Any of you policy-making types lurking here, please read this article in full and carefully ponder the points being presented.
The countryâs Islamist militant outfits have been looking to implement, in stages, a decade-long strategy to prepare an atmosphere compatible with an Islamic revolution in Bangladesh, said intelligence officials. The officials, who are working to apprehend the leaders of the outfits, said the strategy was adopted in 1998 together with other Islamist groups and parties which believe in jihad and want to establish Islamic rule.
1998. Where have we heard that date before? Oh yeah. Binny issued his fatwa on 23 February 1998. Sorta coincidental that that is the year the Bangla islamists began the operations phase of their jihad, dontcha think?
âThe 10-year-long mission was undertaken only after establishing a strong foundation by recruiting thousands of workers and agents since the early 1990s,â said an intelligence official. âThey have been smoothly marching toward their destination with their task already half done,â said the official, who has obtained some crucial information about the mission.
That's spookspeak for "I read Rantburg."
His investigation reveals the frequent bombings are meant to make the countrymen used to such incidents so that they accept it as a part of life and not react on a mass scale. âThe militants will continue bombing, assuming it will inure the people and help them to launch jihad.â Intelligence officials said Islamist outfits that are operating have separate identities to give the impression that the bombings are isolated incidents, but in reality they are now working in unison to achieve their goal of establishing a fundamentalist, theocratic state.
A fundamentalist, theocratic state that only by purest accident looks a lot like the Land of the Two Holy Mosques.
Apart from recruiting dedicated leaders and workers they have been able to plant their people in most institutions of the society, including government departments and agencies. Among them there are influential ministers, lawmakers, politicians, law enforcers, government officials, businessmen, Noam Chomsky, Sean Penn, French foreign policy, and journalists, but they are all working behind the scenes. Investigation reveals that the militants have resumed trying to implement the strategy by carrying out secret killings, fighting law enforcers and looting firearms and other weapons to become stronger than the government forces. âThey have earned sufficient strength and put their people in powerful quarters and key places, and they began operating in the northern part of Bangladesh in April last year, unveiling their faces for the first time,â said an official.
They unveiled their faces by wrapping their heads in kefiyyehs and rolling their eyes as they planted their bombs.
Militants under the banner of Jagrata Muslim Janata, led by Al-Qaeda Bangla regional manager Bangla Bhai, created a reign of terror in the region through torturing, killing and maiming hundreds of people. âIt was a big test which came out quite successfully, facing virtually no resistance or retaliatory action by the authorities,â said the official. âThe decision of certain sections in the government to release arrested militants, instead of pressing charges, and disobeying the prime ministerial order to arrest Bangla Bhai proves that they have successfully crossed the first obstacle,â he added. He said the frequent bombings were the deadliest part of the 10-year plan. âThe bombings were meant to prove the expertise and the strength of the militants, and to inspire their followers and sympathisers,â said the official, who is trying to find out the next step that will follow the bombings.
Whoever this official is, I hope he has someone start his car for him in the morning. He's making far too much sense.
Investigators said that Harkat-ul Jihad Al-Islam, which began operating secretly in 1992, is the mother organisation of the militant Islamist outfits now active in the country. Nearly 3,000 Bangladeshi youths fought in the Afghanistan war, of whom 24 were killed and 10 were wounded. They got training in the use of firearms and explosives, and were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of jihad. After returning home they were fed a steady diet of jihadi snuff films, conspiracy theories, and Jolt cola started dreaming of Islamic rule in Bangladesh and began working towards that end, said intelligence officials. Founded by Afghan war veterans in 1992, Harkat came to limelight through a press conference in the city in 1996, and soon other like-minded people and groups joined it to further the cause of jihad.
