Mamdouh Habib, a "rendition" victim and former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, is running for a state parliamentary seat in New South Wales, Australia. He was picked up in Pakistan in October 2001, transferred to Egypt where he was tortured, then shipped to Guantanamo before being released without charges in 2005—because the Bush administration did not want the torture allegations aired in court, Australian and American officials admit. Habib suffers from severe digestive problems and his doctor believes his stomach has been permanently damaged from having gas forced into it through tubes inserted into his rectum when he was tortured in Egypt. He is running in a coalition that includes Greens, socialists and communists. (NYT, March 21)

Indonesian police shot dead a suspected Islamist militant believed to be linked to Abu Dujana, the purported current leader of the Jemaah Islamiah network, blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed more than 200 people. One militant was also injured after the suspects opened fire during the night raid near the city of Yogyakarta. (Reuters, March 21)

As Bangladesh prepares to hang six militants convicted in a string of bombings, a newly "interrogated" member of the network claims some 5,000 followers of outlawed Islamist groups are still active in the country, and receiving aid from supporters abroad, including Saudi Arabia and the United States. Mostafizur Rahman Shahin, detained in the northern district of Pabna March 14, confessed to being a senior member of the banned Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, led by Shayek Abdur Rahman.

Continuing protests over the suspension of the chief justice, thousands of opposition activsts and lawyers rallied in major cities across Pakistan and clashed with police, demanding President Pervez Musharraf's resignation. In Islamabad, around 1,000 protesters staged an angry rally outside the Supreme Court building. The former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, Hamid Gul, took part in protests in front of the national Parliament. Police and paramilitary troops have been deployed in large numbers in and around the Parliament and Supreme Court buildings, and emegrency orders against further public gatherings are in effect.

US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are using a miniature unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) developed by Israel, the campany that produces the devide said in a statement released ahead an upcoming air show in Australia.. Elbit, one of Israel's leading defense electronics companies, said the mini-UAV, known as the Skylark, is operational "and currently deployed in the global war on terror in Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan." There was no confirmation from US military on the statement.

From the Iraq Freedom Congress, March 14:

On the 4th Anniversary of the US-led war on Iraq
Let's Raise the Freedom Flag and Unify Our Ranks to Boot out the Occupation and Sectarian Gangs from Iraq

Iraqi people:

On this day we are commemorating the 4th year of the US-led war on Iraq. This war that brought us nothing but carnage, poverty, and more than two million displaced people. This is Bush's promised democracy to Iraqis.

Gunmen kidnapped two Chinese men and a Nigerian man working for a local company in the southeastern state of Anambra March 17. The Chinese were the first foreigners kidnapped outside of the country's oil heartland in the southern Niger Delta. The men were abducted from their workplace in the industrial town of Nnewi. Four men drove into the premises of the Innoson Group of Companies Ltd, a motorcycle assembly plant, shot in the air, hustled the three men into a four-wheel drive and sped off. Police say they suspect a separatist group operating in the southeastern region may have abducted the men. But the Movement for the Actualisation of a Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has denied any involvement. "We are asking for freedom for our people and have no reason to kidnap expatriates," MASSOB spokesman Nnamdi Ohiagu told Reuters.

Suspected Islamist separatists shot and killed three Buddhist women involved with a project for victims of Thailand's insurgency March 19. The victims were headed to work at a farm project funded by Thailand's Queen Sirikit in the Nong Chik district of Pattani province, one of several in the area set up to help distressed women, including some widowed by the political violence. The project teaches the women to grow vegetables, fruit and other basic necessities. Assailants on a motorcycle drove up next to the truck the women were riding in and fired randomly. Thirteen other women escaped unharmed.