Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, Crown Prince offer condolences to Indonesian president over victims of terrorist bombing attacks

Efforts intensified to track down terrorists in Iraq, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia

Piracy, hostage-taking continue in some African countries

U.S. plans forming squad to interrogate terrorists

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has sent a cable of condolences to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the casualties of the terrorist bombings in a number of hotels in the capital, Jakarta.

In the cable, the king condemned the terrorist acts describing them as criminal and sinful.

Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Premier, Minister of Defense and Aviation and Inspector General, has sent a cable of condolences to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on the casualties of the terrorist bombings in a number of hotels in the capital, Jakarta.

In the cable, the crown prince condemned the terrorist acts describing them as criminal and sinful.

In Jeddah, Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, has strongly condemned the latest bomb attacks in Jakarta.

He expressed his outrage and anger against these series of senseless bombings and killings. He further pointed out that such acts run counter to the noble peaceful values of Islam and then stressed the need for the authorities to identify the perpetrators of these heinous acts of violence and bring them to justice.

He also added that the horrific and senseless terrorist attacks in Jakarta has been a source of tremendous amount of pain, grief and distress for the Indonesian people, Muslim World and international community.

Secretary General conveyed his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and prayed for the speedy recovery of the wounded.

The Secretary General reiterated the steady position of the OIC, in condemning terrorism in all its manifestations, including hideous suicide attacks, irrespective of their motivations or justifications and expressed solidarity with the Government of Indonesia in its struggle against terrorism.

Meanwhile, Four foreigners were among those confirmed killed in the bomb attacks at two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital, a health official said Saturday, as an anti-terror chief blamed the blasts on a fugitive Malaysian militant. Bombs exploded at the tightly guarded JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta on Friday morning, killing nine people and injuring more than 50.

Two Australians, one New Zealander and one Singaporean were among the nine killed in the blast, said Rustam Pakaya, the head of the Health Ministry's crisis centre.

The dead Australians were business executives Nathan Verity and Garth McEvoy, while the Singaporean was only identified as Arnold, Pakaya said.

The New Zealander, 61-year-old business executive Timothy Mackay, died of his injuries on Friday.

The Australian Associated Press said another Australian was feared killed.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was due to meet his Indonesian counterpart Hassan Wirajuda in Jakarta later Saturday to discuss what Canberra could do to help the investigation.

Police said they suspected the attacks were carried out by suicide bombers who checked into the hotels as guests and assembled the bombs in one of the hotel rooms.

The spokesman said police were investigating whether the blasts had been timed to coincide with a meeting of top business executives, many of whom were foreigners, at the Marriott.

Several businessmen were having breakfast when the bomb exploded at the hotel's restaurant.

Suspicion has fallen on the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group, which has been blamed for a string of deadly attacks in Indonesia since the start of the decade in its quest to bring Islamic rule to Southeast Asia.

The head of the Security Ministry's anti-terrorism desk, Ansyaad Mbai, said he believed fugitive militant Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian, was the mastermind behind the hotel bombings.

Authorities said Noordin, believed to be the leader of a splinter faction of Jemaah Islamiyah, played key roles in most of the previous attacks.

"Looking at the modus operandi, it is clear that it was the work of Noordin M Top," Ansyaad was quoted as saying by the state Antara news agency.

The hotels were popular with foreigners as a venue for business meetings because they were thought to be well-protected.

The blast was the second bombing on the Jakarta Marriott.

In August 2003, a militant drove a bomb-laden truck into the lobby of the hotel and set it off, killing 12 people and injuring 150.

Until Friday, Indonesia had not had a major attack since October 2005, when suicide bombers blew up three restaurants in Bali, killing 20 people.

The White House said on Monday that U.S. President Barack Obama still wants to visit his old hometown of Jakarta perhaps later in the year, despite the twin blasts at two luxury hotels in the city.

"I have no reason to believe that the events of the past few days have changed or lessened the president's desire" to visit Indonesia, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Obama spent a few years as a child living in Jakarta from 1967 to 1971 after his mother remarried to an Indonesian national.

