Hi there, !
Today Sat 03/23/2002 Fri 03/22/2002 Thu 03/21/2002 Wed 03/20/2002 Tue 03/19/2002 Mon 03/18/2002 Sun 03/17/2002 Archives
Rantburg
531691 articles and 1855967 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 12 articles and 0 comments as of 12:22.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area:                    
Bus boomer kills 8
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [] 
0 [1] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [1] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
Those 72 virgins...
  • I've been thinking about those 72 virgins the hard boys are promised after they explode. They might want to take a deep breath and think this through all the way before lighting the fuse.

    As a minor point, we understand that the Koran actually says that everybody in Paradise gets attended by dark-eyed damsels, with no mention of the number or of special treatment for boomers. The number 72 comes from the hadith (traditions), not from The Book. Now, me, if you wanted me to go "boom!" and you promised me a reward for all eternity, I'd want it in writing, signed and notarized. With a seal. You ain't puttin' one over on me, Mahmud.

    But even then I wouldn't go. 72 virgins? Y'mean, like flat-chested 12-year-olds? Doe-eyed maidens? C'mon.

    If I was a Muslim, I'd hold out for wenches.

    That's right. Give me instead 72 grown women, in the full bloom of womanly (not girlish) beauty. Keep the unskilled amateurs until they know what they're doing. Real Paradise would feature women with a level of experience way beyond fumbling in the bushes down by the elementary school. Women with bosoms and hips. Tall ones, short ones, plump ones, skinny ones, redheads, blondes, brunettes, pale as pearls, olive-skinned, golden, even black as my hat.

    And talents. They've got to have talents. Otherwise, what're you gonna do the other 23.5 hours in the day for all the days of eternity, after you put your pants back on? Besides the obvious talents (a dream on the trapeze, maybe even double-jointed), I'd like my wenches to be able to do other things, things that are important: sing, play the banjo, go bowling, drink beer, crack jokes, fry up a mess of gourmets, dance, wear funny hats, stand on their heads, ride a celestial bike, hold while I hammered, fish, and talk about "mutual interests," whatever they may be in Paradise.

    Nope. If I couldn't have wenches, I wouldn't go.
    Just a mathematical question, but what how would any one of them have to mess up here earthside to deserve having to put up with 71 other wenches and one of us? Would that be the Islamic form of purgatory for wives who ignored their husbands or something? The one thing I would want is some ethereal wench [let alone virgin] whose sole experience was dealing with me. If that was the case, I'd not worry about the next day, I'd worry about keeping up the conversation for the rest of eternity...
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 10:19:45 PM
    "the one thing I WOULDN'T want..."

    [the scotch is getting to me...]
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 10:21:09 PM
    Every man's dream, every man's nightmare.
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:24:46 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Afghanistan
    Mogadishu GPS unit turns up in eastern Afghanistan
  • U.S. forces searching caves and bunkers in eastern Afghanistan have recovered a satellite GPS device that apparently belonged to an American special forces soldier killed nine years ago in Somalia. "We currently believe this GPS belonged to Army Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, an Army special ops force soldier killed in Somalia in 1993," said Brig. Gen. John Rosa. The handheld global positioning device appeared to be in working order, and could have been used to aid coordination among Taliban and al Qaeda fighters during Operation Anaconda. Rosa said officials do not know how the device wound up in a cave in the Shah-e-Kot mountains, where allied forces fought in the recently ended Operation Anaconda. "It could obviously tie al Qaeda to Somalia," he said. It was also possible, Rosa added, that the GPS device had been sold on the black market. The GPS unit had the name "G. Gordon" etched onto the device itself and sewn into the pouch holding it. Gordon was killed during a rescue attempt after two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. The GPS system was a civilian model favored by some special forces commandos in the early 1990s, because of the device's small size.
    Sure, and maybe somebody just left it there passing through on his way to Katmandu. Most likely it was lifted by a thug who was in both places and liked souvenirs.
    it wasnt gary gordons. that model wasnt even made yet in 1993, apparently.
    Posted by Anonymous Coward 3/20/2002 9:47:41 PM
    FoxNews just said the unit was made in -- I think -- 1998 and belonged to a guy in Anaconda who looked like/was nicknamed G. Gordon, as in Liddy. Guess that clears that non-story up...
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 1:00:04 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Shootout at Khost wounds one Good Guy
  • Gunnies armed with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars attacked U.S. coalition forces in eastern Afghanistan, wounding one U.S. soldier and sparking a firefight that lasted for an hour. The wounded U.S. soldier was shot in the arm at an airfield in Khost. He was in stable condition and coalition troops were conducting a search of the area. U.S. troops called in an AC-130 gunship to help repel the attacking al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. A B-1 bomber dropped illumination rounds in the area. Exploring the region after the shootout, U.S. forces found spent shells and blood, but no enemy fighters.
    We'll probably see crap like this daily from now on, until we invade the NWFP.
    Fred, I doubt if a B-1 has Illumination rounds in its available inventory. I could see mortars of 105mm howitzers, but not USAF bombers. The AC 130 has a searchlight capability however, if the mission calls for mounting one. I suspect it displaces something else on the plane when used.

