Firefighters and homeowners aren't the only ones keenly watching Australia's massive wildfires, responsible for killing at least 173 people in the southern part of the continent.
Terrorism experts suspect Muslim extremists are watching closely, too — and taking note of the devastation.
While Australian authorities have revealed no evidence linking the wildfires to extremists, terrorism experts say the large death toll, the huge swath of destruction and the massive financial blow to the country are proving to Islamic terrorists that arson can be a highly effective — and simple — tool of holy war.
In November, an extremist Web site called on Muslims to launch a "forest jihad" in Australia, Europe, Russia and the United States. The posting, which quoted imprisoned Al Qaeda terrorist Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, said setting forest fires was legal under "eye-for-an-eye" Islamic law.
"Scholars have justified chopping down and burning the infidels' forests when they do the same to our lands," the posting read.
Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The euro fell against the dollar and the yen as a Nikkei newspaper report that Russian banks and businesses may seek to reschedule $400 billion of foreign loans deepened concern financial turmoil in Europe is worsening.
The yen also ended a three-day loss versus the euro after European finance ministers signaled increasing concern that some governments are finding it harder to borrow in financial markets. The dollar strengthened on optimism that the U.S. government’s stimulus and bank-rescue packages will help spur growth in the world’s largest economy.
“The Nikkei report of rescheduling debt is driving the euro lower because European financial institutions have a bigger exposure to Russia than their counterparts in other countries,” said Takashi Kudo, Tokyo-based director of foreign-exchange sales at NTT SmartTrade Inc., a unit of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., Japan’s largest fixed-line phone company.
The euro fell to $1.2873 as of 11:46 a.m. in Tokyo from $1.3003 late in New York yesterday. Europe’s single currency slipped 0.9 percent to 117.86 yen. The dollar was at 91.56 yen from 91.46 yen. The British pound climbed to 86.70 pence per euro from 87.28 pence. The yen rose 1 percent to 61.42 versus Australia’s dollar and 0.9 percent to 48.81 against New Zealand’s dollar.
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