A huge fire was burning near three U.S. transport helicopters at an air base near Kandahar late Thursday, and shooting and explosions were heard along the base perimeter. "There is a huge fire on or very near to the runway about 100 yards from the terminal where I am," said Reuters Television cameraman Taras Protsyuk. "I heard a couple more explosions, some flares went up and then there was this fire." He said it was not clear what caused the fire and what was burning.
It was the second consecutive night on which clashes had erupted at the base, where operations to mop up remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda are based. The remnants have to make their aggressive moves just to prove they're still there. They're also not necessarily al Qaeda or Taliban - Hekmatyar's proxy forces are just as anti-American, as are Sayyaf's, even though they're nominally allied with the provisional government. The guys who were rounded up yesterday turned out to be "anti-Taliban fighers."
And a reporter from the Toronto [Red] Star two days ago was whining about getting booted out of Kanadhar when his stories detailed the perimeter defenses. This last bit of incoming is probably why the Star didn't try to make a big thing about "freedom of the press" being violated. Posted by Tom Roberts 2/14/2002 3:19:10 PM
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The minister of air transport and tourism in Afghanistan's interim government, Abdul Rahman, was beaten to death by Afghan pilgrims at Kabul airport as he prepared to leave for India. "Angry pilgrims assaulted the minister following rumours that he cancelled one of the flights taking them to Saudi Arabia to perform the hajj in order to use the plane to travel to India with his family," al-Jazeera reported. This is not a good advertisement for Afghan tourism.
Norm Mineta should take note of such phenomena in future planning concerning airport security. Posted by Tom Roberts 2/14/2002 6:12:07 PM
"Gosh, honey. I just can't make up my mind. Shall we go to Costa Brava or Kabul this year?" Posted by Fred 2/14/2002 6:41:49 PM
In a new development, the airport TVs began showing satellite porn that afternoon. Posted by lakefxdan 2/15/2002 1:55:08 AM
Good idea. Give 'em something to do while they wait to head out for Mecca and a routinely religious experience. Posted by Fred 2/15/2002 12:36:09 PM
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In a darkened room at the back of a teashop in dusty downtown Kandahar, 23-year-old Latif stands mouth agape, giggling nervously, staring at the first pair of breasts he can remember seeing. Satellite television has come to the conservative southern Afghan city of Kandahar, and as well as Lithuanian documentaries, Polish cultural programs and Catalan soap operas, the city's inhabitants can now watch something equally alien to them -- pornography.
Following the fall of the Taliban, satellite dishes are springing up on rooftops across the staid city. Private homes, restaurants and guesthouses are tuning in to 170 channels from all over the world. Four of them show nothing but porn. In one guesthouse a group of bearded Afghan men sit glued to the screen, one of them frantically stabbing at the remote control to change the channel when a female Western aid worker walks into the room. If it gives them something to do besides shoot each other, I'm all for it. When you've been real desprived for a real long time, looking at a pair of comely titties is probably step one on the road to the pursuit of happiness. I'd rather they did that than shoot up Gardez.
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Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar will return to his country and not to his former patron Pakistan if he is expelled from Iran. Hekmatyar derided the interim government led by Hamid Karzai in an interview with Reuters last week, and raised the prospect of war against the administration that he said was installed by foreign troops occupying Afghanistan. "I have a lot of organised forces. They have weapons and we are in contact with them," he said. "While foreign troops are present, the interim government does not have any value or meaning." That's a pretty good indication of where the destablization efforts are coming from in Iran. Next question is, where's the old crook getting his money?
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Axis of Evil
Sgt. Stryker assesses Ken Adelman's "cakewalk" comments regarding war with Iraq. The contemptuous dismissal of Saddam Hussein's army is a mistake on the part of those pushing for immediate war with Iraq. It is a truism that nothing goes quite as planned during wartime - you're doing well if you're in the ballpark, so forget all about hitting a home run every time. And there are times when things go worse than Murphy. FUBAR ("Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition") is a bit of military terminology that's been around in one form or another probably since the first wall was built at Jericho. Rather than expecting to waltz through Mesopotamia, it would be a far, far better thing to expect something terrible to go wrong from at least one and probably eight unexpected quarters. That way, if it happens we'll be prepared to deal with it, and if not we'll be pleasantly surprised. "Hubris" is a Greek word that's been around nearly as long as FUBAR.
