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Area: WoT Background    Non-WoT    Opinion           
Moussa Arafat is no more
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Arabia
Terrorists Wiped Out in Dammam
"Wiped out" is good...
Saudi security forces stormed a major Al-Qaeda hide-out in the eastern city of Damman yesterday, killing all terrorists inside.
"They're dead, Jim!"
Four security men were also killed in the operation. In a brief statement, the Interior Ministry said security forces had “ended their operations,” which began Sunday in the main city of Eastern Province, losing four men, in addition to 10 wounded. Police are purging the site where “charred remains” were found, the ministry said without giving the number of suspected militants killed. The reference to “charred remains” suggested some of the militants had blown themselves up.
"You'll never take us alive, cop— [KABOOM!]"
An official earlier said five militants, in addition to two policemen, were killed in the confrontation, which started with a shootout in another neighborhood Sunday. Those casualties preceded the storming of the hide-out in the Al-Hamra district of Dammam, which is just 10 kilometers away from the oil center of Dhahran. Witnesses saw ambulances and civil defense vehicles entering the scene of the gunbattle, which was cordoned off. Clashes intensified in the run-up to the raid. At one point, the thud of explosions could be heard across the city at the rate of one per minute, residents said. Saudi special forces stormed the building at 1 p.m. yesterday after intensive gunfire had weakened the militants over the last two days. They also cut electricity and water to the building.
"Mahmoud! I'm thirsty!"
"What happened to our water?"
"I used it to put out the fire!"
Informed sources told Arab News that a militant who tried to run away from the building was gunned down by security men yesterday morning.
"Curly-toed slippers, don't... Ow!... Ooch!... fail... Aaaaiii ieeee!...me now... rosebud!
Militants killed one of their colleagues when he attempted to surrender to security authorities on Monday.
"Don't shoot, coppers! I surr— Ow!... Rosebud!"
Arab News learned that the building, which the terrorists rented for SR40,000 belonged to a security officer working at the Interior Ministry.
Fair took my breath away. How about you? Who'da ever thunkit?
Maj. Gen. Mansour Al-Turki, spokesman of the ministry, described the operation a big success. He said the storming of the building was delayed in order to protect the lives of security officers, especially after learning that the terrorists were carrying a large number of weapons and explosives. “We also wanted to catch the terrorists alive in order to get more information,” he said.
Just kill 'em all and then round up their friends, family, and acquaintances...
Medical sources said more than 50 people, including security officers, were wounded in the operation. They are under treatment at Dammam Central Hospital. Majed Al-Shammary, a police officer from Tabuk, died during the storming of the hide-out. Prince Jalawi ibn Abdul Aziz, deputy governor of the Eastern Province, accompanied by Prince Muhammad ibn Nayef, assistant interior minister for security affairs, yesterday visited the wounded officers in hospital. Speaking to reporters, Prince Jalawi described the anti-terror operation as a major security achievement. He also commended the valor of Saudi security forces and their dedication toward the Kingdom’s security.
I notice no princes seem to have nobly sacrificed themselves in storming the building...
Police searched the building minutely to ensure it was free of explosives. Officers destroyed a number of bombs in the building with controlled explosions. They also seized a large cache of weapons from the hide-out including guns, machine guns, explosives, gas cylinders and computers. The ministry has said that the two militants slain in Dammam Sunday were sought by the authorities, without saying if they were on a published list of most-wanted militants.
Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  interesting story all around. Good catch on the twist that they fled to a building owned by a security ministry employee. Insiders helping out AQ, as we've discussed before? Or perhaps insiders pretending to help them out and then turning on them? Or some more complex game of double agents?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 09/07/2005 9:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes.
Posted by: Claish Glineth6940 || 09/07/2005 10:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee.

Wipeout.
Posted by: Jackal || 09/07/2005 15:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Arab News learned that the building, which the terrorists rented for SR40,000 belonged to a security officer working at the Interior Ministry.Fair took my breath away. How about you? Who'da ever thunkit?

The surprise meter tells all...
Posted by: Ptah || 09/07/2005 19:57 Comments || Top||


Members of Al-Oufi's group share their leaders fate
Sources have confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat that part of the terrorist group besieged in Dammam since Sunday, 4 September are members of the cell led by Al-Qaeda operative Saleh al-Oufi who was killed in a confrontation in Medina along with Mohammed Oweida, a member of Saudi's national karate team. Members of Al-Oufi's cell went into hiding in Medina as the conflict with security forces took place. As they discovered that their leader was under siege, they fled to Dammam, which had only witnessed one arrest in relation to terrorism mid 2004.

Similar to the escape of Al-Awfi's group, in April 2004, three people fled a confrontation in Fayhaa in Riyadh by also following the desert road. They, however, lost their way and were seized by a branch of the Interior Ministry known as 'mujahideen patrol'. Violent clashes took place between the group and the security forces, killing one member of the forces as the group escaped. As well as their similar escape route, however, this terrorist group soon met the same fate as Al-Oufi's and the three escapees were later killed in a clash with security forces. Al-Oufi's group became exposed after the death of its leader who successfully avoided death for two years, demonstrating that he was the mastermind behind the group, especially considering that most of its members are young.
Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
Explosive traces found in UK terrorist's luggage
A BRITISH Muslim terror suspect, allegedly trained in firing mortars, was arrested en route to London through the Channel Tunnel with high-level traces of military explosives in his luggage.
[sniff ... sniff] "Hey Rover, what's that smell in this suitcase?"
"Why Fido, I do believe it's explosives! " [point] [growl]
In the first terrorist trial in Britain since the July 7 bombings, Andrew Rowe — a convert to Islam — faced charges yesterday of preparing or instigating violent attacks. An Old Bailey judge ordered the jury trying Mr Rowe to completely disregard their feelings about the suicide bomb attacks on the capital. Mr Justice Fulford said: “The public has been frightened and concerned about events such as those happening so close to home. But those incidents have nothing whatsoever to do with the guilt or innocence of this defendant.”
"So never mind that forty of your fellow citizens, your closest friends, your families were brutally blown apart by the bomb allegedly planted by this man's associates. Now be fair."
Mark Ellison, for the prosecution, said that Mr Rowe, who suffered shrapnel wounds to his legs during the Bosnian war in 1995, had been arrested at the French entrance to the Channel Tunnel in October 2003. In his luggage police found a tightly rolled pair of socks, with a metre-long piece of cord sewn on to them, which was impregnated with TNT and the military explosives PETN and RDX. Smaller traces of RDX were found on Mr Rowe’s jeans.

Mr Ellison said an Army expert witness would testify that the socks could well have been adapted for use in cleaning the barrel of a mortar or as a muzzle protector. Two months before his arrest, a search of Mr Rowe’s former address in northwest London had uncovered a WH Smith notebook in which he had written 20 pages of detailed instructions for aiming and firing an 82mm mortar of the type manufactured in Russia or China.
You need 20 pages of instructions to fire a mortar?
A further search at the Birmingham home of Shabia Tafla, Mr Rowe’s estranged wife, uncovered a codebook for transmitting sensitive messages to possible terrorist associates. Mr Ellison said that the code made it possible for Mr Rowe to send “seemingly innocent messages about mobile telephone models” which would have completely different meanings to his contacts.

Mr Rowe, a father of four, had been under surveillance for months before his arrest. Officers logged withdrawals from an Abbey bank account in which he had amassed thousands of pounds from invalidity benefit payments. In one transaction he withdrew £6,100 at the bank’s Portobello Road branch in West London. He used “numerous, untraceable mobile phones” but analysis of one handset placed him in London, northern France and Amsterdam.

While in the Netherlands in August 2003 he applied at the British Consulate for a new passport claiming that his old one had been damaged through washing. The old passport showed significant water damage and a number of immigration stamps had been washed off and a visa apparently torn out. Immediately before his detention, Mr Rowe had spent a week in Frankfurt where he had regular sexual encounters meetings at his hotel with an unknown man.

When told he was being arrested under the Terrorism Act, Mr Rowe asked police officers: “What terrorism?” Mr Ellison presented the court with a picture of Mr Rowe as a veteran mujahid who was committed to the militant ideology of al-Qaeda. He said Mr Rowe had begun his conversion to Islam in the mid-1990s and on its completion in 1997 had taken the Muslim name Yusuf Abdullah. He added: “There is evidence that in autumn 1995 the defendant was injured in a mortar attack in Bosnia causing shrapnel injuries to his legs which required hospital treatment in Zenica, north of Sarajevo, for about three weeks as an in-patient.

“The area where he was injured for a time was a war zone. He was treated under the name Handala.”

On his return to England, Mr Rowe received further attention and told his GP that he had been a volunteer driver in Bosnia when he was hurt.

Mr Ellison said Mr Rowe was an ideological follower of Osama bin Laden and subscribed to the belief in jihad, or holy war, to defend Islam against its perceived enemies. He played the jury a videotape glorifying the September 11 hijackers as martyrs which had been seized by police from an address used by Mr Rowe shortly before his arrest.

In his bags, the defendant had also been carrying audio cassettes with militant sermons about the obligation to fight jihad, calling on Allah to protect the Mujahidin from “unjust Christians and aggressive Jews” and demanding that Mecca be liberated “from the sons of the monkeys and the pigs”. Other items recovered during searches of properties connected to Mr Rowe included radio transmission codes, literature about night vision equipment, books on guerrilla warfare and martial arts, and seven mobile phones.

Mr Rowe, who appeared in the dock dressed in a beige suit, denies four charges relating to the possession of the notebook with the mortar instructions, the sock ball with the explosive traces and the making and possession of the substitution code.

The trial continues.

