An Irish engineer has been killed in his office in the Saudi capital Riyadh, diplomatic and police sources say. "We can confirm independently that there has been a shooting," a Western diplomat said on Tuesday, adding that the man, who has not been named, was Irish and was shot in his office in eastern Riyadh.
"We lack information on motive or circumstances," the diplomat said.
We can guess the motive
A security source said police found the man, who was shot at around 6.30 p.m. (4:30pm British time), was a civil engineer who worked for a Saudi firm.The Irish foreign ministry had no official comment and Saudi officials were not available to comment. An Irish trade official in the Gulf said there were about 1,200 Irish expatriates in the kingdom.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 3:07:13 PM ||
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#1
anti-civil engineers....why do they hate us?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/03/2004 18:53 Comments ||
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#2
'Cause we are so civil? Ima stay put. Just have bears and regulators to contend with here.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/03/2004 18:58 Comments ||
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#3
Funny, I never enjoyed many slasher flicks as an adolescent because I could never suspend my disbelief in their unrealistic plot lines. I always thought that you could count on even the most naive person experiencing an epiphany escaping to safety well before Jason or whoever could whack more than four victims. What is happening in Saudi Arabia is leading me to believe that humans are not as smart as I gave them credit for.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/03/2004 22:45 Comments ||
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#1
The enemy in Saudi Arabia is planning something which will panic the markets just in time for the November elections ..unless the enemy is prevented from executing pre-planned acts of broad-based 'oil-terrorism'.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
08/03/2004 15:55 Comments ||
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In the last month, the Tumbleweed has confirmed at least two documented accounts of Border Patrol agents encountering large groups of non-Spanish speaking males in the Chiricahua foothills and on trails along the high mountain areas.
On or about the early morning hours of June 13, 2004 Border patrol agents from the Willcox station encountered a large group of suspected illegal border crossers, estimated to be around 158, just east of the Sanders Ranch near the foothills of the Chiricauha Mountains. 71 suspected illegal aliens were apprehended; among them were 53 males of middle-eastern descent.
According to a Border Patrol field agent, the men were suspected to be Iranian or possibly Syrian nationals. "One thing's for sure: these guys didn't speak Spanish and after we questioned them harder we discovered they spoke poor English with a middle-eastern accent; then we caught them speaking to each other in ArabicâŠthis is ridiculous that we don't take this more seriously, and we're told not to say a thing to the media, but I have to," said the agent, who spoke to the Tumbleweed with the promise of anonymity.
Adame confirms the groups of illegals were apprehended on those dates in the same area but stated, "There were no middle easterners in the group. Every single one of them was Mexican."
The field agent stated the men were wearing the traditional uniform of migrants - baseball caps, tennis shoes, some had work boots, denim jeans and many had t-shirts with patriotic American flags and slogans. The agent added the following description "A curious thing I noticed was that they all had brand new clothing and they looked as if they had just been to the barber shop--you know--new haircuts. They were clean cut and they all had almost the exact same cut of mustaches."
#1
President Bush, are you listening? Since the dangers of your immigration policy weren't already apparent to you (given that we are doing every little thing Senor Fox wants us to lately), do you get it now? You are a good man and usually on the right side, but not on this issue. This open border with Mexico needs to change PRONTO! If Senor Fox doesn't like it, tough.
#2
I heard this ont the radion too on Monday morning.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
08/03/2004 14:57 Comments ||
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#3
I'm sure they were just in for agricultural jobs.
Why I'm sure some are buying fertilizer right about now......
Any odds the government (on both sides) will get the idea that we should stop this sort of shit after another 9/11 type incident? How about after 2 9/11 type incidents? Three?
This is one of the main problems I have with Pres. Bush.
#4
i dunno - again we've got ONE anonymous source versus an official saying "its just the usual wetbacks, nothing to see, move along" Sure there are more coming through now, as the rancher said - surely all you Bush supporters have noticed the economy is growing? And of course IIUC there are plenty of "other than Mexicans" who come through for jobs. Still, i usually give at least SOME credence to anon sources if the media source is reliable = anyone able to vouch for this one?
#5
LW. You could hardly blame the field agent for wanting to be anonymous. His job would probably have been lost (and who knows -- blacklisting?) if he was told not to say a thing to the media.
Oh, and these guys are probably heading to "protected" cities, like Chicago. IE, local cops MAY NOT enquire about immigration status of foreigners, all thanks to Mayor Daley's efforts to kiss ass to Hispanic vote. Nothing personal against Mexicans, but come on! All they have to do is walk down to their new consulate, present some sort of ID, and they get a "matricula". You don't think maybe that these groups of ME'rs didn't have forged documents obtained in Mexico? And they can't find some lowlife punk gang banger from the Latin Kings to grease the wheels to get a matricula at the Mex. Consulate here? Let's not be naive. Matricula holders can go to any bank, library, RENT APARTMENTS, WRITE CHECKS TO PAY FOR FERTILIZER, etc and nobody can ask about immigration status. Thus, matricula is as good as a legit green card in the Windy City. I know there are other cities in the US that also accept the matriculas as legit ID's. Senor Fox was here last month lobbying the guv Blagojavich to let admitted illegal mexicans get Illinois licenses. Check Michelle Malkin and Heather Mac Donald for more. This is just insane and I'd like to see Bush and Ridge connect the dots. Well, maybe they have, but don't want to get involved as election is ahead. How shameful that our govt. won't let the boots on the ground do their jobs on the border and are willing for states and municipalities dictate our immigration policy once illegals are in the interior. Come on W, show some balls. I think Atta or one of his boys were able to get VA and FL licenses, no problem. The stupidity is that legit foreign students from Korea, Japan, and Poland now have to jump through all sorts of hoops to come here to study, but the borders are sieves. Disgusting.