I'll say. I obsessively play Turborisk (five minute games! great interface! highly recommended), and there's nothing like assembling a continental invasion force of 20 armies and watch them dwindle after an assault on the minuscule defensive position. It's just the luck of the dice (or random number generator), but it's a very useful reminder that overall strategy and multiple-turn plans are more important than just starting with a superior force. The latter helps, but it's easy to misuse through overconfidence, and it's not in itself a guarantee of victory.
I'm sure fans of more complex wargaming will concur! As well as those who've been through the real thing. Posted by lakefxdan [www.lakefx.nu/] 2/15/2002 2:07:13 AM
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The Pentagon and the CIA have begun preparations for an assault on Iraq involving up to 200,000 US troops that is likely to be launched later this year with the aim of removing Saddam Hussein from power, US and diplomatic sources told the Guardian yesterday. President George Bush's war cabinet, known as the "principals committee", agreed at a pivotal meeting in late January that the policy of containment has failed and that active steps should be taken to topple the Iraqi leader.
According to a US intelligence source familiar with CIA preparations, the plans for a parallel overt and covert war landed on the president's desk in the past few days. "I will reserve whatever options I have. I'll keep them close to my vest. Saddam Hussein needs to understand that I'm serious about defending our country," Mr Bush said. There's always a plan for an assault on an area. They're canned, and periodically they're dusted off and updated. Iraq's at the top of the news right now, so it's time for an update. The Guardian tries to make something of the fact that it took the CIA longer to get a plan to the president than the Defense Department - they probably had to write theirs from scatch, as the context for covert operations is a lot more fluid than the military structure. If Bush gives the go-ahead, either or both of the plans will be implemented, with on-the-fly modifications as called for by Murphy. If Bush decides that Burma or Belgium or Bolivia or Burundi represents a more significant problem, the plans will go back into the bottom drawer until they're needed again. That's the way the system works. It's why we have a joint staff.
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Iran has detained some 150 people, including women and children, suspected of links to al Qaeda and the Taliban. The detainees are from Arab, African and European countries and some carried French, British, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish passports. The detainees were Taliban sympathizers who went to Afghanistan after the launch of the U.S. attack in October. "They are coming to Iran from Quetta in Pakistan and are not being stopped by Pakistan border guards," a source said. A spokesman for a parliamentary commission on Afghanistan was quoted separately as saying Iran had handed over some of the detainees to their respective countries and was in the process of returning others.
The lawmaker also rejected suggestions that hard-line elements in Iran may have pursued their own agenda in Afghanistan, contrary to Tehran's official support for the interim Afghan government. "It is not true that there is a lack of coordination among Iranian organizations and bodies in Afghanistan," he said. Well. Guess he told me. He said it, so it must be so.
Yeah, well, the latecomers can't be that important to us. But it makes for tremendously good spin, doesn't it? Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the border-crossing between Afghanistan and Iran in Ismail-Khan-istan, though. THAT would be something. Posted by lakefxdan 2/15/2002 2:02:05 AM
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Smith's death came during a probable cause and bond hearing for three of her five co-defendants in an alleged scheme to get Tennessee driver's licenses using false information for men with Middle Eastern ties who lived in New York City. Mohammed Fares, Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin and Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad were ordered held without bond. Smith and her co-defendants, including alleged ring leader Khaled Odtllah and Hammad's cousin, Sakhera Hammad, were charged Feb. 6 with conspiracy to fraudulently obtain Tennessee driver's licenses. While her five co-defendants have been imprisoned without bond since their Feb. 5 arrest, Smith was released on her own recognizance. She died one day before she was due to appear at a detention hearing before a federal magistrate judge. Cheap, disposable, and easily replaced. But they're only being held without bail because they're Arabs, according to their mouthpiece lawyer.
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Pakistan reiterated that it was ready to discuss the extradition of 20 "fugitives from law" and all other issues once a comprehensive dialogue between Islamabad and Delhi resumed. Referring to the demarche made by the Indian ministry of external affairs with the High Commission of Pakistan on the subject, the foreign office spokesman said: "Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its readiness to discuss this and all other issues once a comprehensive dialogue between the two countries resumes". Well, actually they haven't been. They said they wouldn't extradite any Pak citizens to India. Maybe they've seen the good example of Dubai with Ansari and decided to be nize.
