incorporate Yahoo search functionality into their sites without any hassles.

Now, via the Yahoo! Search Blog, a couple of new products have been announced for Yahoo! Boss users, that have been designed using the Yahoo! BOSS services. Here are a few of these products:

123People.com: Currently focused on the European market, 123People.com delivers comprehensive and centralized profiles including images, videos, phone numbers, email addresses, social networking, and Wikipedia profiles related to an individual. The site uses the XML BOSS interface to query Yahoo! Search’s image and web search index in real-time. Based on the geographic location of the user and semantic analysis, 123people applies ranking algorithms and presents results tailor-made to people search.

askBOSS: One of our very own, Saurabh Sahni, explored the use of natural language processing in image search, which has historically been limited to text search. His mashup, askBOSS, is an extension of Vik Singh’s QNA mashup and works by using the Mashup Framework to predict the answer to a user’s question and then queries the BOSS image search API for corresponding images

BuildaSearch: Using the BOSS Web Search API to generate customizable search results, BuildaSearch takes all the complexities out of building a search engine and allows you to control the name, look and feel of your search engine. For example, one of our team members designed a search engine to look for dog friendly activities in the bay area in just a few minutes. Engines built using BuildaSearch can be hosted on either their site or elsewhere on the web using an API provided by BuildaSearch.

Mozilla Feels The Heat of Google Chrome- Announces New Benchmarks!:

Just 48 hours into the launch of Google’s web browser, Google Chrome, Mozilla Inc, creators of the famed and widely used FireFox web browser are already feeling the heat. In lieu of the rising popularity of Google Chrome, Mozilla has begun taking damage control steps.

According to TechCrunch, Google Chrome has been created on the V8 platform, that happens to be the fastest and the most reliable browser engine in the world, making Chrome operations a breeze. Since, last two days, based on my extensive usage of Google web browser, I would certainly agree to this fact.

However, Mozilla has now announced that by the end of the year 2008, it will incorporate, TraceMonkey, that will enhance Firefox’s performance at incredible levels, hence making it the fastest browser on the web. This new engine will be rolled out in the upcoming release of FireFox 3.1.

As per TechCrunch, “To prove it, Mozilla tested Firefox running on TraceMonkey and compared it to Google’s Chrome beta using its own benchmarking solution called SunSpider. According to the company, Chrome was 28 percent slower on Windows XP and 16 percent slower on Windows Vista.
Mozilla is quick to point out that TraceMonkey has only been in development for a few months and will only get better before it’s rolled out later this year, but the company has a vested interest in seeing Firefox come out on top in its benchmark testing, so all figures should probably be questioned, to say the least.”

Google Chrome: An Interactive Introduction!

Yesterday, I had put up a post about the proposed launch of Google Chrome, Google’s Windows based browser, that has rumored to be a stark competitor to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.

Following up on that similar post, here is the official announcement in the form of a video. Google’s Larry Page talks about Google Chrome and gives a short yet vivid insight into the latest online web browser.

Personally, I admire Google Chrome for its simplicity and the multi-functionalities that it offers. But, it does lack on a couple of fronts, that I will mention in my next post. Till then enjoy the Google Chrome Press Event.

Google Announces the Launch of ‘Google Chrome’- A Web Browser With a Difference!:

After much speculations and waiting, Google has finally announced the launch of their own web browser, known as ‘Google Chrome’. This all new multi-functional web browser will be available for download in over 100 countries on Tuesday, September 2nd 2008. However, as with every other Google service, Google Chrome will be launched in the BETA mode. As of now, Google Chrome is exclusively available for Microsoft Operating System platforms, but Google insists it will be releasing versions of the same for Mac and Linux too. The Google browser has been integrated with components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox. In lieu of the various components involved in the creation of Google Chrome, Google has decided to keep it as a open source browser.

The introduction of Google Chrome has been rather dramatic, with Google introducing its all new open source browser, via the means of a comic book. You find the Google Comic Book, here.

Google Chrome is known to have the following features:

1. An open source platform including Google Gears integration.

2. JavaScript Virtual Machine called V8.

3. Special tabbed browsing functionality.

4. Autocompleting & search powered address bar.

5. Incognito mode where “nothing that occurs in that window is ever logged on your computer”

6. Ability to launch web applications in browser windows.

7. Advanced privacy / malware / phishing protection.

According to Google, “On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go. Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.”

Screen Shots of Google Chrome:

Google Chrome from the service’s frontpage

The auto-completion of the so-called “omnibox” address bar

The homepage showing 9 thumbnailed pages to access, along with more pointers in the side-bar, to appear “[e]very time you open a new tab”, as Google says.

This screenshot shows Google Calendar and a dialog reading “Create shortcuts in the following locations”, listing Desktop, Start Menu and Quick Launch Bar.

Zooming in on the browser tabs.

The Google Chrome task manager, e.g. to monitor if certain sites cause memory problems.

A screen showing the “Google incognito” mode for allegedly more private browsing.

Another auto-completion example.

A star near the address input bar lets you bookmark a page, apparently.

A look into the settings menu.

Google in their tour says with Chrome “you see your download’s status at the bottom of your current window.”

Here is a demo video of Google Chrome: