RIYADH: Saudi security forces arrested two wanted militants in the capital on Saturday, a security source told AFP. The two suspects were detained following a raid on a house in the Al-Aqeeq neighbourhood of north Riyadh, the source said, asking not to be named. They surrendered without putting up any resistance. Hundreds of suspects have been rounded up since Saudi Arabia began battling a wave of unrest blamed on Al Qaeda in May 2003.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 ||
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LONDON — A former Libyan intelligence agent, jailed for the December 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie in southwest Scotland, has been moved out of solitary confinement into another prison. Abdel Basset Ali Al Megrahi is serving a minimum 27-year prison term for his part in the downing of New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people. Placed in solitary confinement at Barlinnie prison in Glasgow since his conviction in January 2001, the 52-year-old was moved to Greenock Prison in Inverclyde where he will be allowed to mix with fellow prisoners, a Scottish Prison Service official said on Thursday.
Don't start reading War and Peace, don't buy whole life insurance, and don't get manuevered into the shower where the security cams can't see.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/27/2005 12:12:50 AM ||
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#1
How hard would it be to get put in the same cell with this bloke? I wonder how many of the survivors of the victims of the Lockerbie bombing would be will to do 'just enough' to get put near him. I wonder if there is a courtyard in the prison that is over looked by a nice tall building?
I wonder how long his funeral will take?
Posted by: Jame Retief ||
02/27/2005 7:51 Comments ||
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#2
I lost a co-worker on Pan Am 103. He was returning from a business trip. He was a good guy who loved and supported a wife and two pre-teen kids. He was a hard worker with a lot of potential. The church was packed for his funeral and the line for the reception afterwards extended around the block. For almost a decade after he died, I passed by a little memorial to him every morning on the way into my office. I also passed by it every time I left the office to go on a business trip. I hope Abdel Basset Ali Al Megrahi's future is extremely painful.
Posted by: Tom ||
02/27/2005 21:16 Comments ||
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Posted by: Aleksander Boyd ||
02/27/2005 07:29 ||
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#1
This is the second FARC terrorist that we know of being captured in Venezuela.
I wonder how many of them are operating with islamic terrorists setting up camp in the country: "Additional concern is generated by the fact that the IAC is linked to Colombian terrorist groups now said to be involved with Islamic terrorists. Terrorism experts cite the secretive tri-border area of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, where Colombian and Islamic terrorists are said to be coordinating their activities. Other reports suggest the presence of Islamic terrorist groups in VENEZUELA, where the anti-American regime headed by Hugo Chavez is also said to be aiding and providing sanctuary for Colombian terrorists." http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.asp?HC=&D=1/20/2005&ID=54153
#2
Chavez can't be that stupid. If he wasn't really worried about The US killing him. Inviting and cooperating with Islamic terrorists should make him nervous and keep him looking over his shoulder all the time.
Ten years after Boris Yeltsin first sent Russian troops into Chechnya to put down an attempt at independence, violence has seeped across a tier of adjoining republics creating a band of instability in the northern Caucasus. Some recent examples of the trouble:
Dagestan
Jan. 15, 2005: Security forces beseige a house in Makhachkala where several gunmen are located. Five of them and a police officer are killed. Officials find guns, grenades and other explosives in a safe house.
Feb. 2, 2005: A deputy interior minister and three of his bodyguards are gunned down in an ambush on the main street of Makhachkala.
North Ossetia
Sept. 1, 2004: Hundreds of children and adults are taken hostage at a school in Beslan in an operation believed planned by Chechens. After a three-day ordeal, 331 are left dead.
Ingushetia
June 22, 2004: In well-organized night raids, gunmen set up false checkpoints in Nazran and stage attacks across the city, mostly against police and government officials; about 90 people are killed.
Kabardino-Balkaria
Jan. 27, 2005: Police kill seven suspected pro-Chechnyan Islamic insurgents after a two-day siege in the capital city of Nalchik.
Karachayevo-Cherkessia
Oct. 18, 2004: Deputy prime minister shot and killed as he drives to work in Cherkessk, the republic's capital.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:29:54 AM ||
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Ten members of illegal armed groups have been killed in Chechen mountainous districts in an ongoing large- scale operation that was launched there several days ago, Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax on Saturday. "The examination of the bodies shows that they are Dagestanis, Chechens, and foreigners," Kadyrov said. "The guerilla unit currently numbers over 60 people, taking into account the losses it has suffered," Kadyrov said. "It is international by its composition and includes Arabs, Dagestanis, Azerbaijanis, and Chechens," he said. The operation against the guerilla unit led by prominent Dagestani- born terrorist Rappani Khalilov and Aslan Maskhadov's chief of staff Akhmed Advorkhanov was resumed on Saturday morning, Kadyrov said.