To achieve their goal the Islamist outfits also made a deal with Rohingya militants and trained their youths at the hide-outs in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. According to the pact, thousands of Rohingya militants will join hands with the outfits when they launch jihad after implementing the decade-long mission. In return, the Rohingyas will be helped by these outfits in their own struggle to create a separate Arakan state. Twenty-five Rahingyas nabbed in Chittagong admitted their link with Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, which is reportedly carried out the bomb attacks. Hundreds of field-level militants were arrested after the August 17 and October 3 bombings, but it has failed to have any impact on the vast organisational structure of the outfits, believe intelligence officials. They said that unless the big fish like Abdur Rahman and his brother Ataur Rahman Sunny, Bangla Bangla and their patrons in the powerful quarters are apprehended, nothing effective can be done and their operations will continue according to their plan.
The bombing in three districts on October 3 proved how dedicated the militants are, and unless the government puts itself on a war footing and is relentless in rooting them out, their operations will continue till they achieve their goal. âThe Islamist outfits thought the government would come down heavily on them after the series of bombing incidents, but they gained more confidence and became more determined as almost nothing was done, said an intelligence official.
There's a Powerpoint slide presentation in here somewhere, folks. What has been identified in this report for Bangladesh is Al-Qaeda's global strategy in microcosm.
#1
The RAB appears to be Bangladesh's answer to aq. Unfortunately, it does nothing to stop the preaching of hatred and violence in the mosques and the brainwashing of the next wave of cannon-fodder.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
10/23/2005 17:26 Comments ||
Top||
#2
RAB also doesn't crossfire many islamists. They mostly seen to go after the Commies...
A regional leader of the outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP) was killed in âcrossfireâ during a shootout between his accomplices and police in Sirajganj early yesterday.
Our story begins ...
Police on Thursday night arrested the outlaw leader, Hossain Ali, 35, at Joydebpur in Gazipur district ...
... no, I have no idea where that is either ...
... and after 'handling' him handed him over to Solonga police in Sirajganj the following day.
"Cheez, Ali, you look the worse for wear! Wanna answer some more questions?
A team of Solonga police, following his confessional statement during interrogation, ...
"I confess! I confess! Whatever it was, I done it!"
... took him to Ghurka Thakpara area to recover illegal firearms early yesterday.
Can't have illegal firearms lying around, ya know.
According to police, ...
... and who else can tell us ...
... when the team reached the area at about 3:00am, ...
... right on time ...
... accomplices of Hossain Ali opened fire on them, prompting the law enforcers to retaliate.
"The coppers got Ali! Open indiscriminate fire!"
Hossain Ali was caught in the crossfire when he tried to escape during the shootout.
No mention of whether it was a sucking head wound or a sucking chest wound.
He died on the spot.
[sniff] I love a happy ending!
Police recovered one shutter-gun and returned it to the police lockup from whence it came, four bullets and some sharp weapons from the shooting spot.
Sporks?
Three policemen were also injured in the shootout and are undergoing treatment at a local hospital.
A hernia, a strained back and a barked shin.
The body of Hossain Ali was sent to Sirajganj General Hospital morgue for autopsy.
"Dang, Sam, another one!"
"That's what happens when you work the morning shift, Dr. Quincy!"
Police said Hossain Ali of Charia Kalibari village under Solonga upazila was wanted in eight criminal cases, including one for murder.
And now he's dead.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) recovered huge firearms, ammunition, magazines and military equipment in a pre-dawn swoop at a remote hilly border area of Naikkhangchhari upazila of the district on Friday. On a tip off, BDR Commander lt. Col. Mohammad Awal raided a temporary hideout of terrorists at Harinkhaia area and recovered two modern 303 rifles, One AK-47 rifle, 40 magazines, 2,500 bullets of 303 rifle, 200 bullets of AK-47 rifle and huge quantity of military equipment, official sources said. Sensing the BDR presence in the area, the terrorists soon fled the hideout leaving behind their arms and ammunitions. The BDR jawans are continuing their drive in the area to arrest the terrorists.
The sources also said that Bangladesh Army and BDR recovered 500 different types of modern firearms including 100 AK-47 rifles and M-16 rifles and about 100,000 bullets during their raids over the last two years. They also arrested about 100 Myanmar insurgents including the chief commander of the Nupa group, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Hummm.... bullets again. Looks like staff turnover.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has directed the law-enforcing agencies to arrest Rohingyas living outside the refugee camps in Bandarban and Coxâs bazaar as many of them were found involved in militancy. The Myanmar ethnic Muslim minority known as Rohingyas, who fled to Bangladesh to reportedly avoid military persecution, were kept under strict vigilance as many of them were found linked with the local Islamic militants.