  • The code, allegedly devised by Mr Rowe and found in the Birmingham home of his estranged wife, substituted mobile phone model numbers for words:

  • Examples included “police — Nokia 3410”, “weapon — 3610”, “airport — 3330” and “money — 3210”

  • Other words and phrases on the code list included “Army bases”, “acetone”, “explosives, factory made” and “target”

  • Another code substituted county names for European countries: Suffolk was Albania, Essex became Poland and Kent Bosnia
  • Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:22 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Did they wear paper hats and conspire in their treehouse?
    Posted by: Shipman || 09/07/2005 16:24 Comments || Top||


    UK issues list of 470 unwanted Pakistanis
    "Ma! I made the list of 470 least wanted!"
    "Oh, Chowdry! I'm so proud of you!"
    British High Commission in Pakistan on Tuesday provided the government with a list of 470 Pakistanis British authorities say have secured British passports on false declarations. The list provided to immigration officials shows that Pakistanis who had used wrong information to acquire British passports have been declared unwanted. Immigration officials at international airports have been asked to arrest the people on the list if they try to enter or leave Pakistan.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Make that 47, 000 or 470,000
    Posted by: Glomoth Elmeling4356 || 09/07/2005 8:07 Comments || Top||

    #2  It would be easier and much faster to list the Paki's anyone really wants in their country.
    Posted by: MunkarKat || 09/07/2005 12:33 Comments || Top||


    Caribbean-Latin America
    Kill priests, FARC leader says
    The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia's (FARC) top military chief, Jorge Briceno, has called for the killing of clergy.

    According to Caracol News, "the death of Father Jesus Adrian Sanchez, which occurred Aug. 18 in (the southern province of) Tolima and which according to authorities can be attributed to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, is part of this group's offensive against the clergy."

    The order to murder clergy apparently came Briceno. Colombian military intelligence officials report that the rationale for targeting clerics "was explained in a speech by Briceno ... that was taped by a fighter who deserted the FARC's ranks." Briceno purportedly said, "All of these clerics are agents of the enemy or propagators of a doctrine that numbs people's minds and makes them enemies of the guerrillas," before instructing his men to "kill all the clerics, without saying it was us."

    Caracol news played a tape featuring a voice that sounded like Briceno. The secretary-general of Colombia's Catholic Bishops Conference, Fabian Marulanda, said Briceno's threat "should be analyzed because it's not understood why that group would go after those who are trying to reach them to discuss peace."

    Army commander Gen. Reynaldo Castellanos said the threat made sense since FARC guerrillas have "no respect" for the church. During a recent meeting military top officers told bishops that they had information that the FARC had declared clergy in Colombia to be "a military target."
    Real or propaganda? Any guesses?
    Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
    Caucasus Corpse Count
    Three traffic police officers were killed after unidentified attackers opened fire on them in Russia’s southern republic of Dagestan that borders Chechnya, RIA Novosti reported. The incident occurred on the Kavkaz federal highway near the village of Inchkhe, some 70 km from the republic’s capital, Makhachkala. The attackers managed to escape from the scene of the shooting. A special operation named Perekhvat (Interception) has been launched in the republic to detain the gunmen.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:32 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Europe
    Turin imam expelled as security threat
    A well-known Muslim cleric accused by government officials of sympathising with Islamic militants was expelled from Italy on Tuesday after Rome invoked special powers to protect national security.

    Moroccan Bouriqi Bouchta was grabbed in a pre-dawn raid on his apartment and flown to Morocco at 10:30am (local time). The government said Bouchta was considered to be a "serious disturbance to public order and a danger to national security".

    Bouchta's family remained in Italy and said they had not been notified as to his whereabouts.

    "They came in at three or four in the morning and took him away. Some were in plain clothes, others in uniform," said Bouchta's teenage son, who asked not to be named. "He didn't do anything."

    Bouchta, a longtime resident of Italy, was the owner of a butcher shop in Turin and formerly headed an Islamic cultural centre. He opposed the Iraq war and reportedly led a small group of activists to Baghdad in January 2003. He has denied accusations that he supported Osama bin Laden.

    Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli called Bouchta a "preacher of terror" and said his Northern League party had been calling for Bouchta's expulsion since 2003.

    "One must ask oneself what damage he could have caused, from the beginning of 2003 to today," Calderoli was quoted as saying by ANSA news agency.

    An Italian intelligence document, obtained by Reuters, accused Bouchta of being a member of an underground armed Moroccan group "committed to fighting against the Kingdom of Morocco".

    "Some believe Bouchta might have had a role in the May 2003 bombing in Casablanca," it said, without giving details.

    Forty-five people were killed when suicide bombers set off at least five blasts in Casablanca in May, 2003.

    The document added that Bouchta was also seen as "ideologically close" to Egytian Sunni radicals.

    The Interior Ministry said it was reviewing similar cases which could also result in expulsion, without offering details.

    "The ministerial offices are evaluating the positions of other foreign citizens for the eventual adoption of similar measures," it said.

    Italy made it easier to expel terrorism suspects under new measures imposed after the July bombings in London. Italy, like Britain, is a US ally with troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    But the Interior Ministry, contradicting earlier versions from authorities, said that no new powers were needed to carry out the expulsion of Bouchta.

    Bouchta was expelled under the same provisions used in 2003 to expel Mamour Fall, the imam of the small northern Italian town of Carmagnola, the ministry said.

    Fall was branded a national security threat after preaching his support for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Bouchta, at the time, was widely quoted in Italian media opposing Fall's expulsion.

    Speaking with Reuters in Dakar last month, Fall said expelling Islamist clerics deemed to be glorifying terrorism only serves to radicalise them further.

    "The policy of expulsion is like a boomerang. It doesn't work," the cleric said. "(Western governments) are doing our work for us because those who are expelled are angry. It works in our favour."
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Moroccan Bouriqi Bouchta was grabbed in a pre-dawn raid on his apartment and flown to Morocco at 10:30am (local time). The government said Bouchta was considered to be a "serious disturbance to public order and a danger to national security".

    He was made an offer he couldn't refuse..a free one way ticket on the Roman Ghost ship.

    Posted by: abu Don Vito || 09/07/2005 1:56 Comments || Top||

    #2  I find the idea of a Turing Imam skary as hell.
    Posted by: Claish Glineth6940 || 09/07/2005 10:15 Comments || Top||


    Mullah Krekar threatens Norway
    Norway's most controversial refugee has lodged a threat against the country that has hosted him and his family for the past 14 years.
    "Ya, sure! Yøu're velcøme!"
    Mullah Krekar calls his possible deportation "an offense" that shouldn't go unpunished.
    "Youse can't do dat to me! My minions'll bust youse up!"
    Krekar fled Iraq in the early 1990s and landed in Norway in 1991. He later, however, started travelling back to northern Iraq, where he played a key role in building up the guerrilla group known as Ansar al-Islam.
    Now, if I'da been a Norwegian with some semblence of power, I'd have come to the conclusion that he wasn't your run of the mill refugee...
    Now Krekar claims he faces torture and a death sentence if the Norwegian authorities send him back to Iraq.
    That could have something to do with the trips he made when he was a refugee, rather than the circumstances that made him a refugee in the first place.
    He told Al-Jazeera, therefore, that "everyone must know" that a deportation to Iraq "is an offense that shouldn't be made without punishment."
    Yep. I'd call that a threat.
    Krekar wasn't specific, however, about what kind of punishment he thinks Norway should receive if a court upholds Solberg's deportation order.
    Is there a requirement that he has to? "I'll punish you" would seem to cover it, wouldn't it?
    "I have faith in Allah," Krekar told Al-Jazeera in the text of the interview dated August 31. "I defend my rights in their court just like Western people defend their rights. I am patient like they are patient. But if my patience runs out, I will react like Orientals do." Asked how "Orientals" react, Krekar said: "I don't want to comment on that."
    Lately Orientals have been chopping people's heads off and blowing stuff up...
    In the interview, Krekar also seemed to attack Solberg personally. "How can a politician play with my life to satisfy her adolescent political visions," he asked.
    If he adolescent political visions include a Norway without any Krekars, I'd commend her.
    Krekar also spoke positively about suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and developments in the Muslim world. "The whole world must see that Jihad... is increasing in its scope with Allah's pardon," he said. "This trend represents solidarity in the Muslim community."
    It's also making tolerant places like Norway impatient with strutting Islamist blowhards...
    He added that he thinks "Jihadists" won't ease up "until they see Islam's house equipped with Saladins sable, Mohammed's conquering turban and Osama bin Laden's vision." He thus combined three important symbols used by Islamic extremists.
    He fantasizes about having a jewelled turban and lots of dancing girls to abuse, too...
    Krekar's Norwegian defense attorney Brynjar Meling downplayed the significance of Krekar's claims in the Al-Jazeera interview, saying they didn't amount to threats and contained nothing new.
    Which of the threats didn't amount to threats, Counsellor?
    He declined further comment, though, until he had conferred with his client.
    "Mullah! Are yøu nuts? I tøld yøu tø keep yøur lip buttøned!""
    Solberg, meanwhile, responded that "no one can threaten their way into obtaining permanent residence in Norway." She maintains that a new constitution and government in Iraq, with guarantees that Krekar won't be executed, are expected to clear the way for Krekar's expulsion.
    Fine. Don't execute him. Just jug him for 7,000 years.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Lutefisk anyone? Allah, ya surr
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 0:15 Comments || Top||

    #2  Fjordman has been covering this in his excellent blog.
    Posted by: phil_b || 09/07/2005 2:15 Comments || Top||

    #3  Jail him, and make him live on pork and wine.
    Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler || 09/07/2005 3:01 Comments || Top||

    #4  Sounds like he really wants folks to go "oriental" preemptively on him (his tactful term of art not mine). Gimme the holy dole, sable and turban dammit.
    Posted by: MunkarKat || 09/07/2005 7:52 Comments || Top||

    #5  Here I come, to save the daaaaayy!
    Posted by: Andy Kaufman || 09/07/2005 9:21 Comments || Top||

    #6  They got nuthouses in Norway? If they don't, they might want to get some...
    Posted by: tu3031 || 09/07/2005 9:31 Comments || Top||

    #7  sounds like Norway could use those gunmen from palistine that killed arafat for a day or 2
    Posted by: Uninetle Hupating2229 || 09/07/2005 9:34 Comments || Top||

    #8  "I defend my rights in their court just like Western people defend their rights. I am patient like they are patient. But if my patience runs out, I will react like Orientals do." Asked how "Orientals" react, Krekar said: "I don't want to comment on that."