This article starring:
AKHMED ADVORKHANOV
Chechnya
ASLAN MASKHADOV
Chechnya
RAPPANI KHALILOV
Chechnya
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:25:48 AM ||
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They were cowardly Islamoscum before, now they're hardening.
Federal authorities in Cincinnati charged 15 people Thursday with taking part in a conspiracy to illegally obtain Ohio driver's licenses for immigrants from the Middle East and Africa.
The accused ringleader, Mohammad I. Shalash, teamed with Tammy Black, an employee of the deputy registrar's office at the Bureau of Motor Vehicles' downtown office to produce the licenses and charged the immigrants up to $300 each, federal prosecutors said.
Shalash, a U.S. citizen originally from Jordan, paid Black with as many as 200 phone cards worth $10 each, prosecutors said. He took the immigrants to the registrar's office, located across the street from the Hamilton County Courthouse, one by one over the course of several months last year.
Fred Stratmann, spokesman for the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, said the bureau has made several changes in recent years to improve security and training of personnel, including background checks on all employees. Black was hired before the checks began, but because she had no prior criminal record she likely would have been cleared anyway.
Nine of them, including Black, were arrested Thursday. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were trying to track down the others, including Shalash, late Thursday.
Magistrate Judge Timothy Black - who is not related to Tammy Black - released her without bond after her lawyer indicated she had a husband and daughter in Cincinnati and no prior convictions. Eight of the immigrants accused of obtaining the licenses were held without bond because of immigration violations.
Shalash and Black each are charged with one count of conspiracy and 13 counts of illegal production of a driver's license. They face up to 15 years in prison on each charge. The others are charged with one count of conspiracy and one count each of illegal production of a driver's license.
The Gang:
Of the 15 people indicted Thursday, two are U.S. citizens, five were in the U.S. illegally and the other eight had entered the country legally but remained in the United States illegally.
Mohammed Shalash, 30, of Cincinnati, is a permanent resident. He is charged with 14 counts in the indictment.
Tammy Black, 40, of Cleves, is a U.S. citizen. She was charged with 14 counts in the indictment.
Ismail Shalash, 41, of Cincinnati, permanent residence is pending approval; faces six charges.
Ahlam Mustafa (aka Ahlam Abu-Saba), 37, of Cincinnati, overstayed visit in U.S.; faces six charges.
Karamba Tounkara, 34, of Cincinnati, illegal alien; faces 13 charges.
Fuad Shannak, 48, of Cincinnati, overstayed visit in U.S.; faces eight charges.
Belal An Owda (aka Blal An Owdi), 31, of Cincinnati, illegally in the U.S.; faces two charges.
Mohammed Qadah, 22, of Cincinnati, illegally in the U.S.; faces 11 charges.
Khaled Daqer, 38, of Cincinnati, illegally in the U.S.; faces seven charges.
Mazen Akkawi, 25, of Cincinnati, permanent residence in the U.S. is pending approval; faces four charges.
Ayed Alhasasneh, 41, of Centerville, illegally in the U.S.; faces three charges.
Mohammad Albararawi (aka Mohammad Al-Barbarawi), 24, of West Chester, conditional permanent residence; faces five charges.
Mohammad Khaddash, 22, permanent residence is pending approval; faces nine charges.
Abdulrahim Raya, 58, of Cincinnati, overstayed visit in U.S.; faces 10 charges.
Loay Shannak, 20, of Cincinnati, currently not in the United States.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
02/27/2005 10:32:19 AM ||
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#1
hmmm - not a Manuel Labor among them
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/27/2005 12:29 Comments ||
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Tammy Black, 40, of Cleves
Is this the one known has the Hair of Flanders?
#3
Law enforcement worthy of the name. Commendations to the Cincinnati police force and all who serve.
Posted by: Annie War ||
02/27/2005 15:09 Comments ||
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Mohammad Khaddash, 22, permanent residence is pending approval
May I suggest permanent residence at Ohio's super-max prison in Youngstown? (That would make a fitting home for the other 14 scumbags as well.)
Two Louisiana men are in federal custody after they allegedly tried to provide fake documents, including Mississippi driver's licenses, to terrorists.
Lamont Ranson, 32, and Cedric Carpenter, 33, both of New Orleans, are the first to be charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to defraud the United States and an attempt to provide material support to terrorists, U.S. Attorney Dunn Lampton said.
Both men thought they were setting up a deal to provide members of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf with fake birth certificates, Social Security cards and other documents, Lampton said. In exchange, the men were asking for $500,000 in cash and $500,000 in heroine, according to court papers.
But the people they were meeting with were government informants for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Lampton said.
