ISLAMABAD, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - At least 138 people were killed and more than 300 injured in an attack on former Pakistan premier Benazir Bhutto's homecoming procession, officials said Friday, updating an earlier toll.

"According to latest figures 138 people died in the attack," ministry spokesman Javed Cheema told AFP.

Karachi police chief Azhar Farooqi said the number of wounded was "in excess of 325 and many of them are in critical condition."

ISLAMABAD, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Iconic Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto had already had a life filled with personal tragedies before the bomb carnage among the mammoth crowd that welcomed her home from exile.

KARACHI, Oct 19, 2007 (AFP) - Former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto Friday condemned bomb attacks on her homecoming parade in Karachi that killed 133 people, saying the victims made the "ultimate sacrifice" for democracy.

LONDON, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - British police on Tuesday charged two men with offences under anti-terrorism laws, including having computer files on how to become an assassin and make explosives.

Adam Mohamed, 28, and Imad Shoubaki, 31, were arrested on October 3 in separate raids. They will appear before magistrates in central London Wednesday, Scotland Yard said.

KARLSRUHE, Germany, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Germany's federal prosecutor has charged a Jordanian man with planning to found a five-man cell in Sudan to lead an Al-Qaeda-inspired "guerrilla war", a statement said on Tuesday.

The suspect, identified only as Thaer A., 33, was arrested by Swedish police in March and extradited to Germany the following month.

Prosecutors say he was part of a group trying to set up a training camp for volunteers in Sudan to prepare for the conflict which was "to be carried out on the orders of Osama bin Laden."

WASHINGTON, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - The Pentagon said Tuesday it is allowing one of 15 so-called "high value" detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to see a lawyer for the first time.

Majid Khan, a Pakistani who lived in Baltimore, Maryland before his capture in Pakistan in 2003, was taken to Guantanamo last September after being held in secret CIA detention centers.

LONDON, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - A lack of strategy plus troop shortages are hampering NATO's effort to beat the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, a leading British foreign affairs think-tank said Tuesday.

Chatham House researchers said it was generally accepted that the 39,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had suffered from a lack of troops since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But they said there was a "more fundamental difficulty" -- the failure to develop a "coherent approach" on how to achieve NATO and coalition objectives in Afghanistan.

BEIRUT, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Lebanon on Tuesday said a group of suspects arrested for plotting attacks against UN peacekeepers were Palestinian members of radical Islamist networks.

"All the members of the cell are Palestinians," military judge Jean Fahd told AFP, but declined to give any further details about the number arrested or their identities, saying the charges would be determined later.

"They belong to radical Islamist groups," said Fahd.

MADRID, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Spain and France plan to set up joint police teams to investigate international terrorist networks, the head of Spain's police and civil guard, Joan Mesquida, said Tuesday.

"We want to set up joint investigation teams aimed at dismantling international terrorism networks and their financing," he told a joint news conference with his visiting French counterpart Frederic Pechenard.

"We want to move forward with the analysis of the use of the Internet as an important tool for proselytizing for this type of terrorism," he added.

SANAA, Oct 16, 2007 (AFP) - Fugitive Al-Qaeda suspect Jamal al-Badawi, who was convicted for the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 American sailors, has surrendered to authorities, an official said Tuesday.

Witnesses said Badawi -- who featured on a US list of most-wanted terrorists with a five-million-dollar bounty on his head -- had been allowed to return to his home in the southern port city of Aden.

NOUAKCHOTT, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - A Mauritanian freed from the US Guantanamo base after five years of detention has been flown back home, a security official and human rights activists said Thursday.

Mohamed Lemine Ould Sidi Mohamed, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2002, was freed from Guantanamo in April this year, but he awaited repatriation clearance from Mauritania pending verification of his nationality.

BOURNEMOUTH, England, Sept 27, 2007 (AFP) - Britain pledged Thursday to work more closely with local communities to fight terrorism, reflecting a change of tone after ex-premier Tony Blair's hardline stance sparked Muslim anger.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told the final day of the ruling Labour Party conference in Bournemouth, south England, that she wanted to safeguard values of tolerance, fair play and community cooperation.

BOURNEMOUTH, England, Sept 26, 2007 (AFP) - The British government made mistakes in handling the threat of extremism following the 2005 London bombings, including resorting to 'crass' rhetoric, a minister said Wednesday.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty suggested that former prime minister Tony Blair's remark that 'the rules of the game are changing' following the attacks -- which heralded a clampdown on extremism -- was among them.

DAKAR, Sept 25, 2007 (AFP) - Guinea Bissau, a key transit point for international drug traffickers, could pose the greatest threat to stability in west Africa unless the international community steps in to quickly crackdown on the cartels setting up base there, a UN expert warned on Tuesday.

Amado Philip de Andres, deputy representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in west Africa, told reporters on the sidelines of a regional anti-terrorism workshop that cash-strapped and poorly policed Guinea urgently needed help to safeguard regional peace.

BELGRADE, Sept 14, 2007 (AFP) - Serbia's prosecutor for organised crime Miljko Radisavljevic on Friday brought charges against 15 suspected radical Islamists, accusing them of terrorism, a spokesman said.

The group is charged with 'creating a criminal enterprise, terrorism and illegal possession of arms and explosive materials,' the spokesman Tomo Zoric told AFP.