    Basically, I'll play by your rules as long as things go my way.
    Posted by: BH || 09/07/2005 10:06 Comments || Top||

    #9  Solberg, meanwhile, responded that "no one can threaten their way into obtaining permanent residence in Norway."

    Ha! Love those Norskies.
    Posted by: ex-lib || 09/07/2005 10:21 Comments || Top||

    #10  Lutefisk
    anyone?


    plz, plz, plz don't ever mention that word again.
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 11:41 Comments || Top||

    #11  I suggest a law stating that anyone wanting to stay in Norway would have to prove its norvegianness through:

    a) an exam proving the appliant has a thourough knowledge of Norvegian culture and traditions

    aaaaand

    b) being able to eat a whole plate of lutefisk (consumption of alcoholic beverages NOT allowing, prior or during the test) without nauseas.

    Now just imagine people undergoing intensive training for the test...
    Posted by: JFM || 09/07/2005 12:03 Comments || Top||

    #12  ALL YOUR FJORDS ARE BELONG TO ME!
    Posted by: mojo || 09/07/2005 13:59 Comments || Top||

    #13  don't dick with this asshole. Take him, his family and two or three circles of Islamoacquantainces and ship their asses out to....Libya? Q-man has some fairly empty warm cells
    Posted by: Frank G || 09/07/2005 14:08 Comments || Top||

    #14  OK, did Rasputin base his look on mullahs, or did mullahs base theirs on him?

    "I defend my rights in their court just like Western people defend their rights. I am patient like they are patient. But if my patience runs out, I will react like Orientals do."

    Note that he's not even limiting his "Oriental reaction" to his losing the case. Just to him losing his patience.

    Posted by: Robert Crawford || 09/07/2005 14:35 Comments || Top||

    #15  Dont know if this is how to link, but I must acknowlege the source

    http://home.no.net/rhnorton/lobotomy.htm

    Love the ice-pick bit, and there's another bit about doing it without the patient's say-so.

    Excerpts, for those in a hurry:
    "...One aspect of lobotomy in Norway that was unique was that the operations were usually performed in mental hospitals rather than in the neurosurgical wards of general hospitals, as in Sweden and Denmark...."

    "...Norway was also alone in performing transorbital lobotomies. Briefly, this method consisted of forcing a solid, stainless-steel ice-pick through the upper eye-socket with a twisting movement. This produced an incision in the brain without the surgeon himself being able to see what he was doing. According to a report from one of the two hospitals where this method was used, it saved both time and money".
    Posted by: rhodesiafever || 09/07/2005 16:26 Comments || Top||

    #16  Ooops, forgot the BEST bit!

    "Lobotomy is an extensive operation into the human brain resulting in irreversible damage...."

    Then deport. Today.
    Posted by: rhodesiafever || 09/07/2005 16:30 Comments || Top||

    #17  "Yes, he's much calmer since we stirred his brains with an ice pick..."
    Posted by: mojo || 09/07/2005 16:36 Comments || Top||

    #18  "...Norway was also alone in performing transorbital lobotomies. Briefly, this method consisted of forcing a solid, stainless-steel ice-pick through the upper eye-socket with a twisting movement. This produced an incision in the brain without the surgeon himself being able to see what he was doing. According to a report from one of the two hospitals where this method was used, it saved both time and money".
    Posted by: rhodesiafever 2005-09-07 16:26




    the technique you referenced was used and abused here in the US also...shorthand slang >>>pithing.

    Dont know if this is how to link, but I must acknowlege the source


    Whatever you're calling the link


    Whatever you're calling the link

    lots of html primers..just hit google, there are geeks experts aplenty here at Rantberg...btw I arenot one.

    /test
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 23:22 Comments || Top||

    #19  ok that didn't work >>:]...try using the buttons below the comment box where you type.

    / test
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 23:27 Comments || Top||


    Great White North
    Harkat headed for Canadian supreme court
    Mohamed Harkat, an Ottawa man jailed for nearly three years on suspicion of terrorist ties, is headed for the Supreme Court of Canada in an effort to stave off deportation. Lawyer Paul Copeland said Tuesday the high court will be his next and final stop after the Federal Court of Appeal took only 90 minutes to reject a constitutional challenge by his client.

    At issue is a security certificate filed by the government against Mr. Harkat alleging he has links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and should be sent back to his native Algeria. Under the controversial legal process that governs such certificates, defence lawyers have not been allowed to see the detailed intelligence gathered by Ottawa to support its claims. Nor have they been able to cross-examine officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or others who provided information. Instead, a judge of the trial division of Federal Court reviewed the evidence in private and concluded earlier this year that there were credible grounds to consider Mr. Harkat a threat to national security. “This process does not meet the test of fundamental justice,” Mr. Copeland argued Tuesday to the appeal court. “My view is that fundamental justice includes somebody testing the evidence.”
    What, you think this is America?
    At the very least, he said, federal law should allow for appointment of a so-called amicus curiae, a security-cleared lawyer who could participate in closed-door hearings and challenge the evidence put forward by the government. Mr. Copeland frankly admitted, however, that he was fighting a battle he was bound to lose — at least at this level. The appeal panel, headed by Chief Justice John Richard, was the same one that had previously turned down a similar challenge by Adil Charkaoui, a Montreal resident fighting deportation to Morocco. “I doubt that I am going to be successful in persuading you to change your ruling,” Mr. Copeland told the judges. “I am rather optimistic that the Supreme Court of Canada will disagree with you. . . . My preference would be, if you are going to dismiss this appeal, that you do it fast.” The three judges obliged by retiring briefly and returning with a terse decision rejecting Mr. Harkat's case, thus clearing the way for the next step.
    "Remand. Next!"
    The Supreme Court has already agreed to review Mr. Charkaoui's claims. Copeland said he will file for leave to join that challenge, which is unlikely to be heard until some time next year. In the meantime, he is trying to get a date in Federal Court for a bail application to try to free Mr. Harkat from the detention he has endured since his arrest in December 2002. Mr. Harkat's wife Sophie, who has been leading a public campaign to clear his name, has been trying to raise $50,000 to cover a potential cash bond. “We're doing fairly well,” she said Tuesday. “We still have a long way to go, but people are very supportive.”
    Is that $50,000 Canadian?
    Among the high-profile backers who have joined Mr. Harkat's cause is Sasha Trudeau, the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau. The younger Trudeau is making a documentary film about the case and was in court Tuesday to lend moral support to Mr. Harkat's family and friends.

    The government contends Mr. Harkat was identified by Abu Zubayda, an al-Qaeda lieutenant, as having run a safe house in Pakistan in the 1990s for Muslim fighters headed for Chechnya. Justice Eleanor Dawson of the Federal Court trial division refused in March to give that claim any judicial weight because she couldn't determine whether the information was obtained by torture from Zubayda, who had been captured and interrogated by U.S. forces. Justice Dawson ruled, however, that there was other credible evidence that Mr. Harkat had lied to CSIS about some of his contacts and had undergone terrorist training in Afghanistan — something he adamantly denies.

    Security certificates have existed in Canadian law for years but they have become a red flag to immigrant and civil liberties groups since the 9-11 attacks in the United States. In addition to Mr. Harkat and Mr. Charkaoui, three other Muslim men have been targeted under the regime. They are Syrian-born Hassan Almrei, Algerian-born Mahmoud Jaballah and Egyptian-born Mohammad Mahjoub. All deny any terrorist links and are fighting removal from Canada.
    "Lies! All lies! And don't send us home!"
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:33 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Home Front: WoT
    Boca al-Qaeda doc denied bail
    A federal judge in New York denied bail Tuesday for a Boca Raton doctor charged with conspiring to support al Qaeda. Dr. Rafiq Sabir, 51, will continue to await trial in a maximum-security prison, his attorney, Ed Wilford, said. ''I indicated to the court that we had $1.5 million ready to be secured'' for bail, Wilford said in a telephone interview after the hearing. But U.S. District Court Judge Loretta Preska denied the motion, ruling that Sabir would pose a flight risk if granted bail. Wilford said he will appeal the decision.
    "He'd never leave, yer honor, that's a lot of money to him but not to his backers "
    A federal grand jury handed up a one-count indictment June 27 against Sabir and Tarik Shah, an alleged co-conspirator who will be tried with Sabir. Shah, 42, also is being detained without bail. The indictment supported the government's allegation that the men pledged an oath of loyalty to Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network on May 20. An undercover FBI agent posed as an al Qaeda recruiter and secretly recorded Sabir and Shah reciting an alleged oath of allegiance on May 20.
    You'd think that would do it.
    Prosecutors claim that Shah, a martial-arts instructor, and Sabir, a medical doctor, promised to use their skills to help train and treat jihadists. Federal agents arrested Sabir at his Boca Raton home on May 28, a few days before he was scheduled to fly to Saudi Arabia. Both men pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiring to support a terrorist organization. If convicted, they would face 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Attorneys for Sabir and Shah have said their clients, both U.S. citizens who are Muslim, committed no crime. ''In this case, I think we have a clear-cut violation of Dr. Sabir's First Amendment right to freedom of speech,'' said Wilford, who has previously represented defendants facing terrorism charges.
    "He's allowed to rave like that!"
    Sabir's previous attorney, Lighthouse Point lawyer Khurrum Wahid, said Tuesday that a full caseload forced him to hand over the Sabir case to Wilford. At Tuesday's hearing, prosecutors said a third defendant would likely be added to the case against Sabir and Shah, but those two men will not face additional charges. The man, Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Baltimore, was arrested Aug. 4 and charged with conspiring to support a terrorist organization. The government claims Brent and Shah are associates and that Brent went to Pakistan and trained to become a jihadist fighter. Sabir and Shah are scheduled to be back in court Oct. 17 for a status conference.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:15 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  "Wilford said he will appeal the decision."