"These (suspects) are not charged with being terrorists," Lampton said. "They are people willing to assist persons they thought to be terrorists."
Abu Sayyaf is a radical Islamic group based in the Philippines whose goal is to establish a separate Islamic state for the minority Muslim population in the Philippines, according to court records. It is designated by the federal government as a foreign terrorist organization, papers show.
Ranson and Carpenter, who were arrested Thursday, are being held without bond at the Madison County Detention Center.
Carpenter also is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute, according to court papers.
Each is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in Jackson on Monday morning.
If convicted, Ranson faces up to 85 years in prison and a $3 million fine, and Carpenter faces up to 35 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.
The men approached an informant in April 2004 on board a cruise ship during a trip from New Orleans to the Western Caribbean and inquired about producing the false documents, according to court papers. In June, Ranson showed the informant a laptop computer that included a program for the production of driver's license, the court papers said.
The men claimed to have "insiders" at the state Department of Public Safety who could assist them in obtaining false Mississippi documents, Lampton said.
DPS Commissioner Rusty Fortenberry and state Highway Patrol Chief Col. Marvin Curtis were immediately notified of the men's claims and investigated them, Lampton said.
DPS spokesman Warren Strain said the men actually came to DPS headquarters and propositioned a female inmate to help them get materials needed to make the licenses. The inmate turned them down and notified officials, Strain said.
"They never had access to anything that would help them obtain false documents," Strain said.
In July, though, Carpenter had a complete set of fraudulent documents, including a birth certificate, Social Security card and a Mississippi driver's license, records show. Some documents showed his photo but listed another identity, Lampton said.
"We were very concerned about that," Lampton said. "He did have the ability to produce some documents."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:34:27 AM ||
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The Philippines military has reached an informal truce with a southern rebel group, allowing troops to concentrate on pursuing another separatist group, an official said.
Bad idea. They all do the same thing.
Ben Loong, the governor of southern Jolo island, told government officials he helped broker the agreement with Habir Malik, who led Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) forces in an uprising on Jolo earlier this month. Fighting broke out between MNLF forces and government troops on the island in what rebels say was retaliation for previous operations by the military which killed local civilians, including children. The wife and two children of an MNLF leader were among the civilians killed, but a military spokesman said they were caught in crossfire during a clash on 1 February that also left two soldiers dead. "We cannot say it's a ceasefire, but we call it a gentleman's talk between the armed forces and the MNLF," Loong said. Malik, a follower of jailed MNLF leader Nur Misuari, led about 300 MNLF fighters supported by the Abu Sayyaf in attacks on military outposts in Jolo earlier in February, triggering fighting that claimed the lives of 25 soldiers and 70 rebels.
This article starring:
HABIR MALIK
Moro National Liberation Front
Moro National Liberation Front
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility on Saturday evening, from Damascus, for the deadly attack in Tel Aviv on Friday night. "The period of calm was set for one month, and that month is over," said Abu Tark, a senior member of the Jihad movement. "Israel did not obey the agreement, and that's what led to our action."
The announcement confirms the security establishment's earlier suspicions, which also estimated that the Hizbulla was not involved. Defense officials estimated that the Islamic Jihad in Damascus had operated via one of its cells in the Tulkarm area. However, earlier on Saturday, two top Palestinian insurgents said that a senior Hizbullah operative told them that he had recruited the suicide bomber who blew himself up outside the Tel Aviv club. The combatants, local leaders of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, said the operative, Kais Obeid, called them after the bombing and asked them to claim responsibility for the attack.
Obeid, an Israeli Arab from the town of Taiba, was the man accused of setting the trap that delivered Elhanan Tannenbaum into the hands of Hizbullah.
Continued on Page 49
This article starring:
ABU TARK
Islamic Jihad
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
CIVIL AFAIRS MINISTER MOHAMED DAHLAN
Palestinian Authority
Elhanan Tannenbaum
GEN. NASER YUSEF
Palestinian Authority
KAIS OBEID
Hizbulla
MOHAMED AL HINDI
Islamic Jihad
SHEIK KASEM
Hizbullah
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Hizbulla
Islamic Jihad
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 1:26:00 AM ||
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TIKRIT, Iraq ââ¬" Iraqi Police and Task Force Liberty Soldiers detained four Iraqis after responding to a report of an explosion from the Tikrit Joint Coordination Center at about 8:30 p.m. Feb. 25. One insurgent died of his wounds and one was hospitalized due to the explosion, which the police investigation determined to be an improvised explosive device that detonated inside an abandoned house. Both men were wanted by police as suspects in previous attacks on Coalition Forces. Another IED was found in the building. Two other men associated with the incident are currently in police custody.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
02/27/2005 7:14:55 PM ||
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Sabawi Ibrahim Hasan, a half brother of Saddam Hussein who was the former dictator's intelligence chief before becoming a presidential adviser, has been captured, officials in the prime minister's office said Sunday. Hasan is No. 36 on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis released by U.S. authorities after troops invaded Iraq in March 2003, and one of only 12 remaining at large. He is also suspected of financing insurgents in the post-Saddam era, and Washington had put a $1 million bounty on his head. According to the U.S. Central Command, Hasan is among the 29 most-wanted supporters of insurgent groups in post-Saddam Iraq.