Posted by: Michael ||
08/03/2004 15:42 Comments ||
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#7
this is a repeat from weeks ago..
Arab illegals
U.S. border agents since October have picked up five Arabs trying to cross into the United States illegally from Mexico, according to U.S. officials. The arrests are raising new concerns that al Qaeda terrorists are trying to enter the country from Mexico.
However, officials at the Homeland Security Department's Customs and Border Protection section â formerly the U.S. Border Patrol â were quick to dismiss as erroneous an Internet report this week that said a "flood" of Middle Eastern men were caught recently trying to sneak into the United States across the Mexican border with Arizona.
The officials said the report probably was based on the recent arrests of a group of people from a small southern Mexican Indian tribe. Known as the Oaxacan, the tribesmen were caught trying to cross the border. The Oaxacans speak a very different Spanish dialect and completely different indigenous language that was mistaken for Arabic, the officials said.
Posted by: red ||
08/03/2004 15:44 Comments ||
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#8
The tumbleweed? Hell I thought the news of record was the TombStone Epitaph. (Hi unca Ray!)
#9
This open border with Mexico needs to change PRONTO! If Senor Fox doesn't like it, tough.
Not just the open border, but immigration policy in general. Dump this matricula-accepting bullshit and bring back workplace raids. A little fear needs to be put into illegal aliens. Lastly, some fear needs to be put into employers in the form of nice, stiff fines for hiring illegal aliens.
#10
Whether it's Chicago's mayor or the White House, Americans are being sold down the river. Get a clue, boys and girls, it's not just the liberal left's multi-culti obsession that's opening the floodgates for terrorists to enter America. Big money interests that control conservative politics want a porous Mexican border and blind eyes turned towards China. Even if it kills average Americans, what do they care? In their secure enclaves and gated communities, the bombs and crashing airplanes aren't likely to reach them. So long as the millions keep flowing to grease special interest wheels our blue collar jobs and middle tier management positions will continue to vanish until we are a nation of burger flippers.
Here's a suggestion. Make all of our Representatives and Senators use commercial transportation, all of the time. Same goes for everyone short of senior position politicians like governors and cabinet members. They can bump people, fly first class and cut in line, but their @ss is on the block with everyone else in that passenger plane. Want to bet how quickly Norm Mineta and his anti-profiling crowd plus all those soft on illegal immigrant types would STFU?
#11
Bomb, some fear needs to be put into local and state officials who ignore or defy immigration laws in order to get 'cheap labor' or a few more votes at the cost of security to the rest of us.
Zen, make them take the subways and busses like the rest of us too.
#12
I was going to say that I was surprised that this was in Arizona rather than California and then realized that illegal immigration is too commonplace to be news in California. Besides every illegal is one (or more) votes for the Democrats in November. DNC is signing them up at the border.
#13
actually, San Diego to Yuma is pretty tight (I've lived here all my life and can't remember so few illegals - you only hear about the packed-van-chases on I-8 now)- they mostly cross in AZ, NM, and, of course, west TX now. Operation Gatekeeper in SD region showed it can be done
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/03/2004 23:18 Comments ||
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#14
"Coyotes" around these parts (southern Arizona) will smuggle the devil himself across la frontera for the right amount.
Three Thai soldiers have been injured in a roadside bomb attack, in the southern province of Yala. The soldiers were waiting to escort teachers to schools, when the blast occured. It is the latest in a series of attacks targeting security officials in the Muslim-majority south. Teachers at government-run secular schools have also been targeted in the separatist related violence. Thousands of teachers have gone on strike in the south citing security concerns. The government has promised to step up protection.
The Philippines' largest Muslim rebel group has received a major arms shipment, an intelligence report says, prompting a military investigation. The act also raised doubts about the sincerity of the Moro separatists to hold peace talks with the government. According to the intelligence report, nearly 2,000 firearms were shipped on July 24 to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the southern provinces of Lanao del Sur and Sultan Kudarat, about 950km south-east of Manila, allegedly from Indonesia, a military official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military was 'in the process of checking' the report. The arms shipment reportedly consisted of 1,000 M-16 rifles along with grenade launchers, light submachine guns, .45-calibre pistols and thousands of rounds of ammunition, the official said. The MILF was also trying to acquire heavy machine guns and mortars, another official said. The shipment was the first of two or more planned deliveries for the guerillas.
The weapons were reportedly smuggled into the country at dawn aboard a motor vessel, which was met at sea by smaller fishing boats that took the weapons to shore, the official said. The second shipment has not yet arrived. Army and naval intelligence agents have been trying to confirm the shipment for weeks, said the official. The military did not say why it was unable to stop the import. Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu denied that the insurgents had received any weapons, saying they were preparing for a new round of peace talks with the Philippine government in Malaysia, which has been brokering an end to the decades-old conflict. He said the suspicion about the alleged arms shipment prompted the military to launch an operation to intercept weapons on July 26 along the coastlines of Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur provinces. But nothing was found, he said. 'As far as the MILF is concerned, there is no shipment of arms,' he said. 'We have sufficient firearms.' He said the rebels had not been officially notified about the alleged shipment, although a joint ceasefire monitoring committee had been in place for a year.
