No one's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session." Mark Twain's old saw got a British twist last week after the country started examining a dozen stern antiterror proposals Prime Minister Tony Blair had announced before leaving for a sunshine break. His plans include a new law to ban radical groups, extending pretrial detention, and listing extremist centers and bookshops that will trigger deportation for any foreigner "actively engaged" with them. The measures made headlines in a country still absorbing the reality of homegrown suicide bombers after the July 7 and July 21 terror attacks, but not all the headlines were good. Some legal experts saw a slapdash, populist quality in the proposals. And moderate Muslims, the group the government needs to help weed out and isolate British radicals, are uneasy about Blair's new strategy to curb those who preach jihad, not just practice it.
That the paint wasn't quite dry on the antiterror plan was evident when the government flip-flopped over the fate of Omar Bakri Muhammad, a Syrian-born Islamic preacher who has been a refugee in Britain since 1985. He established the British branch of Hizb-ut-Tahrir and later al-Muhajiroun, organizations the government now wants to ban as dangerous proponents of jihadism. Some of al-Muhajiroun's alumni have been suicide bombers abroad and have links with al-Qaeda figures. Bakri himself has issued a fatwa advocating death for Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and said he would never report a suicide bomber to the authorities. As leaks hinted (improbably) that he might be tried for treason, he left for what he said was a holiday in Lebanon. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott tried to bolster the case for new regulations to exclude or deport radicals when he said the government needed the laws to keep Bakri out. "At the moment he has the right to come in and out," Prescott said. "It's not a dictatorship, for God's sake!"
But the uproar this produced in right-wing newspapers (also incensed that Bakri and his seven children live on state benefits) prompted the government to ban him under existing powers after all. Perhaps a moot point: Bakri was arrested in Lebanon last week (though released the next day), and Syria has requested his extradition.
Bakri's travails were only one sign that the "rules of the game are changing," as Blair had promised. On Thursday, 10 men were arrested for deportation, including Abu Qatada, who fled to Britain in 1993 after being accused in Jordan of inciting terrorism. The government has considered him a dangerous jihadist for years. It imprisoned him without charge for over two years until the courts declared it a violation of the Human Rights Act, and has kept him under house arrest since. It couldn't return him to Jordan, where he was convicted in absentia in 2000 of conspiring to attack U.S. and Israeli tourists; the courts hold that deporting anyone to a country with a record of torture violates the Human Rights Act.
The day before Qatada's arrest, Jordan signed a pact with Britain to treat all deportees humanely. The undertaking is supposed to be monitored by an independent group, which is not yet chosen. The other nine deportees come mainly from Algeria, which is regularly cited for torture by human-rights groups. It has only just started discussing a good-treatment pledge with London. That only adds to the complexity of the legal challenges the men can raise.
Civil-liberties groups see an oppressive streak in many of Blair's initiatives. One is a statute to ban "condoning, glorifying or justifying terrorism anywhere in the world." Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil-rights organization Liberty, calls this law "the broadest speech offense imaginable." In 2002, Blair's wife Cherie said, "As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up, you are never going to make progress" between Palestinians and Israelis, causing an uproar. Downing Street later issued a statement saying Cherie Blair did not condone suicide bombings. But in future, could remarks like that be read as "justifying" terrorism?
Even some of Blair's own aides think he's spoiling for a fight with judges over their willingness to strike down his antiterror laws on human-rights grounds. Charles Falconer, the government's chief legal officer and a Blair loyalist, indicated the government might pass a law instructing judges to balance individual rights enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights with national security. "Blair figures he'll have the public on his side after the bombings," says one aide. "I'm not so sure."
Even less sure are British Muslims. In a MORI poll last week, 60% of Muslims surveyed said suspected terrorists should not be detained without trial, compared to 36% for the public as a whole. Asghar Bukhari, spokesman for the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which wants Muslims to campaign and have more of a voice, says Blair's 12-point plan is "like a cork in a volcano" that "intensifies the us vs. them feeling." Chakrabarti says that the threat posed by homegrown suicide bombers means the government's most pressing need is "intelligence from Muslims. You are asking them to rat on their husbands, sons, imams, and they will do that only if they feel confident." And intelligence seems to be in short supply. Last week, several officials expressed frustration with what they knew about the July 7 and July 21 bombers; one said, the "trail had gone cold." No link has yet been established between the two groups, or back to al-Qaeda from either. On every front, says one investigator, "we have a long way to go."
When British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that part of his government's response to July's terror attacks included drawing up a list of "specific extremist websites" and possibly deporting or imprisoning people in Britain involved with them, he set himself a difficult task. Once radicalized, aspiring jihadists â and possibly some of those involved in the London bomb plots â turn to "Google terrorism" by surfing the Internet for all the encouragement, terror training manuals, how-to videos and bomb recipes they need. Extremist websites that offer these pop up, relocate and vanish every day, flouting British laws that forbid incitement to racial hatred or violence. Some of these websites are based in Britain, others elsewhere. Many experts are skeptical about how much more can be done to shut them down. "How can you close the Internet?" asks Magnus Ranstorp, director of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrews University in Scotland.
The answer is obvious: you can't, at least not completely. A quick surf through English-language Islamic websites and chat rooms in the weeks after the London bombings uncovered some disturbing postings: on the U.K. website ummah.com, a poem purportedly put up by al-Qaeda operative Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi glorifying insurgent attacks in Iraq (elsewhere on the site, a user writes that "killing Americans is not murder, it is retaliation"); on islamicawakening.com, also based in Britain, a paean to last year's attack on a school in Beslan, Russia, which killed more than 300 people, half of them children. And that's a tiny sample of the English-language sites hosted in Britain. Dozens of Arabic websites are devoted to the conflict in Iraq. One of them, qal3ati.com, published the first claim of responsibility for the July 7 London bombings, from an outfit calling itself the Secret Organization Group of al-Qaeda of Jihad Organization in Europe. The site quickly disappeared and has yet to resurface. Finding site operators or preventing them from setting up under new domain names in far-flung outposts is an unending â and often hopeless â task.
Since the London attacks, law-enforcement officials, security agencies and private monitoring groups have intensified their Web trawls to gather information and, sometimes, disrupt sites. Many Arabic sites are based outside the U.K., and are sometimes operated by people in yet another country. A few are based in Europe or the U.S., but the most extreme find homes in the Middle East, the Gulf states or Southeast Asia. Yet even the websites run on British servers can be elusive. The groups Hizb-ut-Tahrir and al-Ghurabaa, the successor organization of al-Muhajiroun, both to be targeted in Blair's crackdown, have websites served by British companies. Some members of al-Ghurabaa communicate via a website on a server owned by British Internet service provider clara.net. A clara.net spokeswoman says the ISP can't take action until the government bans the group, because the site â which attacks democratic systems and moderate Muslims â doesn't infringe national laws.
Shutdowns are anyway rarely permanent. Tech-savvy operators can simply move their sites offshore. Four years ago, the U.K.-based website of Egyptian-born radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri's Supporters of Shariah was shut down. Now that al-Masri is in a British prison awaiting trial, his followers keep his message alive on shareeah.org, hosted in Malaysia. A spokesman for the group, who identified himself as Hashim and was contacted on a British mobile-phone number, says 11 of the 13 people who maintain the site are not in the U.K. "It's going to be real, real trouble to find the people who are running it," he says. "It's out of the country. They can't do much." Al-Muhajiroun's founder, the Syrian-born radical cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad told Time that he used chat rooms on Paltalk.com, hosted in the U.S., until other users began asking too many questions. He says he didn't want his answers to be construed as incitement.
Chat-room hosts such as Paltalk disclaim responsibility for what users write, and say they can't police all the content on their sites. Some users, however, are very much aware that security services are trying to do just that. Chat-room participants now frequently introduce themselves jokingly as spies and advise each other to be on guard. The heading on one Paltalk page last week read: "U.K. Islamists be warned this is an MI5 [British domestic security service] aware forum." What some users do through those forums, though, is no joking matter.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:20 ||
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AMERICAN intelligence chiefs have warned that Al-Qaeda terrorists are plotting to drive hijacked fuel tankers into petrol stations in an effort to cause mass casualties in London and US cities in the next few weeks.
The leaked warning, contained in a bulletin issued by the US Department for Homeland Security last week, says the attacks aim to create catastrophic damage at about the time of the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The warning came as it emerged that the British Department for Transport had for the first time issued guidelines ordering a tightening of security around the UK road tanker fleet.
The US warning has been circulated among law enforcement agencies and fuel transport agencies. Although a preamble states that âno other intelligence exists to corroborate this specific threatâ, the intelligence report is highly specific.
It says: âAl-Qaeda leaders plan to employ various types of fuel trucks as vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIED) in an effort to cause mass casualties in the US (and London), prior to September 19. Attacks are planned specifically for New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. It is unclear whether the attacks will occur simultaneously or be spread over a period of time. The stated goal is the collapse of the US economy.â
The document goes on to suggest that the proposed methods will involve suicide drivers: âSome of the vehicles used will be hijacked. The type of vehicle may be anything from gasoline tanker trucks to trucks hauling oxygen and gas cylinders. Water trucks filled with gasoline or other highly combustible material may also be used. The detonation of the vehicles will be carried out by driving them into gas stations or ramming explosive-laden vehicles into the trucks carrying the fuel.â
The intelligence report says that the terrorist cells thought to be planning the attack will âexecute the plan upon receipt of an orderâ. It goes on to speculate that the videotape released last week by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaedaâs deputy leader, may have been meant as âthe activation signal to the cellsâ. In the video al-Zawahiri warned that attacks would continue in Britain until it pulled out of Iraq.
The report says that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the alleged masterminds of the September 11 attacks, has told US interrogators that he had developed plans for targeting petrol stations. This was âdue to their apparent vulnerability and the potential destructive force of a fuel-driven explosionâ, it says.
The use of petrol tankers as mobile bombs has been a well-tested Al-Qaeda tactic in the Middle East. Terrorists in Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq have all used large fuel tankers against military and civilian targets.
A fuel tanker attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 killed 19 US servicemen. Four weeks ago terrorists exploded a fuel tanker in a busy market town 25 miles south of Baghdad killing nearly 100.
Although the specific threat of a tanker attack on London is thought to be new, Scotland Yard and MI5 have long feared that Al-Qaeda would try vehicle attacks on key targets in the capital.
Last year police disrupted an alleged plot to bomb a âsoft targetâ â thought to be a Soho nightclub â with a truck bomb. More than half a ton of fertiliser, which can be used to make explosives, was recovered in a raid in north London.
Security sources say that fears about the use of fuel tankers has led to them being closely monitored when they enter the City of London.
Concrete security barriers have been placed in other key locations across the capital to stop vehicles packed with explosives reaching buildings such as parliament.
#1
Gas stations will probably not blow-up like they think.Here in the U.S. the tanks are buried(not only to save space,it's safer),they are double hulled,they are not preasurized,and are equiped with preassure relief(to relieve preassure build-up from heating and cooling) valves.
