CIA Blast Blamed On Double Agent

WASHINGTON:   The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer was a double agent the CIA had recruited to provide intelligence on senior al Qaeda leadership, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official.

The officials said the bomber was a Jordanian doctor likely affiliated and working with al Qaeda.

The Afghan security official identified the bomber as Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, who is also known as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed that Mr. al-Balawi was the bomber, Arabic-language Web sites reported Monday.

Mr. al-Balawi was brought to the CIA's base in Khost Province by the Jordanian intelligence official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, who was working with the CIA, according to the Afghan security official.

The bomber appears to have been invited to an operational planning meeting on al Qaeda, a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. "It looks like an al Qaeda double agent," the former official said. "It's very sophisticated for a terrorist group that's supposedly on the run."

The blast on Dec. 30 killed four CIA officers, including the Khost base chief; three CIA contractors; and Mr. bin Zeid, officials said. Six CIA employees were wounded in the attack.

The Al Jazeera television network reported that the bomber had initially been recruited to provide intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri. That couldn't be independently confirmed Monday.

The CIA's deputy chief of station from Kabul traveled to the meeting at the CIA Khost base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, according to former intelligence officials, pointing to the meeting's importance. The officer was wounded in the attack, according to people familiar with the matter.

Both the Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack. The Afghan Taliban fights alongside an array of allied militants including the Haqqani network, an Islamic extremist group that operates in Afghanistan and Pakistan and maintains close ties to al Qaeda.

The U.S. and Jordanian intelligence services have worked closely together for years, said a former senior intelligence official. "There's a confidence level with them," the former official said. Mr. al-Balawi likely was seen as trustworthy because he'd previously provided the U.S. with valuable intelligence, said the former intelligence official. "This is someone they obviously trusted very, very much," the former official said.

Since Mr. al-Balawi was perceived by U.S. authorities as a cooperative intelligence informant, that could explain why he was not more thoroughly searched upon entering Chapman. It also would explain how he gained access to top intelligence officials.

Mr. al-Balawi was an active recruiter and an "elite writer" on al Qaeda's password-protected al-Hisba Web site, where he went by the name Abu Dujana al-Khurasani, according to the monthly journal of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.

In a posting on the site in May of 2007, Mr. al-Balawi sought to persuade people from a variety of backgrounds, including African-Americans, Native Americans, Vietnamese and poor immigrants to join the fight against their "oppressor," the U.S., the West Point analysts found.

Mr. al-Balawi had studied medicine in Turkey with government funding, according to a translation of the Jordanian Web site Jerasa News by the Middle East Media Research Institute. He left Jordan about a year ago after being detained for a few months by Jordanian intelligence officers.

The Jordanian news outlet cited eyewitness reports that Jordanian security forces had arrested Mr. al-Balawi's youngest brother and summoned his father after the blast. They warned his father not to put up a mourning tent, fearing it could attract jihadis, the news outlet said.

Senior U.S. military officials believe that the Khost attack was carried out with the active assistance of the Haqqani network, which has mounted dozens of bloody attacks inside Khost that have turned the province into one of the most violent regions of Afghanistan.

U.S. policy makers worry that any territory that falls under Haqqani control in either Afghanistan or Pakistan could quickly become a new safe haven for al Qaeda, whose senior leaders have known and fought alongside the Haqqani family for decades. The CIA and elite U.S. Special Operations troops have responded to the Haqqani group's offensive in Khost with a stepped-up campaign targeting the militants, and senior officials say more than two dozen Haqqani officials have been killed in recent weeks.

While coordination between the Haqqani network and the Pakistani Taliban is rare, members of both groups have said that they cooperated in the past. "At times they send suicide attackers to our area, and we give them shelter and find targets for them," said a former Haqqani commander in an interview this summer. The commander has since left the group and made peace with the Afghan government.

A U.S. intelligence official declined to speak about the specifics of the attack but said the agency "is looking closely at every aspect of the Khost attack." The official added, "The agency is determined to continue pursuing aggressive counterterrorism operations. Last week's attack will be avenged."