The ministry, however, asked the agencies to deal with Rohingya very cautiously as a number of international human rights bodies were found apparently sympathetic about Rohingyas who had taken shelter in Bangladesh legally or illegally at different places of the two districts bordering Myanmar. The government sounded the alert after the arrest of 25 Rohingyas in Chittagong and their subsequent statements admitting their link with the local militants involved in the August 17 countrywide series of blasts.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
POLICE in London have arrested three men on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activities as Scots were warned that they are not immune from al-Qaeda attacks.
Scotland Yard said the three men, in their early 20s, who were not identified, were detained on suspicion of "the commission, preparation or instigation" of terrorist acts.
Police said the arrests were not linked to the July bomb attacks on London, which killed 52 people and four suicide bombers.
Two men were arrested on Friday at homes in west London and Chatham, south of the capital, while the third man reported voluntarily to police. Detectives were searching the two homes and a third property, also in west London.
The move came as leading security experts warned Scots to be on the alert against Islamist extremists. Jim Brooks, a vice-president of London-based security consultants Control Risks Group, warned that Edinburgh and Glasgow possessed the kind of internationally famous targets that would attract terrorist attention.
Brooks, who served with the US Navy Seals special forces, was in Scotland to address business executives.
"Terrorists will move out of areas such as London to mount attacks in places they hope will be easier," he said.
Professor Paul Wilkinson, director of the centre for the study of terrorism and political violence at St Andrews University, backed the warning, saying:
"For al-Qaeda, any area where they can attack people they regard as infidels is an appropriate target. Also they are ruthless in targeting civilians and going where no-one would expect."
It emerged last night that Britain's counter-terrorism strategy is failing, according to a leaked assessment prepared for Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Key policies aimed at preventing al-Qaeda attacks and rooting out terrorists are "immature" and "disjointed", the Prime Minister's delivery unit has concluded. Others have been deemed unrelated to the "real world."
The paper formed the backbone of a presentation to Downing Street insiders.
The document says that the anti-terror policy is mired in confusion, with "little effective co-ordination" and no clear leadership.
The is "little confidence" in the ability of the security apparatus to tackle the problem and "it is very difficult to demonstrate that progress has been made", it adds.
The unit has proposed appointing a new minister inside the Cabinet Office with responsibility for counter- terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:32 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) - A leading international human rights watchdog accused Uzbek authorities Saturday of holding a prominent rights activist in a psychiatric hospital and forcibly medicating her.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said Elena Urlayeva told its representative that doctors at the Tashkent City Psychiatric Hospital where she was being held on Friday had given her a dose of a drug used to treat schizophrenia. "Using psychiatric treatment to silence Elena Urlayeva is a gross violation of medical ethics and international standards," Holly Cartner, the group's Europe and Central Asia director, said in a statement Saturday. "It's shocking that the hospital began the treatment without even waiting for the courts to consider her appeal."
It was the Soviets who used psychiatry to suppress dissidents. The Uzbek rulers obviously learned well ...
Uzbek authorities detained Urlayeva last August for allegedly distributing anti-government leaflets and have kept her in a mental health facility since then in what Human Rights Watch has denounced as "an outrageous case of politically motivated detention."
A court had ordered Urlayeva to be committed to the hospital, but according to Uzbek law, the decision cannot take effect until the appeal period expires on Oct. 28 and she only can be given compulsory treatment afterward. A harsh critic of Uzbek President Islam Karimov's authoritarian regime, Urlayeva has been subjected in the past to repeated beatings and detentions, and was twice hospitalized by the ex-Soviet republic's authorities for psychiatric treatment.