Major Dickson Hermoso, who sits on the ceasefire panel, said the report would be investigated by both sides. The rebels have been fighting for a separate Muslim homeland in the country's south for decades. Philippine military officials have also accused the guerillas of providing training grounds to foreign militants belonging to Al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah, but the MILF has denied that and has pledged to help the government capture terrorists.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
08/03/2004 11:48:00 AM ||
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The Philippine authorities are stepping up screening procedures at airports for terrorists who could be trying to avoid detection to board planes with explosives,officials said Monday. "Methods involving the use of liquid explosives and simple timing devices as used by the terrorists operating out of the Philippines are indicative of the variety of tactics that may develop," said a security directive of Manila airport. "The possibility of terrorists, or persons with criminal or other motivation, intent on attacking aviation, carrying explosives internally must also be considered," it added. The memorandum suggested that militants could use methods "similar to the technologies used by drug couriers," such as swallowing or even surgically implanting packets of narcotics in their bodies or the bodies of their pets to avoid detection at airports. Security checks have been stepped up by aviation authorities, including x-rays, body searches and also bomb sniffing dogs.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
08/03/2004 11:35:05 AM ||
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#1
I understood that ransoming hostages made everyone safer. No?
Posted by: john ||
08/03/2004 13:54 Comments ||
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An Indonesian militant told a court on Tuesday he helped one of Asia's most wanted men to bomb a luxury Jakarta hotel last year because he hated Americans and wanted to avenge injustices in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Ismail, 23, who is accused of involvement in the planning as well as execution of the attack, said he played the role of assistant to British-educated Malaysian engineer Azahari in the August 5 bombing of the J.W. Marriott Hotel that killed 12 people and injured 150 others.
"I helped Azahari," a relaxed-looking Ismail told the South Jakarta Court. "I was in charge of surveying the Marriott."
"I only followed orders. Azhari is the one who knows everything ... I was only helping him."
Asked by the judge why the Marriott was selected as a target, Ismail, wearing a blue checked shirt and blue trousers, said he hated Americans and Australians.
"At the time I thought that I would help my brothers in Islam in Palestine and Afghanistan ... Azahari said the hotel belongs to America," Ismail said, adding that he now regretted his actions because almost all those killed and injured were fellow Indonesians.
He said he saw Azahari pack a car with explosives which was then driven away by someone else. Police say the mini-van used in the attack was driven by a suicide bomber.
"I saw Azhari putting the explosive materials in a car and later I drove Azhari to the site of the bombing ... I was around 250 metres (800 feet) away when the bombing happened," he said. Ismail said he met Azahari in the late 1990s while studying in neighbouring Malaysia.
Ismail was arrested last November and his trial began in May. The charges against him carry the death penalty.
Police have said Ismail was part of a group that had been planning more attacks at selected foreign targets in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Ismail told the court on Tuesday he had surveyed a Citibank branch as well as the Marriott, but gave no details.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 9:00:44 AM ||
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Two Filipino members of the Al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah network allegedly behind a deadly bombing attack that left 22 people dead in the Philippine capital four years ago have been captured, an army spokesman said Tuesday. Lieutenant Colonel Buenaventura Pascual said the two suspects, Mamasao Naga and Abdul Pata, were arrested in the southern city of Marawi in the past two days but he declined to give further details.
The two had earlier been identified by captured Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) bomb-maker Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi as the perpetrators of the bombing of the Manila light rail system in December 2000 that left 22 people dead, Pascual said. He said the JI had planned to use the remainder of the stockpile for a bombing campaign in Singapore. Pascual said al-Ghozi had previously identified the two arrested Filipinos as part of the team that carried out the actual bombing and that warrants for their arrest had already been issued.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 12:53:26 AM ||
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The arrest of a senior al Qaeda operative in June and his subsequent interrogation enabled U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agents to gather documents, e-mail addresses and cell-phone text messages that suggested al Qaeda planned to strike targets in New York and Washington, according to Pakistani intelligence officials. The al Qaeda operative, Musaad Aruchi, was arrested here on June 12 by Pakistani paramilitary forces in an operation supervised by the CIA, officials said. According to a senior Pakistani intelligence official involved in the early interrogation of the suspect, Aruchi "was sure that al Qaeda would hit New York or Washington pretty soon."
We'll see what happens now that the plot's exposed. My guess is nothing for another couple years...
"He had with him street maps of New York City without the front cover, and addresses of some other important buildings," the official said. "There were some data CDs also recovered from him."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 12:34:53 AM ||
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#1
so it was sigint that led to Aruchi, and Aruchi led to Khan and Ghailani, and Khan and Ghailani leading to a treasure trove of info?
A payoff to patience and good intell work, it seems. And to the diplomacy that keeps Pakistan cooperating actively.
#2
Pakistani authorities held him for three days before he was flown in an unmarked CIA plane from a Pakistani air force base to a location that U.S. officials did not disclose to the Pakistanis, intelligence officials said.
Two South Africans in Pakistani custody have told interrogators they had planned to attack tourist sites in Johannesburg, a security official alleged on Tuesday. "They had hatched a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Johannesburg's main tourist sites," said the official, who is familiar with the interrogation.
That'll get SA's attention.