    One point here is that this was not a random bunch of gunnies shooting up the perimeter. For light infantry, they were well armed and unless we were shooting back at nothing, they used the weapons at least to hold their positions for some time.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 9:51:08 PM
    Lets try "mortars or 105mm..."
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 9:52:37 PM
    I was wondering about that. B1 seems a pretty expensive way to deliver flares.
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:05:21 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    India-Pakistan
    Musharraf buddy: No change at ISI
  • Discounting recent reports of ISI dismantling its Kashmir and Afghan detachments, its former chief Javed Ashraf Qazi has said the two controversial cells would continue to function within Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. They will remain working to keep the organisation abreast with the situation at the borders in the east and the west, Qazi, who is federal minister for railways, said. This is the first time Pakistan has publicly acknowledged the existance of the Kashmir cell in the ISI.

    A recent report in the Washington Post said the intelligence unit had begun dismantling its Afghan and Kashmir detachments as part of a reform process initiated by president Pervez Musharraf. The report was brushed off officially with mild denials but in private officials projected it as a move to gain more international acceptability as well as to prevent the ISI from emerging as a state within a state. But Qazi, who is part of the influential inner circle of Musharraf administration, squarely discounted such reports. We definitely have to keep ISI personnel to watch India’s troop movement as is done by the Indians, Qazi said and claimed that the agency was a dynamic organisation in which adjustments would be made according to the conditions. However, there will be no large-scale reorganisation, he added. "Yes, some Kashmiris living in Pakistan and belonging to split families have gone there. Some people belonging to religious parties are also taking part in the militancy," he said.
    So it turns out that all that crackdown on terror, reign in the loose cannons stuff was just guff. Welcome to the Axis of Evil, Pakland.
    Guess what: the ISI is just saying that we do the same thing that the VHP and its militants do... Vaypayee may be truly screwed in the upcoming elections unless the Pakistani crazies decide to do something that makes the Gujarati riots small potatoes.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 9:55:52 PM
    We can't really bitch about intel gathering. If we lived next door to India, we'd probably have a little something going, too, given the VHP, etc. And if we lived next to the Afghans we'd probably put a lot of money into it. But Pakland's active operations are so ham-fisted and out of the control of the civil government (or the country really does belong on the Axis of Evil list) that they have to be shut down for any kind of peace in the area. The more I see of the intertwinings of ISI with the fundo loons and the terror networks the more scared of them I become. And I'm just looking at the open source stuff. Betcha the guys at DIA, CIA and NSA have some really fragrant fruit. I just wonder what NSC is making of it.
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:21:21 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


