Thursday, October 03, 2013

Believed Iranian Cyberwar Official Dead in Apparent Assassination

  FP Morning Brief
Top News: Mojtaba Atabi, an official in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps who was widely believed to be the head of the organization's cyberwarfare division, has been shot and killed. His body was found in a wooded area outside Tehran with two bullet holes through his heart. Local police say that he was killed by two men on a motorbike.
The death has the hallmarks of an assassination, and many have pointed toward Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Atabi's death is being likened to the killing of five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007, some of whom were also killed by motorcycle-borne assassins.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has said that it is investigating a "horrific incident," but did not identify the person killed and denied it was an assassination.
Kuwait: More than 50 U.S. citizens have been held in Kuwait for three months in a sort of legal limbo after taking jobs there as contracted translators, Foreign Policy reports. They are confined to makeshift barracks in airplane hangars as a result of a legal dispute between a U.S.-based contractor and its Kuwaiti business partner.


Americas
  • U.S. law enforcement agencies shut down Silk Road, an anonymous online marketplace known as a haven for drug sales.
  • A protest by students and teachers on the anniversary of a 1968 massacre led to clashes with law enforcement in Mexico City.
  • The U.S. government remains shut down today as negotiations to pass a budget continue to stagnate.
Asia
  • Despite a visit by President Thein Sein to the area, anti-Muslim riots roiled western Myanmar, leading to the stabbing of a 94-year-old woman.
  • The head of Indonesia's constitutional court was arrested on suspicion of corruption.
  • A new leak of radioactive water has been detected seeping into the Pacific from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.
Middle East
  • President Hasan Rouhani said Iran was prepared to discuss details of its nuclear program, but would not negotiate on its right to develop peaceful nuclear technology.
  • An angry mob stormed the Russian Embassy in Tripoli, Libya. No Russian personnel were harmed, though one of the attackers was killed.
  • The conclusion of Yemen's National Dialogue, the reconciliation talks convened to resolve political, geographic, and tribal tensions as part of the country's transition in advance of elections, will be postponed for one to three months.
Africa
  • Kenya has said it will not immediately comply with an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court, saying it will instead subject the warrant to "judicial review."
  • Mali's recently inaugurated president has dissolved a military reform commission dominated by officers from the junta that overthrew the government last year.
  • Guinean President Alpha Conde has an early lead in national elections.
Europe
  • Greenpeace activists in Germany chained themselves to fuel pumps at Gazprom gas stations in protest of Russia's arrest of 14 activists who attempted to board an oil derrick.
  • Greek authorities released three of the four politicians from the country's fascist Golden Dawn party that were arrested last week, but investigation of the party remains ongoing.
  • A boat carrying as many as 500 African immigrants capsized off the coast of Italy, killing 88 people.

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