The pair -- Abu Bakar and Zubair Ismail -- were arrested last week in the eastern Pakistani city of Gujrat along with Tanzanian al-Qaeda operative Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, indicted by the United States over the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
Bakar (a doctor) and Ismail, described as new recruits to Osama bin Laden's terror network, had arrived in Pakistan's second-largest city of Lahore early in July, the official said on condition of anonymity. They joined Ghailani in Gujrat, 160km south-east of Islamabad, and together hid out in a rented house.
The house was stormed by police commandoes on July 25 and after an eight-hour shootout the pair were arrested with Ghailani, his Uzbek wife, three other women and some Pakistani "facilitators".
Must have been some shootout, but as far as I can tell nobody even got winged.
Maps, foreign currency, computers, computer discs and Arabic-language documents were found in his hideout, another security official said. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the information on the computer was "valuable" and had been passed on to Pakistan's "friends", a reference to the US, its close ally in the war on terrorism.
An independent analyst on Friday described the two South Africans' situation as bleak.
I'd say that was a reasonable view.
If tried in Pakistan, the death penalty is mandatory for terrorism and the definition of the crime very broad, said South African Institute of International Affairs war and organised crime researcher Gail Wannenburg.
Especially for out-of-towners
Should they be handed over to the United States, the men are likely to spend a long time awaiting trial in a detention facility like Guantanamo Bay -- the US military prison in Cuba. They would probably be considered illegal combatants under American law, meaning that minimum international standards of detention would not apply to them, she said. Terrorism is a capital crime in some US states. "Their situation would appear to be quite bleak, particularly if they are deported to the US," Wannenburg said. "I would be quite worried if I were in their shoes."
The South African government could on Friday give no update on the men's position.
"We think they may be in the fetal position, calling for their mommy's."
Last Thursday, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Aziz Pahad met Pakistani High Commissioner Akbar Zeb in Pretoria to request access to the men. He also asked for details of the arrests "to enable the South African government to determine the course of action to be followed".
Checking with the Paks to see what cover story works best.
The high commissioner committed his government to assisting South Africa and enabling consular visits to the men. Asked on Friday whether arrangements for a visit were under way, a departmental spokesperson said: "There is no further information. The status is as yesterday."
If any link is definitely established between Ghailani and the South Africans, they are likely to be deported to the US, Wannenburg said. But the burden of proof would be very low, she said, as the US and Pakistan "have both not been very open about the evidence they rely on in such cases".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 3:06:04 PM ||
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#1
They had hatched a plot to carry out terrorist attacks on Johannesburgâs main tourist sites,"
This wouldn't be happening if there was a just resolution to the Palestinian problem!
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/03/2004 22:28 Comments ||
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#2
attack tourist sites in Johannesburg,
They better attack them quickly as Theo seems parials to Bob's economic innovations. In five years there will be very few tourists to disrupt.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/03/2004 22:47 Comments ||
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#3
Two South Africans in Pakistani custody have told interrogators they had planned to attack tourist sites in Johannesburg.
What I can't figure out is why they would want to attack their own newly-liberated "rainbow nation" - unless they want to turn it into an islamic state.
Maybe tourism is unislamic??
Oh, I've got it. It's a lie to cover up their real intention - which is to attack Pakistan.
What a heart-warming story!
Palestinian militants attacking an Israeli armoured bulldozer inadvertently killed three other Palestinians Tuesday.
"Oops! Our bad!"
The roadside bomb in the Rafah refugee camp went off a few metres from where the bulldozer — part of an Israeli operation to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels from Egypt — was piling up dirt in a crowded residential area, Associated Press Television News said. No Israelis were injured but three Palestinian men 200 metres away were hit by shrapnel, one so severely it took off half his skull.
Oh! A sucking head wound! That makes it even better!
Ten people were wounded, including a Reuters TV cameraman, witnesses and hospital officials said.
#5
Israeli armoured bulldozer - $40,000.00
Home-made roadside bomb - $50.00
Blowing half your brainwashed buddies head off by accident - priceless.
Zionists - 3
Paleos - 0
Posted by: jojo the idiot circus boy ||
08/03/2004 15:27 Comments ||
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#6
# 5 :)
Just out of curiosity-of all the roadside bombings (Moron Martyr Murders) that have happened in that h*llhole, how many newspeople that have been hurt in the bombings still remain sympathetic to the methods of the intifada? (This is a straight question.)
#7
Giggling over innocent bystanders getting their heads blown off is not very nice. That said, because so many of the Palestinians support terrorism, this suddenly becomes more of a cause and effect lesson than an opportunity to reproach anyone for gloating. Let's hope the grieving families make the connection between Palestinian terrorism and the fact that their breadwinners aren't coming home.
It is more than a little curious how one of Reuters' cameramen "just happened" to be in the vicinity right when the bomb exploded. Maybe getting those "scoops" isn't such a good idea when they can scoop out half your brains. Swim with sharks and get caught in the feeding frenzy.
#8
Build the national anti-terrorist wall higher & deeper, and the enemy will continue turning on each other in Gaza, Samaria & Judea. Saving lives while the enemy self-destructs.
Maybe the solution in some locations is the tried and true Israeli security model for the prevention of death cultists.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
08/03/2004 15:51 Comments ||
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#9
Zen, true. Apologies.
Posted by: jojo the idiot circus boy ||
08/03/2004 15:55 Comments ||
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#10
Looks like i picked the wrong month to quit popcorn.