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Forty-four Arabs believed to have lived for years in Afghanistan were flown to Libya as part of an initiative by a charity led by a son of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The passengers, mostly Libyans, did not belong to any armed groups in Afghanistan, said officials with the charity headed by Seif el-Islam Gadhafi. They were flown from Islamabad. Preparations for their transfer to Libya began in November and involved payments to Afghan tribal leaders to allow their passage to Pakistan, said Mohammed Ismail of the Gadhafi International Association for Charitable Organizations. He did not say how big the payments were.
This Gadhafi kid bears watching. I think he's been influential in his dad morphing into an elder statesman for African politics, and he's performed this kind of golden-parachut diplomacy before (practiced by powers from time immemorial, of course, often lately by the US). Moves like this suggest he'll be The Man after dad passes to the land o' milk, honey, 'n' virgins, and unlike (say) Bashir Assad, he has the diplomatic chops before he gets the job. The real question is, what does Mubarak think of him? He won't trust Muammar farther than he can throw him. Posted by lakefxdan 2/15/2002 2:21:47 AM
I'm still trying to figure what to make of Qaddafi's newfound Elder Statesman act. Aside from providing rent-a-thugs to Mugabe in Zim, he's been pretty mainstream for the past few years. Probably still meddling in Chad and places like that, but who ever gets any news from there? Posted by Fred 2/15/2002 11:06:00 PM
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US Secretary of State Colin said Arafat had, after weeks of denial, finally taken responsibility for the January arms smuggling debacle, when Israel seized 50 tonnes of allegedly Iranian-supplied weapons being transported across the Red Sea in the Karine A freighter. "(Arafat) wrote me a letter three days ago on the Karine A, accepting responsibility, not personal responsibility but as chairman of the Palestinian Authority," Powell said. He said Arafat, who has jailed at least one of the top officials accused in the affair, had to prevent further arms smuggling operations. And just a day or two ago it was a Jewish plot. Wonder what it'll be day after tomorrow?
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Omar Sheikh said he believed the Daniel Pearl is dead. Officials dismissed the militant's claim. "As far as I understand, he's dead," Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh said in a courthouse in Karachi. Saeed said he carried out the kidnapping of "my own free will," adding: "I don't want to defend this case. I did this." Police and other officials cast doubt on Saeed's statement. He gave no details on where or when the 38-year-old journalist was allegedly killed, and just a day earlier he had told police Pearl was still alive.
"Until the body is found we cannot believe what Omar is saying," Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said. Along with being an International Criminal Mastermind, Omar seems on close examination to be an out-and-out nut job. He appears determined to lie at every opportunity, whether it does him any good or not. My personal feeling is that Pearl has been dead since shortly after the pictures were taken. As a gesture of good will toward the US, the Paks should send Omar and all his accomplices to a good vet and have them put down like dogs. Razing his house and plowing the ground with salt would be nice, too.
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A 30-year-old Palestinian has become Al Qaeda's new chief of operations and is believed to be organizing remnants of the network to carry out new attacks. American investigators said they were convinced that Abu Zubaydah was now trying to activate al Qaeda sleeper cells for new strikes. Investigators are eager to apprehend Abu Zubaydah because he is one of the few al Qaeda leaders believed to know the identities of the thousands of trainees that passed through the network's camps in Afghanistan and could still be awaiting instructions. American intelligence agencies believe that he was at Osama bin Laden's side in Afghanistan, and Bush administration officials say there is fragmentary evidence that he escaped to Pakistan.