A former senior intelligence official said that al Qaeda had attempted to run double agents against the CIA prior to 9/11, but such efforts appeared to trail off after the 2001 offensive in Afghanistan that drove them into the tribal regions of Pakistan.

The bodies of the seven CIA employees arrived in the U.S. Monday, and CIA Director Leon Panetta, along with other agency officials and family members, attended a private ceremony at Dover Air Force Base to honor them, said CIA spokesman George Little.

Australia to Invest $50 Million More in Joint Fund

NEW DELHI:  Australia will invest an additional $50 million in an Australia-India strategic research fund, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Thursday, underscoring the country's initiative to collaborate to combat climate change issues.

The fund will be spent over a five-year period from the fiscal year that began April 1, Mr. Rudd said while speaking at Tata Energy Research Institute.
The investment toward the joint research initiative seeks to support more applied research and greater participation of industry partners to help address some of the climate change challenges, according to an Australian government statement.
"Climate change is a fundamental change to us all," Mr. Rudd said. "There is a need for a collaboration, unprecedented in human history."
Australia has already invested $20 million in the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund -- its largest bilateral research fund -- since 2006 to enable Australian scientists engage in collaborative research with Indian counterparts.
Australia will also invest $1 million in a joint solar cooling research project and an additional $20 million in dryland farming research, according to the statement.
The solar cooling project aims to develop a zero emissions cooling system targeted at remote rural communities in non-electrified areas and the fund allotted toward dryland farming will be staggered over five years.
"Of course there is a group of people who deny the reality of climate change. They are the enemies of us all," Mr. Rudd said.
Write to Sunil Raghu at Sunil.Raghu@dowjones.com

Fort Hood Shooting Suspect Awake, Talking

FORT HOOD.Texas: A U.S. Army hospital spokesman said the man suspected in a deadly shooting spree at Fort Hood is conscious and able to talk.

Dewey Mitchell, a spokesman at Brooke Army Medical Center, said Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan remains in stable condition. Mr. Mitchell said Maj. Hasan has been awake and able to talk since he was taken off a ventilator Saturday.

Maj. Hasan is at Brooke Medical Center in San Antonio, about 150 miles southwest of Fort Hood.

Authorities say the 39-year-old Maj. Hasan opened fire at a processing center Thursday at Fort Hood, the country's largest military installation. Thirteen people were killed and 30 were wounded.

The rampage ended when civilian police shot Maj. Hasan.

Army officials said their investigators increasingly believe that Maj. Hasan was the lone gunman in the carnage. "Right now we're operating on the belief that he acted alone and had no help," said a military official familiar with the Army Criminal Investigation Division probe.

To help settle the question more definitively, the official said, military investigators were trying to determine where Maj. Hasan had purchased his handguns and the large quantity of ammunition used in the attack.

At least one weapon, an expensive semiautomatic handgun, came from gun store Guns Galore in Killeen, where the Army base is located, law-enforcement officials said. A person who answered the phone at the store Friday said it was cooperating with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and had been asked by law-enforcement officials not to comment.

Military and civilian law-enforcement authorities are examining Maj. Hasan's phone and computer records to see if he had communicated with any extremist elements in the days before the attack, according to a military official familiar with the matter.

The official said the investigators who seized Maj. Hasan's home computer during a recent search of his Texas apartment have been conducting a forensic reconstruction of every Web site he visited and every email he sent in the run-up to the rampage. The official cautioned that there was no hard evidence, at present, of any suspicious communications.

Maj. Hasan, a U.S.-born Muslim of Jordanian and Palestinian ancestry, was slated to deploy to Afghanistan in November. Some witnesses told investigators that he shouted "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," before he opened fire on the unarmed soldiers waiting for medical treatment Thursday.

