A series of car bombs and roadside bombs killed at least 32 people in Baghdad Friday. Most people were killed near Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s office in Sadr city where at least 21 died and 45 were inured. Another bomb attack targeted a mosque in northern Baghdad that killed 3 and injured 14.

SOURCE: Xinhuanet.com 32 killed in string of bomb attacks in Baghdad

A Russian-designed Grad that was fired from beyond Jordan’s borders damaged a refrigerated warehouse a northern outskirt region of Aqaba, Jordan. Israeli news media reported that two rockets hit Aqaba and Israel’s nearby port of Eilat. No deaths or injuries were reported.

The incident occurred after Israel issued an “urgent” warning for its citizens to leave Egypt’s nearby Sinai Peninsula immediately, citing “concrete evidence of an expected terrorist attempt to kidnap Israelis in Sinai.”

Grenades exploded Thursday night near political protests in the Thai capital, killing at least 1 and injuring 75. Authorities blamed “Red Shirt” anti-government protesters for the blasts, which set off scuffles with police.

The government has blamed the redshirts for the grenade explosions. As of April 2010, a set of new protests by Red Shirts opposition supporters have resulted in 23 deaths (both civilian and military) and over 800 injured. The Red Shirts is The National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD), an anti-People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) political pressure group in Thailand.

Video of the launch of the X-37B on Thursday, April 22, 2010.

The X-37B spacecraft was launched as a United States Air Force mission, rather than a NASA mission, on April 22, 2010. The Boeing X-37 Advanced Technology Demonstrator is an unpiloted demonstration spaceplane that is intended to test future launch technologies while in orbit and during atmospheric reentry. The X-37B is a reusable robotic spacecraft that is a 120 percent–scaled derivative of the X-40A. The X-37 had its first flight as a drop test on April 7, 2006 at Edwards AFB.

Launch will occur from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral. This was the first launch of the Atlas V 501 configuration, and the first flight of the X-37B.

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Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the two most senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq were killed in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation.

A U.S. soldier was killed when a U.S. helicopter crashed during the Sunday morning military strike in al-Tharthar, about 10 kilometers south of Tikrit, Iraq.

Al-Masri’s assistant and al-Baghdadi’s son, who also were involved in terrorist activities, were also killed.

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April 18, 2010 — Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday extolled the country’s military might during an annual army parade, saying the country is so powerful today that no one would dare attack it.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has praised Iran’s military might, saying it deters all enemies from daring to attack the country.

Iran’s armed forces have such strength that the enemies will not even harbor the thought of attacking the country, Ahmadinejad said on Sunday during the annual military parade commemorating Iran’s Army Day.

The Iranian president stated that the best way to establish peace and security in the region is through cooperation and empathy among regional countries.

Experience shows that foreign interference in regional affairs is the root cause of all the tension and insecurity in the region, he added.

SOURCE:
Tehran Times: Iranian military hold parade on Army Day

Afghanistan-born imam Ahmad Afzali has avoided jail after being sentenced four days September 20 to 24, 2009 after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.

The Afzali said he had wanted to help authorities in the investigation of the New York City subway threat, but lied to the FBI about his phone conversations with admitted al-Qaida associate Najibullah Zazi. Afzali denied that he told Zazi that he was under surveillance in New York. Afzali emotionally claimed that he never intended “to help those idiots for what they do in the name of Islam.”

The imam has been ordered to leave the United States within 90 days. If Afzali does not leave the country within 90 days, he will be deported to Afghanistan.

SOURCE: Imam avoids jail in NYC terror plot

A new U.N. report that blames Pakistan’s security establishment for failing to stop the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

A United Nations report has claimed that the Pakistan government failed “to respond to the extraordinary, fresh and urgent security risks that they knew she [Benazir Bhutto] faced.”

Obama video at Nuclear Security Summit: Two decades after the end of the Cold War we face a cruel irony of history. The risk of a nuclear confrontation between nations has gone down, but the risk of nuclear attack has gone up. Nuclear materials that could be sold or stolen and fashioned into a nuclear weapon exist in dozens of nations.

April 13, 2010 — President Barack Obama kicked off the 47-country Nuclear Security Summit Tuesday, declaring the risk of nuclear attack, not by an enemy nation, but from terrorists, was on the rise despite the end of the Cold War.

Israeli President Simon Peres publicly charged Syria on Tuesday with transferring Scud missiles to the Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah. Israeli and Syrian officials have publicly charged each other with preparing for war. The U.S. official said Syria’s arms transfer could have been a form of deterrence against Israel.

Opponents of the White House’s policy that engagement with Damascus can convince Syria to reduce its strategic alliance with Iran, exclaimed the news Tuesday was evidence that Syrian President Bashar Assad has no intention of breaking Syria’s strategic ties to Tehran and Hezbollah.