He told reporters in June: "Oh, I need to come to Indonesia soon. I expect to be traveling to Asia at some point within the next year and I would be surprised if when I came to Asia I did not stop by my old home town of Jakarta.

"And I'll go visit Menteng Dalam and have some bakso -- Nasi Goreng. These are some special dishes here that I used to eat when I was a kid."

Gibbs said Obama's upcoming itinerary would be discussed in meetings at the White House this week.

However, the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to be held in Singapore in November could provide an opportunity for a stopover in Indonesia.

Gibbs again on Monday stressed the special importance that Indonesia holds for Obama, saying: "Obviously it is a country with the largest number of Muslims in the world, important to him from that standpoint as well as personal."

Two bombers killed seven people including three Australians, a New Zealander and an Indonesian in almost simultaneous blasts at two Jakarta luxury hotels on Friday.

More than 50 people were injured.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Monday night, 10 people have been arrested during a series of disturbances caused by Jewish settlers after Israeli authorities removed an illegal caravan.

Two Palestinians were taken to hospital after settlers threw stones at cars and tried to block a road near Nablus in the northern West Bank on Monday night.

Settlers also set fire to a Palestinian olive grove in the area. The caravan was part of an "outpost", a settlement illegal under Israeli law, which Israel has agreed to remove. Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.

Right-leaning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under US pressure to halt all settlement building and carry out previous Israeli pledges to remove the outposts.

But the settlers, many of whom say they have a God-given right to live in the West Bank, have threatened to impose what they call a "price tag" on such evacuations.

The Human Rights Group Yesh Din said this can include attacking Palestinians and their property "to create a price for each evacuation, causing Israeli authorities to think twice about carrying them out".

Police did not give details of the incidents in which the 10 arrests were made, but said they were from a series of "disturbances" across the West Bank.

At least 280,000 Jews live in settlements (with a further 180,000 living in East Jerusalem), established in the occupied West Bank with Israeli government backing, in contravention of international law.

Israeli activist groups say there are, in addition, about 100 unauthorized outposts in the West Bank, where Palestinians want to locate their future state.

On Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israeli forces were drafting a plan to remove 23 such outposts in one day.

In Baghdad, a Sunni Arab anti-Qaeda militia commander was among two people killed in two bombings in Baghdad on Sunday, security officials said. Four people were wounded.

Mahmud Abdullah was killed by a roadside bomb in the Al-Tuwaitha neighborhood in the south of the capital in an attack that also wounded one person, the third on a Sunni militia leader in as many days.

On Saturday, Naeem Saleh al-Halbusi was wounded by a bombing that killed his son and two bodyguards in a town outside Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

And on Friday, a bombing at the Fallujah home of a police lieutenant colonel and ex-militia leader killed his two sons and wounded six other people.

Sunni militias, formed from local tribesmen and former insurgents and known as the Sahwa or Awakening, have played a crucial role in the battle against Al-Qaeda since they began switching loyalty to the US military in 2006.

In another attack on Sunday, one soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi army patrol in Abu Ghraib, west of the Iraqi capital.

The attacks come less than three weeks after US troops withdrew from urban centers in line with a security pact between Baghdad and Washington that calls for American forces to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Violence had dropped markedly throughout the country in recent months but attacks increased in the run-up to the US military pullback, with 437 Iraqis killed in June -- the highest death toll in 11 months.

A pilot from southern Indiana died in a helicopter crash in Iraq while working for a contractor just months after his brother says he retired from the Army.

William F. "Sonny" Hinchman completed two tours in Iraq with the Army, but was killed Friday in the crash near Baghdad. Kirk Hinchman says his 42-year-old brother enlisted after graduating from Greene County's Worthington-Jefferson High School in 1984.

Hinchman left the Army in March and lived in Copperas Cove, Texas.

Kirk Hinchman told the Greene County Daily World that relatives asked his brother why he was returning to Iraq but that he believed his work there protecting diplomats would help stabilize the country.

The Associated Press left a message seeking comment from North Carolina-based XE, formerly known as Blackwater, about Hinchman's death.

In Islamabad, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday asked the European Union for immediate weapons and training for security forces to help the insurgency-wracked nation drive out the Taliban.