#2
...What raptor said. It is extraordinarily difficult to get a gas station burning. There was an instance back in OH some years ago that bears mentioning - a gentleman was refueling his car when some jackass lost control of his and slammed into it, igniting a fire. Despite the fact that there were six cars refueling - and the damaged one did catch fire - the only cars that burned were the ones immediately involved in the accident, and although there was heat/smoke damage to the canopy over the pumps, the only gas that burned was that in the struck vehicle.
This isn't to blow off a possible threat, far from it - it's just that this won't do much except make people very vigilant while tanking up.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2005 9:30 Comments ||
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The stated goal is the collapse of the US economy
As ignorant about the outside world as the women they like to keep in purdah. Even if the effects of this effort were as spectacular as in the American action films they appear to model themselves on, we would simply run serious background checks on all truck drivers, post armed guards around gas stations (most likely privately hired in most cases, or local volunteers -- I hear the National Guard units are a bit preoccupied these days), and carry on driving the world's economy. Oh yes, and accelerate the transition to hybrid vehicles, which don't need to be refueled nearly as often. If 9/11 didn't do any permanent damage to our economy, what makes them think booming a bunch of gas stations would?
#4
A full tanker with an IED would make a pretty good explosion, even if it didn't blow the in ground tanks. The real question is, would the media be alerted so that it could get pictures of the truck going off? And would the media alert authorities before or after getting the film?
Posted by: Eason Jordan ||
08/14/2005 9:54 Comments ||
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#5
Aw shucks... I just placed a bet on Strategy Page's Prediction Market that their wouldn't be any. These goofballs are really skewing my losses.
#7
And would the media alert authorities before or after getting the film?
That's called "Accesory" and should result in the same criminal charges as the perp would get.
First time it happens the cameraman/reporter better have a damn good legitimate reason for being there and setup.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 13:00 Comments ||
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#8
Thinking eurther about it, a few years ago a tanker filling a station's tanks in Mississippi overflowed and a passing car set the gas running across the road afire, not as bad as a deliberate explosion of the tanker, but 3 motorists died.
This method of "Boomerism" seems unproductive, hijacking tankers is a hard job, and srations are designed to have the gas flow away from the pumps in case of spillage. (Slanted Concrete)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 13:13 Comments ||
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#9
Damn, can't spell this morning, more Coffee needed (Slurp, Aahhhh)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 13:15 Comments ||
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#10
So if London or the UK keeps on getting attacked how long do you give it before raving mad anti arab/muslim/pakistani mobs are out on the streets torching premises?
I don't support that behaviour but I think people are starting to get a little fucked off with the governmentâs lack of potency in dealing with things correctly.
Just for the record; instead of giving our social benefit money to immigrants coming to the UK why doesn't it go to the people who made this country what it is!
Forget the outsiders for once.
Posted by: dom ||
08/14/2005 18:15 Comments ||
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A PROMINENT London-based Saudi dissident, Muhammed al-Massari, is running a website that features a guide to urban warfare for potential terrorists. In a series of video and audio clips, the Beginnerâs Guide for Mujahed gives detailed advice on physical training, the surveillance of enemy targets and operational tactics. It features footage of an Arab instructor who recommends would-be holy warriors to invest in a knife for self-defence, saying: âOf course, this knife is mainly for stabbing and is not suitable or good for beheadings.â Referring to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al-Qaedaâs leader in Iraq whose followers murdered the British hostage Ken Bigley by slitting his throat, the instructor adds: âAs far as beheadings are concerned, we ask our brothers to seek Abu Musabâs advice on this issue as he has more experience in this.â
Another section focuses on the use of binoculars and night vision equipment for the surveillance of âhuman enemy or enemy targets or vehiclesâ. The instructor implores Allah to âgrant his mujaheddin victory over . . . the Jews, the Americans and the apostatesâ.
An audio segment of the course posted on the websiteâs discussion forum advises that urban warfare is best conducted by several terrorist cells that may share a leader but should remain unknown to each other in case members are captured. One cell should stake out a target, another should acquire military equipment or explosives, and a third should actually mount the attack.
Massariâs website, www.tajdeed.net, also hosts a Hollywood-style film presenting a gory âtop 10â of attacks by insurgents on westerners in Iraq and provides helpful tips for fighters trying to gain entry to the country. A fatwa by Massari supporting âmartyrdom operationsâ, which was originally posted on his website in 2002, was still accessible last week. Last November The Sunday Times revealed that footage of a suicide attack on a Black Watch patrol in Iraq had been posted on the tajdeed forum. The story sparked an investigation by anti-terrorist police who seized computer equipment and hard drives in a raid on properties linked to the Saudi dissident.
Analysts believe the forum is one of a handful regularly used by jihadis to exchange information and for the recruitment of potential terrorists. âMuhammed al-Massari has been ahead of the curve in what we now call the electronic jihad,â said Rebecca Givner-Forbes, an analyst at the Terrorism Research Center in Virginia, a security consultancy that advises the United States government. âThere are six or seven jihadi websites which are what I call the âin crowdâ sites,â she added. âMassariâs site runs a message board that is definitely on that list.â The 58-year-old Saudi exile, who lives in Wembley, north London, arrived in Britain in 1994 and has continuously campaigned for the replacement of the Saudi royal family by an Islamic regime.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:10 ||
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#1
Crap! Some of the stuff is identical to al-Qaeda/Taliban material that I downloaded from qoqaz.net, prior to 9-11. I advocate shooting all West based terrorists, terror financiers and accessories on sight. Last I heard, one in sixteen UK Muslims supports the 7-7 massacre. Someone take a frigging hint.
Also, I can't post these articles with my piece-of-junk - AKA: Mac - borrowed computer;
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15032453&BRD=2038&PAG=740&dept_id=226956&rfi=6
The Dems are getting good at partisan bi-partisanship. "Political" solution? Just like the "Paris Peace (sic) Talks."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/236034_mosque.html
What! Did a dope-cloud from Alaska drop on Seattle?
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/14/2005 1:01 Comments ||
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#2
Do not pass go, do not collect $200.00. Go directly to jail.
What a crime that they are only now learning of this activity, or acting on it which is worse.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/14/2005 5:24 Comments ||
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#3
I think I saw this guy awhile back on some news blurb.He operates out of what amounts to a one room tenament.
A Russian regional commander and four other officers were killed in an ambush as they responded to a guerrilla attack on the home of a local official in war-torn Chechnya on Sunday, Russia's NTV television reported.
One rebel fighter was killed during the attack on the official's house, which was burned down, it said.
Rebels with grenades and machine guns ambushed the officers as they drove towards the village of Roshni-Chu where the house was under attack.
Colonel Alexander Kayak, military commander of the Chechen region of Urus-Martan, died along with three fellow officers. A fifth died later of his wounds, and another was seriously injured.
The official was not hurt. His son was taken away by the attackers but managed to escape.
Earlier an Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed three deaths, including that of Kayak, but he was not available to confirm the NTV report.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:51 ||
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A Syrian Al Qaeda member accused of involvement in the Istanbul bomb blasts of two years ago has also said that he was present at the video taped execution of a Turkish chauffeur in Iraq. Luai Sakra, currently being held at the Besiktas Court in Istanbul, was identified in different videotapes of Turkish chauffeurs whose throats were cut by Islamic militants in Iraq over the past year.
During questioning at the courthouse, Sakra pointed at his image on the videotape of the Turkish citizen's murder, saying "I was there" to the audience, and even smiling from time to time. Right before the taped execution of the Turk takes place on video, Sakra pointed at the gun on the table in the video,
saying "Look, now they will cut off his head. In a little while, I will take the gun off the table so the blood doesn't get onto it. Because blood destroys the inner workings of the gun."
Sakra, who had worked at one point in the laundry service of a US base in Iraq, was also able to identify another Istanbul bombing suspect present in the group of militants responsible for the videotaped execution of Turkish citizen Murat Yuce. The suspect, Habib Aktas, was fingered by Sakras as being partially behind the financing of the 2003 Istanbul bombings. Sakras, who said he gave the final orders for the Istanbul bombings, said this:
"I gave the orders, but as far as the targets, Habib Aktas made the decisions. We fought because so many civilians were killed. I had with me 6 kilos of C-4 explosive. I could have used it against a 50 person group in Antalya, but I decided not to, so that Turkish civilians wouldn't die. I was planning on attacking Israeli ships."
Sakra, who was caught in possession of 6 false passports, claimed that he had been picked up and released twice before by the Turkish Intelligence Service, or the MIT.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:50 ||
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Luai Sakra, one of the 5 most important key figures in Al Qaeda, was captured last week by Turkish Police. Israel police was almost spoiling all operation, Turkish officials say.
* Sakra claimed that he helped the militants who involved the 9/11 Attacks. Sarka said: âI provided them passport and other things.â
* Sakra: "I knew London bombing"
* Sakra: âI do not pray. I drink alcohol and like very much drinkingâ
* Turkish police asked Sakra whether he like to pray after the operation. But he rejected the offer and said âI do not pray. I do not like prayingâ.
* âI do drink alcohol and I prefer like whisky and wineâ Sakra added.
* Sakra also confessed that he knew the London attack before the assaults happened.
* Sakra however claims that he knew nothing about the Egypt bombings.
* Turkey on the other hand is not happy with the Israeli terrorism warnings before the operation. Turkish officials argue that Israel used the secret intelligence Turkey provided to warn the public. âHowever, it may had spoiled all the operation, and all the militants might escapeâ one of the security man said. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul also said âwhat is Israel made is a shameâ. Israel had warned its citizens not to visit Turkey last week because of the Al Qaeda risk.
* Sakra was detained after forged passports were discovered in a flat. Turkish police continues the investigation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:49 ||
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Ah, the wonders of Turkish interrogation techniques ...
A suspected al Qaeda militant arrested by Turkish police last week was quoted on Sunday as saying Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of America's most wanted men, was hiding in northern Iraq.
Luia Sakra, charged by a Turkish court last Thursday with plotting to bomb Israeli cruise boats in southern Turkey, said he had met Zarqawi in Iraq, the Referans daily said.
Jordanian-born Zarqawi, head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, has been behind some of the deadliest attacks against U.S. troops, the Baghdad government and forces and Shi'ite Muslims.
Referans also quoted Sakra, a Syrian-born bomb-making expert, as saying he had received training with explosives in camps run by al-Qaeda in northern Iraq.
Turkish security sources have said Sakra is the top figure in Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in Turkey. He is also thought to have played a key role in bombings in Istanbul in November 2003 that killed more than 60 people.
Referans quoted Sakra as saying he had no idea where bin Laden was but that he would not tell even if he did know.
Sakra's lawyer has denied his client has any connection with al Qaeda and insists he was acting alone in planning the attacks on the Israeli cruise boats.
Israel diverted a number of vessels from Turkey last week and urged its citizens to avoid Turkey's popular southern coast, citing "concrete and grave terror threats". Israel has since lifted its travel warning.