She was released following strong international pressure both times. Psychiatric treatment was commonly used in the Soviet Union as a way to silence dissidents. Urlayeva said she experienced dizziness and shaking after being forced to take the medication, symptoms that are consistent with the drug, the group said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/23/2005 00:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A number of radicals from Canada -- fewer than 10 -- have slipped across borders to join the fighting in Iraq, CSIS director Jim Judd said during a break at an annual gathering of intelligence experts in Montreal yesterday.
"We know of others who may be planning to," he added. "I don't think there's anything we can do legally to prevent this."
Judd, who said CSIS had informed the U.S. government, made the comments at a conference of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies.
Contacted by Sun Media last night, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office directed inquiries to Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan even though CBC-TV had reported that Prime Minister Paul Martin's first reaction was one of anger when informed of Judd's comments.
Alex Swann, a spokesman for McLellan played down the comments by the spy agency boss, saying Judd alluded to the participation of Canadian radicals in the Iraqi insurgency when he appeared before a special Senate committee reviewing terrorism last March 7.
Judds remarks prompted an immediate response from Conservative foreign affairs critic Stockwell Day, who said the Martin government "must do everything possible to condemn and discourage" such activity.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:49 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Sees to be schisam between CSIS and Martin.
"must do everything possible to condemn and discourage" such activity.
Whose activity(pretty sure I know)CSIS or the terr wannabes.
#2
Let me see...if you KNOW who they are. And, if you KNOW when they leave the country (passport and plane ticket) Could you kindly tell the US? I suspect we could have a welcoming committee available to greet them.
#3
...know of others who may be planning to...
'scuse me but don't you think expidited visa services are in order?
Posted by: dorf ||
10/23/2005 11:26 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I'm guessing that Mahmoud and Ali were angry and disaffected by the increasing Americanization of the NHL and the strike year pushed them over the edge.
Posted by: John in Tokyo ||
10/23/2005 19:54 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I thought Canadians didn't know how to handle weapons anymore? I thought the liberal-multiculti experiment of the past 40 years had rendered all of Canada limp.
Oh no! Danger! Danger! This has never happened before! The sky is falling! All is lost! *yawn* The trial of Saddam Hussein is in danger of collapsing because dozens of witnesses are refusing to testify against him after being told the former dictator had issued death threats from his cell. More than 40 people inside a special compound in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone had been due to give evidence of Saddam's alleged crimes against humanity.
But his trial, in which he and seven others are accused of massacring 143 Shia men and youths from Dujail after a failed assassination attempt against him in 1982, was adjourned for 40 days, partly because the witnesses were unwilling to take the stand.
The belief that Saddam personally issued a threat to order a second act of mass murder in Dujail and to have the town razed afterwards illustrates the level of fear that the deposed president can still inspire among the subjects he oppressed for 25 years.
"We want Saddam to be held to account for his evil crimes and eagerly await the day when his lifeless body will swing from a rope," said Hatem, a farmer from Dujail whose brother Ali is one of the witnesses fearful to testify.
"There is almost nothing we won't do to hasten this day, but Saddam is very powerful. He has his agents everywhere. So when the message came that we would be liquidated if we took part in his trial we had to think of our families."
Some witnesses received calls on their mobile telephones in which a voice warned them: "Testify before the sham court and you will be signing your own death warrant. Dujail will be destroyed." After that, rumours spread through the town and soon it was being said that Saddam himself had ordered retribution via a coded communication from his cell.
The climate of fear surrounding the trial was heightened by the murder of a lawyer involved in it. Sadoun al-Janabi, who was acting for one of Saddam Hussein's co-defendants, Awad Hamed al-Bandar, a former judge, was seized by gunmen on Thursday and his body was found, shot in the head, the next day. Some of his colleagues are now asking for American protection after deciding that their Iraqi guards cannot be trusted.
Badie Izzat Aref, a lawyer for Tariq Aziz, the former Iraqi deputy prime minister, said: "If they can't protect lawyers, how are they going to defend their clients, and how will witnesses dare to come before the tribunals?"