Gilani made the demand during talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who had earlier pledged full support for Pakistan as it deals with the resettlement of 1.9 million people displaced in fighting with Taliban rebels.

The premier urged the EU to provide "immediate assistance" for law enforcement capacity building and the "supply of much needed sophisticated weapon systems" to eliminate terrorism, a statement issued by Gilani's office said.

Gilani also asked the EU member states to "deliver on their pledges" made in a Friends of Pakistan meeting in Tokyo in April where nations promised cash support amounting to 5.28 billion dollars.

Solana visited a refugee camp in northwest Pakistan and praised the country's efforts in managing the return of its displaced people, the vast majority of whom have been made homeless by fighting since late April.

"I was very, very impressed by the manner in which this complicated operation has been handled," Solana said, describing it as "work well done".

"I have seen already today families returning and I think that it is very, very important good news, Solana said.

The EU has contributed more than 150 million euros and will continue to support Pakistan as it deals with one of its largest mass-migrations in history, Solana added. "We will continue to be engaged in this battle which is very, very important for your country and not only important for your country but important for everyone."

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi urged the EU to allow greater market access to countries afflicted by terror, saying the Pakistani economy had suffered losses of 35 billion dollars since joining the US-led "war on terror" in late 2001.

"What we are demanding is market access on more favorable terms," Qureshi said, adding that Pakistan-EU trade stood at 10 billion dollars.

U.S. officials "firmly believe" that al-Qaeda leaders who planned and carried out the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, are hiding in Pakistan near its border with Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday.

At a news conference concluding three days of meetings, Clinton said Washington has told the Pakistani government what it believes about the location of al-Qaeda leaders on its soil.

"With respect to the location of those who were part of the planning and execution of the attack of 9/11 against our country, we firmly believe that a significant number of them are in the border area of Pakistan," she said when asked about the U.S. view.

"We are actively looking for additional information that would lead us to them," she added.

The Pakistani government denies that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are hiding on its territory.

Bin Laden is believed to have fled into Pakistan from Afghanistan weeks after the U.S. military invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks.

Meanwhile, the French foreign minister said in statements on Tuesday that France has not ruled out the possibility of using its commandos to free two French security advisers held hostage in Islamist militants in Somalia.

Bernard Kouchner said that his government is doing "everything it can" to free two men, adding that negotiations for their release are being conducted via the French embassy in Nairobi.

Kouchner told reporters in Paris on Tuesday that reports indicated that the two abducted French security advisers are being held separately by two different militant groups.

When asked about the possibility of using French commandos to free the two abducted men, Kouchner said that his government has not yet asked the Somalis for permission to send in commandos to free the hostages.

"Nothing is ruled out, but the priority is for negotiations," Kouchner said.

He also rejected reports that the Islamist militants were using the two abducted French nationals for securing the release of some 12 Somali pirates currently being held in France, stating that the captors of the two French men "are not really interested in piracy."

The two French security were abducted by suspected militants from the Islamist al-Shabaab group on July 14 in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu. They were on an official mission to help train Somalia's security forces, which are fighting Islamist insurgents.

Kouchner's remarks came just days after the insurgent group Al Shabab announced Saturday that the two French security advisers would be soon tried under Islamic law for alleged spying and conspiracy against Islam.

Kidnapping foreign aid workers for ransom is common in Somalia, and it has already prompted some aid agencies to suspend operations in the African country, which is currently reeling under severe drought and civil war.

Somalia has not had a functioning government after the fall of the last government in 1991. It is estimated the fighting between the Islamist insurgents and the army has killed thousands of Somalis and has displaced hundreds of thousands more, mostly from Mogadishu.

On the other hand, an official of the hard-line Shebab rebel group in Somalia said the French agents kidnapped will be tried soon under Islamic Sharia law for aiding "the enemies of Allah".

Earlier three foreign aid workers were reported kidnapped overnight in a Kenyan town close to the Somali border by armed men who took them into Somalia.