Turkish media have also reported this weekend that police found a large cache of weapons at a villa recently bought by Sakra and an accomplice in the Mediterranean resort of Antalya where the two men had reportedly lived with three women.
The top-selling Hurriyet daily quoted Sakra as saying he did not pray but that he liked to drink whisky and wine.
Sakra was apprehended last Sunday in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir while trying to board a plane under an assumed name for Istanbul, security sources said.
He had undergone plastic surgery and was returning to Istanbul for another operation, they said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:48 ||
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#1
"Northern Iraq" is pretty vague. Hopefully the actual information he provided was sanitized for publication. Also, we need the graphic with the brass knuckles and the pliers. Maybe a car battery too.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
08/14/2005 18:23 Comments ||
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#2
This is my graphic little desire for the pervert moon-worshipper Zarqawi and his confused servants of Satan. It good time, Zarqawi will join Satan in a game of cards with Hitler on one side, Stalin on the other and Idi Amin in drag giving him a wet willie. What yellow streaked road must Zarqi follow to get to his promised land of sitting at and licking the feet of Satan? Pay attention little Zarqi... watch this video and follow their example... after all... they stayed after you fled and aren't you at least a little bit curious at what happens afterwards? At least Sakra is crimminal scum and he is honest in front of danger whereas you flee in a burqa just as UBL instructed. But be a man, watch this video and be a man like they were. http://www.jswaim.com/files/CAS.wmv
A Cypriot passenger airliner carrying at least 121 people has crashed north-east of Athens.
The plane - from Helios Airways - hit a mountain as it approached Athens after one pilot was seen slumped in his seat and the other could not be seen.
An air traffic controller at Athens airport told the AFP news agency the plane, travelling from Larnaca, Cyprus, crashed into the Euboea peninsula.
The crash was reported by F-16 pilots sent to aid the struggling plane.
A spokesman for the Greek army chief of staff said the possibility of a hijacking could not immediately be ruled out.
Posted by: True German Ally ||
08/14/2005 06:38 ||
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#1
German press reports that the pilots had collapsed in their seat. One interpretation is that a malfunctioning of the air condition poisoned the pilots but terrorist background can't be ruled out.
Lack of oxygen most probable cause now. Yet I wonder a bit: To fly from Cyprus to Athens would be a short flight, you wouldn't fly at such a high altitude where lack of oxygen would be a real problem.
#5
...FNC is saying there was a text message from someone on the plane right before it went in that said, "ALL FROZEN". My guess would be a decompression at altitude.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2005 9:33 Comments ||
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#6
Isn't that what happened to that professional golfer's plane about five years ago? (Rapid decompression)
#8
Yeah TGA, this is a commercial airliner, catastrophic loss of pressure would bring down the masks.... very strange. Maybe a bad environmental control system?
#11
Yes, and if it was at cruising altitude the plane should have been on autopilot, too. But if the pilots were still able to initiate an emergency descent, the oxygen masks should have worked.
#16
The plane was scheduled for a landing in Athens so I wonder a bit about the altitude. It's rather unlikely that it would climb to an altitude of 30000 ft or more for a short haul.
Rapid decompression is something pilots are trained for and they'll grab the oxygen masks in seconds.
The Boeing 737-300 has various emergency systems which must have failed at the same time? Hmmmm
#19
TGA, maybe he was younger and in better shape than the pilot. (Besides, one of the F-16's reported that the pilot wasn't in the cockpit. Maybe he was trying to get to the passenger compartment and passed out there?) He might have been able to hold out a bit longer.
Plus some kids are really good at text messaging. They can do it without even looking at the keypad.
#20
Desert Blondie if one pilot tried to look after the passengers he would have to make sure first that the other pilot would be safely flying the plane? If the pilot had his oxygen mask on (as the F16 pilot reported, he should have been able to land that plane safely.
Unless the oxygen system in the masks shut down. But in that case I don't see passengers typing away on their phones.
#23
For the plane to be intercepted, the plane flew for some time. The plane was probably in a gradual descent and the pilots most likely would have had time to recover from decompression. The passengers themselves do not seemed to have been incapacitated.
Payne Stewart's plane was on autopilot at high altitude, and crashed when fuel ran out.
One bit of speculation. Could it have been a bomb in the forward lavatory directed in the bulkhead shared with the cockpit, incapacitating the pilots and causing decompression?
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2005 12:13 Comments ||
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#24
I hate to ask this, but I remember the Egyptian pilot who sent his plane down into the sea, passengers and all, a while back.
And word on the identity - and ethnicity - of the pilot and crew? What with Cyprus being a hot issues for Islamacists and nationalists in Turkey ....
Posted by: too true ||
08/14/2005 12:21 Comments ||
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#25
Thanks TGA, however news is that less than half of the passengers were going to Praque and I can't get through to my friends.
#26
I suppose the others were just going to Athens where the plane was scheduled to make a stop.
I have also read that almost all passengers were Cypriots, are yours?
#27
Thanks. I've checked the timetables and it doesn't look like it'd make sense for them to fly to the UK via Athens, so I'm feeling less worried. They're a Viking and Kiwi, just on holiday.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 12:49 Comments ||
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#29
TGA, it's just speculation. When they finish with the black boxes, we'll have a better idea.
All I know is oxygen deprivation can make you do some pretty stupid things. That's why some mountain climbing expeditions have done things like figure out simple math equations after they have been at altitude for a while....if they can't, they're done. It's a sign that they aren't thinking clearly if 2+3 takes a minute or two. Otherwise they could get themselves and others killed.
Same thing for scuba diving. You go deep (80-130 feet, depends on the individual) on compressed air and you risk nitrogen narcosis. Divers don't get the oxygen they need to their brains and start doing dumb things like offering their regulators (breathing apparatus) to fish, or heading deeper when they say they are going to the surface. Some get violent or agitated. It can even hit you hard at 80 feet, and you'll be perfectly ok at 100. Nobody really knows why. We all just watch each other more closely if we're going deep, just in case.
#30
TGA: Larnaca-Athens is still a relatively lengthy flight. Someone on airliners.net reported the flight plan was filed for 34,000 feet. At that altitude, they would have two problems: oxygen and the freezing cold. Even if they had oxygen, how long could they last with -50 celsius temperatures? Not long. Though on autopilot, they should have been able to get down to below 10,000 feet.
Maintenance records will solve this one, I believe.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/14/2005 13:53 Comments ||
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#31
Thanks TGA and DB -- my friends called and are fine.
#33
How would one send a text message from an airplane?
On GSM phones, you can send the message without a signal being present. The message is put in the "outbox" of the phone and once the connection is established (at lower altitude, closer to Athens in this case) the message is sent without further action from the user. At least, that's how it works on my motorola.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/14/2005 14:50 Comments ||
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#34
A friend of mine flies Lears, and Paine Stewart's plane probably had a fitting leak in the O2 line from the reserve bottle. That was a problem for the older Lears. So when they lost pressurization they had not O2. And at altitude, hypoxia and unconsciousness comes quickly. On the Bo-jet, do not know the checklist, but one would think that they would have had reserve oxygen. We are just going to have to see what the flight data recorder and voice recorders come up with.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 15:03 Comments ||
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#35
Last time I was in an commercial airplane cockpit, I distinctly recall seeing an oxygen bottle with a mask attached. Does anyone know if its standard? Otherwise, sudden decompression by accident would be an extremely rare event. I can't recall it happening in a commercial airliner. Which indicates a bomb to me.
#36
If it was an act of terrorism, the odds are about 80/20 that it will be covered up. There are three main reasons for this. The terrorist tactic is used to garner the most amount of attention with the least amount of effort. Official denial is an effective method of squelching this.
The second reason is the bureaucratic self-defence mechnaism. If there's no failure, there's nothing to be held accountable for.
The final, and perhaps most important reason, is that acts of terrorism really can't be countered by traditional law enforcement methods. The threat must ultimately be handled through diplomacy or military action. The role of the cops is simple: declare that there is no evidence of terrorist involvement.
One of the easiest acts of terrorism to cover up is bringing down a single airplane. Such an act doesn't leave much intact evidence on the ground, and with airplanes one can put out all kinds of BS technical excuses why the thing crashed -- or even describe the mechanical failure e.g. "center wing fuel tank explosion" but not the reason for that faliure, e.g. "a bomb." It's much more difficult to explain simultaneous events. The Russians hemmed and hawed for a couple of days last summer before they admitted the obvious - that bombs brought down both Aeroflot craft at the same time.
#37
Curioser and curioser. CNN reports a witness saying that the bodies at the crash site were all wearing oxygen masks. The BBC says that the escort saw people in the cockpit struggling to take control, but didn't know if they were the pilots or passengers. This, says the Beeb, was on "second look" by the escort, whatever that may mean exactly.
#38
Well the aircraft was reported to have had problems with cabin pressure before. It doesn't look like terror to me (yet).
There are reports that all passengers wore oxygen masks and that some bodies were frozen. This would indicate that the aircraft did not perform a rapid descent.
I speculate that cabin pressurization failed dramatically AND the oxygen flow of the masks did not work properly. This means that TWO systems failed at the same time. An aircraft does not freeze within a minute or two and the first thing the pilots would have done is to bring the plane to lower altitudes where breathing works an temperatures would not kill you.
I have been in a situation like that. Oxygen masks drop, cabin gets foggy, plane performs a very rapid descent which makes some passengers panic but a few minutes later you can breathe without masks and things calm down.
If the aircraft was cruising at 34000ft altitude and did not perform a descent because the pilots were unconscious, then the scenario makes sense. At that altitude you have temperatures of -50° C and within minutes you'd freeze to death.
The question is: why did the cabin pressurization fail so dramatically? It would take some minutes to "freeze" the cabin unless there was a hole and the air evaporated very fast.
Helios Airways would probably prefer a "terrorist" cause. If they had these problems several times already and did not act, the company is dead.
#39
Apply Occam's Razor and you will find the answer. Mechanical failure or human error both as the causality. Why would a terrorist attack a Cypriot aircraft?
#40
Get a bomb on board a plane at a place with poor security and have it transferred to a plane with high security. The MO was used several times in the 80s. Bomb explodes prematurely as happened in Tokyo.
#41
Why would a terrorist hit a Cypriot plane?
Because half of Cypris has been taken over by Muslim Islamist Turks and they want the other half, that's why!
#43
This means that TWO systems failed at the same time
If this was the newer 737-800, then it's unlikely that this would happen unless the company had a lousy maintenance record. But then again it could be a chain of unfortunate events, eg. multiple mechanical failures, wrong decisions by crew, time...
August so far has been a lousy month for aviation. Hope it doesn't continue.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/14/2005 18:51 Comments ||
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#44
I think a bomb is one possible cause, I also think lazy crappy maintaince is a cause. I have had to systems fail on me so I know it can happen (not on an aircraft fortunately)
If it is a bomb we will know soon enough but the Greeks will try and cover it up if it was a bomb.