American officials said there was no possibility that Saddam could threaten prosecution witnesses from the confines of Camp Cropper, the facility near Baghdad Airport where he is held in isolation from other prisoners. "There is rampant paranoia about Saddam," one said. "He is a broken man who will soon be begging for his own life. All he thinks about now is himself and he has had no connection with the insurgency since we captured him in late 2003. I don't underestimate the evil that is inside him or the magnitude of his deeds. But as a tyrant, he is finished, impotent. And Iraqis need to realise this."
Last week, security was at an unprecedented level in Dujail, with cars having to drive through 17 separate checkpoints to get into the town. There were so many Iraqi and United States troops there that an attack would have been virtually impossible.
People were relaxed. On the day of the trial US military policemen danced with locals in the streets and took impromptu Arabic lessons. Posters pasted on walls declared "Death to Saddam" and "The hangman will deliver justice for Saddam".
The desire for vengeance was everywhere. Abu Raheem, 39, a supermarket owner, said: "If Saddam is not executed then we will take our revenge on his family, just as he punished us for the actions of our noble sons who tried to rid Iraq of this monster. His daughters may be in Jordan but we will seek them out. We are told that his wife is in Qatar. We will find her also."
American and Iraqi officials are confident that the witnesses will testify next month. Their identities may be kept secret, their evidence given from behind a screen. Afterwards they would probably be allowed to enter a witness protection scheme. Although even this might not be enough to make Hatem's brother Ali take the stand.
"The soldiers will leave our town one day soon," he said. "Then we will be left to pay the price for being chosen to be the accusers. Even if Saddam has gone, the Ba'athists will live on.
"It might not be this year or even next, but we know that he can have his revenge. He abused us for so long and our fear is he will continue to do this, even from his grave.
"Even if Saddam is dead, he will live on in our nightmares and in the dark side of our souls." The Arab version of Life. There are Dictators, Relatives, Henchmen, Minions, and Victims. Each is born to his role. It cannot be changed. It is written. Dictators-in-waiting, see your personal The State Dept Rep. Future Killer Elites, follow me. Minions, seething is to the right. Victims, cowering to the left. Did everyone remember to bring a cell phone? Good. Giddyup, move along little doggies.
#2
I think the Iraqis should really use the model employed by the Italians for Mussolini. Photos and all. Rituals are for the hollywood types. Just fastforward to the end.
#3
There seems to be a lot of sky is falling the the MSM today. And being the perverse person I am, I find it reassuring. Every time the sky is falling it is because we are pushing the enemy and they are resisting. When they start pusing on us, I'll stop yawning.
#4
Then we could be positive. ie. the longer he is held in detention the closer he gets to an event which cancels his license for oxygen.
Posted by: dorf ||
10/23/2005 11:30 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Bravery and courage are required to gain and sustain the blessings of liberty. I fear that the Iraqui people have neither. They talk a big talk, but when it comes to walking the walk and making things happen, they come up as short as our liberals and democrats.
Another thing: I could see why they'd be afraid if a PROSECUTION lawyer had been killed, but it was a DEFENSE lawyer who was murdered. Logic seems to be lost on these people.
#6
I've said it many times before...there's a chance that Sammy will walk.
Posted by: Rafael ||
10/23/2005 14:53 Comments ||
Top||
#7
there's a chance that Sammy will walk.
In the unlikely chance that Saddam Hussein does end up walking after a great many years of sitting in the dock contesting the many and various charges that will be filed against him... He may walk, but he certainly will not be left in peace to walk far.
No worries -- Iraq has more than its share of not-nice people.
#8
Maybe Saddam will talk about how Reagan and the US supported his murderous regime against Iran? Maybe he will talk about his meeting with Rumsfeld? I would love to hear what he has to say about Us complicity in his regime!
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
10/23/2005 23:55 Comments ||
Top||
The Bradley fighting vehicles moved slowly down this city's main boulevard. Suddenly, a homemade bomb exploded, punching into one vehicle. Then another explosion hit, briefly lifting a second vehicle up onto its side before it dropped back down again.
Two American soldiers climbed out of a hatch, the first with his pant leg on fire, and the other completely in flames. The first rolled over to help the other man, but when they touched, the first man also burst into flames. Insurgent gunfire began to pop.