    Paks vow "merciless" campaign against violence
  • Pakistan's military government said it would create new anti-terrorist units within the national security organizations as part of a "merciless" campaign to counter growing political and religious violence. Commentators say the attack has called into question the effectiveness of Musharraf's efforts to clamp down on Islamic militants and the credibility of the Pakistani ruler as an effective partner in the U.S.-led war on terror. "These terrorists deserve no sympathy and need to be dealt with firmly and mercilessly, albeit judiciously," Information Minister Nisar Memon quoted Musharraf as saying.
    Oooh, the stench! It's overpowering. You could fertilize all the farms in Pakistan with that "program." Just think: they're going to create anti-terror squads within "the national security organizations" -- oh, God! Hand me a tissue! When I think of the ISI running an "anti-terrorist" squad and arresting itself... Oh, why, why can't I believe it?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    International
    False alarm: Guy in Sudan isn't an al-Qaeda Big
  • U.S. officials yesterday said Abu Anas Al-Liby was not in custody in Sudan, denying media reports that the suspected leading member of al Qaeda had been captured. Officials would not reveal the identity of the person in custody. (He said his name was Herb.) "He's not the same person" as the one on the FBI's terrorist list, one said. A senior Sudanese official denied reports of the arrest. "We in the government do not have any knowledge of this and I do not think that this is correct," presidential adviser Ghazi Salah al-Din said.
    Alright. Thanks anyway. Let us know if you come up with anything, okay? No, you can't get off poop list.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Middle East
    Sisyphus Zinni talks adjourn with no deal. Wotta surprise.
  • U.S. Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni's meeting with top Israeli and Palestinian security officials ended early with no apparent sign of progress despite hopes for a cease-fire deal. Israeli radio stations reported the talks ended with an agreement to hold further meetings in the near future, but without the cease-fire deal that Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer had earlier said could be finalized. Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters before the Wednesday night meeting that Zinni had proposed the session not adjourn until a deal was sealed. He added he expect a truce to be forged by the weekend.
    At least Zinni didn't run across the parking lot begging the PA thugs not to leave.

    BTW, what is the definition of "forged"? Metallurgically it simply means that its been hardened by repeated hammering. It doesn't mean that the forging is done, let alone the forging is a workable tool. Diplomatically its a "more fluff, less filling" waste of breath.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 10:00:41 PM
    You don't mean... "falsified"?
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:22:57 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


    Terror Networks
    Boomer on a bus kills 8
  • A Palestinian suicide bomber killed himself and seven bus passengers in northern Israel, threatening to brake the growing momentum towards a ceasefire to halt 18 months of violence. The attack came as senior Israeli and Palestinian security officials were due to meet US peace envoy Anthony Zinni. The eight were killed and 35 people wounded, six seriously, in the blast that tore through a bus crowded mostly with Israeli Arabs heading to work near the 'green line' separating Israel and the West Bank, police said.
    The purpose at this point is to push perceived advantage and to send Zinni packing again. Then they can go back to war of attrition.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Manila cops on alert after bombs found on trains
  • Police in Manila have gone on full alert following the discovery of two bombs on the city's train system which is used by nearly half a million commuters daily. President Gloria Arroyo said police 'have narrowed down the suspects', but would not discuss their identities.

    The camp of detained former president Joseph Estrada, on trial for corruption, denied any involvement in alleged destabilisation efforts against Mrs Arroyo. Police say they have not ruled out the possibility that Muslim separatist guerillas, communist rebels, or even Estrada supporters might be behind the bombing scares. In the third such incidents in three days, police at dawn on Wednesday removed grenades rigged to batteries at two busy stations of Manila's overhead rail system. Mrs Arroyo's National Security Adviser, Mr Roilo Golez, said the grenades recovered on Wednesday, like earlier packages removed from a sidewalk and near a hotel at the Makati financial district the two previous nights, all lacked detonators. They actually posed no risk to the system's more than 400,000 daily commuters. 'Our analysis is that this is not an act of terrorists. Definitely not. More likely it is an act of a political group who would like to deliver a political message,' he told reporters.
    So they might be gangsters or political goons (there's no real difference in the PI), or they might be a rebel group, but it's not terrorism because the grenades didn't have detonators. So people are terrorized, but that all that terrorized, right? Me, I'da just gone ahead and called it terrorism, but I'm not real subtle. If you point an unloaded gun at me, I'll take just as much offense as if it's loaded.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Pak hard boys starting to free-lance
  • Pakistani intelligence agencies are focusing their investigations into the grenade attack on a Christian church in Islamabad on Sunday on dissident elements within militant organizations. Initial inquiries have failed to link any of the leaders of the country's militant groups to the attack. The theory now is that disgruntled elements within the groups launched the attack as a part of a campaign to target American and Western interests.
    Could have seen this one coming, couldn't they? It's been building up to it for a long time.