Abu Zubaydah first came to the attention of American counterterrorism experts as a major al Qaeda figure after they received reports that he had coordinated plots to attack the Los Angeles International Airport and tourist sites in Jordan in December 1999. Abu Zubaydah travels the world using false passports and multiple aliases. His full name is believed to be Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn Abu Zubaydah. Abu Zubaydah, reportedly born in Saudi Arabia, has taken over the job of Muhammad Atef, killed in a U.S. bombing raid in Afghanistan. * Abu Zubaydah (a.k.a. Abu Zubaida, Abd Al-Hadi Al-Wahab, Zain Al-Abidin Muhahhad Husain, Zain Al-Abidin Muhahhad Husain, Zayn Al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, Tariq). DOB 12 March 71. POB Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Abu-Zubaida was the "emir" of the Durunta and Khalden training camps. Some fairly recent background info is here. He also pops up in connection with the US Embassy in Paris plot. He gets passing reference here in connection with Ahmed Ressam. Also seems to be involved as a controller of the Jund Al Islam in Kurdistan.
This becomes interesting: "It would be a grave mistake to imagine that Saddamâs animus against Saudi Arabia or his secular disposition would prevent him from working with the Wahhabi religious establishment or Abdallah if he found this could advance his designs against King Fahd, the Sudairis, or their American patrons. Sure enough, travelers from Iraq report that Saddamâs regime has lately encouraged the rise, in Iraqâs northern safe haven, of Salafism, a puritanical sect tied to Wahhabism that hitherto had been alien to Iraq. It is no surprise, then, that one of these Salafi movements inside Iraq, the Jund al-Islami, turns out to be a front for bin Laden." - David Wurmser, "The Saudi Connection" American Enterprise Institute for Policy Reseach, Dec 2001.
There's another backgrounder on Jund al Islami here.
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A Yemeni man who accidentally blew himself up during a police raid is linked to the 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole in Aden which killed 19 U.S. sailors, a Yemeni security official said. Samir Ahmed Mohammad al-Hada, also suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, was killed on Wednesday in the capital Sanaa when the hand grenade he intended to throw at police exploded beside him. Yemen has been chasing Hada, who has many aliases, because he was believed to have received training "to carry out terrorist acts" while living in Afghanistan. Hada was also related to one of the 9-11 hijackers. Sad. A promising young fellow grows up, enters the family business and dies in a work-related accident. Wonder if Yemeni workers' comp covers things like this?
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In the last week of January, a 200-strong group of Kurdish al Qaeda fighters reached the Afghan-Iranian frontier. Members of the Jund al-Islam, an extremist group, hailing from the Urman district of northern Iraq, they were destitute, without food or water, and on the point of turning themselves in to local tribes who would have handed them over to the authorities in Kabul. Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen in the area offered them an alternative. The Kurdish militants would be given food, water, fresh ammo supplies, a few days rest and 500 dollars each, to be flown from Iran to Lebanon and join the Hizballah. They accepted and in early February, reached Hizballah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards training camps in the Beqaa Valley of east Lebanon. Within a week or two, US intelligence to expects to find them moving south to join the Abu Zubeidah contingent. I don't usually quote Debka - they're not the most reliable of sources. But this is becoming a pretty interesting subject...
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The killing of Armed Islamic Group (GIA) leader Antar Zouabri was a great victory for the Algerian security forces. Besides having been wanted by the Algerian authorities since taking over the GIA leadership in June 1996, Zouabri was also the innovator of the Algerian style of massacre which spares no one  neither men, nor women, nor children. In the fall of 1996, soon after taking control of the GIA, Zouabri orchestrated the liquidation of all his opponents within that organization. In February of the following year, he issued his famous 60-page fatwa that allowed his followers to commit the most vicious crimes of murder and mayhem. Zouabri decreed the whole Algerian people to be infidels; he even ordered killed Islamist fighters who did not recognize him as leader. He appointed himself Amir al-Mumineen  Commander of the Faithful  and ordered that henceforth he would go under the name of Antar Abu Talha ibn Mohammed bin Qassem ben Rabie al-Zouabri.
Zouabriâs fatwa led to a particularly gruesome series of massacres and mass rapes. He permitted the rape of âinfidelâ women and girls as âspoils of war.â Women were kidnapped and taken to remote mountain strongholds, where they were treated as slaves, raped by Zouabriâs followers, and forced to cook and clean for them. Yet despite their extremism and sadistic violence, Zouabri and his followers enjoyed support among minor and quasi-clerics such as London-based fundamentalist Omar Abu Omar (a.k.a. Abu Qutada), who issued a fatwa of his own in support of Zouabriâs group, entitled An Authorization to Kill Young Boys.