#12
Amazing. The one time civilians and children ARE truly injured in that Hellhole, the media says nothing. I guess we'll have to wait for the next precision strike in Fallujah to hear about all of the innocent casualties.
#13
I've just checked with the Martydom Department, and there is some bad news. The 72 virgins will not be visiting Larry, Mo(hammed) and Curly this evening. Apparently, even the virgins have standards.
His baby-face pictures belie his reputation. And who would guess he is worth $25-million (around R155-million)?
That's the price the FBI put on the head of Tanzanian terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani.
And that's the fortune a bounty-hunter may have claimed when he tipped off Pakistani police and led them to Ghailani's hideout.
With him in a house in Gujrat, 175km east of Islamabad, were two South Africans, 20-year-old Islamic-studies student Zubair Ismail of Laudium, Pretoria, and Dr Feroz Ganchi, reportedly from Fordsburg.
All three were captured after a dramatic eight-hour shoot-out.
Ghailani's Uzbek wife was arrested with him.
Ghailani began life on the paradise island of Zanzibar but, security officials say, wound up in the hardcore cells of al-Qaeda.
His youthful pictures staring out from the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorist List carried with it the multimillion reward for his capture - the same amount being offered for Osama bin Laden.
He made the Top 20 list for his alleged role in the devastating 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200 people and injured about 5 000.
Ghailani is believed to have bought the truck used to blow up the Dar-es-Salaam embassy, as well as oxygen and acetylene tanks used to intensify the blast.
Eleven people were killed in the Dar-es-Salaam attack, and some 213 in the Nairobi blast.
But his name surfaced much more recently on the radar screens of al-Qaeda hunters and anti-terrorism authorities.
The FBI was so sure that Ghailani and six of his accomplices were actively plotting fresh terror attacks that it issued a fresh warning in May, accompanied by a photo list of him and six others.
He uses a range of birthdates that could age him as either 30 or 34, according to the FBI, and operates under at least 20 aliases including "Foopie", "Fupi," and "Ahmed the Tanzanian."
He speaks Swahili and English.
In December 1998, he was indicted in New York for his alleged role in the twin African bombings. Little is publicly known of his whereabouts since then.
Some reports had him fleeing to Afghanistan, while others pinned him in Monrovia, Liberia, at least in early 2001.
Britain's Observer newspaper in 2002 reported that he had hidden out in Liberia in 2001, financing al-Qaeda operations through the illegal diamond trade.
Ghailani and his cohorts had quietly moved to Gujrat around four weeks before his arrest, Pakistani authorities said.
They discovered his hideout after arresting a local man who used to bring them groceries, and told police of the presence of "foreign terrorists."
The gang fought off police and commandoes for eight hours through Saturday night into Sunday, only surrendering when they ran out of ammunition.
Like three top al-Qaeda figures caught before him in Pakistan, Ghailani was found not in the remote hinterland along the Afghan border where Bin Laden is believed to be hiding, but in a big city.
Gujrat is dotted with factories making electronics and cutlery.
Ghailani's arrest was hailed as a major coup for al-Qaeda hunters. Pakistan's Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat described the capture as "a phenomenal success in the international fight against terrorism."
But some experts cautioned that while Ghailani may be significant, he was probably not part of the network's higher echelons and thus unlikely to make a dent in al-Qaeda's terror activities.
CNN's terrorism expert Peter Bergen said Ghailani was more likely part of al-Qaeda's "group B."
The East African attacks had the stamp of Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, but it was a previously unknown group, the "Islamic Army for the Liberation of Muslim Holy Sites," which initially claimed responsibility.
On the morning of August 7 1998, two car bombs went off almost simultaneously outside the embassies of the United States in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam in neighbouring Tanzania.
The attacks, the bloodiest of their kind in sub-Saharan Africa either before or since, killed 224 people - 213 in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania - and injured around 5 000, almost all of them Africans.
In Nairobi the blast reduced a neighbouring four-storey building to a mountain of rubble.
According to US experts, the two east African embassies had been easy targets because they were among the least secure of the 260 US embassies and consulates around the world.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 9:29:15 AM ||
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The main defendant accused of the massacre of at least 240 people in a suburb of Algeria's capital in 1997 has been sentenced to death, state radio reported on Monday. Fouad Boulemia, a member of the dissolved Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), was on Sunday evening convicted by the Algiers criminal court of the September 1997 massacre in Bentalha on the eastern outskirts of the city. The FIS was dissolved in 1992 after the military intervened in January of that year to cancel the second round of a general election the Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win in the north African country. The death sentence was the second to be passed on Boulemia. He has already been convicted of the murder in 1999 of a senior FIS leader, Abdelkader Hachani.
"Abdelkader, we've decided it's time for you to retire! [BANG!]"
The cancellation of the 1992 election triggered an insurgency which has claimed at least 150 000 lives, according to official tolls and press reports, but has waned since its height in the mid-1990s. The military wing of the FIS was disbanded at the end of the decade when many of its members took advantage of a conditional amnesty granted by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Two other groups, however, have sustained a low-level insurgency. The most active today is the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which on June 21 attacked and damaged the Hamma power station near Algiers.
