BBC report.

A Japanese oil tanker has been damaged by an explosion in the Strait of Hormuz near Oman, causing a minor injury to one crew member.

Japanese officials say the blast might have been caused by an attack, although piracy in the area is rare.

PA report.

Ministers could still use their powers to turn the July 7 London bombings inquests into a public inquiry to prevent secret MI5 evidence being released, a hearing has been told.

The Government said it would not launch a legal challenge to the coroner's ruling that she should investigate alleged police and security service failings.

But Home Secretary Theresa May reserves the right to launch a public inquiry and halt the inquests, potentially adding extra cost and delay to the process, the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice in London was told.

Richard Ingrams comments in the Independent.

While the media pursue these red herrings, the most likely reason for Megrahi's release will go unmentioned. It is generally forgotten that, at the time of his release, he was engaged in a lengthy appeal hearing against his original conviction. Evidence showing the flimsiness of the case against him would have been produced; well-founded allegations of the bribery of witnesses and the possible planting of evidence on the crash site by the CIA would have been aired. It could all have ended with the exposure of one of the most scandalous miscarriages of justice ever acknowledged in a British court. No wonder that in the circumstances the Justice Minister, Jack Straw, was so keen to see the back of Megrahi and the discontinuation of his appeal hearing.

New York Times report.

Iran's deputy police chief accused Pakistan on Saturday of providing a haven for members of an armed rebel group that has claimed responsibility for the deadly twin suicide bombings last week in front of a mosque in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

Associated Press report.

An Iranian official says the toll for an explosion outside a mosque Thursday night has risen to 22 and may increase further.

Ali Mohammad Azad, governor general of Sistan-Baluchistan province has told state TV that "some 22 people were killed instantly" in the twin bombing in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

Obsolete on the Liquid Bombs case.

Not that any of the trials have ever even began to prove that the supposed bombmaker, Assad Sarwar, was capable of creating the bombs which would have been used to destroy the aircraft they were going to target. Indeed, the prosecution made clear that wasn't a part of their case, even if it was scarcely reported; there was no evidence that a viable device had been created, just that "eventually" they would have been able to have done so, despite it taking the government's own experts 30 attempts with the same materials before they succeeded. Instead all have been tried simply on conspiracy to murder, even if they would have never been able to do so without working explosives.

Nafeez Ahmed writes.

While in opposition David Cameron and Nick Clegg both supported the call for an independent public inquiry into the 7/7 terrorist attacks. Yet now that power is theirs, the duo's coalition regime is challenging the 7/7 inquest's attempts to explore the "preventability" of the attacks. Three weeks ago, MI5 declared they were now preparing to apply for a judicial review of that decision.

Mark Curtis in the Guardian.

But Whitehall's view of Islamist militants as handy weapons or shock troops is far from historical. In 1999, during Nato's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, the Blair government secretly trained fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army to act as Nato's soldiers on the ground. The KLA was openly described by ministers as a terrorist organisation, and worked closely with al-Qaida fighters who joined the Muslim cause; their military centre was in the same camp network in Kosovo and Albania where the SAS were providing training. One KLA unit was led by the brother of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Bin Laden's right-hand man. This murky feature of Blair's "humanitarian intervention" remains conveniently overlooked in most accounts of the war.

New York Times report.

Pakistani television networks reported that the blasts killed at least 35 people, and wounded more than 175 in the Data Ganj Baksh shrine, an ancient white marble place of worship in Lahore that draws Muslims from all over Pakistan.

Telegraph report.

A Pakistani Army major, who was until recently a serving officer, has been arrested in connection with the failed Times Square bomb plot.

Pakistani and US sources say there is evidence that mobile phone calls were exchanged between Major Adnan Ejaz and the suspected would-be bomber, Faisal Shahzad, who was arrested on May 3 as he attempted to fly out of New York.

Craig Murray writes.

We have the first fake terror scare since the election - and Theresa May has jumped in on the authoritarian side.

Robert Fisk in the Independent.

Within 48 hours of becoming Foreign Secretary, William Hague faces a political crisis over the Middle East. The emirate of Dubai has named a British citizen as a 19th suspect of the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the Hamas official murdered in the emirate four months ago, apparently by a group that included holders of forged British passports. According to a source in the United Arab Emirates, the suspect arrived in Dubai under his own name and carrying a genuine British passport.

Craig Murray writes. The Fisk article is here.

Robert Fisk's impeccable Arab sources strongly suspect, with good evidence, that Britain colluded in the murder in Dubai of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. I have been working my own British sources since seeing Fisk's article in February.

This morning I can say that information has reached me that confirms that Fisk is right and these were not forged British passports, but real British passports given to Mossad by MI6. But my source cautions that you cannot conclude from that, that they were given for the purposes of this particular operation, or of assassination in general. The provision or exchange of blank passports between "friendly" intelligence agancies is not an uncommon practice.

Fox News report.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused members of the Pakistani government over the weekend of practically harboring Usama bin Laden, raising questions about whether the U.S. is pushing hard enough on its presumed ally to give up the world's most wanted terrorist.

Paul Chambers describes his ordeal on the Guardian's CiF.

The reason for the arrest was a tweet I had posted on the social network Twitter, which was deemed to constitute a bomb threat against Robin Hood airport in Doncaster: "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" You may say, and I certainly realise now, it was ill-advised. But it was clearly frustration, caused by heavy snowfall grounding flights and potentially scuppering my own flight a week later. Like having a bad day at work and stating that you could murder your boss, I didn't even think about whether it would be taken seriously.

Richard Godwin in the Evening Standard.

If I were to use this column to announce my intention to nail-bomb the London Aquarium, would you think I was serious?

Well, I am. I have had it up to here with the sharks who live in the main tank there. Stupid hammerhead bastards. They have been annoying me long enough, with their nasty little gills, their beady little eyes. I intend to teach them a lesson they will never forget, a lesson involving nails and bombs.

[...]

The case naturally raises troubling legal questions about social media sites. Also about how many exclamation marks signal a joke (two is not enough, clearly!!!).