I thought newer planes cargo containers had been re-enginered to contain a blast?
#45
This article informs us that this airline had a loss of cabin pressure incident in Dec 04. Lousy maintenance is a possibility. But the freezing thing bothers me, as TGA mentions.
Morgle's point about Turkish presence in Cyprus my be important. Remember Ankara just broke up a Raiders Front (or whatever they're called) operation to attack Israeli cruise ships. A few of the involved hadn't been caught yet, and they may have chosen to go out in style...
I saw a report that the Greek PM and Prez cancelled their vacations.
#47
Rooters now saying many remains found with oxygen masks. Pilots apparently succumbed to hypoxia. Some passengers tried to regain control of plane as it lost altitude and they revived. Obviously, they failed. God bless em all.
A roadside bomb exploded in southeast Turkey on Saturday moments after the convoy of local governor passed, in what appeared to be an attack by Kurdish rebels, an official said. Gov. Kadir Kocdemir was on his way to a meeting organized to protest increased terror attacks in the region, the official said on condition of anonymity. Turkish civil servants are rarely permitted to speak on the record. No injuries were reported, but some of the cars in the convoy were slightly damaged, he said. The blast was triggered by remote control, some 18 miles from the town of Alacakaya in Elazig province, the official said.
Meanwhile, police in the southern city of Mersin said a car explosion Friday appears to have been a bomb that exploded prematurely in the lap of the would-be bomber. The bomb killed the man and injured the driver, said Suleyman Ekizer, Mersin's deputy police chief. Mersin's governor, Atilla Osmancelebioglu, suggested that the two men may have been on their way to carry out an attack when it exploded. He did not say if the two were suspected Kurdish rebels.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
While I know the Kurds in Turkey are quite capable of pulling all this current spate of bombings, I have this itchy feeling that it's not all Kurds. What better way to sow discord and bring discredit to the government than to blame the Kurds for everything, when in some cases it's others who are doing the dirty work. The bottom case reported here makes that even more likely - we KNOW how much trouble Arab bomb-makers have with that silly Red/Green wiring diagram.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/14/2005 17:24 Comments ||
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If you plug your nose and wade through the Newsweak ruminations, you see a Commander-In-Chief who is a great leader.
The grieving room was arranged like a doctor's office. The families and loved ones of 33 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan were summoned to a large waiting area at Fort Bragg, N.C. For three hours, they were rotated through five private rooms, where they met with President George W. Bush, accompanied by two Secret Service men and a photographer. Because the walls were thin, the families awaiting their turn could hear the crying inside.
President Bush was wearing "a huge smile," but his eyes were red and he looked drained by the time he got to the last widow, Crystal Owen, a third-grade schoolteacher who had lost her husband in Iraq. "Tell me about Mike," he said immediately. "I don't want my husband's death to be in vain," she told him. The president apologized repeatedly for her husband's death. When Owen began to cry, Bush grabbed her hands. "Don't worry, don't worry," he said, though his choking voice suggested that he had worries of his own. The president and the widow hugged. "It felt like he could have been my dad," Owen recalled to NEWSWEEK. "It was like we were old friends. It almost makes me sad. In a way, I wish he weren't the president, just so I could talk to him all the time."
Bush likes to play the resolute War Leader, and he has never been known for admitting mistakes or regret. But that does not mean that he is free of doubt. For the past three years, Bush has been living in two worldsâunwavering and confident in public, but sometimes stricken in private. Bush's meetings with widows like Crystal Owen offer a rare look inside that inner, private world.
Last week, at his ranch in Texas, he took his usual line on Iraq, telling reporters that the United States would not pull out its troops until Iraq was able to defend itself. While he said he "sympathized" with Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq, he refused to visit her peace vigil, set up in a tent in a drainage ditch outside the ranch, and sent two of his aides to talk to her instead.
Privately, Bush has met with about 900 family members of some 270 soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. The conversations are closed to the press, and Bush does not like to talk about what goes on in these grieving sessions, though there have been hints. An hour after he met with the families at Fort Bragg in June, he gave a hard-line speech on national TV. When he mentioned the sacrifice of military families, his lips visibly quivered.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 18:45 ||
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Damn, should be filed elsewhere.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 18:48 Comments ||
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#2
Thank God he isn't some LBJ-like meglomaniac. He understands the consequences of his decisions and knows he will have to live with them. Just like the rest of us.
#3
he has never been known for admitting mistakes or regret
sounds like MSM projection, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 22:24 Comments ||
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#4
Dittos Frank and whitecollar redneck... By my lights W is the genuine article. Despite his feelings and terrible responsibilitys He makes the tough decisions for America and the world for the long run.
God bless him and the families.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/14/2005 22:50 Comments ||
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#5
Still waiting on the Left to apologize for their 'accessory to the fact' of the butchery of 1.25 million Cambodians in the third Holocaust of the 20th Century. However, considering the Left never stepped up to apologize for their support of Stalin and his multi-million human sacrifice to Marxism, I won't hold my breath.
POLICE and military intelligence agents have launched a hunt for four women believed to be members of a terrorist group, abs-cbnNEWS.com learned Sunday.
âThe possibility of terrorist cells using women is not very remote these days,â said Col. Eduardo del Rosario, head of Task Force Davao.
He said intelligence reports indicated that the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has recruited women in a campaign to sow terrorism in some parts of Mindanao.
â[There are] reports that they will be using women members,â he said.
Chief Supt. Antonio Billones, director of the Davao police regional office, also confirmed the intelligence report.
Billones said they are tracking the women believed to be in possession of bomb-making materials.
He added that the women terrorists are believed to be âanywhere in the northern part of Davao.â
Del Rosario and Billones said the police and military are now equally treating women and men in security inspections.
âSecurity checks in public places are more lenient on women than on men,â del Rosario said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:54 ||
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Stung by the Nepalese army blaming its punishing reverses on the India-made INSAS assault rifles, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu issued a statement on Saturday, despite it being the start of a three-day holiday, refuting the allegation and casting doubts on the Royal Nepalese Army's capability.
Posted by: john ||
08/14/2005 19:14 ||
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Frustrated with the limitations of using its fleet of modern Humvee four-wheel-drives in rugged mountains with few roads, a battalion of U.S. marines has enlisted a mode of transport used for centuries by Afghan villagers: donkeys.
About 30 of the animals have been rented from local farmers to haul food and bottled water to hundreds of Afghan and U.S. troops on a two-week operation to battle militants deep in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province.
"With all the smart bombs and the modern stuff in war nowadays, this is the best way for us to resupply our troops there," said Lt. Col. Jim Donnellan, commander of the Hawaii-based regiment. "It's also much cheaper for the U.S. taxpayer for us to rent the donkeys than for everything to be air-dropped."
Using aircraft to resupply the forces is also dangerous.
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In late June, militants in the area shot down a special forces Chinook helicopter, killing all 16 troops on board, as it tried to land in one of the many steep-sided, wooded valleys that snake their way through the mountains.
The operation, which began Friday, is aimed at flushing those fighters out of the valley and U.S. commanders are nervous about risking other choppers in the process.
From a temporary resupply base in a cornfield at one end of Korengal Valley, where the militants are suspected of hiding, squads of marines with heavy packs on their own backs led out lines of donkeys, each laden with two boxes of water, a box of food rations and a sack of grain.
While each marine carried enough food and water for themselves for two days, the donkeys gave each squad supplies for an extra 48 hours. Once finished, the animals would be led back to the resupply base to load up again and then return to the mountains.
Before coming to Afghanistan, some of the troops received training in handling donkeys at the Marines' Mountain Warfare Training Centre in Bridgeport, Calif., said Capt. John Moshane.
"Marines have used donkeys since the American revolution," he said, as each animal received a spray painted number for identification.
Still, the donkeys sometimes stubbornly refuse to co-operate and their determination to try to mate with each other whenever they were untied persistently frustrated their handlers. When one marine slapped one of the animals on the rump in exasperation, the donkey promptly gave him a sharp kick with one of its hind legs.
Donkeys have long been used by armies in Afghanistan, including by mujahedeen independence fighters against Soviet troops in the 1980s. Smugglers also use them to sneak loads of opium, illegally mined gems and timber across the country's mountainous borders.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 18:17 ||
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#1
plz relocate to appropriate category
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 18:19 Comments ||
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#2
Isn't donkey the symbol of the (anti-war on terror) Democratic party? Ride em troopers! Ride em!
#4
Now the Marines are stuck there. The Army only uses mules.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 18:49 Comments ||
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#5
...There is a marvelous picture from Afghanistan in '01 that shows Green Berets in traditional dress, on horseback, carrying laser designators. Sometimes you have to cross the old with the new.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2005 18:58 Comments ||
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#6
I am waiting for the armored up jack asses. Rumsfeld, where are they?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 19:00 Comments ||
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Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said. The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of six American soldiers.
Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.
The leaders of four of Iraq's Sunni tribes had rallied their fighters in response to warnings posted in mosques by followers of Zarqawi. The postings ordered Ramadi's roughly 3,000 Shiites to leave the city of more than 200,000 in the area called the Sunni Triangle. The order to leave within 48 hours came in retaliation for alleged expulsions by Shiite militias of Sunnis living in predominantly Shiite southern Iraq.
"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds.''
Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders and armed followers of Zarqawi have clashed before in the far west, and Sunnis and Shiites in western cities have sympathized with one another over what they have said are attempts by foreign fighters to spark open sectarian conflict. But Saturday's clash in Ramadi was one of the first times Sunni Arabs have been known to take up arms against insurgents specifically in defense of Shiites.
The dramatic show of unity in the western city came as Sunni and Shiite Arabs and ethnic Kurds in Baghdad continued negotiations over the country's constitution. They were trying to meet a Monday deadline but failing to resolve some key differences.
President Jalal Talabani, who has hosted days of closed-door talks among Iraq's factional and political leaders, said he remained hopeful the deadline could be met. "There will be no postponing of any issue," Talabani told reporters. "God willing, tomorrow the constitution will be ready."
Disputes over federalism -- particularly whether Shiites should be allowed to have a separate federal state in the south equivalent to the one the Kurds have established in the north -- remain the biggest obstacle. Sunni Arabs rigidly oppose the division, expressing fears that it would split Iraq and leave their minority stranded in the resource-poor center and west.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad sat with faction leaders throughout the day, pushing for completion by Monday, said a Sunni Arab constitutional delegate, Salih Mutlak.
The fighting in Ramadi suggested a potentially serious threat to Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, which is made up of Sunni extremists from inside and outside Iraq. The insurgency has increasingly targeted Shiite civilians along with U.S. and Iraqi forces, particularly with grisly suicide bombings that have killed scores of Shiites at a time. Zarqawi's followers see Shiites as rivals for power and as apostates within the broader Islamic faith.
At midday Saturday, men with grenade launchers and AK-47s still could be seen in Ramadi's two contested neighborhoods, Sejarriyah and Tameem.