Monday's local press reported that under the orders of Algerian police chief Ali Tounsi, police have begun to install surveillance cameras at strategic points in the capital. The official reason reported in the newspapers was to help police in cracking down on theft and assault, but much of the press speculated that the main aim was to try to prevent such attacks as the one on the power station. According to official figures, more than 5 000 crimes and offences, including 167 murders, have been perpetrated in Algiers so far this year. Convicts on death row have not been executed in Algeria since 1993, when seven men were shot by firing squad for their part in a bomb attack the previous year on Algiers airport which killed nine people and wounded dozens of others. Algerian Justice Minister Tayeb Belaiz announced at the beginning of July that the government was considering the abolition of capital punishment.
If I was them, I'd wait until the Bad Guys give up committing capital crimes, but maybe that's just me...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 9:34:03 AM ||
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#1
Good. Kill him twice. With some of these guys, you never know for sure.
In mid-May, a C.I.A. expert on Al Qaeda briefed Pakistani law enforcement officials on the existence of an elusive operative who was said to be eager to attack Americans, according to a Pakistani intelligence official. Nearly two months later, Pakistani officials traced him to the port city of Karachi and then here. On July 13, they made an arrest in the case, picking up Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old computer engineer, when he went to the airport to collect a package from his father. Pakistani officials say the arrest of Mr. Khan led officials to Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian operative of Al Qaeda who is accused of involvement in the bombings of American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and who was one of the F.B.I.'s 22 most-wanted terrorists. Mr. Ghailani was arrested July 25 in the small eastern city of Gujrat, where he had slipped in about six weeks earlier, according to the city's police chief, Raja Munawar Hussain.
"Oh, the hip bone's connected to the thigh bone..."
The exposure of the two men, one an experienced foreign operative and the other a young Pakistani who is thought to have passed messages for Al Qaeda, illustrates how senior members of the terrorist network, possibly even Osama bin Laden, continue to successfully hide in Pakistan. Both men appear to have been part of what senior Pakistani officials describe as an elaborate and well-equipped underground network the group has established in this country, a critical American ally in fighting terrorism. Statements by Mr. Khan about his travels and activities also appear to confirm long-running suspicions that foreign members of Al Qaeda have been able to safely operate from Pakistan's remote tribal areas for at least the past 18 months.
The writer surely meant to say "the past three years, and likely well before that..."
It is not yet clear whether Mr. Ghailani was living in the tribal areas before his move about six weeks ago to Gujrat. Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hyat said only that Mr. Ghailani had been successfully hiding in another part of Pakistan "for some time," without providing details.
Only question I have is whether he was hanging his turban in Quetta or Peshawar...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (Reuters) - A group in Iraq claimed responsibility Monday for a series of church bombs this weekend in a statement posted on a Web site, saying they were a response to the U.S. "crusader war" and evangelization. "You wanted a crusader war, so these are the results. ... We warned you," the statement by a little-known Islamist group calling itself the Planning and Follow-Up Organization in Iraq said on a site where a number of claims have been posted in recent weeks.
"We were able Sunday to direct several painful strikes at the dens of evil, corruption, immorality and evangelization."
Iraq accused al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi earlier Monday of carrying out the coordinated bombings, saying the militants wanted to drive Christians out of the country. It was not known if there was any connection between Zarqawi and the Planning and Follow-Up Organization in Iraq.
"America didn't only occupy and militarily sweep Muslim countries, it also set up hundreds of evangelization organizations and printed books about the Holocaust and distributed them in Muslim countries to wrench Muslims from their religion and make them Christians," the statement said.
They seem to be touchy on this subject, guess it doesn't take much to convert a muslim.
"The wars now in Iraq and Afghanistan are hateful crusader wars against Muslims by America and its minions, with the blessing of the Pope who has the leaders of America between his hands like slaves," it said.
Yeah, I remember the Pope urging the Crusader Army to smite the infidels and pave the way for a worldwide christian state.....oh, wait....that was a Islamic cleric
Christians make up 3 percent of the Iraqi population and have generally had good ties with the Muslim community, although several recent attacks have targeted alcohol sellers, most of whom are Christians.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2004 9:02:48 AM ||
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#1
They seem to be touchy on this subject, guess it doesn't take much to convert a muslim.
Does anybody know of an independent source for the numbers on this? I seem to recall an article in which a muz leader complained that they were losing large numbers to the Catholics in Africa. But it's hard to say if this was a legitimate concern or if he was just trying to provoke some seething and jihad amongst his fellow moonbats.
#2
In Islamic countries there is strong legal, cultural, business, social, and family pressure to remain a âMuslimâ. There are non-believers who are bright, educated, and want to live in a secular society who donât let even their close friends and family know their true feelings.
The concept of âconversionâ is interpreted differently by the West and Islam. In some Islamic countries Christian girls have been kidnapped and forced to âconvertâ. Once rescued the girls renounced Islam. Some Muslims consider those girls apostates. (Moderate Muslims donât accept forced conversions.)
Many Muslims stop going to the Mosque when they move to the West.
#3
During the crusades was it SOP to invade a Muslim land, free its people from the grips of a brutal secular dictator, allow the conquered land to incorporate Islam into its consitution and then return sovereignty?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/03/2004 23:51 Comments ||
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#4
"Islam" reacts so strongly because their hold is so weak when the people are confronted with options
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/04/2004 0:30 Comments ||
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The latest series of rebel raids in Chechnya killed seven Russian soldiers over the past day, an official with the region's Kremlin-backed administration said Monday.
Five of the servicemen were killed and seven others wounded in 19 rebel attacks on Russian bases and checkpoints in the region over the previous 24 hours, the official said on condition of anonymity.