Several blocks away, Lance Cpl. Jeffrey Rosener, 20, from Minneapolis, watched the two men die from a lookout post at a Marine encampment. His heart reached out to them, but he could not. In Ramadi, Iraq's most violent city, two blocks may as well be 10 miles.
"I couldn't do anything," he said of the incident, which he saw on Oct. 10. He spoke quietly, sitting in the post and looking straight ahead. "It's bad down there. You hear all the rumors. We didn't know it was going to be like this."
Here in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, Sunni Arab insurgents are waging their fiercest war against American troops, attacking with relative impunity just blocks from Marine-controlled territory. Every day, the Americans fight to hold their turf in a war against an enemy who seems to be everywhere but is not often seen.
The cost has been high: in the last six weeks, 21 Americans have been killed here, far more than in any other city in Iraq and double the number of deaths in Baghdad, a city with a population 15 times as large.
"We fight it one day at a time," said Capt. Phillip Ash, who commands Company K in the Third Battalion, Seventh Marines, which patrols central Ramadi.
"Some days you're the windshield," he said, "some days you're the bug."
Ramadi is an important indicator of just how long it may be before an American withdrawal.
The city has long been a haven for insurgents, but it has never fallen fully into enemy hands, as Falluja did last fall, when marines could not even patrol before an invasion in November. Senior commanders here will not rule out a full invasion, but for now, the checkpoints and street patrols continue.
Because troop levels have stayed steady here, Ramadi also differs from Tal Afar, a rebel stronghold near the Syrian border, where Americans laid siege only to have to return later because they were unable to leave enough troops to secure it.
Still, more than two years after the American invasion, this city of 400,000 people is just barely within American control. The deputy governor of Anbar was shot to death on Tuesday; the day before, the governor's car was fired on. There is no police force. A Baghdad cellphone company has refused to put up towers here. American bases are regularly pelted with rockets and mortar shells, and when troops here get out of their vehicles to patrol, they are almost always running.
"You can't just walk down the street for a period of time and not expect to get shot at," said Maj. Bradford W. Tippett, the operations officer for the Third Battalion.
Capt. Rory Quinn, a Bronx native who majored in international relations at Boston University, used a mixed analogy: "It's kind of like playing basketball: short sprints. Everything we do here is a minefield."
Commanders remain hopeful that Iraqi soldiers will soon be able to take full responsibility for the city. The number of Iraqi Army soldiers here has doubled in recent months. A city council has begun to work, and a local police force is being trained. But the relentlessness of the insurgent violence here ties the American units to the streets, forcing them to focus on the fight.
"We've never given them the chance to breathe, but it continues to be one of the most violent places," said Lt. Col. Roger B. Turner, commanding officer of the Marine battalion, which is attached to the Army's Second Brigade Combat Team.
The vast majority of Americans killed here since September have been victims of homemade bombs, what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s. Sgt. William Callahan, a member of the bomb disposal team stationed with the Third Battalion, estimated that troops hit four such bombs a day in Ramadi. Most do not result in death or serious injury. Almost all are remotely detonated, which means someone is hiding in wait for coming vehicles.
Besides the two soldiers who died near Corporal Rosener's post, seven soldiers, including two Iraqis, in a Bradley were victims of homemade bombs in eastern Ramadi a week ago. Bombs killed one marine in a Humvee on Oct. 4, and five soldiers were killed in a Bradley on Sept. 28.
Gunnery Sgt. Jose C. Soto, the bomb squad's leader, said insurgents in Ramadi were highly trained, making bombs by linking several large artillery rounds together. They use fuel enhancements, like gasoline mixed with sugar, to cling to a victim's body and make a bigger fire, said First Lt. Bradley R. Watson, 27, of the battalion's Company L.
The Oct. 4 attack is an example. The area was rarely traveled by troops and was laced with explosives. Sergeant Callahan said 10 I.E.D.'s went off in the area that day. At 7:18 a.m., insurgents set off three explosives from holes in the road under a convoy, flipping a Humvee onto its back. Fuel gushed, making a pool on the ground, and a marine trapped under the vehicle was barely able to keep his mouth above the rising fluid. A Navy medic riding in the Humvee lost his leg but still gave first aid. The driver was killed instantly.