    Many of these dissident groups were associated with militant groups at the time of the US-led war in Afghanistan. Once the war ended with the rout of the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence agencies shifted the assignments of these groups to the separatist struggle in Indian Kashmir. However, many members of militant organizations, including those from the Harkat ul Mujahadin, maintained close relations with different Afghan warlords or Arab fighters. These dissidents became disillusioned in the months after September 11 as their leaders, many of whom were said to be on the payroll of the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), did not respond to events as the dissidents would have liked - such as pushing for widespread anti-US demonstrations. A source inside Harkat claimed that the majority of religious leaders were not sincere in the Islamic cause and that they were hand-in-glove with the military establishment.
    Y'mean even the cannon fodder started to notice? Not very subtle of them when even the rubes catch on. Harkat is one of the gunny arms of Jamaat-i-Islami, which is run by Qazi Hussein Ahmed. Qazi claims not to be a nut case, but he has visions of world domination and he used to drink camel whiz until it gave him kidney stones.

    "They formed the Sepah-i-Sahabah and motivated thousands of youths to kill Shi'ite Muslims. When Shi'ite-Sunni riots started in Pakistan, the military establishment pressurized them, so they [the leaders] adopted a softer policy without caring for the sacrifices that thousands of youths had made in destroying their careers through the rhetoric of the leaders."
    Well, the sunk costs were only a few hundred gunnies. What the hell? They're cheap. You can always find more. The powers that be are trying to keep things just under a full boil, wo when the wholesale slaughters start up they'll choke them back. Retail snuffs they don't mind.

    The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is an extremist version of the Sepah-i-Sahabah. It has a loose organizational structure and its office bearers are not known. Whenever it carries out killings, it sends messages to the media claiming responsibility. However, since the police don't have a clue about the organization, they instead arrest Sepah-i-Sahabah office bearers and activists. "The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is a silent revenge against the hypocritical leaders of the Sepah-i-Sahabah. Now, when the Lashkar activists carry out killings, the Sepah-i-Sahabah suffers the consequences. This will continue until the Sepah-i-Sahabah is left with no choice but to surrender or return to their hardline, anti-Shi'ite cause," the banned militant told Asia Times several months ago.
    Y'mean they're deliberately setting the Bigs up to take the heat? Har-har-har!

    "The same strategy has been earmarked for the so-called leaders of the militant groups who collected millions of rupees on the name of jihad, but when the real test came and the US attacked Afghanistan and Musharraf supported the attacks, they requested that the government detain them at their residences so that they would not be pressurized into taking action on their calls for jihad."
    That's a new wrinkle, and it's not in the least unlikely. House arrest can be pretty comfortable when you're a rich mullah like Samiul Haq or Fazlur Rehman or Qazi Ahmed Hussain.