Two other soldiers died and two were wounded in a clash with rebels near the southern village of Roshni-Chu late Sunday, the official said. One rebel was killed and another was wounded in the skirmish, he added.
Also Sunday, five servicemen were wounded when a Russian military truck hit a rebel land mine near the village of Oktyabrskoye just west of the Chechen capital, Grozny. In Grozny itself, two officers of the local police force were wounded when a man whom they stopped for an identity check opened fire on them Sunday. The gunman was killed.
Another Chechen policeman was wounded Sunday when a police patrol came under rebel fire near the village of Gerzel in the eastern Gudermes region.
Fighting is continuing unabated in Chechnya in the run-up to an Aug. 29 election to replace Akhmad Kadyrov, the Kremlin-backed Chechen president who was killed by a bomb in May.
Sergei Fridinsky, Russia's deputy prosecutor general, said Monday that the authorities had arrested the third suspect involved in the bombings, the Interfax news agency reported. Two suspects arrested earlier have remained in custody pending trial.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 9:10:28 AM ||
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At least 18 al-Qaeda suspects including a mid-level Nigerian operative carrying "messages" as he tried to board an overseas flight have been captured in Pakistan in the past 10 days, a senior security official told AFP today.
We're on a roll here...
Among them are five foreigners, including the Nigerian man and the Tanzanian suspect in the 1998 east Africa US embassy bombings, the official, who is closely involved in the latest al-Qaeda hunt, said on condition of anonymity. "A Nigerian man, Mohammad Salman Eisa alias Ibrahim, was captured yesterday as he tried to flee the country through Lahore airport," the official said, referring to Pakistan's second largest city.
"I'm gettin' outta here!"
"No, you ain't!"
"He was carrying some messages," he added, but refused to elaborate on their contents or to whom they were addressed. Ibrahim was "a low to mid-ranking al-Qaeda operative".
"Yer nuttin', Ibrahim! Nuttin'! Just a low-ranking al-Qaeda operative!"
"Stop! Stop! You're hurting my self-esteem!"
The 13 other detainees were Pakistani tough guys militants who helped transport the foreign al-Qaeda operatives within Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province of which Lahore is the capital. The 18 detainees have all been arrested since July 25, when the Tanzanian suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and two South African al-Qaeda suspects were captured in the Punjab industrial town of Gujrat, which lies halfway between Lahore and the capital Islamabad. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid earlier told AFP of the arrests of several suspects "interlinked" with al-Qaeda suspects, but declined to give details. A second Nigerian man was picked up in the Punjab town of Hafizabad but interrogators had not determined whether he was linked to al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 8:59:04 AM ||
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Afghan and U.S. troops backed by warplanes killed as many as 50 militants in a day-long battle near the Pakistani border, the U.S. military said Tuesday, one of the bloodiest clashes since American forces entered Afghanistan. One Afghan soldier was also killed and three others wounded in the fighting which raged all day Monday in Khost province, a former al-Qaida stronghold south of the capital, Kabul, a military statement said. "Allied forces staved off rockets, mortars, rocket propelled grenades and machine gun fire throughout the day and into the night," the statement said. "The exact number of enemy casualties is unknown, but pilots flying overhead estimated that approximately 40-50 insurgents were killed." The battle began at about 2 a.m. on Monday when militants assailed a border post in the south of the province. Afghan officials said on Monday that they had found the bodies of two attackers, while the U.S. military said only that it had inflicted "heavy" losses on the rebels.
They hauled away the bodies, SOP
In Tuesday's statement, the U.S. military said the attackers numbered about 50, but retreated "in panic" when warplanes included a B-1 bomber, an A-10 ground attack aircraft and helicopters arrived on the scene. The Afghan soldier died in a fresh skirmish later that morning, the U.S. military said, though Afghan Gen. Khial Baz said that two of his men had died. The U.S. military said the fighting continued into Monday night, but gave no further details.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2004 8:29:39 AM ||
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#1
this is a goulish thought, but what is required to haul away the dead if one isn't allowed to use trucks? How are bodies disposed of in (Presumably Waziristan) the border region.
would there be alarge number of fresh graves in a graveyard, or would the graves be dispersed.
I know from having to bury a 150 lbs calf that to dig a 6 ft by 2 ft by 4ft deep hole with pick and shovel is going to leave some sort of visual signature.
policy statements aside, I strongly suspect that estimated E-KIA numbers are kept, and if the leadership has any detectable brain function at all, this number is kept highly classified.
Posted by: N Guard ||
08/03/2004 10:38 Comments ||
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#2
If it were near the border there would have been transport available just on the other side to move the bodies to a place of burial. Moslem burial practices require quick interments so they would not have been moved far.
In Wazieristan most villages have graveyards somewhere close by. The people there are so poor there are not many monuments so graves typically have flags on poles above them. It would be exceedingly difficult to go into the Tribal Areas and check graveyards for recent dead. Tribesmen are a law unto themselves in there and the Pakistanti troops would not stir up trouble over something like that. However I rather imagine the Agent (Pak officials who act as intermediaries between the government and tribesmen) would drive by the local graveyards to see if they were suddenly a lot of flags going up in a given area.
Posted by: Jim Graves ||
08/03/2004 11:34 Comments ||
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#3
can' they just check with a sattelite if they are really interested?
#4
can' they just check with a sattelite if they are really interested?
