Thomas Barnett from this year’s TED:

In this bracingly honest and funny talk, international security strategist Thomas P.M. Barnett outlines a post-Cold War solution for the foundering US military: Break it in two. He suggests the military re-form into two groups: a Leviathan force, a small group of young and fierce soldiers capable of swift and immediate victories; and an internationally supported network of System Administrators, an older, wiser, more diverse organization that actually has the diplomacy and power it takes to build and maintain peace.

Let’s see if this one lands with the usual, low impact, thud:

“SITE Intelligence Group has learned that a new message is forthcoming from the head of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, entitled: ‘The Response Will Be What You See, Not What You Hear’,” SITE said.

The announcement of the upcoming message was posted today by the administrator of al-Ekhlaas, a password-protected al-Qaeda-affiliated internet forum, SITE said.

I have no clue what’s up with the title. Maybe it’s to cover for the fact that he’s dead, can’t talk, and some young jihadist will be hiding behind the body waving its arms around Weekend at Bernie’s style while the music wails.

CNN has the story:

Two suicide bombers exploded a car Tuesday at a building containing the offices of Pakistan’s national investigative agency, destroying it and killing and wounding people inside.

Police said 17 people died and 175 were wounded in the attack in Lahore, and three more were killed in a separate suicide bombing in an area of the city known as Model Town. All three bombers died.

The Federal Investigation Agency is a national investigative agency — similar to the FBI in the United States — and is surrounded by heavy security.

Two suicide car bombers drove their vehicle into the eight-story building housing the offices of the Federal Investigation Agency at about 9:30 a.m., according to the agency.

Lahore police describe the building, where about 1,000 people work, as destroyed.

Sadly, the death toll will probably rise for a while thanks to the significant number of injured.

It sounds like law enforcement has quite a lot to work with as they try to solve this case:

The trail of possible clues stretches from New York City to Washington D.C. after a bicycle-riding bomber was caught on private security video. First, the bicyclist is seen riding along Military Island at about 3:38 am and getting off the bike just outside the a military recruiting station. About two minutes later the cyclist rides away, and then there is an explosion.

Mysterious letters arrived in Washington to at least four congressional offices that contained a photograph of a person with outspread arms outside the recruiting station before it was bombed and a note saying: “We Did It. Happy New Year.”

The letters were more than 30 pages long and said to be rambling, with a return address from California. A man whose name was signed to them has acknowledged sending them, but officials believe there may be no connection between the letters and the bombing.

Police are still looking at a possible connection to pre-dawn explosions last October at the Mexican consulate and the British consulate in 2005.

“The times are very close, a bicycle was believed to be used,” said NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly. “Those are the similarities.”

But fake grenades were used in the first two cases, not an ammunition box like on Thursday.

Fake (inert) grenades and ammo boxes can usually be purchased from a single location such as a military surplus store. Sounds like there are more similarities than differences to me.

Sounds like we have some homegrown (and thankfully inept) terrorists on the loose:

New York police said a small explosion outside a military recruiting station in Times Square early Thursday caused minor damage but no injuries.

New York bomb squad officers inspect the street in front of the neon-festooned military office.

The FBI said the FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force “is on scene working with” New York police.

“They will gather evidence, conduct interviews and begin the investigation. Anyone with information is requested to call the FBI or NYPD,” an FBI spokesperson said.

The Associated Press reported that the blast was caused by an explosive device.

We’ll have to see how this shakes out but I’m betting on house-burning “Progressive” types.

He “died in an explosion” which doesn’t tell us much. We’ll probably know more before the day is out:

The FBI listed Imad Mughniyeh as one of its “Most Wanted Terrorists.”

Imad Mughniyeh was suspected by Western intelligence agencies in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the truck bombing that year of the U.S. Marine barracks there, an attack that killed 241 people and preceded the U.S. military withdrawal from Lebanon, according to a CNN report from 2001.

The FBI listed Mughniyeh as one of its “Most Wanted Terrorists,” blaming him for his role in the June 14, 1985, hijacking of TWA 847, a terrorist episode that captivated television viewers in the United States and around the world for more than two weeks.

Hijackers seized the plane as it traveled from Athens, Greece, to Rome, Italy, and forced it to land at the airport in Beirut, starting a 17-day ordeal during which a U.S. Navy diver, Robert Dean Stethem, was shot and killed.

A troubling confrontation in the Persian Gulf:

The U.S. military reported Monday on a “significant” confrontation involving five Iranian Revolutionary Guard boats that “harrassed and provoked” three U.S. naval ships in international waters over the weekend.

U.S. military officials said the incident occurred Saturday night in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow shipping channel leading in and out of the Persian Gulf.

The five Iranian ships made “threatening” moves — in one case coming within 200 yards of a U.S. ship, the U.S. officials said.
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In one radio transmission, the Iranians told the U.S. Navy: “I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes,” the U.S. military officials told CNN.

When the U.S. ships heard that radio transmission, they manned their gun positions and officers were “in the process” of giving the order to fire when the Iranians abruptly turned away, the U.S. officials said.

No shots were fired and no one was injured in the confrontation.

I’d say that they were probing our defenses. The Iranians are not going to attack us directly, they’re not that stupid, but the information gathered in this exercise could be passed on to Iranian state sponsored terrorists or used in retaliatory strikes if we launch an air campaign. It’s the radio transmission that I find really odd here. We’ve had problems with these boats before but I’ve never heard of a case where the Iranians verbally threatened to attack.

Update 1/9/2007:
Mike Nizza of The Lede links to Navy video of the event and a transcript. While it’s helpful to see supporting evidence I should make it clear that I wasn’t expressing doubts about the Navy’s report in my initial post. I’m just really surprised by the hostile radio exchange.

MEMRI provides the full video and a transcript. It’s full of the usual threats and theatrics. He even tears up his American passport:

In a symbolic act of protest at America’s continuing detention and mental and physical torture of Muslims like Sheik Omar Abd Al-Rahman, John Walker Lindh, Abu Zubeidah, and thousands of others like them, and in protest at the cruel and barbaric treatment it metes out to millions of innocents around the world, and in symbolic rejection of the American citizenship which honorable, decent, and compassionate people are ashamed to carry, I will now proceed to destroy my American passport. Yes, this is the original passport.

It appears that the bearded one is a bit of a drama queen.

If Musharraf had half a brain he would have refrained from expressing anything but regret and determination to find those responsible for the attack. Musharraf is apparently lacking any brains whatsoever:

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf conceded that a gunman may have shot Benazir Bhutto but said the opposition leader exposed herself to danger and bore responsibility for her death, CBS News said on Saturday.

Musharraf was also quoted as telling the CBS “60 Minutes” program to be broadcast on Sunday that his government did everything it could to provide security for Bhutto, who was killed last week in a gun and suicide-bomb attack after a political rally.

“For standing up outside the car, I think it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers,” Musharraf said in the interview taped on Saturday morning.

And that is damage control gone very very wrong.

They certainly picked an interesting day to make the announcement:

Al-Qaida announced Thursday that it would soon release a new video message from American-born member Adam Gadahn that would be the first message from the terror group in 2008.

“Coming soon by the will of God, an invitation to reflection and repentance,” read a banner produced by al-Qaida’s media wing, al- Sahab, and displayed on a militant Web site.

An image of the bearded Gadahn wearing a red-and-white checkered Arab scarf appears on the banner.