    "I'm going to take this all the way to a Clinton or Carter appointee!"
    Posted by: PBMcL || 09/07/2005 1:09 Comments || Top||


    Syria-Lebanon-Iran
    Iran Tries to Bribe U.S. with Oil
    Iran will send the United States 20 million barrels of crude oil to help it overcome the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, if Washington waives trade sanctions, a senior Iranian oil official said.

    In a gesture that mirrors American aid offers after a devastating 2003 earthquake in Iran, Tehran's envoy to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced his government would ship up to 20 million barrels of oil to the U.S., state radio reported late Tuesday.

    "If U.S. sanctions are lifted, Iran is prepared to send that quantity of oil to America," the radio quoted Hossein Kazempour as saying. U.S. officials couldn't immediately be reached for comment, but there were no signs that the U.S. policy toward Iran was about to change. Last week the Iranian Foreign Ministry offered to send relief supplies to the American Red Cross; Iranian newspapers reported that no response had been received.

    Iran's offers reciprocates the goodwill that the United States displayed after an earthquake flattened the southeastern Iranian city of Bam in 2003, killing more than 26,000 people. The United States flew in emergency supplies, which were gratefully unloaded at an Iranian airport.

    The Bam gesture did not, however, lead to an improvement in relations.

    The United States and Iran have had no diplomatic relations since militants stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held its occupants hostage in 1979. Washington then imposed a range of sanctions on Iran.

    The United States accuses Iran of sponsoring terrorism and secretly trying to build nuclear bombs - charges that Iran denies.

    Hurricane Katrina has severely disrupted U.S. oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and reduced the country's refining capacity by more than 10 percent.

    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 09:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  I'd say this should be payback for us helping them out with the 2003 earthquake, but then again I'm looking for gratitude where there isn't any.
    Posted by: Raj || 09/07/2005 9:30 Comments || Top||

    #2  They can pound that 20 million barrels up their ass.
    This isn't an actual offer, just a gesture for the rest of the worlds' consumption.

    Posted by: JerseyMike || 09/07/2005 9:40 Comments || Top||

    #3  Sorry Iran, our rigs just have minor damage, our refineries are back up and running and oil prices will drop $20 a barrel soon. You can take that oil and shove it. Later, we still may kick your ass and take your gas.
    Kisses!
    Posted by: mmurray821 || 09/07/2005 9:46 Comments || Top||

    #4  Take it, then don't do what we said. A little like the nuclear we do we don't they are playing.
    Posted by: plainslow || 09/07/2005 10:02 Comments || Top||

    #5  Without the conditions, $1.2B is a pretty big contribution. With the conditions, $1.2B is a pretty low price for dropping sanctions. Maybe if they made it 200m barrels, or $12B.
    Posted by: Zhang Fei || 09/07/2005 10:30 Comments || Top||

    #6  Take the oil and keep the sanctions. It's the way of the Souk.
    Posted by: Claish Glineth6940 || 09/07/2005 10:34 Comments || Top||

    #7  "Thanks for the oil. We dropped the sanctions on Iraq. What? Iran? Like hell we'll drop the sanctions on Iran."
    Posted by: Robert Crawford || 09/07/2005 10:55 Comments || Top||

    #8  Iran's offers reciprocates the goodwill that the United States displayed after an earthquake flattened the southeastern Iranian city of Bam in 2003

    Did we place condition on what we sent in aid back then? Then its is not the same.
    Posted by: CrazyFool || 09/07/2005 11:04 Comments || Top||

    #9  A poor trade is not "goodwill". We need to drop something, but it's not sanctions.
    Posted by: Darrell || 09/07/2005 11:31 Comments || Top||

    #10  Our rigs just have minor damage, our refineries are back up and running and oil prices will drop $20 a barrel soon.

    If you're a betting person that's not the way to bet right now. Essentially the world has almost no spare crude production capacity right now and oil companies, seemingly having learned their lessons from past price spikes, are in no hurry to bring lots of new capacity online. The latest DOE Short Term Energy Outlook (hot off the presses less than an hour ago) is still calling for 2006 crude prices to average almost $5/bbl more than '05 prices. Barring a worldwide economic meltdown or serious changes in the behaior of energy users oil prices aren't going to dip for any significan length of time in the next year or two.
    Posted by: AzCat || 09/07/2005 12:02 Comments || Top||

    #11  Our rigs just have minor damage, our refineries are back up and running and oil prices will drop $20 a barrel soon.

    Dude - you are WAAAAAY off there. We'll never see those prices again so get used to it.
    Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 09/07/2005 13:56 Comments || Top||

    #12  He said prices will drop [by] $20/barrel, not that they will drop to $20/barrel.
    Posted by: Jackal || 09/07/2005 15:20 Comments || Top||

    #13  Iran will send the United States 20 million barrels of crude oil to help it overcome the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, if Washington waives trade sanctions, a senior Iranian oil official said.

    A Quid Pro Quo is not a contribution, Mo-Fo. Charity with strings attached is not charity. It may work on the EU-3 but it don't work for me.

    By the way, how did the rebuilding of Bam work out? And did you revise the building codes and fix up the Mad Mullah Kickback Program problems with code enforcement that caused your little inconvenience disaster?
    Posted by: Al-Aska Paul || 09/07/2005 16:16 Comments || Top||

    #14  Why, do it.
    Send the oil.
    Trade sanctions waived
    For a day
    Posted by: True German Ally || 09/07/2005 16:35 Comments || Top||

    #15  Absolutely, TGA. The first Friday of Ramadan, as a matter of fact...
    Posted by: Seafarious || 09/07/2005 16:39 Comments || Top||

    #16  The days of Chea[p Oil is over, gone, adjust to it, it is a good thing as well.

    20 million barrels is a drop in the bucket BTW. This is for International consumption.
    Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 09/07/2005 17:22 Comments || Top||

    #17  No, I think this hallow gesture is more for internal consumption. It placates the pro-western Iranians who are nationalistic enough to be pro-nuclear power. This represents many.
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 18:14 Comments || Top||


    Iraq-Jordan
    US Contractor Sprung in Iraq
    American contractor Roy Hallums, who was taken hostage last November in Iraq, has been released, his ex-wife said Wednesday.

    "I can confirm he's been released," Susan Hallums, 53, told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview from her home in Corona. "Considering what he's been through, I understand he's in good condition."

    She didn't give any details, but she told CNN she had talked to him. "It was just very, very early this morning and he called and said that he was free and I said, `That's just — our prayers were answered,'" she said.

    "It was just so wonderful to hear his voice and to hear my kids calling me and so happy ...," she said. "He just said he was optimistic that he would be OK, and I said, can he walk, and he said, `I walked a little bit.'" A family Web site was topped with a headline: Roy IS FREE!!!!!! 9/7/05.

    Hallums, 57, was working for the Saudi Arabian Trading and Construction Co., supplying food to the Iraqi army, when he was kidnapped Nov. 1.

    He was seized along with two other foreigners after a gunbattle in the upscale Mansour neighborhood. An Iraqi guard and one attacker were killed. A Filipino, a Nepalese and three Iraqis also were abducted but later freed.

    In a January video released by his kidnappers, Hallums had a shaggy beard and a gun pointed at his head. The family sent fliers to Iraq that, in English and Arabic, offer a $40,000 reward for information leading to his safe release. No word if it was paid.
    Mrs. Hallums and her husband of 30 years divorced a couple of years ago but remained good friends, she said. They have two daughters.
    Posted by: Bobby || 09/07/2005 12:53 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Should've went for French or Italians - I hear their governments pay well for hostages.
    Posted by: Raj || 09/07/2005 13:48 Comments || Top||

    #2  UPDATE: He was RESCUED by US Forces--

    The U.S. military, acting on a tip, raided a farmhouse Wednesday and rescued an American held hostage for 10 months. Roy Hallums, 57, was "in good condition and is receiving medical care," a military statement said after U.S. forces freed him from an isolated farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad. The statement said the military had received a tip from an Iraqi prisoner.
    Posted by: Seafarious || 09/07/2005 15:07 Comments || Top||

    #3  Aww, screw 'im.
    Posted by: Kos || 09/07/2005 15:11 Comments || Top||

    #4  I'm glad for this. I always figure "hostages" are dead; it's so good when I get a surprise.

    Welcome home, Mr. Hallums, and thanks for your courage.
    Posted by: Jackal || 09/07/2005 15:13 Comments || Top||

    #5  From Fox News:
    Coalition forces acting on a tip from an Iraqi detainee Wednesday rescued American hostage Roy Hallums (search) from an isolated farm house south of Baghdad, a military statement said. An Iraqi also was rescued.

    The 57-year-old contractor, formerly of Newport Beach, Calif., had been held since being kidnapped at gunpoint from his office in Baghdad's Mansour district (search) on Nov. 1. "Hallums is in good condition and is receiving medical care," the military said.

    He was held in a farmhouse 15 miles south of Baghdad (search), the statement said, adding that rescuers were tipped to his whereabouts by an unidentified Iraqi detainee.


    Also:
    In the southern city of Basra, meanwhile, a roadside bomb killed four American security guards traveling in a convoy Wednesday, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said.
    Posted by: ed || 09/07/2005 16:17 Comments || Top||

    #6  US Contractor Sprung in Iraq

    what are the odds someone would be alive after 10 months?
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 22:04 Comments || Top||


    Afghanistan/South Asia
    Tales from the Crossfire Gazette
    Outlaw killed in shootout with police
    Sept 6: A suspected outlaw leader was killed in a shootout between police and his cohorts at Ramchandrapur in Santhia Upazila early today (Tuesday). The deceased was identified as Zia, 25, a local leader of Purba Banglar Communist Party (ML-Lal Pataka). He was wanted in seven cases, including five of murders, police said.
    Busy little commie, wasn't he?
    Police arrested Zia from Alokdia village in Santhia upazila on Monday evening.
    "Stickum' up, Zia! Youse coming quietly or do we have to git rough?"
    According to Zia’s statement,
    taken while under the influence of a pair of vicegrips
    police took him to a graveyard
    Nice touch
    to arrest his accomplices and recovery of arms at 3am today (Tuesday).
    Our scene now shifts to the dark, almost deserted graveyard...
    As soon as police along with Zia reached near the graveyard, armed cohorts of Zia opened fire,
    "They've got da boss! Open fire wildly!"
    forcing police to fire back.
    Bang bang bangbangitybang!