Officials in interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed Hasan's capture but gave no details on where it took place or when. It was also not immediately known whether Iraqi forces or U.S. troops had detained Hasan. Under Saddam, Hasan served as head of intelligence and security before taking up his last post of presidential adviser in the former regime. He is also known as Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hasan al-Tikriti, aka Thafir Alsemak.
This article starring:
Prime Minister Ayad Allawi
SABAWI IBRAHIM AL HASAN AL TIKRITI
Iraqi Insurgency
SABAWI IBRAHIM HASAN
Iraqi Insurgency
THAFIR ALSEMAK
Iraqi Insurgency
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 4:40:52 AM ||
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#4
Whoa, looks like the Syrians turned him and a bunch of others over to the Iraqis. An Iraq that looks now to be a runaway success and a lebanon screaming for freedom have put the fear of Allen into em.
#8
Associated Press now saying that 29 others were also handed over!
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=1&u=/ap/20050227/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq
Posted by: Tom ||
02/27/2005 15:12 Comments ||
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#9
From #8 link - A third Iraqi official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said Syrian security forces expelled al-Hassan from Syria into Iraq after he and his supporters had been turned back in an earlier attempt to cross the Syrian border into Lebanon and Jordan.
#13
Pressuring Syria appears to be getting easier. We (and many Lebanese) just pinned the Hariri boom on them and Israel just implicated them in the most recent car bombing. Even if they did not do these things, we ratchet up the pressure. Sucks to be them. We can do this now that W is reelected and has 4 more years to squeeze. That must seem like a decade to Assad.
#14
JAB
Actually we are not the only ones, not even the most important ones, pressuring Syria. The Syrians are now have pissed off Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, France, the US and the PA.
Turkey is neutral here. Iran is friendly but undependable.
#17
MHW, I agree that we're not the only ones on Syria's case but am pleased that seem to be exploiting the situation effectively. This is not always the case.
#18
One has to wonder how this relates to the sacking of the former head of the Syrian Secret Police or what ever he was after Hariri assassination? I also wonder how mush the Assad clan didn't know about support for Iraqi Baath Party members and just how many of them are in Syria and what they are up to? It's true they have to have some knowledge but how much?
Scrambling to save a battered truce, Palestinians arrested three West Bank suspects after a suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic Jihad group on Saturday. Friday's bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub killed four Israelis and dealt a heavy blow to peace hopes that had brightened since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to a ceasefire at a Feb. 8 summit. "We confirm that we carried out the operation," an official for Islamic Jihad in Lebanon, who declined to be named, told Reuters. The group's exiled leadership is primarily based in Damascus but also has a representative in Beirut.
Its Gaza-based leadership, who had earlier denied knowledge of the bombing and said it remained committed to a de facto truce called by Abbas, confirmed the claim. Israel and the United States said the bombing, the first suicide attack in the Jewish state since November, showed Abbas had to act more forcefully to salvage peace efforts. But Israeli officials said the Jewish state would show restraint for now. "We will not allow anyone to sabotage the goals and ambitions of our people ... We will bring them to justice," Abbas, elected last month, told reporters.
Palestinian officials said three suspected Palestinian militants were arrested in the bomber's village, Deir al-Ghoson, near Tulkarm. Israeli troops arrested five others there, including two brothers of the bomber, during a raid. A senior Palestinian security official said inquiries indicated the hand of the Hizbollah guerrilla group, which denied any role and called the accusations a provocation by "the Zionist entity" (Israel). A video left by the bomber, Abdullah Badran, 21, showed him flanked by Islamic Jihad flags calling Israelis "enemies of God" and vowing to avenge the killings of Palestinians.
He also accused the Palestinian Authority of "trading in the blood of the martyrs" by following U.S. dictates. The images of ambulances rushing to the popular Tel Aviv karaoke club and of the blood-stained pavement shook many Israelis, who had begun to believe they had put such scenes behind them. Israel demanded action instead of more talks, saying Abbas was wrong to think he could coax militants into a formal ceasefire from their de facto truce. "We must see arrests, collecting illegal weapons from those terrorist organizations," said Gideon Meir of the Foreign Ministry.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanded Palestinian leaders "send a clear message that terror will not be tolerated." Washington has stepped up efforts to revive the peace process after Abbas was elected following the death of Arafat, whom Israel and the United States saw as an obstacle. Militants say they are still not satisfied with Israeli confidence-building gestures, such as the release of 500 out of 8,000 prisoners and an end to army raids and assassinations. They also want a more sweeping Israeli pullback from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, which is due to begin on July 20.