Antar Zouabri managed to impose his authority on all Algerian armed groups. He surrounded himself with a well-trained coterie of bodyguards, named Al-Katiba Al-Khadra Â- The Green Battalion -Â for which he chose the most ruthless GIA members. Thanks to the Green Battalion, Zouabri managed to evade capture by the authorities. It was widely thought Zouabri was killed during a raid launched by the security forces against the GIAâs major stronghold at Hatatba in July 1997. The authorities had learned that Zouabri intended to hold a large meeting with more than 200 senior GIA cadres at his Tala Acha mountain headquarters. The Algerian Army sent in almost 1,000 troops supported by artillery and helicopters in an attempt to apprehend Zouabri and his henchmen.
The operation lasted a whole week and resulted in the destruction of the GIAâs strongholds in Metidja. Seventy extremists were killed. Soon afterward, Zouabri declared in a statement sent to Moroccoâs Medi 1 radio station that he was alive. Despite being forced to retreat from his home province of Metidja, Â Zouabriâs influence wasnât diminished. Accompanied by his Green Battalion, he headed westward, toward the mountains of Ouarchanis, where he joined up with two local groups originally allied with the GIA, Â the Ketibet-al-Ahwal, and the Salafist group. Zouabriâs westward trek resulted in an infamous series of bloody massacres beginning in Ramadan 1998.
Despite being named the countryâs most wanted fugitive, and despite a 4.5 million Algerian dinar ($65,000) price on his head, Zouabri still managed to elude capture  thanks mainly to the 100-strong Green Battalion that accompanied him wherever he went. Zouabri thus remained at large until last week. Thanks to information provided by a GIA defector, who said Zouabri was holed up in a house in a poor area in his hometown of Boufarik, together with his lieutenant Fodhil Boutheldja (a.k.a. Abu Haider). Acting on this tip-off, Algerian Army units surrounded the area. Special forces units broke into the house, killing Zouabri, Abu Haider, and a third man who later turned out to be Abdel-Hakim Boumediene, also known as Sinbad, one of the GIA leaders who had laid down their weapons and "renounced violence."
Experts on Algerian groups donât believe the GIA will wither away with the demise of Antar Zouabri. Zouabriâs death will spark a new struggle for leadership, which will be characterized by liquidations and internal squabbles. All this will be played out against a backdrop of even more violence, massacres and terrorism, as the GIA seeks to âreassureâ its supporters that it is still there. Otherwise, dispirited cadres might either give themselves up to the authorities, or join up with Hassan Hattabâs rival Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC). The battle for leadership will be fought among five factions  namely, the Green Battalion; the Al-Ansar Battalion; the Ethabat Battalion in Mascara; the Essouna Battalion in Sidi Belabes; and Al-Ahwal which is strong in Relizane.
In addition to the various factions (or battalions) making up the GIA, other armed groups will also seek to benefit from Zouabriâs death. It cannot be ruled out that the GSPC and the western-based GPS will try to exploit the disappearance from the scene of Zouabri by trying to co-opt GIA defectors or by making alliances with any future GIA leader who decides to adopt a less bloody and more moderate approach than Zouabri.
Who that future leader will be is still unknown. Thanks to Zouabriâs penchant for murdering any potential rival within GIA ranks, all the leaders of the first generation have already been killed off. This will make finding a successor that much more difficult. Nevertheless, the most likely candidate for leadership is Miloud Bechroun, âprinceâ of Tipaza (a.k.a. Khaled al-Fermache), a particularly extreme and bloodthirsty man notorious for perpetrating a grisly series of massacres in his region in Ramadan 1998. Who were those Euroweenies who were complaining about the use of the word "Evil"? Perhaps they'd like a nice Algerian vacation.
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A group including members of Hamas and Arafat's Fatah claimed responsibility for an attack in the Gaza Strip in which three Israelis were killed. A statement by the Salahudin Brigade, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees group, said the attack was in response to Israel's killing on Wednesday of five Palestinian policemen during a raid in the Gaza Strip. "In response to the killing of five soldiers of the national security forces and in response to the raid on our cities and villages...Salahudin Brigade detonated two roadside bombs against a Zionist convoy...then sprayed the convoy with machinegun fire," said the statement.
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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.