Masked men distributed leaflets that declared the city's tribes would fight "Zarqawi's attempt to turn Ramadi into a second Fallujah," referring to the nearby city that U.S. forces wrested from insurgent control in November. Statements posted on walls declared in the name of the Iraqi-led Mohammed's Army group that "Zarqawi has lost his direction" and strayed "from the line of true resistance against the occupation."
A grateful Shiite resident of Ramadi said he was not surprised at the threats by Zarqawi's followers or the defiance of them. "So many ties of friendship, marriage and compassion" bind Shiites and Sunnis in Ramadi, said Ali Hussein Lifta, a 50-year-old air-conditioning repairman and a resident of Tameem.
"We have become in fact part of the population here, and this we are going to convey to the rest of Iraq and to those who want to instill division between Sunnis and Shiites," Lifta said. "We are happy to know that the ties with the Sunnis have become so strong that the Zarqawis and their terrorism cannot affect them.''
Separately Saturday, Zarqawi's movement posted statements in Ramadi pledging to kill Sunni clerics in the west for urging Sunnis to take part in the country's next elections.
"We, al Qaeda in Iraq, announce that we will apply the religious punishment for apostasy upon whoever calls for creation of the constitution. You, preacher at the podium of prophecy, be a speaker of truth, doer of good and rallier for the rule of sharia," or Islamic law, the statement said.
Similar threats led the majority of Iraq's Sunni voters to boycott elections in January, weakening their position when the country's factions began crafting a constitution.
If the draft constitution is finished by Monday as scheduled, and Iraqis agree in an Oct. 15 vote to adopt it, Iraq will hold elections Dec. 15 for its first full-term government since Hussein was toppled.
Missing the deadline would risk greatly aggravating political instability and violence that have claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives since the elections.
Existing law requires the current government to dissolve if the deadline is not met, opening the way for the election of a new government, which would take another try at writing a constitution.
Around the country on Saturday, bombings and ambushes killed at least 12 Iraqis and wounded more than a dozen, according to the Associated Press and the Reuters news agency.
Late Saturday, the military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers, three of whom were killed in a roadside bomb attack while on patrol Friday night in the northern town of Tuz. One soldier died when a roadside bomb detonated in Baghdad Saturday. Another was found dead from a gunshot wound in the Iraqi capital, according to an Army statement. On Sunday, one soldier was killed and three wounded by a roadside bombing in the western town of Ruteah.
Also in Baghdad, a U.S. Bradley Fighting Vehicle was left burning in the Sadr City district, Reuters reported. The U.S. military said the armored personnel carrier was set on fire by a roadside bomb, but there were no reports of American casualties. Local police said an Iraqi civilian was killed in the explosion.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:28 ||
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#1
Missing the deadline would risk greatly aggravating political instability and violence that have claimed thousands of Iraqi and American lives since the elections.
Obviously, WaPo believes they will miss the deadline and will trumpet the failure tomorrow.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/14/2005 17:24 Comments ||
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#2
Who's deadline ours? The Media's? Not the Iraqi's really, when it's done it's done. Let it be an Iraqi Constutition, it's not going to be ours. It will come, but it may not come tomorrow. BFD.
Egyptian security forces have arrested three men in connection with last month's deadly bombings in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, a newspaper reported on Sunday. The semi-official al-Ahram said the search was continuing for two more suspects wanted for their alleged role in the July 23 triple attacks that left about 70 people dead, including more than a dozen foreigners. The authorities believe the suspects helped three suicide bombers plan and prepare for the attacks, al-Ahram said.
It added that the police, acting on a tip-off, raided a farm in al-Arish on the Mediterranean coast of the Sinai, where they recovered nearly a tonne of explosives. More explosives and firearms were found at the hideouts of the suspects and experts are comparing them to traces of explosives found at the sites of the three attacks, al-Ahram added.
Bet they get a match.
Security officials told the paper that they apprehended the fugitives with the help of a man identified as one of the main suspects in the case.
That would be Mahmoud the Weasel.
They said the man worked as a watchman on the al-Arish farm that al-Ahram said was registered to a Palestinian. Security forces said they found out about the watchman after tracing the route of two pick-up trucks used to ship the explosives from the middle of the Sinai peninsula to Sharm el-Sheikh.
Egyptian security forces can be pretty good when they want to be, and when they're unleashed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 16:23 ||
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The U.S. Military's new nemesis in Iraq is named Abu Mustafa al-Sheibani, and he is not a Baathist or a member of al-Qaeda. He is working for Iran. According to a U.S. military-intelligence document obtained by TIME, al-Sheibani heads a network of insurgents created by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps with the express purpose of committing violence against U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. Over the past eight months, his group has introduced a new breed of roadside bomb more lethal than any seen before; based on a design from the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hizballah, the weapon employs "shaped" explosive charges that can punch through a battle tank's armor like a fist through the wall. According to the document, the U.S. believes al-Sheibani's team consists of 280 members, divided into 17 bombmaking teams and death squads. The U.S. believes they train in Lebanon, in Baghdad's predominantly Shi'ite Sadr City district and "in another country" and have detonated at least 37 bombs against U.S. forces this year in Baghdad alone.
Since the start of the insurgency in Iraq, the most persistent danger to U.S. troops has come from the Sunni Arab insurgents and terrorists who roam the center and west of the country. But some U.S. officials are worried about a potentially greater challenge to order in Iraq and U.S. interests there: the growing influence of Iran. With an elected Shi'ite-dominated government in place in Baghdad and the U.S. preoccupied with quelling the Sunni-led insurgency, the Iranian regime has deepened its imprint on the political and social fabric of Iraq, buying influence in the new Iraqi government, running intelligence-gathering networks and funneling money and guns to Shi'ite militant groups--all with the aim of fostering a Shi'ite-run state friendly to Iran. In parts of southern Iraq, fundamentalist Shi'ite militias--some of them funded and armed by Iran--have imposed restrictions on the daily lives of Iraqis, banning alcohol and curbing the rights of women. Iraq's Shi'ite leaders, including Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, have tried to forge a strategic alliance with Tehran, even seeking to have Iranians recognized as a minority group under Iraq's proposed constitution. "We have to think anything we tell or share with the Iraqi government ends up in Tehran," says a Western diplomat.
Perhaps most troubling are signs that the rising influence of Iran--a country with which Iraq waged an eight-year war and whose brand of theocracy most Iraqis reject--is exacerbating sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shi'ites, pulling Iraq closer to all-out civil war. And while top intelligence officials have sought to play down any state-sponsored role by Tehran's regime in directing violence against the coalition, the emergence of al-Sheibani has cast greater suspicion on Iran. Coalition sources told TIME that it was one of al-Sheibani's devices that killed three British soldiers in Amarah last month. "One suspects this would have to have a higher degree of approval [in Tehran]," says a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad. The official says the U.S. believes that Iran has brokered a partnership between Iraqi Shi'ite militants and Hizballah and facilitated the import of sophisticated weapons that are killing and wounding U.S. and British troops. "It is true that weapons clearly, unambiguously, from Iran have been found in Iraq," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week.
How real is the threat? A TIME investigation, based on documents smuggled out of Iran and dozens of interviews with U.S., British and Iraqi intelligence officials, as well as an Iranian agent, armed dissidents and Iraqi militia and political allies, reveals an Iranian plan for gaining influence in Iraq that began before the U.S. invaded. In their scope and ambition, Iran's activities rival those of the U.S. and its allies, especially in the south. There is a gnawing worry within some intelligence circles that the failure to counter Iranian influence may come back to haunt the U.S. and its allies, if Shi'ite factions with heavy Iranian backing eventually come to power and provoke the Sunnis to revolt. Says a British military intelligence officer, about the relative inattention paid to Iranian meddling: "It's as though we are sleepwalking."
The Iranian penetration of Iraq was a long time in planning. On Sept. 9, 2002, with U.S. bases being readied in Kuwait, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei summoned his war council in Tehran. According to Iranian sources, the Supreme National Security Council concluded, "It is necessary to adopt an active policy in order to prevent long-term and short-term dangers to Iran." Iran's security services had supported the armed wings of several Iraqi groups they had sheltered in Iran from Saddam. Iranian intelligence sources say that the various groups were organized under the command of Brigadier General Qassim Sullaimani, an adviser to Khamenei on both Afghanistan and Iraq and a top officer in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Before the March 2003 invasion, military sources say, elements of up to 46 Iranian infantry and missile brigades moved to buttress the border. Positioned among them were units of the Badr Corps, formed in the 1980s as the armed wing of the Iraqi Shi'ite group known by its acronym SCIRI, now the most powerful party in Iraq. Divided into northern, central and southern axes, Badr's mission was to pour into Iraq in the chaos of the invasion to seize towns and government offices, filling the vacuum left by the collapse of Saddam's regime. As many as 12,000 armed men, along with Iranian intelligence officers, swarmed into Iraq. TIME has obtained copies of what U.S. and British military intelligence say appears to be Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence reports sent in April 2003. One, dated April 10 and marked CONFIDENTIAL, logs U.S. troops backed by armor moving through the city of Kut. But, it asserts, "we are in control of the city." Another, with the same date, from a unit code-named 1546, claims "forces attached to us" had control of the city of Amarah and had occupied Baath Party properties. A 2004 British army inquiry noted that the Badr organization and another militia were so powerful in Amarah, "it quickly became clear that the coalition needed to work with them to ensure a secure environment in the province."
For many Iraqis in the south, the exile militia groups brought with them forbidding religious strictures. "These guys with beards and Kalashnikovs showed up saying they'd come to protect the campus," says a student leader at a Basra university. "The problem is, they never left." Militants frequently "investigate" youths accused of un-Islamic behavior, such as couples holding hands or girls wearing makeup. "They're watching us, and they're the ones who control the streets, while the police, who are with them, stand by," says a student leader who did not wish to be identified. "From the beginning, the Islamic parties filled the void," says a police lieutenant colonel working closely with British forces. "They still hold the real power. The rank and file all belong to the parties. Everyone does. You can't do anything without them."
Military officials say they believe Iranian-funded militias helped organize a mob attack in the southern township of Majarr al-Kabir on June 24, 2003, that resulted in the execution of six British military-police officers. According to a classified British military-intelligence document, a local militia leader is "implicated in the murder of the 6 RMP [Royal Military Police]." The man heads a cell of the Mujahedin for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (MIRI), a paramilitary outfit coordinated out of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard's base in Ahvaz, Iran. Although U.S. and British officers think it unlikely the soldiers were killed on orders from Revolutionary Guard officers, they agree that the slayings fit within the Iranian generals' broad guidelines to bog coalition forces down in sporadic hit-and-run attacks.
The Iranian program is as impressive as it is comprehensive, competing with and sometimes bettering the coalition's endeavors. Businesses, front companies, religious groups, NGOs and aid for schools and universities are all part of the mix. Just as Washington backs Iraqi news outlets like al-Hurra television station, Tehran has funded broadcast and print outlets in Iraq. A 2003 Supreme National Security Council memo, smuggled out of Iran, suggests even the Iranian Red Crescent society, akin to the Red Cross, has coordinated its activities through the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The memo instructs officials that "the immediate needs of the Iraqi people should be determined" by the Guard's al-Quds Force.
