The Political Conundrum!

Work is under way on the South Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone to renovate three guard posts and two checkpoint buildings into bigger, more modern structures.

A pharmacy college graduate, Tarek Mehanna, conspired with two other men on a terror plot to kill two prominent U.S. politicians and carry out a holy war by attacking shoppers in U.S. malls and American troops in Iraq, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Maryland and South Carolina will wear uniforms with camouflage designs during their games Nov. 14 to honor military veterans and promote the Wounded Warrior Project.

Top American defense officials maintained a tough stand Wednesday against North Korea, calling its threat more lethal than ever even as an envoy from the communist regime was headed to the United States to discuss nuclear programs.

The NEFA Foundation has obtained and translated a claim of responsibility from a Sunni militant group known as “Jondollah” (“The Army of God”) for the October 18 suicide bombing attack on a delegation of senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers in the southeast corner of the country near the border with Pakistan. According to the communiqué, “one of the heroic men of Baluchistan—the land of martyrdom and resistance—named Abdulwahad Mahmadi Sarawani, was able to kill dozens of commanders and units from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, Basij Militia, and officials from the Ministry of Intelligence… by carrying a martyrdom operation in Sarbaz, one of the cities in Baluchistan Province.” The statement indicated that the bombing attack was a response to the “crimes of the Iranian regime against the Baluchi people; the unarmed and oppressed, who loses everyday a number of its children sacrifices to the crimes of this regime that murdered throughout the last year alone hundreds of young men from this province… amongst them were the pious Ulama Hafidh Salahadin and Mawlawi Khalilallah Zare’i—who were executed for defending the rights of our oppressed people. Additionally, they executed the brothers Tariq and Asad Wafa’i, and three others from the city, and those are: Thabihalla Naro’i, Hajji Noti Zahi, and Ghulam Rasul Shaho Zahi, and all of those were guilty of Baluchi and Sunni. These crimes left to the Baluchi people no other choice except resistance and responding in the same manner to the Iranian regime.”

A translation of the Jondollah communique claiming credit for the attack can be accessed via the NEFA Foundation website.

The NEFA Foundation has obtained a new communiqué from Al-Qaida's network in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) mourning the death of Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. air strike. According to the statement, Mehsud was “graced…with martyrdom at the hands of the ruthless power and the most tyrannical country in the world; not in a battle where men meet face-to-face, but in a cowardly raid operation using a jet, and how shameful that this jet was without a pilot.” AQIM added, “our enemies should know that every time they [kill] a commander from our commanders or a master from our masters, they only provide us with fuel that will…[push] our movement forward on the path of Jihad seeking victory or martyrdom until the banner of unification is above all banners...and our Sheikh Usama rises above their fool Obama.”

A translation of the latest AQIM statement can be downloaded from the NEFA Foundation website.

Poland is ready to participate in a new US missile shield project in Eastern Europe, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Wednesday, during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Japan, made clear that the Obama administration would frown on any action by Tokyo to block a new runway at another base on Okinawa when Futenma is closed.

An Air Force non-commissioned officer at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., was sentenced to five years in prison and 15 years of intensive probation Monday for sexually abusing and sexually exploiting two girls, ages 10 and 13.