October 12:
The Hindustan Times reports that custom officials in India have seized what they suspect is nearly 1 kilogram of uranium from a bus on the Jangipur-Barakar route. Both the driver and the conductor are said to have been detained while scientists at the Bhaba Atomic Research Centre examine the contents of the recovered bag. According to one customs official, "Investigations revealed it [the uranium] was smuggled from Bangladesh."
October 13:
Amid lingering suspicions that Pyongyang and Damascus may be collaborating on a secret nuclear program, the speaker of North Korea's parliament, Choe Thae Bok, has left for an overseas trip that includes a visit to Syria. The DPRK is known to have provided the Assad regime with sophisticated missile technology to Syria, but officials in both countries have so far vehemently denied any collaboration in the nuclear sphere. According to Tel Aviv’s Yediot Ahronot newspaper, the visit – which follows a high-level Syrian delegation visit to Pyongyang in September – remains shrouded in secrecy.
October 14:
According to the Los Angeles Times, a recent influx of Islamic militants from Europe has renewed al Qaeda's strength along the tumultuous Pakistani-Afghan border region. "There have always been people going to Pakistan, but it is more frequent now,” says one French official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There is a return. It is a cycle... and you have the attractive phenomenon that all the big chiefs of Al Qaeda are there." The trend has come to light in the wake of several attempted bomb plots recently thwarted by European authorities.
October 15:
As NATO racks up successes against the Taliban in Afghanistan, foreign fighters are stepping into the void, filling leadership roles emptied by dead or captured terrorist leaders, Bloomberg News reports. And the surge, unwelcome by many locals, is netting results - suicide attacks in Afghanistan have reportedly increased 50 percent this year alone, while roadside bombings have increased some 30 percent during the same period.
October 18:
The government of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom in Male is taking up the fight against Islamic militancy. The BBC reports that the Maldives have issued measures aimed at protecting the island nation’s lucrative tourism industry following a bomb attack in September that injured several tourists. The wide-ranging decree declares that "extremist elements should not be allowed to operate in the country, and that foreign clerics would not be able to enter the country without special permission." The order also includes an effort to promote moderate Islamic views in Maldivian schools and colleges and prohibits women from being covered from head-to-toe. The measure has met with sharp criticism from the Maldives’ largest opposition party, the Maldivian Democratic Party, which has accused the president of being responsible for the recent increase in Islamic extremism, and compared the decree to "using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."