More sinister are signs of death squads charged with eliminating potential opponents and former Baathists. U.S. intelligence sources confirm that early targets included former members of the Iran section of Saddam's intelligence services. In southern cities, Thar-Allah (Vengeance of God) is one of a number of militant groups suspected of assassinations. U.S. commanders in Baghdad and in eastern provinces say similar cells operate in their sectors. The chief of the Iraqi National Intelligence Service, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani, has publicly accused Iranian-backed cells of hunting down and killing his officers. In October he blamed agents in Iran's Baghdad embassy of coordinating assassinations of up to 18 of his people, claiming that raids on three safe houses uncovered a trove of documents linking the agents to funds funneled to the Badr Corps for the purposes of "physical liquidation."
A former Iraqi official and member of Saddam's armored corps, who identifies himself as Abu Hassan, told TIME last summer that he was recruited by an Iranian intelligence agent in 2004 to compile the names and addresses of Ministry of Interior officials in close contact with American military officers and liaisons. Abu Hassan's Iranian handler wanted to know "who the Americans trusted and where they were" and pestered him to find out if Abu Hassan, using his membership in the Iraqi National Accord political party, could get someone inside the office of then Prime Minister Iyad Allawi without being searched. (Allawi has told TIME he believes Iranian agents plotted to assassinate him.) And the handler also demanded information on U.S. troop concentrations in a particular area of Baghdad and details of U.S. weaponry, armor, routes and reaction times. After revealing his conversations to U.S. and Iraqi authorities, Abu Hassan disappeared; earlier this year, one of his Iraqi superiors was convicted of espionage.
Intelligence agencies say Tehran still funds various political parties in Iraq. Documents from Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps files obtained by TIME include voluminous pay records from August 2004 that appear to indicate that Iran was paying the salaries of at least 11,740 members of the Badr Corps. British and U.S. military intelligence suspect those salaries are still being paid, although Badr leader Hadi al-Amri denies that. "I've told the American officers to bring us the evidence that we have a deal with Iran, and we will be ready, but they say they don't have any," he says.
What remains murky is the extent to which Iran is encouraging its proxies to stage attacks against the U.S.-led coalition. Military intelligence officers describe their Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps counterparts' strategy as one of using "nonattributable attacks" by proxy forces to maximize deniability. What's uncertain, says a senior U.S. officer, is what factions within Tehran's splintered security apparatus are behind the strategy and how much the top leaders have endorsed it. Intelligence sources claim that Brigadier General Sullaimani ordained in a meeting of his militia proxies in the spring of last year that "any move that would wear out the U.S. forces in Iraq should be done. Every possible means should be used to keep the U.S. forces engaged in Iraq." Secret British military-intelligence documents show that British forces are tracking several paramilitary outfits in Southern Iraq that are backed by the Revolutionary Guard. Coalition and Iraqi intelligence agencies track Iranian officers' visits to Iraq on inspection tours akin to those of their American counterparts. "We know they come, but often not until after they've left," says a British intelligence officer.
Western diplomats say that so far, the ayatullahs appear to be acting defensively rather than offensively. An encouraging sign is that even Shi'ite beneficiaries of Tehran exhibit strains of Iraqi and Arab nationalism; and many have strong familial and tribal ties with the Sunnis. "We are sons of Iraq. The circumstances that forced me to leave did not change my identity," says Badr leader al-Amri. He's proud of his cooperation with the Revolutionary Guard to battle Saddam but says it extended only "to the limit of our interests." An informed Western observer thinks that while those groups maintain a "shared world view" with Tehran, much as Brits and Americans share each other's, they are now trying to balance their interests with those of their backers and are eager to wield power in Baghdad in their own right. "I think you'll never break a lifelong relationship," says the senior U.S. military officer, "but as time goes by, as they become politicians fighting local issues, they will change."
That may be true. But Iran shows every sign of upping the ante in Iraq, which may ultimately force the U.S. to search out new allies in Iraq--including some of the same elements it has been trying to subdue for almost 2œ years--who can counter the mullahs' encroachment. The Western diplomat acknowledges that Iran's seemingly manageable activities could still escalate into a bigger crisis. "We've dealt with governments allied to our enemies many times in the past," he says. "The rub, however, is, Could it affect [counterinsurgency efforts]? To that I say, 'It hasn't happened yet, but it could.'" The war in Iraq could get a whole lot messier if it does.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:54 ||
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Thanks, Dan, I heard the interview on CNN with Ware and was going to hunt this down. You saved me the trouble.
Been hearing about the Iranian trouble makers for three years now, mostly in the south. Their involvement with funneling shaped charges seems relatively recent--and deadly.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 18:24 Comments ||
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The U.S. believes they train in Lebanon, in Baghdad's predominantly Shi'ite Sadr City district and "in another country" and have detonated at least 37 bombs against U.S. forces this year in Baghdad alone.
Funny I just read a piece that discussed the favorable turnaround in Sadr City:
Two people have been arrested on Sunday in connection with the sale of coupons bearing the name of Al Qaeda in some Muslim-dominated areas of this West Bengal capital over the past few days.
City Police Commissioner Prasun Mukherjee told IANS: "We have arrested two persons from Kolkata. We cannot disclose all the details now."
A middle-aged Bangladeshi was reportedly selling coupons to raise funds for Al Qaeda in some Muslim areas of Kolkata, according to the state detective department.
Reports said the man, who looked like a fakir and was believed to be about 50 years old, sold coupons of Rs. 25 and Rs. 50 denominations under the name of "Mujahiddin al Qaida Pacific International - Dhaka, Bangladesh" in Metiaburz and other areas near the Kolkata port.
It was not known if the two people arrested on Sunday were Bangladeshis. The coupons were also distributed in some central Kolkata neighbourhoods.
The coupons were in Urdu and some booklets of Muslim jehadis organisations were reportedly distributed along with them.
One of the groups mentioned in the booklets was "Harkat-ul-Jihad-Islami", which is believed to be an arm of a Pakistani terrorist organisation that works with Al Qaeda.
The police found that several people were engaged in selling the coupons.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/14/2005 15:47 ||
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We knew this sort of thing was coming. Those in the West who reject the value of western culture aren't free thinkers - they're ripe for conversion to some fundamentalism. What's alarming is that he already was radicalized -- and teaching radical Islamacism -- as early as 2000.
A MUSLIM convert who was arrested on suspicion of being an Al-Qaeda terrorist is thought to have presided over Islamic study circles at a bookshop in Leeds where the 7/7 bombers were radicalised.
The Sunday Times has been told that Scots-born James McLintock, the so-called Tartan Taliban, preached at the Iqra bookshop in 2000, shortly before moving to Pakistan with his family.
His seminars are thought to have been attended by Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 suicide attacks on London, and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, the Aldgate bomber. Both had close links to the bookshop. Hasib Mir Hussain, 18, the bus bomber, was also regularly seen at the store, which sold violent anti-western videos and DVDs.
The Scot, who changed his name to Mohammed Yacoub, was arrested by the Pakistani authorities at a checkpoint near the Afghan border in December 2001.
Although he claimed to be working for a charity in the region, he was taken to a military prison and questioned by the CIA and anti-terrorism officers from Scotland Yard. Dundee-born Yacoub was released a month later.
Yacoub, 41, was arrested again while visiting Manchester in 2003. He was questioned by police investigating possible Al-Qaeda cells operating in the UK, but was released without charge. He has consistently denied having terrorist links or knowledge of terrorist activity.
Yacoub lived in Bradford during the mid-1990s. By 2000 he was working in nearby Leeds at a second Islamic bookshop called Rays of Truth with a fellow Muslim convert, Martin Abdullah McDaid.
McDaid, a former special forces soldier, was also closely linked to the Iqra bookshop and knew the three Leeds-based bombers. When The Sunday Times approached him about Yacoub last week, McDaid said: âWhether he was at the Iqra bookstore or not is none of your business â you should fear Allah.â
A former friend of Khanâs said: âYacoub was definitely giving study circles. I remember walking past the Iqra shop one day. I asked who was giving the talk and a brother said it was Yacoub. Other brothers I know were also aware that Yacoub was giving study circles.â
It has also emerged that an extremist Muslim cleric, now in prison, preached at mosques in the district of Leeds where three of the four bombers lived.
Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal was jailed in 2003 for inciting followers in study circles, which he conducted across the country, to murder Jews, Christians and Hindus. He also encouraged teenage boys to train and die in the name of Allah.
Afzal Choudhary, a race equality worker in Leeds, said: âSheikh Faisal came at least twice to Beeston. I should know, because I was one of the people opposed to his coming.â
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 13:10 ||
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Well, at least he didn't convert to Catholicism.
#2
"...Afzal Choudhary, a race equality worker in Leeds, said: âSheikh Faisal came at least twice to Beeston. I should know, because I was one of the people opposed to his coming.â
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#3
A race equality worker equalizes the races; too many oranges in surgery, get me some blues, too many blues in accounting, shift them to surgery. You know, government work.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 15:49 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD, Aug. 13 -- U.S. troops raiding a warehouse in the northern city of Mosul uncovered a suspected chemical weapons factory containing 1,500 gallons of chemicals believed destined for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and civilians, military officials said Saturday.
Monday's early morning raid found 11 precursor agents, "some of them quite dangerous by themselves," a military spokesman, Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, said in Baghdad.
Combined, the chemicals would yield an agent capable of "lingering hazards" for those exposed to it, Boylan said. The likely targets would have been "coalition and Iraqi security forces, and Iraqi civilians," partly because the chemicals would be difficult to keep from spreading over a wide area, he said.
Boylan said the suspected lab was new, dating from some time after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Bush administration cited evidence that Saddam Hussein's government was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction as the main justification for the invasion. No such weapons or factories were found.
Military officials did not immediately identify either the precursors or the agent they could have produced. "We don't want to speculate on any possibilities until our analysis is complete," Col. Henry Franke, a nuclear, biological and chemical defense officer, was quoted as saying in a military statement.
Investigators still were trying to determine who had assembled the alleged lab and whether the expertise came from foreign insurgents or former members of Hussein's security apparatus, the military said.
"They're looking into it," Boylan said. "They've got to go through it -- there's a lot of stuff there." He added that there was no indication that U.S. forces would be ordered to carry chemical warfare gear, such as gas masks and chemical suits, as they did during the invasion and the months immediately afterward.
U.S. military photos of the alleged lab showed a bare concrete-walled room scattered with stacks of plastic containers, coiled tubing, hoses and a stand holding a large metal device that looked like a distillery. Black rubber boots lay among the gear.
The suspected chemical weapons lab was the biggest found so far in Iraq, Boylan said. A lab discovered last year in the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah contained a how-to book on chemical weapons and an unspecified amount of chemicals.