The personal Web site for a radical American imam living in Yemen praised Maj. Hasan as a hero. The posting Monday on the Web site for Anwar al Awlaki, who was a spiritual leader at two mosques where three 9/11 hijackers worshipped, said American Muslims who condemned the Fort Hood attack are hypocrites who have committed treason against their religion.

Mr. Awlaki said the only way a Muslim can justify serving in the U.S. military is if he intends to "follow in the footsteps of men like Nidal."

Two U.S. intelligence officials told the Associated Press the Web site was Mr. Awlaki's. Mr. Awlaki didn't immediately respond to an attempt to contact him through the Web site.

Investigators haven't announced a motive for the shootings but believe Maj. Hasan was almost certainly the author of an Internet posting that expressed general support for suicide bombings.

Investigators have interviewed hundreds of witnesses, including victims, but officials caution that the probe remains in a preliminary stage. Much of the Army's attention has been focused on helping the families of the deceased and injured.

In Washington, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs plans to investigate the shootings, the motive and whether the Army overlooked any warning signs, said Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, the committee's chairman.

"It's premature to reach conclusions about what motivated Hasan," Mr. Lieberman, an independent, said on "Fox News Sunday." "But it's clear that he was, one, under personal stress and, two, if the reports that we're receiving of various statements he made, acts he took, are valid, he had turned to Islamist extremism."

Army officials have warned troops not to jump to any conclusions about Maj. Hasan's motives and what role, if any, his faith might have played in the shootings.

Rep. John Carter, whose congressional district includes Fort Hood in central Texas, said he personally considers the shooting rampage on the Army base a "terrorist act" because witnesses said they heard Maj. Hasan say "Allahu Akbar."

"When he shouted 'Allahu Akbar,' he gave a clear indication that his faith or Muslim view of the world had something to do with it," said the congressman, a Republican. Mr. Carter added that he would wait until the official criminal investigation is concluded before rendering an official opinion.

In Killeen, grieving has only begun for the victims of the mass shooting. At church services around the city Sunday, pastors talked about strength and service and how to pray in the face of evil.

More than 200 people have already attended counseling sessions at the base, officials said.

"There were a lot of tears," said Jill Cone, the wife of the general

The Army base prepared for a memorial service on Tuesday, which President Barack Obama is expected to attend. The victims' bodies will be released to their families the following day, and the 12 who were soldiers will be buried with full military honors.

Sixteen victims were still hospitalized Sunday, seven of them in intensive care, officials said.

Maj. Hasan remained in intensive care at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio but is no longer on a ventilator. Army officials say his condition, while critical, is improving, which means they may soon be able to question him in person.

Legal experts said Maj. Hasan could be prosecuted in a military or federal court. A state prosecution is less likely because the crime involves a military defendant and crimes committed on federal property, said Cynthia Orr, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

But in any event, she said, Maj. Hasan could face the death penalty. "Anytime you have multiple victims it raises the specter of the death penalty," she said. "That is certainly one of the qualifying factors."

( sanders@wsj.com )

Terror at home

As the shootings in Ft. Hood, Texas, and Orlando show, violence is always with us.

In a 2005 speech at Ft. Bragg, N.C., President George W. Bush laid out his latest justification for the war in Iraq: "There is only one course of action against [terrorists]: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq -- who is also senior commander at this base -- Gen. John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, 'We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us.' "

But of course, fighting the enemy overseas doesn't mean we're not still fighting him here at home too. He struck Thursday in Ft. Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30. With the nation still mourning those deaths, he hit us again Friday in Florida, shooting six in an Orlando office building.

Sometimes, the enemy we're fighting is a radical Muslim fundamentalist. The suspect in the Ft. Hood slayings may have been that kind of terrorist; he was certainly Muslim, and allegedly shouted "Allahu akbar," or "God is great," before opening fire. Sometimes he's a communist maniac, such as Lee Harvey Oswald. Or he's a government-loathing, right-wing conspiracy theorist, such as Timothy McVeigh.