    The banned militant vowed during the interview, "You will see in a couple of months that we will carry out such actions that the militant groups will be under fire and they will be left with no choice - either a complete surrender or they must return to the cause they promised us when we joined them."
    That sounds like a good recipe for anarchy and/or civil war in Pakistan. If it doesn't end with the dissolution of the country, it'll end with the military cracking down to bring the fundos back under control - but they'll try to do it without eliminating them because they've been useful in the past. If they make that mistake, they'll be back again. Best bet, make sure each of the Ernst Stavro Blofelds ends up with a neck a yard long and go secular. As dozens of other countries have shown, you can collect graft in a secular state, too.
    Dang, Fred, this blog is just a "Social Register" of the terrorist elite! How do you keep up with all the comings and goings of this whirlwind waltz of personalities and facts?
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 10:06:02 PM
    It's the repetition. Day in, day out, the same old thing, the same old names... I'm thinking of quitting this and starting a Britney Spears fanblog. There's more variety.
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:09:42 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Red Brigades snuff Italian pol
  • An offshoot of the Red Brigades guerrilla group killed a top adviser to the Italian government, using the same gun as in a 1999 political assassination, Interior Minister Claudio Scajola said. Marco Biagi, the co-author of controversial labor reforms that have prompted Italy's major unions to call a general strike, was shot dead on Tuesday night by two men on a motorcycle outside his home in Bologna. Police tests revealed that the gun used in the attack was identical to the one used to murder another Labour Ministry aide, Massimo D'Antona, in a 1999 killing carried out by a group inspired by the Red Brigades, the Red Brigades for the Building of the Fighting Communist Party.
    Yep, they sure do miss the good old days.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Short Attention Span Theater
    Ugandan lady chews off hubby's doinker
  • A Ugandan woman bit off her husband's penis and testicles during an argument. The woman, Annet Minduru, 30, was in police custody in Kampala and might be charged with causing grievous bodily harm.
    MIGHT be? Are you nutz?
    The independent Monitor newspaper said Minduru had bitten off John Ndekeezi's penis and testicles after her 45-year-old husband slapped her. "Because I was so drunk she overpowered me and by the time my neighbor came to my rescue, she had bitten off both my testicles and the penis," Ndekeezi told the paper.
    Y'know, I've never, ever, ever been that drunk. In fact, I can prove it...
    Minduru's account of events was not immediately available.
    She was trying to dislodge someting stuck between her teeth.
    Lorena Bobbitt would be proud. [think that was Mrs. Bobbitt's first name...]

    But along the lines of the Bobbitting pinking shears, I always thought that straight scissors would have been much easier, and that pinking shears would have been a positive saw. But Minduru's mastications doing more than severe superficial damage seems a bit much to chew... :-o
    Posted by Tom Roberts 3/20/2002 10:12:25 PM
    Besides, I'm real good by now at saying, "Yes, dear..."
    Posted by Fred 3/21/2002 12:11:32 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/20/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



    Who's in the News
    12[untagged]

    Bookmark
    E-Mail Me

    The Classics
    The O Club
    Rantburg Store
    The Bloids
    The Never-ending Story
    Thugburg
    Gulf War I
    The Way We Were
    Bio

    Merry-Go-Blog











    On Sale now!


    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.
    Click here for more information

    Meet the Mods
    In no particular order...
    Steve White
    Seafarious
    tu3031
    badanov
    sherry
    ryuge
    GolfBravoUSMC
    Bright Pebbles
    trailing wife
    Gloria
    Fred
    Besoeker
    Glenmore
    Frank G
    3dc
    Skidmark

    Two weeks of WOT
    Wed 2002-03-20
      Bus boomer kills 8
    Tue 2002-03-19
      Paks spring terror Bigs
    Mon 2002-03-18
      Afghanistan: 16 Bad Guys find Paradise, 31 jugged
    Sun 2002-03-17
      Another church attack in Pakistan
    Sat 2002-03-16
      Paks have released 809 religious fanatics
    Fri 2002-03-15
      Explosion near U.S. embassy in Yemen
    Thu 2002-03-14
      Zinni's back in the Middle East
    Wed 2002-03-13
      Jamaat-i-Islami sez No, No, a Thousand Times No to secular state
    Tue 2002-03-12
      Ready for the final(?) push at Shah-i-Kot
    Mon 2002-03-11
      Six months of war
    Sun 2002-03-10
      Israel blows away Yasser's Gaza HQ
    Sat 2002-03-09
      Reinforcements arriving at Shah-i-Kot
    Fri 2002-03-08
      Israelis have 300 snuffies surrounded at Tulkarm
    Thu 2002-03-07
      Boomer splatters himself all over supermarket
    Wed 2002-03-06
      32 dead in Kashmir

    Better than the average link...



    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.
    54.172.95.106
    Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
    (0)    (0)    (0)    (0)    (0)