This article starring:
ABDULLAH BADRAN
Islamic Jihad
Gideon Meir
Islamic Jihad
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 1:08:45 AM ||
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U.S. forces have arrested an Iraqi father and son accused of participating in a 1982 massacre in the predominantly Shiite Muslim village of Dujail in retaliation for an assassination attempt on then-President Saddam Hussein.
Senior U.S. officials said in interviews that Abdulla Rwayid and Muzhir Abdulla Rwayid were arrested Monday and charged with crimes against humanity for their alleged role in the killing of hundreds of people associated with the Dawa party, a Shiite group that carried out the attempt on Hussein's life on July 8, 1982. Charges against the two detained men were referred to the Iraqi Special Tribunal, the entity responsible for trying those accused of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide in Iraq between 1968 and 2003, when Hussein's Baath Party ruled the country.
US and Iraqi troops swept into towns along the Euphrates river valley on Saturday in a push to flush out insurgents, and the government said it was closing in on al Qaeda's leader in Iraq , Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
As politicians haggled in Baghdad over who will get which posts in the new government, US Marines and Iraqi soldiers fought militants in the towns of Haditha and Ramadi, capital of the vast and often lawless western province of Anbar. Some intelligence reports have suggested Jordanian militant Zarqawi, who has claimed responsibility for many of the deadliest attacks in the country who has a $25 million US bounty on his head, has been hiding in the Haditha area. The Iraqi government said on Friday it had captured one of his senior aides, Abu Qutaybah, close to the border with Syria, and has vowed to get Zarqawi himself. "We are at the closest point to Zarqawi," Iraq's minister of state for national security, Kassim Daoud, said on Saturday. Iraq's government has said several times it was close to capturing Zarqawi.
Troops in tanks and armored cars stormed Haditha in the middle of the night, blowing up a weapons cache and exchanging small arms fire with guerrillas. But if militants were holed up there, they appeared to have fled and resistance was light. In Ramadi, witnesses reported fierce gun battles between US troops and insurgents. One said a US armored Humvee was destroyed, although this could not be confirmed. A hospital official said at least three people were killed and 17 injured.
Anbar province, which accounts for nearly a third of Iraq's area and stretches from Baghdad to the western borders with Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, has long been a thorn in the side of troops trying to stamp out the insurgency. Militants have effective control of some towns and villages, and the US military acknowledged this week the security situation in the province had deteriorated too far. Since they launched the River Blitz offensive six days ago, US and Iraqi troops have arrested around 150 suspected insurgents and seized bomb-making equipment and weapons including machine guns, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
The extent to which Anbar lies beyond the pale of Iraqi authority was shown by last month's election, when only two percent of the province's mostly Sunni Muslim population voted. Some Sunni Arabs boycotted the ballot, others said the violence made voting simply too dangerous. As a result, Sunni Arabs fared badly in the polls and Iraq's long-oppressed Shi'ite majority prospered at their expense.
But neither the main Shi'ite coalition which topped the polls, nor the other Shi'ite party of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, has the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed to form a government and will have to cut deals to get what they want. The beneficiaries could be the Kurds, whose main coalition won 25 percent of the vote and will have 75 seats.
Since the election, the number of insurgent attacks in Iraq has fallen, although the country is still plagued by violence. Gunmen opened fire on two Ministry of Trade trucks between the southeastern city of Kut and Baghdad, killing two drivers, police said. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and nine wounded when a suicide bomber attacked their checkpoint near Musayyib, south of Baghdad, police sources said. Three cars were set ablaze. A car bomb killed two civilians and injured three in western Baghdad on Saturday. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the bomb, saying its suicide bomber had attacked two US tanks. Another car bomb went off in the restive northern city of Mosul, close to a US convoy, witnesses said. The US military had no immediate word on casualties.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:13:52 AM ||
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At least 10 people have been killed and 11 kidnapped in Iraq as the interim government claimed that the noose was tightening on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man blamed for much of the violence.
Three Iraqis died and 15 were wounded in clashes between gunmen and US marines in the rebel bastion of Ramadi, west of Baghdad. Hospital doctor said the casualties occurred during fighting that lasted several hours in the town centre, around 17 July Street.