Well, that's possible, IF:
1. IF there's no obscurring cloud cover.
2. IF they actually dug graves, instead of just moved a bunch of rocks. That terrain isn't the greatest for digging.
3. IF you know where (within a given area) they actually buried the people.
4. IF they didn't hide the bodies by "burying" them inside caves, which the tribalists in that area have done in the past.
5. IF they bury all the dead in the same area (disburse 40 KIA over 40 cemeteries, and it's hard to see a pattern of increase).
6. IF there aren't a bunch of people being killed in the tribal area at the same time, and they don't bury two people in the same grave.
7. IF you've got the resources to spare looking for graves, when they could be better used looking for live enemy to kill.
Satellite reconnaissance is neither easy nor cheap, and it's not something that you can do with the snap of a finger. It takes lots of planning, tons of resources, and close coordination between some dozen different agencies. I don't think looking for new graves is very high on anybody's agenda.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/03/2004 17:41 Comments ||
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#5
Weigh the vultures. Come back in two weeks and weigh them again.
Pakistan has arrested two more foreigners believed to be members of al Qaeda in the last 24 hours, local intelligence officials said Tuesday. They were the latest in a series of arrests of members of the radical Islamic network in Pakistan, which U.S. officials have said had led to information about a plot to bomb buildings in Washington and in the New York area. In the latest arrests, one of the men was apprehended at a bus stop in the Hafizabad town in Punjab province but the officials were unsure of his nationality. "He first said he was from Yemen but later changed his statement to say he was Egyptian," one of the officials who asked not to be named told Reuters. "We are still checking his nationality. He does not have a passport."
That's unusual, most people in Pakistan have half a dozen.
In another swoop, authorities arrested a foreign al Qaeda suspect along with two Pakistanis who were traveling to the eastern city of Lahore, also in Punjab, from the nearby town of Sheikupura Monday night. No other details were immediately available about the arrests, which follow the capture of at least two important al Qaeda members last month.
Additional:
Among those arrested was Raja WaqarAKA Mahmoud The Weasel, a policeman assigned to the office of Punjab province's top politician. Waqar is suspected of informing al-Qaida-linked groups about the whereabouts of top government officials, a high-ranking intelligence official in the eastern city of Lahore told The Associated Press. Another detainee identified himself as Juma Ibrahim, a Syrian. He was arrested Sunday at a bus station in Hafizabad, a town near Lahore, and was turned over to Pakistan's spy agency, said district police chief Aslam Ghauri. A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a third man was arrested trying to board a plane in Lahore with questionable documents. He gave no further details.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2004 8:27:14 AM ||
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#1
Been on UK TV that one of these guys has a bounty.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2004 17:42 Comments ||
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We'll be down for about an hour around 4 p.m. afternoon for server swap. The new machine is reloaded and hopefully will be more stable than it was the last effort.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2004 8:22:10 AM ||
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Fred: Have you prepared a suitable sacrifice for the engineering god Murphy?
#4
I'd suggest sacrificing a Volkswagon full of hippies, C.L.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
08/03/2004 11:56 Comments ||
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#5
I'm surprised. On the last shutdown this morning I went in and shut a bunch of stuff down and screwed around in the registry. Not only did I not seem to break anything, but we haven't hung since then.
BTW, the page hang is caused by a problem at BlogAds, not here.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2004 12:13 Comments ||
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#10
And the ululator, too; make sure it's loaded up with high-test hydrogen peroxide...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/03/2004 14:49 Comments ||
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#11
Yes, Phil---We need to keep the ululators at the ready. We may get a break and will need to crank them up on short notice. Like on getting good news about Zarqawi or the Arafish....One can hope.
Server, don't fail me now!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/03/2004 15:56 Comments ||
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#17
We're back on line, with all the service packs and updates Win2K says it needs. I'm hoping we didn't just substitute one set of bugs for another, but the old server was acting up pretty bad.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2004 20:55 Comments ||
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Mumbai police have placed the city on high alert after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation informed Indian intelligence agencies of the possibility of a terrorist strike by a human bomb. The human bomb is suspected to be either an intruder from Nepal linked to an international militant outfit or one of the usual suspects a member of al-Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Taiba. According to the Code Orange alert issued by the FBI late last week, Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore could be the target of terrorist attacks within 72 hours starting Sunday, August 1. A lone terrorist may target either vital strategic installations or VIPs in the city, the alert says.
President APJ Abdul Kalam cancelled his scheduled visit to Mumbai on Sunday in the wake of this information. Kalam was to attend three functions on Sunday morning, at the Taj, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chowpatty, and then at Vikhroli. "We received the intelligence input late on Saturday night, and the next morning, there was a message from Mantralaya saying the President's visit had been cancelled," a senior police official who did not wish to be named said.
Additional commissioner of police Bipin Bihari of Special Branch-I, the intelligence-gathering arm of Mumbai police, confirmed the terrorist threat but denied any knowledge of intruders. Police have beefed up security arrangements at vital installations and even asked the fire brigade to be ready. "We were informed by the police about human bombs in the city and told to stay extra-vigilant round the clock," a fire brigade official said. Police commissioner A N Roy, however, denied any terrorist alert. "We are alert because Independence Day is round the corner. We have revised security arrangements and alerted our men, as is routinely done," he said.
"I don't know, but he left me this silver truckload of explosives!"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2004 12:51:32 AM ||
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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.