    "Zia was caught in the crossfire and died on the spot," says the police account of the staged execution encounter adding that a pipe gun and three cartridges were recovered from the scene.
    "Had to use a pipe gun, our shuuter guns are booked solid"
    Didn't even have the decency to haul Zia to the Chittagong University Medical Center Level I trauma unit so that he could be declared dead by an expert. Sniff.
    Four policemen, including SIs saiful Islam and Abdul Gafur, havilder Abdul Ali and constable Shamsuzzaman were also injured in the encounter.
    Posted by: Steve || 09/07/2005 10:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  According to Zia’s statement, police took him to a graveyard to arrest his accomplices and recovery of arms at 3am today (Tuesday).As soon as police along with Zia reached near the graveyard, armed cohorts of Zia opened fire,
    "Zia was caught in the crossfire and died on the spot,".


    Not to be nitpicky, but did he give this statement before or after he was dead?
    Posted by: tu3031 || 09/07/2005 11:48 Comments || Top||

    #2  Does it matter?
    Posted by: Seafarious || 09/07/2005 12:08 Comments || Top||

    #3  Different use of prepositions in that dialect of English. We in the West would have phrased it in accordance with.
    Posted by: trailing wife || 09/07/2005 13:42 Comments || Top||

    #4  Geez, a full Havildar? What, the lower echelons of the RAB can't handle a simple snatch-and-crossfire job these days?
    Posted by: mojo || 09/07/2005 13:56 Comments || Top||

    #5  Different use of prepositions...

    Prepositions? We don' need no steenkin' propositions!
    Posted by: SteveS || 09/07/2005 16:21 Comments || Top||

    #6  Pipe gun? The shutter gun factory is still on vacation? Nice vacation.
    Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 09/07/2005 16:25 Comments || Top||

    #7  Abu is this thing on?
    "No one expects the RAB!"
    Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 09/07/2005 16:32 Comments || Top||


    Iraq-Jordan
    Capture near the Syrian border ties Zark to 7/7
    A terrorist captured near the Syrian border last month had a computer "thumb drive" that contained planning information about the July 7 suicide bombings in London, according to a U.S. military officer.

    Col. Robert Brown, commander of the 1st Brigade 25th Infantry Division in Mosul, said that the man was captured north of Qaim in western Iraq and that authorities had connected him to the al Qaeda terrorist network.

    It is the first evidence of a link between the London bombs and terrorists in Iraq, but fits with other evidence of a growing presence in Iraq by al Qaeda, which has taken responsibility for the British attacks.

    Col. Brown declined to discuss the specific nature of the information on the thumb drive -- a miniature data storage device that plugs into a computer's USB port -- but said it indicated al Qaeda involvement in the attacks on London's bus and subway system.

    "I don't think anyone's done a good enough job explaining" the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, he said.

    Bashar al-Naher, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, told The Washington Times that he had not heard about the Mosul discovery but said, "This does not surprise me. We are noting a pattern of involvement by [Iraqi hard-liners] in terrorist plots abroad."

    The U.S. Central Command estimates that about 100 to 150 "foreign fighters" enter Iraq each month. These men are responsible for the great majority of suicide bombs, the most devastating weapon the insurgents and terrorists have in their arsenal.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 01:35 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  I would guess that this news will be quickly retracted.
    Posted by: Rory B. Bellows || 09/07/2005 1:51 Comments || Top||

    #2  WHY WOULD IT BE RETRACTED?????
    Posted by: ARMYGUY || 09/07/2005 8:14 Comments || Top||

    #3  I believe he means by the MSM. It doesn't fit their meme that the London boomers were just poor innocent boys outraged by George Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq.
    Posted by: Steve || 09/07/2005 8:30 Comments || Top||

    #4  Story probably won't be retracted as it is from the Washington Times...not WaPo, NYT-National Inquirer, LAT, or The Globe (er, I mean The Boston Globe).
    Posted by: anymouse || 09/07/2005 10:01 Comments || Top||

    #5  Please don't shout, ArmyGuy. My eyes are feeling a bit sensitive today. Thanks!
    Posted by: trailing wife || 09/07/2005 10:48 Comments || Top||

    #6  Why do they keep evidence in the first place?
    Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/07/2005 12:29 Comments || Top||

    #7  Because they don't have centralized info store. The guy was probably moving it between cadres.
    Posted by: lotp || 09/07/2005 14:30 Comments || Top||

    #8  SandalNet.
    Posted by: Jackal || 09/07/2005 15:14 Comments || Top||

    #9  Because the Bush admin. and the Blair governement are not eager to link Saddam Hussein with al Qaeda in any way. This includes 9/11 and the 7/7 bombings. (And for that matter the 3/11 bombings.) There is so much evidence to support such a case that official suppression is the only plausible explanation.

    Saddam was hip deep in 9/11 and alot of other al Qaeda terrorist attacks. That's why we are in Iraq. But our political leadership prefers to remain ambiguous. Governemnts act really funny when weapons of mass destruction are involved in a given equation.
    Posted by: Rory B. Bellows || 09/07/2005 16:53 Comments || Top||

    #10  I understand moving new info around by why would you have old info? What is the value? I would think they can do post-mordem on the operation from the news.
    Posted by: rjschwarz || 09/07/2005 18:54 Comments || Top||


    An Najaf turned over to Iraqi military
    U.S. jets struck targets Tuesday near the Syrian border where al-Qaeda has expanded its presence, and civilians fled fighting in the northern city of Tal Afar, complaining they were running short of food and water.

    To the south, U.S. troops handed the Iraqi army control of a Shiite city that saw bitter fighting last year — a sign of the uneven pattern of insecurity in this fragmented country.

    The U.S. command also said four more Americans had been killed in action.

    The airstrikes took place near Karabilah, about 185 miles west of Baghdad and one of a cluster of towns near the Syrian border used by foreign fighters to slip into Iraq.

    In the first attack, Marine F/A-18 jets dropped bombs shortly after midnight on two bridges across the Euphrates River that the U.S. command said insurgents used to move fighters and arms toward Baghdad and other cities.

    Hours later, a Marine jet destroyed a building used by insurgents to fire on U.S. and Iraqi troops, a U.S. statement said. One Iraqi soldier was wounded when Marines and Iraqi soldiers stormed the building, killing two foreigners and arresting three, it said.

    Late Tuesday, Iraqi civilians reported a suicide bomber struck a checkpoint in Haditha, 60 miles east of Karabilah. There were no reports of casualties.

    The airstrikes occurred about six miles east of the border city of Qaim, major parts of which have fallen under control of al-Qaeda-linked foreign fighters.

    Iraqi officials and residents say al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, took over parts of Qaim after residents fled fighting between tribes supporting and opposing the insurgents.

    The U.S. military maintains a presence in the area, but U.S. officers have complained privately that they don't have enough American and Iraqi troops to secure Qaim.

    Elsewhere, thousands of civilians fled Tal Afar, a predominantly ethnic Turkomen city 260 miles northwest of Baghdad where U.S. and Iraqi soldiers are trying to wrest control from insurgents.

    Plumes of smoke rose from the city, which sits along a major trade and smuggling route to Syria. Ambulances were seen carrying at least 10 wounded civilians toward nearby Mosul.

    Some of those who fled sought refuge in the village of Taha, where local officials scrambled to provide for about 700 families. Some of the refugees disputed claims by Iraqi officials that foreign fighters had joined local insurgents in the fighting inside Tal Afar.

    "We did not see any strangers like Saudis, Syrians or others," said Hazem Mohammed Ali, deputy chairman of a Turkomen association in Tal Afar. "The people are suffering from lack of food stuff, drinkable water and blankets, because it is getting cold during the night here."

    One U.S. soldier was killed Monday in Tal Afar, the military reported. Two others died Tuesday in a roadside bombing in Baghdad, and another was killed the day before near Ramadi west of Baghdad.

    Despite the fighting, security is better in Shiite Muslim areas of central and southern Iraq, including the holy city of Najaf, scene of heavy combat last year between American soldiers and Shiite Muslim extremists.

    But the Shiite clerical hierarchy mediated a truce, and the area was deemed peaceful enough for U.S. forces to hand over one of their bases in the city to Iraq's army. The transfer of Forward Operating Base Hotel means Iraqis are fully responsible for security in the city.

    During a ceremony Tuesday, Lt. Col. James Oliver handed the ceremonial keys to the base to the new Iraqi commander, Col. Saadi Salih al-Maliky. About 1,500 Iraqi soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 8th Division marched by.

    U.S. troops relocated to a base outside the city in case their help is needed in a major security crisis.

    The move is the first step in a plan to gradually hand over areas once Iraqi forces are deemed capable of ensuring security. The goal is for the United States and its international partners to begin drawing down their troop numbers next year and focus on the insurgency-ridden Sunni Arab areas to the north.

    "This is indeed a very important day for the province of Najaf," said Brig. Gen. Augustus L. Collins, commander of the 155th Brigade Combat Team. "It gives me great pleasure to say the Iraqi army in Najaf can control the area."

    U.S. and Iraqi officials also hope a new constitution, which goes to the voters in an Oct. 15 referendum, will weaken the insurgency by luring Sunni Arabs into political participation.

    However, Sunni negotiators rejected the proposed charter last month and vowed to defeat it in the referendum. The bitter, protracted talks appeared to raise tensions among Iraq's ethnic and religious communities.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:26 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  a sign of the uneven pattern of insecurity in this fragmented country.
    Can't report about the silver lining without making a cloud!
    Posted by: Bobby || 09/07/2005 9:40 Comments || Top||

    #2  The U.S. military maintains a presence in the area, but U.S. officers have complained privately that they don't have enough American and Iraqi troops to secure Qaim. Maybe they will, someday, when other cities get turned over to the Iraqis. Has any soldier ever not wanted more manpower?
    Posted by: Bobby || 09/07/2005 9:41 Comments || Top||

    #3  Have fun, boys. And feel free to beat the crap out of any fat bastard self-proclaimed Imams you run across...
    Posted by: mojo || 09/07/2005 15:30 Comments || Top||


    Hussein confessed to Kurdish massacre
    The deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has confessed to crimes in meetings with investigators for the special tribunal that will try him later this year, President Jalal Talabani said in a televised interview Tuesday night. But a lawyer for Mr. Hussein's family dismissed the statement as a "fabrication."