In a catologue of other violence, witnesses and security sources said two people died in a bomb blast on Saturday near the headquarters of Iraq's leading Sunni Muslim religious organisation. Three Iraqi women died when mortar rounds struck homes near Dhuluiyah and a Turkish driver burnt to death in the cab of his lorry hit by an anti-tank rocket. In another attack, carried out with a car bomb, an Iraqi soldier died and five were wounded at Mussaieb, south of Baghdad.
Near Hilla, also south of the capital, a journalist with a US-funded Arabic language television station, Al-Hurra, was seriously wounded and his driver killed. "The Al-Hurra car was attacked by gunmen, the driver killed, and journalist Mohammed Sherif Ali was badly wounded," police Lieutenant Thamer Sultan said.
Meanwhile, police said 11 people, including four women, a policeman and two civil servants, have been kidnapped in a string of abductions since Friday in the area south of Baghdad known as the "triangle of death". Gunmen snatched the four women in four separate incidents in the towns of Latifiyah and Mahmudiyah on Friday. Two of them had been travelling back with their families from pilgrimage to the Shiite Muslim holy city of Karbala when they were ambushed on the road.
Saturday's violence rumbled on a day after four US soldiers and 13 Iraqis were killed, with a group linked to Zarqawi claiming responsibility for the attack that killed three of the US soldiers.
A pamphlet handed out north of Baghdad, signed by the Omar al-Hadid Brigade, said "Tarmiya was the tomb of dozens of their soldiers who were given a lesson that they will never forget." It pledged yet more "painful strikes" against the US Army in the coming five days.
But in the Shiite Muslim pilgrimage city of Najaf, national security chief Kassem Daoud told reporters: "We are really close to Zarqawi." Twenty-four hours earlier, the government announced the latest arrest of a man it described as a top aide to Zarqawi—one of a series of recent arrests it said were of people close to the Al Qaeda frontman in the country. "Security forces in Iraq conducted a raid in Anah on February 20 resulting in the capture of Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaimi, aka Abu Qutaybah, a trusted lieutenant of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," a government statement said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:11:42 AM ||
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Pakistani forces have destroyed a network of al-Qaeda factories churning out powerful bombs and propaganda compact discs and videos, key US ally President Musharraf said Thursday. Musharraf said militants had been forced to run for the hills after a series of military operations in Pakistan's lawless northwestern areas bordering Afghanistan. "Everything was in place, even where they were manufacturing explosives - IEDs (improvised explosives devices) were being manufactured," General Musharraf told reporters at the launch of a new presidential website. "Their command structure was there, major communications structure, their psychological warfare, their computers, their CDs being produced to create psychological effects, their logistics bases," Musharraf said. "All that has been taken over. Now they are on the run in the mountains and we dominate the valleys."
Perv? That's what the Frenchies said at Dien Bien Phu...
The militants were unable to head for big cities like Lahore and Karachi because their transport infrastructure had also been destroyed, Musharraf added. But he gave no details on when the operations were carried out and what quantities of materials were seized. Musharraf said security forces had captured about 700 al-Qaeda suspects since late 2001 when Pakistan started its crackdown. Most are thought to have been handed over to the United States. "Their back has been broken, they are on the run," Musharraf said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/27/2005 12:04:45 AM ||
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#1
...I think the translation here is, "Yeah, Al-Q's al-gone, you guys can go home now. Nothin' to see, they left and went back to camel trading..."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/27/2005 7:10 Comments ||
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Israel has ordered the resumption of military operations against the Palestinian resistance group Islamic Jihad following Friday's blast in Tel Aviv, that killed four people and wounded many more. At a meeting of security chiefs, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said Israel now considered that Islamic Jihad had broken the informal truce that it had been observing along with other armed groups and that Israeli military operations against its leaders would therefore resume. The minister's statement came after a Palestinian - said to be a member of the Islamic Jihad - in a videotape claimed to have triggered the blast. Mofaz also accused that Syria had a hand in the blast - a charge that Damascus vehemently denied.
Islamic Jihad's head cheese, Ramadan Shallah, lives in Damascus.
"Syria has no connection with this operation and the Damascus office of Islamic Jihad is closed," a Syrian foreign ministry official said.
"There's a sign on the door and everything!"
"We think that the Israeli defence minister's comments show that he knows the identity of the real perpetrator and that he is to be found inside Israel," he said. "Israel is known around the world for sabotaging any peace process," the official added.
"Yeah! They prob'ly dunnit themselves!"
The Israeli defence minister, however, insisted there was a Syrian-hand behind the blast. "We have proof directly linking Syria to this attack," Mofaz said.
That'd be pretty clumsy of them...
Syria's doing pretty well in the Axis-of-Almost-As-Evil department...
Babyface has already pegged his personal 'Worry' meter.