"It's like being caught in the undertow of a wave," said Lieutenant Watson, who was slightly hurt in the attack - the third time he has been wounded in Iraq. "Everything flips around. Everybody is shouting."
Snipers are a constant plague. In one area of the city, snipers have hit four Americans since late August, and soldiers were obliged to set up blast walls for security for a polling center there last week in the dark. A law school in eastern Ramadi had to be shut down because sniper attacks were coming from it at night.
"It's like everyone in this town is a sniper," said Muhammad Ali Jasim, an Iraqi soldier who has been stationed here since May. "You can't stand in one place for long."
"You get a workout," Corporal Rosener said. "It's all running. Running from building to building."
But closeness to the insurgents - a popular sniping position is in the hotel across the street from the marine camp in the governor's office - has given the Americans a better look at their enemy. The marines of Company K have seen arms pulling dead or wounded insurgents away from the hotel's windows.
Insurgent groups appear to be numerous and fractious. Religious and militant graffiti are scrawled on walls. Colonel Turner said he saw a man on Thursday giving out leaflets exhorting citizens to ignore any mujahedeen literature that did not bear the symbol of the Islamic Army militant group - two crossed swords draped with a black flag.
Ansar al-Sunna, another militant group, claimed to have killed four Iraqi contractors here on Friday.
Many of their techniques directly involve Ramadi residents. One is to use telephones to track American raids: Captain Quinn said he had heard the phone ring in houses along a block they were searching, and when the owner of the house they were standing in did not pick up, the calls stopped - the insurgents had found them.
The line between civilians and insurgents is blurry in Ramadi. In a twist that sets it apart from other violent cities, insurgents usually do not attack civilians in large groups. There have been no suicide bombings in recent memory, and I.E.D.'s are rarely placed close to houses. Insurgents have left alone American projects that deliver services that locals want, like the installation of 18 transformers last month for more power. And when the streets empty out, the Americans know an attack is imminent.
"The population clearly gets the word - there's a network out there," Colonel Turner said at the Third Battalion's camp, in an old palace on the Euphrates. "The average population has to go against them" or the fighting will continue, he said, referring to the insurgents.
Maj. Daniel Wagner, a civil affairs officer with the battalion, spends his days trying to draw in locals. But progress in Ramadi is measured in inches. Much of his time is spent patching and paving roads to prevent bombings, and planning demolitions to take away sniper nests - work he has sardonically referred to as urban renewal. Two parks are planned, as is a new police station. But the violence is a major hindrance.
"I should be able to just drive over," he said. "You need a four-vehicle convoy, you're out of breath, you're sweating, you sit down and say, 'Do you feel safe here? O.K., I've got to get out of here now.' "
The task is more difficult in that Anbar is one of Iraq's three poorest provinces, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations in 2004. Impoverished locals are easily recruited by insurgents. Captain Quinn said bomb makers usually carried $500 in their pockets - half the fee, he estimated, for the job, the rest being paid after detonation.
So far, reaching out to locals and persuading them to shut out insurgents seems a distant goal. Among the obstacles is the very armor that the troops so badly need for protection: on Ramadi's streets, marines in Humvees might as well be astronauts in orbit.
On one patrol last week, a marine from Florida smiled through several inches of bulletproof glass at a tiny boy in blue pants and a dinosaur shirt. The boy solemnly stood beside the Humvee, motioning with his arms - perhaps asking for a treat. The marine shook his head and shrugged, unable to understand.
The most immediate way forward, military commanders here agree, is training and deploying more Iraqi soldiers. Of the seven battalions in Ramadi, three are in eastern Ramadi with their own territory to patrol, said Maj. William R. Fall, the Iraqi Security Force coordinator. Still, only about a company and a half is based inside the central and western parts of the city.