    Speaking on the state-run Iraqiya network, Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, said investigators have told him the "good news" that Mr. Hussein had confessed to ordering the Anfal massacre against the Kurds in northern Iraq in 1988 and to ordering other executions.

    "He confessed about the Anfal executions, and the orders issued by his name," Mr. Talabani said. "Saddam should be executed 20 times."

    It was not clear from the interview whether Mr. Talabani was saying that Mr. Hussein had acknowledged that his actions were criminal or that the former leader had merely admitted he had ordered killings he believed were proper. In the past he has not denied that he ordered people killed.

    After the broadcast, a lawyer for Mr. Hussein's family criticized Mr. Talabani's remarks and suggested in an interview with The Associated Press that his statements had been false. Claims of a confession "comes to me as a surprise, a big surprise," said the lawyer, Abdel Haq Alani. He said Mr. Hussein had made no mention of a confession during a meeting with his Iraqi lawyer on Monday.

    Mr. Alani added, "Is this the fabrication of Talabani or what?"

    Fighting against Sunni Arab insurgents continued in western and northern Iraq. Some residents fled the northern insurgent stronghold of Tal Afar as fighting continued between American and Iraqi forces and insurgents who have controlled much of the city for almost a year. Residents complained of severe food shortages, and news services reported that the fighting had killed and wounded civilians and that residents had been bracing for a new round of combat.

    Insurgents used a large roadside bomb to kill one American soldier in Tal Afar on Monday, the military said. American troops have been fighting since May to wrest control of the city from insurgents who moved in after the military largely abandoned Tal Afar last year.

    In western Iraq, military jets launched two airstrikes against insurgents near the Syrian border on Tuesday, the latest assault against militants who control much of the desolate badlands of western Anbar Province that are home turf to the most hardened elements of the Sunni Arab insurgency.

    Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, jets bombed two bridges near the town of Karabila that insurgents had used to transport foreign fighters and weapons into central Iraq, a statement by the United States Marines said. Hours later, jets flattened a "foreign fighter safe house" near the bridges after a gun battle with marines there that killed two insurgents, another statement said.

    In contrast to the military's normally more upbeat assertions about progress curbing the insurgency, the first statement noted that western Anbar residents have "experienced an increased level of violence at the hands of Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists."

    In central Baghdad, two American soldiers were killed Tuesday morning and two more were wounded when insurgents attacked their vehicle with a large roadside bomb. Another American soldier died Monday in Ramadi, the provincial capital of Anbar, when his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb.

    In other violence, the Iraqi police found four bodies in a sewage duct in southern Baghdad on Tuesday afternoon, according to an official at the Iraqi Interior Ministry. The official also said that shortly after 9 p.m., attackers shooting from a car window opened fire on people gathered at a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad, killing three and wounding two. There were also unconfirmed reports that the son of Anbar Province's governor had been kidnapped from his college.

    Iraqi officials say Mr. Hussein's first trial is expected to begin Oct. 19, when he faces charges that he ordered the killing of nearly 150 men and boys from the Shiite village of Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt against him there in 1982.

    If convicted, Mr. Hussein could be hanged soon afterward, eliminating the need for other prosecutions of charges of crimes against humanity, Iraqi officials have said. Those charges include ordering the Anfal massacre, where tens of thousands of Kurds were gassed or otherwise killed and dumped into mass graves, and the suppression of the Shiite uprising in southern Iraq in 1991, when 150,000 people were killed and bulldozed into graves.

    Across many parts of Iraq with heavy Sunni Arab populations - especially in western Anbar - Iraqi security forces are far from being able to battle the insurgency on their own. But in the Shiite-dominated south, a battalion of 1,500 Iraqi troops formally assumed control of the holy city of Najaf, where Shiite insurgents fought fierce battles with American troops just last year.

    The American 155th Brigade Combat Team handed over control of the main military encampment in Najaf, Forward Operating Base Hotel, to Iraqi troops during a ceremony on Tuesday.

    The American commander, Brig. Gen. Augustus L. Collins, said the "Iraqi Army in Najaf can control the area," according to a pool report of the ceremony. But the general also emphasized that a contingent of American troops would remain based nearby in case the Iraqi forces needed help.

    "Although we are transferring authority at this F.O.B., we will still be here to help the people of Najaf," he said.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Obligatory evisceration of obligatory negative distortion by the media:

    "In contrast to the military's normally more upbeat assertions about progress curbing the insurgency(huh? Where are those?), the first statement noted that western Anbar residents have 'experienced an increased level of violence at the hands of Al Qaeda in Iraq terrorists.'" (and residents of many other more populated areas, like Mosul and Baghdad, have experienced a dramatic DROP in such violence .... gee, it's almost like there's a plan involved, or something, numbnuts NYT!

    On the headline topic, can Iraqi officials just STFU for once? Talabani's the closest thing to a statesman the country has, and even he can't shut up. The air will be clouded with baseless defense counsel allegations and histrionics in the months to come -- we really don't need Laith Kubba confirming an infeasible trial date and Talabani dropping little morsels like this. And the investigative judge(s) who told him this -- and one of them is also among Iraq's few quality players -- should STFU as well.

    Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq || 09/07/2005 1:07 Comments || Top||

    #2  Why is this bastard still sucking oxygen?
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 18:06 Comments || Top||


    Al-Qaeda gunning for US contractors
    Attacks on contractors working on U.S.-funded projects in August reached one of the highest levels in the past year.

    Insurgents killed seven contractors and injured 11 last month, according to the U.S. Project and Contracting Office in Baghdad. Sixteen more contractors were suspected or confirmed kidnapped.

    "August was real bad," said Karen Durham-Aguilera, director of programs in the contracting office. "We've had to stop projects because of it."

    August was the second most violent month since the contracting office began keeping records on the violence in September 2004. The worst was November, with nine deaths.

    Most of those attacked were Iraqis working on U.S.-funded projects. Of the 34 people who were killed, wounded or went missing in August, 32 were Iraqis. None was American. Iraqi contractors, who rarely have security, are more vulnerable to attack than U.S. and some foreign contractors, who generally travel in armored convoys with armed security.

    An important part of U.S. strategy in Iraq is to rebuild its aging infrastructure as a way of winning over Iraqis and undermining the insurgency. But insurgents are interfering with this by targeting contractors.

    Security costs have chewed away at the $18.4 billion appropriated by Congress last year for reconstruction in Iraq. Last year, $5 billion of that was redirected to training and equipping Iraq's security forces, a move that resulted in the cancellation of some projects and scaling back others.

    "Security is our biggest challenge," said Brig. Gen. William McCoy, an Army Corps of Engineers commander in Iraq. "We're losing a lot of contractors to a campaign of intimidation and terror."

    Most recently, an Iraqi contractor recruiting security guards for reconstruction projects in Mosul was kidnapped last week and later killed, said Lt. Col. Stanley Heath, an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman.

    In another incident, a supervisor for a Fallujah police station project was killed in his home on Aug. 19. The murder of the Iraqi supervisor prompted the contractor to halt construction on that and three other Fallujah police stations, Heath said.

    A terrorist known as Abu Bakr, who leads a splinter cell of al-Qaeda in Iraq, specializes in disrupting reconstruction and is behind many of the attacks, McCoy said.

    "He goes to sites, handing out workers a letter saying, 'I know where you live, and I'll kill you and your family,' " McCoy said. "He's out there kidnapping and killing these people."

    Despite the threat, reconstruction projects continue. The Army Corps of Engineers says more than 1,700 projects have been completed since June 2004.
    Posted by: Dan Darling || 09/07/2005 00:16 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Screw 'em.
    Posted by: Kos || 09/07/2005 15:16 Comments || Top||

    #2  I hope each of these US contractors have appropriate weapons at the ready, and protective body and head gear -- at a minimum.
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 18:10 Comments || Top||


    Afghanistan/South Asia
    American, Afghan Forces Kill 12 More Terrs Taleban
    US and Afghan forces swooped in by helicopter and killed 12 militants who were preparing to carry out attacks before this month’s parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, the US military said yesterday. They also arrested nine rebels during Monday’s operation in the mountainous southeastern province of Zabul, which was backed by American warplanes and helicopter gunships, it said in a statement.

    It was the latest in a string of bloody clashes between US-led troops and suspected guerrillas from the ousted Taleban regime, who have pledged to derail the Sept. 18 polls. The statement said the US and Afghan soldiers came under small-arms fire from the rebels as helicopters inserted them near a Taleban hide-out. “These soldiers have guts,” said Sgt. Maj. Bradley Meyers, who belongs to one of the units involved. “They showed courage not just in going after the enemy, but by going right up the mountains and diving across the rocks. We were engaged as soon as we got off the helicopters. We returned fire and the enemy fell, one by one.”

    The statement said the forces were patrolling to “engage the enemy in their staging areas before they execute operations designed to influence or disrupt the election process in the Zabul area.” Zabul province spokesman Gulab Shah Alikhil told AFP only 11 militants were killed and 17 were captured in the fighting, which he said was in the Khak-e-Afghan and Sharkoy districts, both Taleban hotbeds. Alikhil said the operation was ongoing.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Is this the same as yesterday's parachute op?
    Posted by: Shipman || 09/07/2005 7:08 Comments || Top||


    Iraq-Jordan
    US Fights in Tel Afar
    The northern town of Tal Afar was on edge yesterday after doctors said at least seven civilians were killed during an operation by Iraqi and US troops against insurgents there. A further 13 have been wounded in Tal Afar, a hospital source told Reuters; the US military said one US soldier died when his vehicle was struck by a bomb there on Monday.