Mofaz also announced the Israeli decision to freeze plans to transfer security control of West Bank towns to the Palestinian Authority until there is a crack down on Islamic Jihad. "The defence minister said that at this point the process of transferring Palestinian cities to Palestinian control is frozen until IsraelâŠevaluates whether Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's government is indeed taking the necessary steps against Islamic Jihad and other terror groups," an Israeli defence ministry spokeswoman said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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"real perpetrator and that he is to be found inside Israel"
Deep thoughts by Allan: Anti-Semite Semites killing Semites.
A marine has been killed as US and Iraqi forces continue their offensive against fighters in western Iraq, the US military said. On Saturday, the military said the soldier was killed in action on Friday in Iraq's vast Anbar province, one of the country's most troubled areas. Four marines have died and more than 100 suspected Iraqi fighters have been arrested since operations began on Sunday.
That's the part al-Jizzles wants to dwell on, of course...
US marines hit the Iraqi town of Haditha as they continued to search for fighters in the province. Sweeping through the town in tanks and armoured cars at 2.30am, they said they blew up a cache of weapons and explosives and briefly exchanged small arms fire with fighters. But resistance was lighter than expected.
"O Lions of Islam! Run away! Quick!"
Haditha, 240km west of Baghdad, had been regarded as a prime holdout for fighters because of its location on the Euphrates River. Yet the raid failed to net a big payoff in suspects. "The fact is that there was nothing here," Lieutenant Colonel Greg Stevens said. The marines are pushing hard to stabilise the Euphrates corridor and bring Anbar to heel in a campaign, named Operation River Blitz, launched last weekend. Fighters who fled Falluja before it was taken back by US forces in November are thought to have infiltrated the area, waging a war of roadside bombs and mortar attacks and then melting back into the predominantly Sunni local population. Just how much at odds Anbar is with the US-backed government in Baghdad was shown by the tiny turnout in the country's historic election on 30 January when only 2% voted, either through fear of reprisals or antipathy to the new Iraqi order.
My guess is through fear of reprisals. What's yours?
This may have been one of the triggers for River Blitz, and the marines admit the situation in Anbar has deteriorated too far. On Wednesday they fought their way into the neighbouring town of Haqlaniya, a few kilometres to the south, and there had been some talk that fighters might have left there for Haditha. But Stevens was not discouraged that the fighters had failed to appear and take on his tanks. "The fact that we are just sitting here is a good thing. It means that they don't have the free rein of the place."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The 1/23 Marines are at Haditha dam. This is a reserve battalion comprised of Texas and Louisiana men scheduled to rotate home in about 6 weeks. Information about the Haditha dam and the 1/23 can be found at http://www.politics1.com/usmc.htm, a website that "adopted" the battalion and publishes regular dispatches from a lieutenant in the H&S company.
Two Iranian border guards have been shot dead and three others injured in an ambush along the country's south-western border with Iraq carried out by a group of "bandits", press reports said Saturday. According to the official IRNA news agency, the shooting took place early Friday near the mouth of the Shatt al-Arab waterway that flows into the Gulf. It said the patrol were fired on from the opposite bank. The waterway is heavily guarded by both sides and rife with smugglers. Both Iranian and Iraqi officials have in the past complained about cross-border intrusions.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 AM ||
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The official story is probably right,but...wonder if "somebody" in Iraq shot them up thinking they were infiltrators.
Posted by: Stephen ||
02/27/2005 1:25 Comments ||
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Nepal's Maoist rebels have called off a 14-day nationwide transport blockade, staged to protest King Gyanendra's seizure of power, a statement signed by guerrilla leader Prachanda said. "To show our greater responsibility towards the general public, we have decided to call off the ongoing nationwide indefinite transport blockade as of Saturday," the statement said on Saturday.
To show your greater responsibility toward the public, you might consider knocking off with the periodic slaughters and kidnappings.
The blockade, which began on 12 February, had slowed to a trickle the movement of traffic in and out of the ancient capital Kathmandu and sent market prices of vegetables, fruit and other foods soaring. Prachanda, also known as the Fierce One, warned of a nationwide general strike next month unless the king gave up his power grab. "We will be watching political developments in the country," Prachanda said in the statement. "If there are no changes, our party will be obliged to observe an indefinite nationwide general strike from next month (starting on 14 March)."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/27/2005 00:00:00 ||
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...That and the fact that there were a couple of stories last week about these nutcases being torn limb from limb by the people they were supposedly 'liberating'. It's no fun when the proletariat hates you more than the Government...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
02/27/2005 7:16 Comments ||
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Yeah it really slows down conscious raising that way.