Chemical weapons are divided into the categories of "persistent" agents, which wreak damage for hours, such as blistering agents or the oily VX nerve agent, and "nonpersistent" ones, which dissipate quickly, such as chlorine gas or sarin nerve gas.
Iraqi forces under Hussein used chemical agents both on enemy forces in the 1980s war with Iran and on Iraqi Kurdish villagers in 1988. Traces of a variety of killing agents -- mustard gas and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX -- were detected by investigators after the 1988 attack.
No chemical weapons are known to have been used so far in Iraq's insurgency. Al Qaeda announced after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that it was looking into acquiring biological, radiological and chemical weapons. The next year, CNN obtained and aired al Qaeda videotapes showing the killings of three dogs with what were believed to be nerve agents.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 11:50 ||
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My 2 bits worth-- its a bomb factory. Arty shells/munitions are getting scarce here, relatively speaking. The bad guys are starting to make explosives now, easier/cheaper than finding/importing premade.
Posted by: N guard ||
08/14/2005 12:02 Comments ||
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hmmmmmm, they specifically mentioned precursor elements. That seems different form straight 'splosives.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
08/14/2005 14:53 Comments ||
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IIRC, this would not be the first chem weapons materials cache found, albeit the largest and perhaps newest.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/14/2005 15:04 Comments ||
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Rising up against insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi Sunni Muslims in Ramadi fought with grenade launchers and automatic weapons Saturday to defend their Shiite neighbors against a bid to drive them from the western city, Sunni leaders and Shiite residents said. The fighting came as the U.S. military announced the deaths of six American soldiers.
Dozens of Sunni members of the Dulaimi tribe established cordons around Shiite homes, and Sunni men battled followers of Zarqawi, a Jordanian, for an hour Saturday morning. The clashes killed five of Zarqawi's guerrillas and two tribal fighters, residents and hospital workers said. Zarqawi loyalists pulled out of two contested neighborhoods in pickup trucks stripped of license plates, witnesses said.
"We have had enough of his nonsense," said Sheik Ahmad Khanjar, leader of the Albu Ali clan, referring to Zarqawi. "We don't accept that a non-Iraqi should try to enforce his control over Iraqis, regardless of their sect -- whether Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs or Kurds.''
Zarq...you're daze are numbered m*ther f*cker
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 01:44 ||
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I guess the "insurgency" isn't "raging" in Ramadi quite the way most media reports would leave most people to believe. Imagine.
Meanwhile, there's a reason Mosul's been seeing less and less, and less and less ambitious, enemy activity. Unemployment hasn't changed. Sunni Arab harassment of Kurds hasn't changed. Certain people were killed or captured. In Samarra things have gone the other way -- again not due to economic conditions. I fear that 90% of so-called counter-insurgency doctrine and thinking is bunk: force, killing, intimidation, and keeping the initiative are still the requirements for success. In the Iraqi context, the soft side is of trivial importance.
#3
Ahmad sounds like he has a little Rantburger in him. I'll bet he didn't really say "nonsense." Maybe the reporter knows how sensitive some of the marshalls get about use of the vernacular.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 11:59 Comments ||
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Palestinian security forces deployed in the Gaza Strip as part of Israel's pullout operation, have been taking up positions they were forced to abandon almost five years ago at the start of the intifada. "Palestinian police and national security have re-deployed around the settlements and along bypass roads," a senior Palestinian security official said. "A total of 7500 security forces will be deployed over the next 24 hours, some of them in areas which they had vacated after September 28 2000," he said in reference to the day the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted.
The deployment was planned in coordination with Israel to ensure that the evacuation of illegal settlements from the Gaza Strip takes place free of violence. An Israeli army spokesperson confirmed the Palestinian deployment had begun and that the Palestinians had entered areas they had not held since the start of the last intifada. On Monday, those of the 8000 Gaza settlers who have not already left their homes will be given a two-day period to quit their houses voluntarily. On 17 August, Israeli security will remove recalcitrant settlers forcibly. Both Israeli and Palestinian security sources said the main task of the Palestinian force would be to prevent rocket attacks by resistance groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad during the pullout.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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making "dibs" on any booty left after the Jooooos vacate
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/14/2005 11:33 Comments ||
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I understand Israel is committed to razing the settlements after they've been emptied. The Palestinians aren't supposed to want to live in such polluted dwellings anyway. On the other hand, even the leavings are likely better than what many Palestinians have at home, after so many years of Intifada unemployment and destruction.
Your thoughts, gromgorru? And we haven't heard from Elder of Zion for ages...
#7
Israel has been asked to demolish the structures so the paleos will not fight over them or destroy the infrastructure under them which will remain if a typical paleo swam develops and trys to raze them, by the PA. Yes the PA wants them destroyed but the sewer and water services to remain. These houses are huge mansions by Paleo standards leavning them intact will create "problems" for the PA.
In the West Bank, dozens of members of Abbas' Fatah faction, some of them armed, stormed into a government building on Saturday to demand jobs, witnesses said. The incident in the town of Qalqilya was another sign of growing lawlessness and frustration at the lack of economic opportunities in the Palestinian territories. "We belong to Fatah. We ask you to leave your offices. The offices will be closed until our demands for employment are met. Our protest is peaceful so far," one of the Fatah members told the employees, who complied immediately.
The Fatah men then closed the offices with chains and locks and departed, leaving several members of the group behind to guard the building. Police did not intervene. Abbas was elected in January to replace the late Yasser Arafat. He promised during the presidential campaign to boost employment and recruit into Palestinian Authority institutions resistance fighters who have confronted Israeli forces during a four-and-a-half year uprising. Promised jobs are yet to materialise.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Why are we NOT finding and arresting the cameramen who take these pictures?
They have to be known, all cameramen want their name printed for the credits.
Must be enemy, and fotget "Freedom of the press" it doesn't exist over there, it's just law here at home in the US.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/14/2005 13:30 Comments ||
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At least one man was killed and more than 50 injured after about a dozen homemade bombs exploded at a packed shrine in eastern Bangladesh, police said. `The explosions occurred late on Friday at Akhaura in Brahmmanbaria district, 80km east of the capital, Dhaka, as people were taking part in an annual festival, area police chief ATM Tareq said.
An unidentified man died instantly during the attack at the Hazrat Shah Syed Ahammed shrine, Tareq said. About 40 of the injured were being treated in hospitals while another 10 were released after receiving first aid. Police and residents said thousands of visitors, including women and children, attend the festival and a week-long fair each year. The reason behind Friday's attack was not immediately clear. "We need a detailed investigation to find out the actual reason," Tareq said. In 2004, bomb attacks at Bangladesh's shrines separately killed about a dozen people.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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You might try "It's sectarian in nature." That might be a good guess.
KARACHI: Maulana Abdul Karim Naqashbandi, a candidate for union council nazim in the local elections and a central leader of the Sunni Tehreek (ST), was shot dead and his friend and a passerby injured in Moosa Lane, Baghdadi, on Saturday.
Gee. I'm sorry to hear that. What happened?
Naqashbandi, 35, was a candidate for nazim in UC 2 of Lyari Town from the Insan Dost panel supported by the Sunni Tehreek. He was on a motorcycle with Maulana Riaz when unidentified assailants on a motorcycle opened fire at them on Haji Ismail Road. Naqashbandi was shot multiple times and died at the scene. Riaz and a pedestrian were shot and injured. The area was tense after the incident and shops and markets were closed. No violence was reported in the area.
Other than the murder, of course...
The police and Rangers are patrolling the area to maintain law and order.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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Four electricity poles near Barkhan, in the border area of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, were blown up on Saturday morning, disrupting the power supply to the area. WAPDA authorities despatched a team from Dera Ghazi Khan to restore power. "Outlaws used explosives to blow up four electricity poles near Barkhan," said a police statement. A QESCO spokesman said that power would be restored in the next 72 hours, Online reported. A bomb exploded outside the office of the pro-government Pakistan Workers Party in Qalat on Friday, damaging walls and windows but causing no casualties, a police official told AP on Saturday. No one claimed responsibility for the blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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There is too much cancer in the Punjab, undoubtably caused by global warming, food additives and EM fields from electricity poles.
Pakistan is a world leader in environment activism and general social proressive stuff.
Pakistan needs to destroy all electricity poles. As a bonus, this will be islamic since Allah did not reveal electrity poles in the koran.
Since they are not in the koran, they are haram.
Posted by: john ||
08/14/2005 17:27 Comments ||
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A senior Japanese Defence Agency official has expressed concern that recent violent demonstrations in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa, where Australian troops are based, "are escalating". The capital of Al Muthanna province is under the control of Australian forces, who are providing security to a Japanese humanitarian military contingent. SDF Joint Staff Council chairman General Hajime Massaki said the demonstrations may affect the activities of Japanese troops there. "There are signs that the followers of (Shiite cleric) Moqtada al-Sadr are inciting demonstrations,'' Gen Massaki said, acknowledging that Iraqi locals are dissatisfied with electricity shortages and unemployment.
On Sunday, at least one person was killed and about 60 were injured in a clash between demonstrators and police in Samawa. Earlier this week, Defence Minister Senator Robert Hill said Australian troops are not involved in the violence. Senator Hill says the Australians are there to guard the Japanese and not to respond to the civil differences. "It is a worrying development but overall the province of al Muthanna remains one of the most stable within Iraq," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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wack the tater tot time has long since arrived.
Time for a black op, commission a splodydope, truck bomb, prussic acid + rat poison, whatever is firtus with the mostus.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/14/2005 15:48 Comments ||
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The top American commander in Iraq has been privately rebuked by the Bush administration for openly discussing plans to reduce troop levels there next year, The Sunday Telegraph has learned.
President George W Bush personally intervened last week to play down as "speculation" all talk of troop pull-outs because he fears that even discussing options for an "exit strategy" implies weakening resolve.
Gen George Casey, the US ground commander in Iraq, was given his dressing-down after he briefed that troop levels - now 138,000 - could be reduced by 30,000 in the early months of next year as Iraqi security forces take on a greater role.
Politically, the administration will be under pressure to signal a significant cut in the US presence by autumn next year to help Republicans fighting mid-term elections in November 2006. Military commanders, however, also need to wind down numbers, the imperative that prompted Gen Casey's comments, according to Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and vice-president of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank.
"It's number-driven," Mr Goure said. "The military can only maintain these levels in Iraq if it has absolutely no choice. Otherwise, the current pattern of rotations and other commitments mean that they will have to lower numbers."
There will, in any case, be a short-term increase in US troop levels to cover the Iraq elections scheduled for December. After that, said Mr Goure, the military has drawn up three broad strategies for cutting troops. Their "best scenario" target is to reduce numbers to 60,000-70,000 by next autumn if Iraqi forces start to make progress against the insurgents. The fall-back option would be Gen Casey's minimum 30,000 reduction by the summer.