    Iraqi police and troops backed by US forces launched the operation some days ago in Tal Afar, which they say is a conduit for foreign fighters slipping into the country. Iraqi forces have now begun evacuating the town's central Saray district. "Around 100 families have been evacuated in the last few days," an Iraqi army captain told Reuters. Television footage showed Iraqi soldiers bursting into houses in Tal Afar searching for weapons, pictures of captured former president Saddam Hussein and video cassettes before leading suspects away.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Afghanistan/South Asia
    Policeman killed, 29 injured in Quetta festivities
    QUETTA: One police constable was killed and 29 others, mostly policemen, were injured when unidentified people hurled two grenades and shot at police during a protest on Sariab Road on Tuesday.
    "Look out! He's got a grenade!"
    Supporters of a tribal leader, who was arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance on Monday, had blocked the main Quetta-Karachi Road early on Tuesday and had demanded their leader’s release.
    When my leader's been jugged, I always reach for the grenades.
    Police tried dispersing the protestors and during negotiations unidentified men hurled two grenades and shot at police.
    "Hrarrr! Take that, coppers!"
    Police shot back
    [BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!]
    and a constable was killed and at least 29 people, including 18 policemen, were injured during the shootout.
    "Aaaaiiieee! Rosebud!"
    "Ouch!"
    "Ooch!"
    "Owwwwwowwwowww! My elbow!"
    Superintendent of Police Wazir Khan Nasir, two deputy superintendents of police and an inspector were also injured.
    "Bad news, Wazir! You'll never play the harpsichord again!"
    The SP said miscreants had blocked the road and police was trying to disperse them.
    "Here, you people! Move along! Move along!"
    He said the attackers had been identified and would be arrested soon. Witnesses said many were injured during the grenade explosion. A man in the group of protestors threw both grenades at police during negotiations, one witness said. A man calling himself Meerak Baloch spoke to police by phone, saying he represented the Baloch Liberation Army and that he accepted responsibility for the attack and would continue carrying out such attacks.
    "But you'll never take us alive, coppers!... Whaddya mean, 'you don't intend to'?"
    Balochistan Home Minister Shoaib Nausherwani said the culprits had been identified and would be arrested soon. He also said the government would ban all political protests and strikes in the province, as Balochistan was not in a position to afford such violent incidents. Told that the ARD, MMA and other opposition parties had already announced a countrywide strike on September 9, he said he would not allow protests or strikes that affected the public and if needed he would launch an operation against such activists or parties. He also announced Rs 0.2 million for the dead constable and Rs 50,000 for each injured person.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Military operation launched in NWA
    MIRANSHAH: Security forces launched a massive operation in North Waziristan near the Pakistan-Afghan border on Tuesday. According to a TV report, the operation was expedited on information that foreign militants were present in the Shawal valley. Helicopters have been reportedly used in the operation. The surrounding areas are being searched. Prior to this operation, the contingent of security forces was increased due to law and order situation in the area and in view of the upcoming elections in Afghanistan on September 18.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    12 terrorists arrested in Turbat
    TURBAT: Anti-terrorism police on Tuesday raided several city localities to recover two kidnapped traders and arrested 12 people alleged to be involved in terrorist activities. The Kech district coordination officer told journalists that the squad raided 10 locations in the city. However, the hostages were not found but 12 alleged terrorists were arrested, he added.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Iraq-Jordan
    U.S. Marine Jets Bomb Two Bridges in Iraq
    U.S. Marine jets Tuesday destroyed two bridges across the Euphrates River near the Syrian border to prevent insurgents from using them to move foreign fighters and munitions into major cities, the U.S. command said. A Marine statement said F/A-18 jets dropped bombs shortly after midnight on two light bridges near Karabilah, about 185 miles west of Baghdad.
    No word on whether there were any trolls or wedding parties lurking beneath the bridge.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  Jehadi mole rats freely abounded under thos stinken bridges.
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 1:00 Comments || Top||

    #2  whack a mole
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 18:11 Comments || Top||

    #3  Like a bridge over troubled waters...

    (hey, I'll take any gig I can get)
    Posted by: Art Garfunkel || 09/07/2005 20:03 Comments || Top||


    Israel-Palestine
    Palestinian killed in clash with Israelis
    Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian who was in a group that crossed a security fence and climbed a tank, military sources said. The incident occurred Tuesday between the Palestinian town of Khan Yunes and the Gush Katif settlement of Neveh Dekalim in the Gaza Strip. Israel is about the leave the area but workers are still dismantling infrastructure there.

    According to military sources some 100 Palestinian youngsters approached the security fence surrounding the area. Footage aired on Israel's Channel 1 TV showed youngsters knock down the fence and one person cut it. Military sources said attackers stoned soldiers then climbed a tank endangering its occupants. Soldiers opened fire killed one Palestinian and wounded three.
    "Cheez, David, they climbed up on the tank. Think we were in any danger?"
    "No, Moshe, but they were."
    The Palestinian State Information Service said they were hit "while playing soccer nearby." The TV footage showed youngsters pulling a man from among bushes to safety.

    The Israelis complained the Palestinian police did not stop the demonstrators from entering the area, as they were supposed to. The army later noted two rocket launchings in the northern Gaza Strip and unconfirmed reporters said two rockets fell near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, inside Israel proper.
    Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  should've sprayed the f*&kers when they encroached on the fence. Cause=>Effect lessons, .50/clue
    Posted by: Frank G || 09/07/2005 15:19 Comments || Top||

    #2  they were hit "while playing soccer nearby
    yeah right and sadly these rocket launchers won't be the last.
    Posted by: Jan || 09/07/2005 23:05 Comments || Top||


    Moussa Arafat visits Himmler
    Gunmen in Gaza shot dead former Palestinian security chief and local strongman Moussa Arafat, a cousin to late leader Yasser Arafat, after storming his home on Wednesday, police and medics said. The killing of Arafat, who remained an adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas, came as another sign of the factional turmoil in the territory, from which Israeli troops are due to withdraw this month following the evacuation of settlers.
    Yeah. Y'gotta look pretty hard, but those signs are there to the discerning...
    Police at Arafat’s home said he had been dragged from his home by gunmen and then executed on the street outside. Blood spattered the street. Doctors said Arafat was dead on arrival at Gaza’s main al-Quds hospital.
    Even the RAB couldn't have done it this well!
    Arafat, a major-general, had been head of the powerful military intelligence, but he was fired in April as President Abbas cleaned out Yasser Arafat’s old guard under pressure to clean up corrupt and ineffective forces.
    "Moussa, yer fired!"
    To contain Arafat’s fury at being sidelined, Abbas retained him in the position of pre-cadaver special security adviser.
    "Youse can't do dat to me! I got minions, y'know!"
    "Really, Moussa, you'll like Paris!"
    "I ain't goin' to no damned Paris!"
    "Mustapha, I tried to reason with him. He wouldn't listen."
    "I'll call the goon squad, boss!"
    Arafat had been at odds with many in the Palestinian security forces and armed factions. He had survived several assassination attempts.
    Only takes one. U-lu-lu-lu-lu-lu .....
    Posted by: Steve White || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  buh bye.
    Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom || 09/07/2005 0:31 Comments || Top||

    #2  by "gunmen in Gaza"? Do they not want to say they are other Palestinians?
    Posted by: Jan || 09/07/2005 0:38 Comments || Top||

    #3  Debka sez Gaza will soon look like Beirut in the 70s. Can't wait, especially the liberal handwringing and demands 'somebody do something'. Which of course won't happen, cos no one is crazy enough going to send their troops to breakup a paleo civil.
    Posted by: phil_b || 09/07/2005 2:12 Comments || Top||

    #4  Dahlan earning his pay cheque?
    Posted by: Paul Moloney || 09/07/2005 3:34 Comments || Top||

    #5  Mark my words, someday the paleos will look back on "occupation" as their golden age of peace and prosperity. Effin' savages.
    Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 09/07/2005 4:48 Comments || Top||

    #6  Say hi to Feliks and Reinhard for us, too.
    Posted by: 11A5S || 09/07/2005 7:31 Comments || Top||

    #7  New info.
    'We killed Moussa Arafat since the PA took no action'
    The Popular Resistance Committees, a violent group made up largely of former members of Abbas' Fatah movement, later claimed responsibility. The group said it killed Arafat, a cousin of the late Yasser Arafat, to punish him for alleged corruption after the Palestinian security forces had taken no action against him.


    Posted by: gromgoru || 09/07/2005 7:35 Comments || Top||

    #8  "Mark my [Scooter McGruder] words, someday the paleos will look back on "occupation" as their golden age of peace and prosperity."

    Not only the Paleos. I think Egypt, Jordan and the Saudis were secretly hoping that Israel would stay in the Gaza.
    Posted by: mhw || 09/07/2005 8:01 Comments || Top||

    #9  To contain Arafat’s fury at being sidelined, Abbas retained him in the position of special security adviser.

    Thereby vividly illustrating the phrase "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer".
    Posted by: tu3031 || 09/07/2005 8:58 Comments || Top||

    #10  Could not have happened to a nicer family.
    Posted by: MunkarKat || 09/07/2005 9:03 Comments || Top||

    #11  Enjoy hell.
    Posted by: Chris W. || 09/07/2005 9:04 Comments || Top||

    #12  interesting question, Paul. The public reaction from all concerned is that this shows the weakness of Pal security, since they couldnt protect as big a name as Moussa Arafat from what LOOKS like the usual gang of street thugs/idealistic resistance group. The Israelis are taking the opportunity to remind Abbas that he needs to get his house in order and restore security. OTOH its hard not to notice that the Abbas regime had no love for Moussa, and the death of one of the more corrupt members of the old regime is not inconvenient. The whining about insecurity could well be cover, and the Israelis could certainly be in on the cover.
    Posted by: liberalhawk || 09/07/2005 9:13 Comments || Top||

    #13  Hey! Does anyone know Saeb Erekat's address? Ima thinkr he needs a "candygram" too
    Posted by: Frank G || 09/07/2005 9:41 Comments || Top||

    #14  OTOH its hard not to notice that the Abbas regime had no love for Moussa, and the death of one of the more corrupt members of the old regime is not inconvenient.