Indian troops shot dead four militants overnight in Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Saturday. Troops killed the militants in raids on two hideouts in the state's southern snowbound district of Udhampur late on Friday, a spokesman said. The militant violence has continued as authorities grappled to cope with one of the heaviest snowfalls in two decades in Kashmir that has brought life to a standstill in several areas and claimed 249 lives. On Thursday seven people were killed when militants stormed the divisional administrative headquarters in Srinagar.
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QUETTA: Three explosions jolted Quetta on Saturday, but no casualty was reported, a police officer said. A homemade explosive device detonated in front of the Frontier Corps headquarters near the PTV residential colony early on Saturday. Two bombs exploded late on Friday. Police officials were unable to identify where the explosions took place but later the DIG of police said that a bomb exploded in front of the IG prison's office. Police sources said that another bomb exploded near the assembly building. Both bombs caused no damage. Unidentified people hurled a grenade at the Radio Pakistan building, damaging a car.
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
RIYADH: Saudi security forces arrested two wanted militants in the capital on Saturday, a security source told AFP. The two suspects were detained following a raid on a house in the Al-Aqeeq neighbourhood of north Riyadh, the source said, asking not to be named. They surrendered without putting up any resistance. Hundreds of suspects have been rounded up since Saudi Arabia began battling a wave of unrest blamed on Al Qaeda in May 2003.
LONDON — A former Libyan intelligence agent, jailed for the December 1988 bombing of a US airliner over Lockerbie in southwest Scotland, has been moved out of solitary confinement into another prison. Abdel Basset Ali Al Megrahi is serving a minimum 27-year prison term for his part in the downing of New York-bound Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people. Placed in solitary confinement at Barlinnie prison in Glasgow since his conviction in January 2001, the 52-year-old was moved to Greenock Prison in Inverclyde where he will be allowed to mix with fellow prisoners, a Scottish Prison Service official said on Thursday.
Ten years after Boris Yeltsin first sent Russian troops into Chechnya to put down an attempt at independence, violence has seeped across a tier of adjoining republics creating a band of instability in the northern Caucasus. Some recent examples of the trouble:
Ten members of illegal armed groups have been killed in Chechen mountainous districts in an ongoing large- scale operation that was launched there several days ago, Chechen First Deputy Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov told Interfax on Saturday. "The examination of the bodies shows that they are Dagestanis, Chechens, and foreigners," Kadyrov said. "The guerilla unit currently numbers over 60 people, taking into account the losses it has suffered," Kadyrov said. "It is international by its composition and includes Arabs, Dagestanis, Azerbaijanis, and Chechens," he said. The operation against the guerilla unit led by prominent Dagestani- born terrorist 
The Philippines military has reached an informal truce with a southern rebel group, allowing troops to concentrate on pursuing another separatist group, an official said.
US and Iraqi troops swept into towns along the Euphrates river valley on Saturday in a push to flush out insurgents, and the government said it was closing in on al Qaeda's leader in Iraq , Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
At least 10 people have been killed and 11 kidnapped in Iraq as the interim government claimed that the noose was tightening on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man blamed for much of the violence.
Pakistani forces have destroyed a network of al-Qaeda factories churning out powerful bombs and propaganda compact discs and videos, key US ally President Musharraf said Thursday. Musharraf said militants had been forced to run for the hills after a series of military operations in Pakistan's lawless northwestern areas bordering Afghanistan. "Everything was in place, even where they were manufacturing explosives - IEDs (improvised explosives devices) were being manufactured," General Musharraf told reporters at the launch of a new presidential website. "Their command structure was there, major communications structure, their psychological warfare, their computers, their CDs being produced to create psychological effects, their logistics bases," Musharraf said. "All that has been taken over. Now they are on the run in the mountains and we dominate the valleys."
Israel has ordered the resumption of military operations against the Palestinian resistance group 
A marine has been killed as US and Iraqi forces continue their offensive against fighters in western Iraq, the US military said. On Saturday, the military said the soldier was killed in action on Friday in Iraq's vast Anbar province, one of the country's most troubled areas. Four marines have died and more than 100 suspected Iraqi fighters have been arrested since operations began on Sunday.
Nepal's Maoist rebels have called off a 14-day nationwide transport blockade, staged to protest 
QUETTA: Three explosions jolted Quetta on Saturday, but no casualty was reported, a police officer said. A homemade explosive device detonated in front of the Frontier Corps headquarters near the PTV residential colony early on Saturday. Two bombs exploded late on Friday. Police officials were unable to identify where the explosions took place but later the DIG of police said that a bomb exploded in front of the IG prison's office. Police sources said that another bomb exploded near the assembly building. Both bombs caused no damage. Unidentified people hurled a grenade at the Radio Pakistan building, damaging a car.