NAIROBI, Sept 12, 2007 (AFP) - The United States on Wednesday gave Kenyan army 41 humvees -- mobile military vehicles -- to strengthen the east African nation's muscle 'to combat terrorism,' US ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger told reporters.

Kenyan Defence Minister Njenga Karume thanked Washington for the gesture, saying the humvees will boost the country's security.

TOKYO, Sept 5, 2007 (AFP) - North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator has insisted that the United States promised to remove Pyongyang from a list of states sponsoring terrorism, a report said Wednesday.

The United States has said that North Korea is moving towards coming off the blacklist but that a decision depends on further steps to give up its nuclear weapons programmes.

'Something has already been promised,' North Korean top negotiator Kim Kye-Gwan said when asked if Washington would lift Pyongyang from the list, as quoted by Japan's Jiji Press.

COPENHAGEN, Sept 4, 2007 (AFP) - Several people suspected of preparing an act of terrorism were arrested early Tuesday in Denmark, the Danish police intelligence services (PET) said.

'The arrests are the result of prolonged surveillance of the persons concerned who are suspected of preparing a terrorist act with use of explosives,' PET said in a statement received by AFP.

The arrests were carried out around the capital Copenhagen.

GABORONE, Aug 24, 2007 (AFP) - African governments need to implement stringent laws to combat money-laundering and terrorism, the head of a anti-money laundering body meeting in Botswana said on Friday.

'Consistent application of recognised international standards is essential if we are to ensure that criminals and terrorists do not have access to the financial system and to the resources they need to survive and grow,' said the president of the Eastern and Southern Africa Anti-Money Laundering Group (ESAAMLG).

WASHINGTON, Aug 23, 2007 (AFP) - The United States risks elevating tensions and is not likely to achieve much by declaring Iran's Revolutionary Guards a 'terrorist' group, a prominent Iranian dissident who co-founded the Guards said.

Mohsen Sazegara, who was a high-ranking Tehran official before turning against the government, told AFP in an interview that the US move, reported to be in the works last week, could spark a backlash, stirring up more turmoil in places where Washington accuses them of terror activities, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

WASHINGTON, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it planned to designate arch enemy Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard a 'terrorist' group in a bid to squeeze the vast business network of the Islamic republic's elite military wing.

The administration of President George W. Bush is preparing to issue an executive order blacklisting the group in order to block its assets, a government official said, confirming reports in leading US newspapers.

WASHINGTON, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The United States said Wednesday it planned to designate arch enemy Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard a 'terrorist' group in a bid to squeeze the vast business network of the Islamic republic's elite military wing.

The administration of President George W. Bush is preparing to issue an executive order blacklisting the group in order to block its assets, a government official said, confirming reports in leading US newspapers.

WASHINGTON, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The United States said on Wednesday it planned to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a 'terrorist' group under a presidential order issued in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Part of a series of measures adopted following the attacks, Executive Order 13224 was signed by President George W. Bush on September 23, 2001 and declares a national emergency in light of the 'extraordinary threat' posed by terrorism to the United States and its citizens.

TEHRAN, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The chief commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Wednesday boasted of his elite force's military prowess, saying its missiles and ships had the 'length and breadth' of the Gulf under cover.

'We have surface-to-sea missile systems that can cover the length and breadth of the Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman,' Yahya Rahim Safavi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards told Iran's international Persian language Jam-e Jam televison channel in an interview.

TEHRAN, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - A US plan to designate Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards as a terror group is 'worthless' propaganda, an Iranian foreign ministry source told the official IRNA news agency on Wednesday.

'This kind of news is within the propaganda and psychological activities of the US statesmen agains the Islamic Republic of Iran and it is professionally worthless,' the unnamed said.

CRAWFORD, Texas, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The White House said Wednesday that it was not considering military action against Iran, as the United States planned to designate Tehran's elite Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.

'Military action is not being contemplated,' though no president should ever rule out the use of force, spokeswoman Dana Perino said as US President George W. Bush took a vacation from Washington on his Texas ranch.

WASHINGTON, Aug 15, 2007 (AFP) - The United States plans to label Iran's Revolutionary Guard a 'terrorist' organization, allowing the US government to target the military branch's business and financial operations, newspapers reported Wednesday.

President George W. Bush's administration suspects the Revolutionary Guard, Iran's largest military arm, of providing support to extremists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and throughout the Middle East.

LONDON, Aug 6, 2007 (AFP) - London's Metropolitan Police Monday said they had stopped and searched five times more people than average in the weeks after the recent failed car bombings in the capital and in Glasgow.

Officers stopped 10,948 people in July under anti-terror laws, compared to a monthly average of 2,114.

This was equivalent to more than 350 people being stopped and searched every day across the city.

MADRID, July 25, 2007 (AFP) - Spanish authorities Wednesday said they had arrested two Syrian nationals linked to an Islamist terrorist group for which they were raising funds.

Bassan Dalasi Satut, 48, and Samer Dabbas, 30, both from the Syrian city of Aleppo, are suspected of 'collaboration with a terrorist organisation, drawing up false contracts as well as money laundering,' the interior ministry said.

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2007 (AFP) - Fully 70 percent of Palestinians believe suicide bombing is justified but support for terrorism is falling in the wider Muslim world, according to a comprehensive US survey released Tuesday.

The Pew Research Center said its annual 'Global Attitudes' report also showed that the United States` image in Muslim-majority countries remains 'abysmal,' and that solid majorities see Washington as a military threat.