The U.S. military in Afghanistan has taken control of Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. He is now among 307 Taliban and al Qaeda being held by the American military. Perhaps we can collect the whole set of mullahs. They'd look nice hanging over the national mantle.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Frontier Post (not the most reliable source) reports that the Taliban has begun regrouping and intends to attack Kabul. The shuras of Paktika, Paktia and Helmand are run by Taliban under assumed names. They might want to wait a little while before doing anything rash.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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In Afghanistan, ex-potentate Mullah Mohammad Omar may have evaded encircling Afghan and U.S. forces at Baghran by motorcycle, according to a report from Kandahar. This "Hey, let's negotiate a surrender" stuff is starting to get old. Find who's suddenly prosperous, hit him very many times, and next time just Daisy Cut.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Damage appears minimal from TV footage. Police and fire are on the scene. NBC reports one person on board. Flight originated in St Petersburg, flown by student pilot. Plane was being shadowed by a Coast Guard helicopter when it crashed. Unconfirmed reports say the pilot may have been as young as 15 years old. Plane took off without clearance. First guess, it looks like a Kiddie Kopy Kat Killer.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf shook the hand of Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at a South Asia summit, but the gesture did little to break the ice between the countries. Vajpayee accepted Musharraf's outstretched hand, but immediately repeated a demand that Pakistan halt what India calls "cross-border terrorism." An Indian official dismissed the handshake as grandstanding. Later, Pakistan officials sought to signal a breakthrough by saying Pakistan Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh met on the sidelines of the summit. But Indian officials said there had been no such meeting. "There was absolutely no bilateral discussions between the two sides at any level," a spokesman for Vajpayee told reporters. The Paks act like they are still trying to figure what the Indos are so mad about.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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All the arrested activists of religious parties in Faisalabad were released by the police at the the direction of the provincial Home Department. Special police teams arrested over two dozen activists of the Tehrik-i-Jaferia Pakistan, the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-i-Taiba during surprise raids on their houses and offices on Thursday. They were released in the early hours of Friday. Yep. Looked pretty much like a crackdown for awhile there.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Police used batons to break up a demonstration by the Jamaat-i-Islami against the continued detention of Qazi Hussain Ahmad, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and other "religious" leaders. JI provincial amir Prof Muhammad Ibrahim charged that President Gen Pervez Musharraf was following the American agenda and had thus become a security risk for the country. He said that Musharraf must be removed and the power handed over to an interim setup headed by honest and pious people. "Us raving religious lunatics will guide our nation to new heights of greatness and Islamic purity! And if you don't like it, we'll kill you."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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400 activists of a pro-independence Kashmiri students' group staged an "anti-war" rally calling on India and Pakistan to give up their claims on Kashmir. The rally through the streets of Muzaffarabad was organized by the students wing of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front. Carrying placards and banners, the participants shouted slogans calling for a defusion of tensions between the two nuclear rivals and for Kashmiri independence. This is the "pox on both your houses" approach. Whichever side eventually wins gets to shoot them.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Villages in India-controlled southern Kashmir came under intense mortar fire from Pakistani army units. On the Pakistan side of the Line of Control, Darra Sher Khan village in the Poonch district was shelled by the Indians during the morning and then again in the early afternoon. Yes, I've often found gunfire to be a very convincing argument, too.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Indian immigration officials said they had rescued nine Bangladeshi boys, aged between four and eight years, from traffickers taking them to Saudi Arabia to work as camel jockeys. In a similar incident in September 1997, 38 Bangladeshi boys destined to be camel jockeys were rescued by Chennai immigration officials. Cheeze! Is there no cruelty the Arabians are incapable of perpetrating?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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U.S. peace envoy SisyphusAnthony Zinni met Palestinian officials, emerging still optimistic about truce prospects despite heightened tensions over Israel's seizure of a shipload of smuggled arms. Polyanna couldn't have said it any better. The violence will wax and wane dependent upon internal Palestinian politix, helped along by occasional tanks and aircraft from the Israeli side.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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Singapore authorities have arrested 15 suspected militants, some of them trained at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan, for allegedly plotting bombings. The suspects were arrested last month, and detailed information on bomb construction and photographs and video footage of targeted buildings in Singapore were found in their homes and offices. Al-Qaida-linked material, falsified passports and forged immigration stamps were also found. The suspects have links to militant groups in Malaysia and Indonesia. The 15 were detained under Singapore's Internal Security Act, which allows people to be held indefinitely without trial. All of the arrested except one is Singaporean. The other suspect used to be Singaporean and is now a Malaysian citizen. Thirteen of the suspects are members of a clandestine organization called "Jemaah Islamiah." And who said Afghanistan had no exports but opium?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/05/2002 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