Domestic terrorists tend to be loners, not organized militias like the ones we're fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Organized or not, terrorists think it's heroic to murder unarmed and unsuspecting people. They nurse bitter resentments in the dark against those who live in the light. They are driven by a kind of messianic zeal that, to them, justifies even the most heinous acts. They are so blinded by hatred that they will believe virtually anything about their enemies -- us -- no matter how farfetched. They are an unstable compound made up of ignorance and anger, often mixed with religion or political extremism. They could go off at any time.

Not all killers, of course, are terrorists. The suspect in the Orlando killings may have been a copycat emboldened by the previous day's blood bath, or he may have been just a disgruntled worker with a grudge and a gun. Terrorists use violence against ordinary people to further a cause. What they hold in common is self-righteousness -- an unshakable conviction that their actions are universally correct, even divinely sanctioned. They are always wrong.

Even if we "win" the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and at this point it's hard to picture what "victory" would look like -- it won't keep us safe from such people. The enemy may be weak, but he has always been with us and always will be.

The Los Angeles Times

Fort Hood Shooter Was to Serve in Afghanistan.

One Civilian Among the 13 Dead; Army Psychiatrist Is Suspected and in Stable Condition.

.......................

FORT HOOD,Texas:  U.S. Army officials said Friday that the alleged shooter in the military-base massacre that left 13 people dead and dozens wounded had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan to counsel soldiers suffering from combat stress.

The suspect, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was in stable condition Friday as investigators interviewed witnesses and tried to piece together details of one of the worst incidents of soldier-on-soldier violence in U.S. history.

Army Col. Steven Braverman said during a morning news briefing that military psychiatrist Maj. Hasan hadn't been a disciplinary issue since recently being transferred to Fort Hood from Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington. Col. Braverman declined to elaborate on the man at the center of the rampage, noting that a detailed probe was ongoing.

"We had no problems with job performance while he was working with us," said Col. Braverman, one of Maj. Hasan's superiors.

Army Col. John Rossi called Thursday's shooting a "tragic incident" and said that investigators had spent the night carefully interviewing witnesses. Officials disclosed that one of the 13 killed in the shooting was a civilian, while the rest were members of the military.

Military officials said the focus now is on the wounded soldiers who continue to need medical care. Half of those hospitalized required surgery and are in stable condition, Col. Braverman said.

At Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Texas, about 30 minutes east of Fort Hood, medical staff were treating 10 victims suffering from gunshot wounds to the head, abdomen, neck and chest. Some had been struck multiple times. Six were in critical condition in the intensive-care unit following surgery, while four others were in the regular inpatient wing with less serious injuries. One patient may be released as early as Friday, hospital officials said.

"Some of them are not out of the woods," W. Roy Smythe, chair of the hospital's surgery department, said of the victims.

Col. Kimberly Kesling, deputy commander of clinical services at Darnall Army Medical Center, the hospital at Fort Hood, said Friday morning Maj. Hasan had appeared to be a dedicated professional. She described him as quiet, respectful and appropriate in attire and demeanor since arriving on base in July.

"To date, he had been performing quite well," Col. Kesling said.

His job as a psychiatrist was intense, she said. Some Army mental-health professionals experience burnout from the burden of hearing so many horror stories from traumatized veterans. But she had seen no sign that Maj. Hasan was under that type of stress.

"It's a shock," she said. "You would hope you never know someone who would have such a demon."

News that the suspected shooter was an Army psychiatrist alarmed Sgt. Howard Appleby, an Iraq veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and had been seeing a military psychiatrist daily since returning from the war last summer.

On Thursday, he was turned away at the hospital door as he walked in for his regular appointment, told that it had been postponed due to an emergency. He drove to the scene and began helping triage victims and load them into ambulances.

Friday morning, Sgt. Appleby said he was not sure he wanted to return to his regular schedule of Army counseling. "They need to evaluate all psychiatrists," he said. "I'm thinking twice about going to a psychiatrist now."

