Russian security forces say they have killed a top al-Qaida emissary in Chechnya.

Russian officials said Wednesday Doger Sevdet, who was also known as Abdulla the Kurd, directly participated in planning and organizing major sabotage and terrorist attacks targeting members of the public and security forces in the North Caucasus.

Authorities say Sevdet and a fellow militant from Dagestan were killed in a special operation by Russian security forces. Sevdet was reportedly carrying a Turkish passport with visas for Georgia, Azerbaijan and Pakistan.

The governor of Venezuela's Miranda state says he plans to run for the presidency next year, challenging President Hugo Chavez.

Governor Henrique Capriles made the announcement Tuesday, saying he wants to be "president of all Venezuelans." Capriles also said he would seek the endorsement of a divided opposition to challenge President Chavez, who has been in office since 1999 and is seeking a new six-year term.

An opposition primary is scheduled for February 2012, with the presidential election set for later in the year.

At least 12 people were killed after a northern Sudanese army convoy entered the contested north-south border region of Abyei, sparking clashes with southern police.

Abyei's top administrator, Deng Arop Kuol, says the fighting broke out Sunday when a Sudanese army convoy entered Abyei despite efforts by southern police to stop them.

Kuol said a dozen people were killed including a policeman.

In comments to Reuters news agency, a northern minister blamed the clashes on police, saying that troops were just joining an internationally recognized north-south force in the area.

A combined Afghan and coalition security force killed numerous insurgents and detained one suspected insurgent while conducting a clearing operation in Chaparhar district, Nangarhar province, yesterday.

The operation was conducted to search for a Taliban leader known weapons facilitation and financing attacks. The leader has close associations with the Taliban leader who commands and controls insurgent operations in Nangarhar.

Debate is raging in the Obama Administration over whether or not to release a photo of the body of Usama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda, who was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs on 1 May.

Coalition forces killed one armed individual and detained several others in Gelan district, Ghazni province, yesterday.

An International Security Assistance Force air weapons team observed a group of armed individuals setting up an ambush position and also observed an ISAF mounted patrol travelling in the direction of the ambush position. The air weapons team declared in imminent threat and engaged the ambush position, killing one.

When Wendy Duffman first heard that Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida’s leader and the mastermind behind 9/11, was dead, she felt a sense of elation, then relief.

Her brother, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Scott Eric Duffman, died four years ago in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan -- a war launched in the wake of the deadly terrorist attacks. And as an American Airlines flight attendant in 2001, she lost friends and colleagues on the planes that crashed into the Pentagon and Twin Towers, and onto a field in Pennsylvania.

Osama bin Laden was not armed, but did resist an American military team raiding his compound in Pakistan on May 1, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said May 3.

Initial statements said bin Laden had been armed, and that he used his wife as a shield during the raid that killed him.

The team methodically cleared the one-acre, two-building compound, moving from room to room in an operation lasting nearly 40 minutes, Carney said. “They were engaged in a firefight throughout the operation, and Osama bin Laden was killed by the assaulting force,” he added.

BREAKING: Grassley, Issa tell Holder they’re not giving up

Contending that the Department of Justice is remaining uncooperative in their probes of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Project Gunrunner, Senator Charles Grassley and Congressman Darrell Issa today advised Attorney General Eric holder that they are not giving up.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-seattle/breaking-grassley-issa-tel...

Article by Dave Workman