The French agents "were caught assisting the apostate government and their spies, so that they will soon be tried and punished under the Sharia law, they will face the justice court for spying and entering Somalia to assist the enemy of Allah," a senior Shebab officer told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The decision about their fate will depend on the outcome of the Islamic court that will hear the charges against them," he added.

The two agents, in Somalia to train the forces of the beleaguered transitional government, were snatched at gunpoint from their hotel in central Mogadishu early Tuesday.

On Friday Somalia's Social Affairs Minister Mohammed Ali Ibrahim told a French news channel they were being held by Shebab, who he said may be seeking the freedom of Somali pirates jailed in France.

"Both are with the Shebab. As long as they're with the Shebab negotiations will be hard," he said.

"The demands are not clear. The main reason for the kidnapping is that certain Shebab have associates imprisoned in France, pirates."

French President Nicholas Sarkozy's chief of staff Claude Gueant said Friday Paris did not believe the men were in imminent danger, and had probably been held for ransom.

"We're heading into tortuous bargaining for their freedom, and it could take a while," he warned.

Fifteen Somali pirates are being held in France after being captured by the French navy in the Gulf of Aden. They are accused of taking part in the hijacking of two French yachts.

Earlier Saturday a Somali government official said three foreign aid workers were kidnapped overnight in Mandera, a Kenyan town close to the Somali border, by armed men who took them into Somalia.

"We are investigating the incident by tracing the kidnappers," Sheikh Adan Mohamed, a senior official in the neighboring Somali town of Bulohawo, told AFP by telephone.

The nationalities of the three and the organization for which they worked were not immediately known.

"There was an incident and three foreigners were taken away," a Kenyan security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"There was a shootout at their office which was raided by gunmen and they shot a night guard in the head," the official said. "In the process, they took away three people. The people have crossed the border."

Foreigners are regularly kidnapped in Somalia, which has been mired in civil war since 1991, and usually freed in return for a ransom. Journalists and aid workers are particularly targeted.

Canadian journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Geoffrey Brennan, who were snatched on August 23 last year, are still being held by their abductors.

Four European employees of the French non-governmental aid organization Action Contre la Faim (Action Against Hunger) and their two Kenyan pilots, kidnapped in early November, are also still being held.

Meanwhile Somali pirates on Saturday said they had released a German ship and its crew after being paid a ransom of 1.8 million dollars (1.3 million euros).

In Berlin the German foreign ministry confirmed the release and identified the ship as the MV Victoria, flying the Antigua and Barbuda flag, which was captured on May 5 with 11 men on board south of Yemen on its way to the Saudi Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Media reports in Berlin said the crew was Romanian.

Pirates attacked more than 130 merchant ships off Somalia last year, a rise of more than 200 percent on 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre.

The world's naval powers have deployed dozens of warships to the lawless waters off Somalia over the past year in a bid to curb attacks on one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes.

In Washington, a U.S. government official said the Obama administration is considering creating a special unit of professional interrogators to handle key terror suspects, focusing on intelligence-gathering rather than building criminal cases for prosecution.

The recommendation is expected from a presidential task force on interrogation methods that plans to send some findings to the White House on Tuesday.

The official said the panel, which has not completed its work, has concluded that the unit of intelligence and law enforcement agencies should be created. The task force is unsure which agencies should have a role, though the CIA and FBI are expected to be important players, according to the official. He was not authorized to publicly discuss the panel's work and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Ben LaBolt, a White House spokesman, said President Barack Obama has not reviewed the task force's recommendations. LaBolt declined to discuss any findings.

The recommendation about the new unit was first reported in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

The unit's structure would depart significantly from such work under the Bush administration, when the CIA had the lead and sometimes exclusive role in questioning al-Qaeda suspects. The task force has not reached a conclusion as to which agency should lead the unit or where it should be based, the official said.

Such a unit would not alter the Obama administration's decision banning harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which simulates drowning, that were authorized by the Bush administration. The Obama task force is examining what other techniques could be used, the official said.

Obama signed executive orders when he took office in January calling for government task forces to recommend future policies for interrogating and detaining suspected terrorists. The deadline for those recommendations is Tuesday, but the work will take more time than that.