The shooting rampage Thursday was halted by a female civilian police officer who shot him, said Lt. Gen. Robert Cone, the top military commander on the base. Sgt. Kimberly Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire. She was in stable condition Friday and is expected to recover from wounds sustained in the gun battle. (Read more about Sgt. Munley.)

Maj. Hasan, 39 years old, was hospitalized after the shooting, Lt. Gen. Cone said, and "his death is not imminent." He was on a ventilator and unconscious in a hospital after being shot four times during the shootings at the Army's sprawling Fort Hood, post officials said.

In the early chaos after the shootings, authorities believed they had killed him, only to discover later that he had survived.

Military officials added that they were probing how the alleged shooter may have gotten weapons into the base, where personnel other than civilian police don't typically carry weapons. They noted that security personnel conduct random car checks in search of guns.

President Barack Obama on Friday urged people not to jump to conclusions while law-enforcement officials gather facts about the shootings. The president ordered flags at the White House and other federal agencies to be flown at half-staff until Veterans Day as a tribute to those who lost their lives.

The alleged shooter is originally from Virginia, and had been recently promoted to major before his transfer to Fort Hood. His professional specialties include post-traumatic stress disorder, combat stress and other emotional issues common to the troops implicated in earlier incidents of military fratricide.

Authorities on Friday seized Maj. Hasan's home computer, searched his apartment and took away a dumpster.

Maj. Hasan was slated to serve for the first time in Afghanistan in coming weeks, military officials said. It was originally reported that he was to serve in Iraq. An official at the Pentagon added there were indications that Maj. Hasan was deeply upset about the pending assignment.

Maj. Hasan's cousin, Nader Hasan, told Fox News that his cousin was deeply traumatized about seeing wartime service.

"We've known for the last five years that that was probably his worst nightmare," Nader Hasan said. "He would tell us how he hears horrific things...that was probably affecting him psychologically."

The cousin said Maj. Hasan had joined the military out of high school against the wishes of his parents. He added that Maj. Hasan, a Muslim, hired a military lawyer and had been trying since September to avoid deployment and leave the Army.

The shooting began about 1:30 p.m. local time in two small buildings, adjacent to a processing center where soldiers receive medical checkups as they prepare to deploy overseas, officials said.

Lt. Gen. Cone said the victims, mostly soldiers, were waiting for treatment. Soldiers at the base don't routinely carry weapons and, therefore, would have been unarmed at the time of the attack. Maj. Hasan used two handguns, he said, including a semiautomatic weapon.

The injuries of the wounded varied significantly, he said.

Quick action by base personnel protected about 600 people who were in a nearby theater to attend college-graduation ceremonies for 138 soldiers, Lt. Gen. Cone said.

Thursday's attack was one of the Army's worst single-day losses of life since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address that the attack on soldiers in the U.S. was particularly unsettling.

"It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas," he said. "It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil."

Fort Hood, is the largest U.S. military facility in the world. It houses the 1st Cavalry Division and the First Army Division West, as well as an array of smaller aviation, logistics, and military police units.

More than 45,000 soldiers are assigned to the base, with many deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq at any one time. About 9,000 civilians also work at Fort Hood, and thousands of families live on the base and in nearby Killeen -- about 160 miles southwest of Dallas.

The shooting rattled service members at Fort Hood. "It's heavy on the hearts of soldiers," said Dionte Turner, a 29-year-old military police officer stationed who has been deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. Killings "can happen anywhere," he said, "but you don't expect it to happen in your backyard."

...................