There is also a rarely-mentioned and completely unlikely "Plan C" - complete withdrawal if all-out civil war erupts between the Shias and Sunnis, both of whom are engaged in a last-ditch battle for political territory in the current negotiations.
Link fixed, some editing for length. AoS
Posted by: DanNY ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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after he briefed that troop levels - now 138,000 - could be reduced by 30,000 in the early months of next year as Iraqi security forces take on a greater role.
And this translates into "calls for troops to be pulled out of Iraq". Nice try.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/14/2005 0:20 Comments ||
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The article itself does not say the general called for anything. The article was mischaracterized by the headline, which probably was written by someone else.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/14/2005 0:48 Comments ||
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That's right, and it was done intentionally.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/14/2005 0:50 Comments ||
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General Casey discussed these numbers at a Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing in July, covered by CSPAN.
I frankly don't see what the hubbub is about, other than its August and everyone is out of Washington DC right now on vacation.
Incidentially, I don't hear anyone complaining about senators and congressmen being out on vaca for five weeks.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 2:09 Comments ||
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President George W Bush personally intervened last week to play down as "speculation" all talk of troop pull-outs because he fears that even discussing options for an "exit strategy" implies weakening resolve.
Actually, "discussing options for an 'exit strategy'" will be INTERPRETED as weakening resolve.
I am SURE that a lot of rational courses and necessary discussion are not being done because the Liberals, Democraps, and the Media are deliberately politicizing the issue. We have troops fighting over burnt out hulks that our ancestors would have abandoned SOLELY because the aforementioned Terrible Three insist on broadcasting images of gun-waving jihadis sitting on said wreckage in close-up shots calculated to exclude the dead bodies of their comrades about said junk-heap.
#8
The top American commander in Iraq has been privately rebuked by the Bush administration for openly discussing plans to reduce troop levels there next year
No E-Ring office for you.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2005 9:35 Comments ||
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I frankly don't see what the hubbub is about
It's about politics. In the 2006 Congressional elections Bush's strategy (or lack thereof) will be presented as a failure; "Why haven't you reduced forces in Iraq as you had planned?" There's still too many Clinton Generals in the military and this guy looks to be one of them. He should have been filtered out sooner.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 9:48 Comments ||
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Mrs. D -- obviously this is for politics. My comment pertained to the lack of substance behind the political vitriol.
As for the notion that discussing exit strategies portrays a lack of resolve.
The discussion of exit strategies at this time puts needed pressure on those drafting the Iraq constitution. Moreover, the administration has been quite overt in conditioning any discussion of numbers and mileposts with the phrase "depends on the conditions on the ground".
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 10:38 Comments ||
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I doubt the route for maximum pressure on Iraqi constitution makers runs through the comments to the NYT.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/14/2005 11:31 Comments ||
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#12
Mrs D --
Plz, you minimuize the argument. The NY Slimes is not the only publication that has taken liberties with General Casey's assessment on troop draw down. Moreover, this month the general made his comments while in Iraq.
The point being that when General Casey testified in public to the Senate committee in July, and stated his estimated drawdown (complete with caveats), there was precious little notice.
When the general restated his estimates (again, complete with caveats), the MSM here have turned the story into a major battle between President Bush and General Casey. August is a painfully slow month for the MSM in Washington, and the antiwar push is the cause de jour.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 14:42 Comments ||
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Armed fighters in Iraq have killed nine people including six soldiers in a series of attacks across the country. Armed assailants killed four soldiers at the al-Siniya base west of the northern oil refinery town of Baiji on Saturday, said Iraqi army captain Toufik Khalaf. In a separate incident, two soldiers were killed when armed men attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint in al-Dhuluiyah, 70km north of Baghdad. An Iraqi translator for US forces was also shot dead on Saturday while in front of his house in al-Sharquat, 300km north of the capital. Meanwhile, a worker from the Dura refinery was gunned down in his car.
Meanwhile, an Iraqi group calling itself the Islamic Resistance Movement Twentieth Revolution Brigades says it has downed a US spy drone in the Abu Ghraib district, west of Baghdad. The group posted a video on the internet showing armed men firing a missile and then pieces of wreckage said to be parts of the drone. The authenticity of the tape could not be verified by an independent source.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
My gawd, a fricking drone. Knock yourselves out.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/14/2005 2:13 Comments ||
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#2
In a series of attacks the bad guys managed to kill only 9 (and, of course, a drone)? They don't seem to be very effective these days!
Italy has begun winding down its military presence in southern Iraq with the withdrawal of a battalion of more than 120 soldiers, a military spokesman says. "Between 120 and 130 men from San Marco battalion have returned to Italy and will not be replaced," Lieutenant-Colonel Fabio Mattiassi, spokesman for the Italian contingent in Nasiriya, said.
Goodbye, and thank you...
The announcement appeared to confirm a report in Saturday's La Stampa newspaper and previous statements by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that Italy would recall 300 soldiers from its 3000-strong contingent operating under British command in southern Iraq. Berlusconi faced massive protests at home when in June 2003 he committed Italian soldiers to Iraq.
But he had the guts to send them there, and he's had the guts to keep them there. He said when he was going to withdraw them, and now they can go home with honor, unlike the Spanish.
A bombing on an Italian police base in Nasiriya on 12 November 2003 killed 17 Italian soldiers and two civilians, and wounded 20 others. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack. An Italian soldier was killed and 12 others injured in later clashes with Shia militias in the city. Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni was kidnapped in August 2004 and murdered after the Italian government rejected an ultimatum to withdraw its troops from Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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It never ends. It's reaching the point where it's become routine. I have no idea why any country in the world allows people from Somalia to come in. The entire country should be quarantined until it grows up. It's one of the best arguments in favor of colonialism I can think of.
Rival militias in arid southwestern Somalia battled Saturday for control over a village with pastures and wells. Twelve combatants died, and hundreds of residents fled, according to those in the area. The 2 1/2-hour clash began early Saturday, when Yontar community fighters attacked the village of Idale in a bid to seize it from the Hubeyr community. Hundreds of people fled their homes in the Bai region before the fighting ended at dawn, elder Salimow Sheikh said. Combatants used assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Liban Mohamed Nageye, a nurse, said in a radio interview from a neighboring village. He said 12 fighters died.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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When my boss of long ago (a German) describes some kind of social madness, he used to say it's like Africa after the Queen left.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
08/14/2005 14:56 Comments ||
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KARACHI: The police have arrested four suspected militants who were planning a series of terrorist attacks, a senior police official said on Saturday. "The four men were arrested in an early morning raid from the eastern district of the city and they belong to a religious and political party," Tariq Jameel, the Karachi police chief, told a news conference. The police seized revolvers and ammunition from the militants, who have admitted to plotting terror attacks in Karachi. "During initial interrogation they have confessed they belong to a group of 22 young men, some of whom are students," Jameel said. "They were planning terrorist activities to create unrest and disturb the peace of the city."
"This is Karachi. Of course we were planning terrorist activities!"
Jameel declined to identify the party to which the militants belonged and said they were arrested on information given by Syed Waseem Akhtar, who was arrested from Hyderabad last month. "The arrested militants don't belong to any madrassa and are all trained in the use of firearms and explosives," he said.
One might ask where they were trained in the use of firearms and explosives, and who trained them, and who provided them or gave them the dough to buy them. But that's assuming one is not a Pak policeman.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2005 00:00 ||
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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.
A roadside bomb exploded in southeast Turkey on Saturday moments after the convoy of local governor passed, in what appeared to be an attack by Kurdish rebels, an official said. Gov. Kadir Kocdemir was on his way to a meeting organized to protest increased terror attacks in the region, the official said on condition of anonymity. Turkish civil servants are rarely permitted to speak on the record. No injuries were reported, but some of the cars in the convoy were slightly damaged, he said. The blast was triggered by remote control, some 18 miles from the town of Alacakaya in Elazig province, the official said.
Palestinian security forces deployed in the Gaza Strip as part of Israel's pullout operation, have been taking up positions they were forced to abandon almost five years ago at the start of the intifada. "Palestinian police and national security have re-deployed around the settlements and along bypass roads," a senior Palestinian security official said. "A total of 7500 security forces will be deployed over the next 24 hours, some of them in areas which they had vacated after September 28 2000," he said in reference to the day the second Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation erupted.
In the West Bank, dozens of members of Abbas' Fatah faction, some of them armed, stormed into a government building on Saturday to demand jobs, witnesses said. The incident in the town of Qalqilya was another sign of growing lawlessness and frustration at the lack of economic opportunities in the Palestinian territories. "We belong to Fatah. We ask you to leave your offices. The offices will be closed until our demands for employment are met. Our protest is peaceful so far," one of the Fatah members told the employees, who complied immediately.
KARACHI: 
Four electricity poles near Barkhan, in the border area of Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan, were blown up on Saturday morning, disrupting the power supply to the area. WAPDA authorities despatched a team from Dera Ghazi Khan to restore power. "Outlaws used explosives to blow up four electricity poles near Barkhan," said a police statement. A QESCO spokesman said that power would be restored in the next 72 hours, Online reported. A bomb exploded outside the office of the pro-government Pakistan Workers Party in Qalat on Friday, damaging walls and windows but causing no casualties, a police official told AP on Saturday. No one claimed responsibility for the blast.
A senior Japanese Defence Agency official has expressed concern that recent violent demonstrations in the southern Iraqi city of Samawa, where Australian troops are based, "are escalating". The capital of Al Muthanna province is under the control of Australian forces, who are providing security to a Japanese humanitarian military contingent. SDF Joint Staff Council chairman General Hajime Massaki said the demonstrations may affect the activities of Japanese troops there. "There are signs that the followers of (Shiite cleric) Moqtada al-Sadr are inciting demonstrations,'' Gen Massaki said, acknowledging that Iraqi locals are dissatisfied with electricity shortages and unemployment.
Armed fighters in Iraq have killed nine people including six soldiers in a series of attacks across the country. Armed assailants killed four soldiers at the 
Italy has begun winding down its military presence in southern Iraq with the withdrawal of a battalion of more than 120 soldiers, a military spokesman says. "Between 120 and 130 men from San Marco battalion have returned to Italy and will not be replaced," Lieutenant-Colonel Fabio Mattiassi, spokesman for the Italian contingent in 
Rival militias in arid southwestern Somalia battled Saturday for control over a village with pastures and wells. Twelve combatants died, and hundreds of residents fled, according to those in the area. The 2 1/2-hour clash began early Saturday, when Yontar community fighters attacked the village of Idale in a bid to seize it from the Hubeyr community. Hundreds of people fled their homes in the Bai region before the fighting ended at dawn, elder Salimow Sheikh said. Combatants used assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, Liban Mohamed Nageye, a nurse, said in a radio interview from a neighboring village. He said 12 fighters died.
KARACHI: The police have arrested four suspected militants who were planning a series of terrorist attacks, a senior police official said on Saturday. "The four men were arrested in an early morning raid from the eastern district of the city and they belong to a religious and political party," 