    They're biggest beef with him was his corruption was cutting in on their corruption.
    Posted by: Robert Crawford || 09/07/2005 9:50 Comments || Top||

    #15  Paul and LH

    Dahlan has been hospitalized lately. In fact he flew out of the country (Egypt or Jordan) for treatment. Of course this could have been part of the cover.
    Posted by: mhw || 09/07/2005 9:50 Comments || Top||

    #16  A shame. I understand him top have been the very model of a modern major general.
    Posted by: Mrs. Davis || 09/07/2005 11:06 Comments || Top||

    #17  A shame. I understand him top have been the very model of a modern major general.

    The guy had a knack w/splodydopes, cash, and bowel movements.
    Posted by: Red Dog || 09/07/2005 11:15 Comments || Top||

    #18  Mrs. Davis---Great reference to Gilbert & Sullivan. They had this guy pegged a hundred years ago. Heh.
    Posted by: Al-Aska Paul || 09/07/2005 16:09 Comments || Top||

    #19  Wretchard : Speechless in Gaza
    Posted by: 3dc || 09/07/2005 18:12 Comments || Top||

    #20  Arafat probably double-crossed the Committees. Bad move.
    Posted by: Colt || 09/07/2005 18:28 Comments || Top||

    #21  Eyewitnesses reported that some of the gunmen who participated in the raid on Arafat's two-story villa in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood used armored vehicles belonging to one of the security organizations.

    There has also been speculation that the Committees are simply a deniable arm of the PA, like the PFLP or ANO to the PLO in the 1970s and 80s.
    Posted by: Colt || 09/07/2005 18:29 Comments || Top||

    #22  Could the security situation worsen to the point that the UN and EU deem it too dangerous to dispense their welfare payments?
    Posted by: RWV || 09/07/2005 23:32 Comments || Top||

    #23  by that time they'll be ransoms...
    Posted by: Frank G || 09/07/2005 23:39 Comments || Top||


    Iraq-Jordan
    Draft Iraqi anti-terror law could keep hangman busy
    Iraqi MPs debated sweeping anti-terror legislation that would make even crimes such as vandalism subject to the death penalty in a bid to quell the raging insurgency...
    The wide-ranging anti-terror bill proposes the death penalty not only for those guilty of "terrorist" acts, but for accomplices and those advocating "sectarian strife", according to a copy obtained by AFP.

    The bill, which was being discussed behind closed doors and could be amended, lists eight offences that could qualify as terrorist acts, including "violence ... vandalism against public buildings ... forming armed gangs ... and using explosives to kill people." Possible offences also include "advocating sectarian sedition or civil war through arming citizens or mobilising them to carry arms against each other".

    Attacking Iraqi soldiers and police, as well as diplomatic missions, could also lead to execution, as could kidnapping for political, sectarian, ethnic or racial reasons.

    "The culprit or accomplice in the act would be executed" along with "the instigator, the plotter, and whoever assists in any of the aforementioned crimes," the draft says.

    Its authors defended the bill's harshness in the face of the mostly Sunni-led insurgency, saying "damage caused by terrorist acts has reached such a point that it threatens national unity and stability."

    The death penalty was rescinded during the US-led occupation but restored by the US-installed caretaker government in August 2004 despite opposition from key US ally Britain and other European states. Its application, most notably against ousted dictator Saddam Hussein if he is found guilty by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, remains hotly disputed...

    "We need to protect Iraq and the world against terrorists," said Jawad al-Maliki, an MP from the ruling Dawa party, adding that a vote on the bill was expected within a few days...
    Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  About friggin time. I especially like the part about including accomplices.
    Posted by: JackAssFestival || 09/07/2005 12:21 Comments || Top||

    #2  Better the hangman than the jailor, and more lasting.
    Posted by: Captain America || 09/07/2005 18:12 Comments || Top||

    #3  They should look on the bright side: They'll be going to their 72 virgins, having died at the hands of the accomplices of the infidels.

    And there will be absolutely NO OPPORTUNITY to suffer the far worse fate of being photographed in human pyramids, faked electrocutions, and being forced to wear panties on their heads.

    DEATH BEFORE HUMILIATION!

    /sarcasm
    Posted by: Ptah || 09/07/2005 20:17 Comments || Top||

    #4  One positive thing about the Eurocowards not helping us in Iraq is that they have no leverage to apply to prevent the execution of terrorists. Maybe we can outsource the running of Abu Grhaib and Gitmo to the Iraqis.
    Posted by: VRWconspiracy || 09/07/2005 21:41 Comments || Top||

    #5  DEATH BEFORE HUMILIATION!

    /sarcasm


    No need for a sarcasm tag. Ol' Mo' said much the same thing. That's why Muslims feel justified in resorting to violence for merely feeling slighted.
    Posted by: Robert Crawford || 09/07/2005 21:43 Comments || Top||


    Jordan Detains 7 Hizbies
    Jordan has detained at least seven Islamists as part of a countrywide crackdown after a banned group held a rare rally urging holy war against the West, activists said yesterday. The staunchly pro-Western kingdom has kept a closer eye on mosques in recent months, arresting several preachers whose praise of suicide bombers in Iraq and Israel it says inflames anti-American sentiment. The latest arrests followed a rally by Hizbut Tahrir in a central Amman mosque after Friday prayers in which an unidentified leader railed against the United States, Israel and Arab rulers he slammed as corrupt.

    “The arrests are widespread and in more than one city across the country,” one activist, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. He said it was the biggest crackdown in recent years. The most prominent detainee is pharmacist Saleh Al-Chalabi, a leader of the Jordanian offshoot of Hizbut Tahrir, a secretive party believed by analysts to be the most active radical Islamist movement in Central Asia. Hizbut Tahrir activists said colleagues Khaled Kasasbeh and Tareq Al-Ahmar were arrested shortly after the rally in the mosque in a mainly Palestinian quarter of the city that is an Islamist stronghold. Mohammad Al-Fuqaha, Salem Abu Subaitan, Imad Al-Azeidah and Mahmoud Zuhairi, also members of the group, were arrested over the past two days, they said. Jordanian forces raided six other homes in search of other members but the wanted men escaped.

    An Interior Ministry official confirmed members of the outlawed party had been arrested but gave no details. Witnesses said over 1,000 Hizbut Tahrir supporters attended the rally, in which the speaker gave a half-hour speech.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Afghanistan/South Asia
    UK and Canada looking for Pakistani link to 7/7
    A six-member team of British and Canadian explosives experts is arriving in Islamabad in the last week of this month in connection with the investigations of a network of British and Canadian nationals of Pakistani origin which is believed to have imported “Improvised Explosives Training” equipment from the United States in June 2003, sources in the interior and foreign ministries told the Daily Times on Tuesday. The equipment was sent as personal baggage through Overseas Couriers and was seized by Pakistani authorities. Sources said Canadian authorities eventually knew about the network when they checked the computer hardware of a Pakistani-Canadian, Momin Khawaja, containing the information about export of the training equipment, during a routine search.
    We just keep seeing the same names pop up over and over again, don't we?
    Sources said in Pakistan the importer was Junaid Baber, who had fled the US after 9/11. According to a preliminary report of the investigations jointly conducted by Canadian and British authorities and sent to Islamabad, Junaid Baber, Momin Khawaja and Haroon Rasheed Aswad, a suspect in London bomb blasts, had met in London some time in February 2004. The report said Junaid Baber stayed at the office of Al Mahajroon, the Islamist organisation recently outlawed in Britain, in Lahore for more than a month after arriving in Pakistan. Then he moved to an apartment at Abrar Centre on Wahdat Road in Muslim Town, Lahore.
    Certainly an apt destination...
    Junaid Baber stayed till December 2001 and then bought an apartment in Eden Heights on Jail Road. He also worked for the Pakistan Software Export Board from April 2002 to December 2002 and during this period he remained in touch with Momin Khawaja through the Internet using various Internet cafés, one of them the report identifies as Cyber Vision in Barkat Market. In early 2003, according to the report, Junaid Baber approached a local importer and exporter, Akram Khan, as a buyer of some old containers and also requested him to bring back some of his personal belongings from the US. The shipment (supposedly containing Junaid Baber’s belongings) in the shape of a briefcase was received through Overseas Couriers in June 2003 and was seized by Pakistani customs authorities on suspicion.
    "Awright, lessee what's in this one... HOLY SPIT!"
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

    #1  And now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
    Coming in out of the rain to hear grenades go down
    Ayatollhas in other places
    Oh, but the guns be blowin' that sound
    Way on downsouth way on downsouth, Muslim Town...
    Posted by: Mark Knopfler || 09/07/2005 9:13 Comments || Top||


    Iraq-Jordan
    Saudi on Trial for Terrorist Activities
    A military court in the Jordanian capital adjourned Monday morning the session examining the case of Fahd Numan Suwailim al Faqih, the 24 years old Saudi suspected of taking part in a car bomb attack on 3rd December 2004 at the al Karama crossing between the Hashemite Kingdom and Iraq. During the trial which Asharq Al Awsat attended, the general prosecutor read out the indictment against al Faqih, the first suspect in the case, as well as Ahmad al Khalayleh, commonly known as Abu Musab al Zarqawi, and Dirar Ismail Abu Aboud, also known as Abu Abd al Afhgani.

    According to statements read out in court, al Faqihi became interested in extremist Islamic ideologies whilst attending a mosque near his residence in Riyadh under the supervision of a man named as Hani Moqbel in 2004. He then joined a group of Saudi militants and traveled to Iraq where he received military training and enlisted to carry out suicide operations. Saudi security sources indicated they were aware of the ongoing trial and were receiving updates on the case against al Faqihi from the authorities in Amman.
    Posted by: Fred || 09/07/2005 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



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      Moussa Arafat is no more
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