Write to Yochi Dreazen at yochi.dreazen@wsj.com

Pakistan modified US-made missiles-NYT

NEW YORK- The Obama administration has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying U.S.-made missiles to expand its ability to hit land-based targets, which would constitute a threat to India, The New York Times reported in Sunday editions.
Citing senior administration and Congressional officials, the Times said the charge came in late June through an unpublicized diplomatic protest to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.
The accusation, made amid growing concerns about Pakistan's increasingly rapid conventional and nuclear weapons development, triggered a new round of U.S.-Pakistani tensions, the report added.
"There's a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down," the newspaper quoted a senior administration official as saying. "Their energies are misdirected," the official added.
A senior Pakistani official called the accusation "incorrect," saying that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles that could strike India, according to the Times.
U.S. officials said the disputed weapon is a conventional one based on the Harpoon antiship missiles that were sold to Pakistan during the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon, the newspaper reported, but the charges come as the Obama administration is seeking Congressional approval for $7.5 billion in aid for Pakistan over the next five years.
The accusation stems from U.S. intelligence agencies' detection of a suspicious missile test on April 23 which was never announced by the Pakistanis and which appeared to give it a new offensive weapon, the Times said.
U.S. military and intelligence officials suspect Pakistan of modifying the Harpoon sold to them in the 1980s, which would violate the Arms Control Export Act.
Pakistan denied the charge and said it developed the missile, the Times said.
The missiles would bolster Pakistan's ability to threaten India, stoking fears of heating up the two nations' arms race.
"The focus of our concern is that this is a potential unauthorized modification of a maritime antiship defensive capability to an offensive land-attack missile," another senior administration official told the Times, speaking on condition of anonymity about classified information.
"When we have concerns, we act aggressively," the official added. (Writing by Chris Michaud; Editing by Eric Walsh)

Yahoo Buys Maktoob Arabic Portal,Boosts Emerging Mkts

DUBAI (By Dania Saadi)-Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), said on Tuesday it agreed to buy Arabic online portal Maktoob.com as it seeks to add the Middle East to its expanding strategy for the fast-growing emerging markets.
"This deal reinforces Yahoo's commitment to invest in emerging markets," Keith Nilsson, senior vice president of emerging markets for Yahoo, said at a press conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
"With online user penetration and advertising penetration at its infancy, we see tremendous growth potential in this region," he said.
Nilsson and Maktoob officials declined to disclose the value of the deal.
Yahoo Inc. is looking at further expansion in emerging countries, which are the company's fastest growing regions. Yahoo 's emerging markets include South East Asia, India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said in July its second-quarter revenue fell 13% as its online advertising business continued to deteriorate. Yahoo has 44 million users a month in the North Africa and Middle East region, Nilsson said. Maktoob.com has over 16 million users, according to the company.
The deal comes a month after Yahoo agreed to join forces with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in the Internet search and advertising business to help create a counterweight to Google Inc. (GOOG) and has upgraded its services as the Internet portal tries to make its core properties more appealing.
Yahoo and rival Google, which already has Arabic internet services, are competing to tap the Arab World's fast-growing population of over 320 million and high per capita gross domestic product, one of the highest in the world.
"Saudi Arabia and Egypt offer tremendous size and growth opportunities that we will be looking at in addition to other countries in the Middle East," Nilsson said.
With a population exceeding 70 million, Egypt is the Arab World's most populous state, and Saudi Arabia is the region's largest economy and the world's biggest oil exporter.
Yahoo's acquisition follows a wave of consolidation in the Middle East's internet and media industry over the last few years.
Abraaj Capital, a Dubai-based private equity firm, sold in 2007 its 40% stake in Maktoob.com to U.S.-based hedge fund Tiger Global Management. Abraaj bought this year a stake in Mediaquest Corp., a Dubai-based company mainly involved in publishing.
Emap, a London-based media group, paid in 2006 an initial $24 million for AME Info, an online business and information service provider in the Middle East, according to its Web site.
The Arab World's online advertising market is growing anywhere between 25 and 50 percent a year as internet usage soars, Nilsson added.
Samih Toukan, who helped found Maktoob in 2000, said the shift in advertising expenditure has helped fuel growth in the online advertising industry.
"We are talking of an online advertising budget of probably $40 to $50 million that is even growing this year at 30% to 40% even with this global financial crisis," Toukan said at the press conference.
Besides the Maktoob.com portal, the Maktoob Group includes web sites such as Souq.com and cashU.com, which will operate under into a new entity called Jabbar Internet Group to be managed by Toukan.