Officers said Iraqi soldiers had vastly improved over the past year. The day of the referendum here was violent, with mortar and rocket-propelled grenade attacks raining down on many of the stations. But Iraqi soldiers stayed at their positions and returned fire when under attack, marines near the sites reported.
"I see incremental progress every single day," Captain Quinn said. "It's working, but it's not a three-month affair."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:47 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
a popular sniping position is in the hotel across the street from the marine camp in the governor's office
Simple enough, raze the hotel.
If Ramadi is such a terrorist hotbed, detain every single male of fighting age and sequester them for the duration. Let the entire town choke and wither economically due to lack of manpower. Use acoustic triangulation to pinpoint sniper locations and level any building being used for attacks. Enough of this nice-guy sh!t. Hearts and minds isn't working, time to go for the short and curlies.
#2
Spot-on, Zenster. Rinse and repeat as need throughout SunniLand. The Triangle needs sterilization - and I means exactly that. One cannot emphasize too strongly, or too often, IMHO, the cost of giving the Triangle a pass - when it needed to feel the pain - far more than any other part of Iraq.
#5
an aerosol with the solvent DMSO and nasty drug the CIA played with in the 60s should be considered for a few weeks of constant spraying on this town. At the minimum they would be too burned out after the first week to fight. At best they might be rendered perm. mellow.
#6
Fairly simple. Everything for one block around any IED spot is leveled.
And left that way.
Either the locals stop these bastards from planting the bombs (and we are talking about hunderd pounds or more of explosives - thats several 152mm shells - so its kind of obvious), or they move someplace else.
Pretty soon we either have a pacified city, or a parking lot.
But either way the bastards that are doign this run out of shelter, and our guys get hit less.
#10
I am seeing a technology gap, here. We have geosynchronous satellites, high altitude recon aircraft, UAVs, and even have been testing blimps that will just sit over a place.
Why the hell aren't they using them?
Even a company could detail a squad to do nothing but look at monitors all day and night. Literally nothing would happen on the street without them knowing about it. A single squad.
#11
My best friends all have sons over there. One drives a Bradley, another a Navy Medic traveling with him, another is a Marine...I have to read the news for them as they can't bear it. YOU tell them to patient because flattening the village is cruel???? That little boy was probably not asking for a treat but playing with a detonator....that's cruelty. Where's a neutron bomb when we need one?
#12
Surprise! A Gloom, Doom, Despair article from the front page of the New York Times. Another of the same by reporter Sabrina Tavernise (based in the Green Zone hotel bar?) and various Iraqi stringers. How does this compare for information to that lovely musical demonstration of troop movements (raids v.s clear&hold) clearing and garrisoning one town after another?
#14
I say this place should suffer the fate Zenster outlined. We are dealing with a mindset that only understand a limited range of things. The option they understand and respect is the one to use. You can't "reason" with them.
#15
If we flatten it (and I think they need a good reminder of what are are *capable* of) -- do not rebuild it like in Fallujah. Let it crumble and rot to dust.
#16
Personally, I like the Israeli model for handling these kinds of terrorist situations being encountered in Ramadi.
A good overview of the theory and practice is to be found here
#17
Gee Ramadi is just like Mosul used to be. Horrors. Work to be done, but it will be done because our Marines and soldiers are pros, something the NYT is willfully ignorant of.
#18
I think that you should consider the source on this article before getting too exercised. The NYT article could have been published in the Guardian or any of a dozen mideast propaganda rags. It would be simpler if they just put "F**K BUSH" in red 72 point letters over and over and not bother with the pretense that they are printing news. Everything that I have read from that part of the world plus the first hand reports from my son and his buddies in the 1/23 4th Marines after they got back from Haditha and environs suggest this article is hyperventilating BS and wishful thinking by the NYT.
#20
I'm not overly exercised about this article, RWV, I just want our troops to have the means whereby they (to paraphrase Patton), make the other poor bastard die for his country.
I can only imagine that our going light on the Sunnis is due to incredibly misplaced loyalties being shown towards Saudi Arabia. Time to can that sh!t and get down to business. While I would prefer that we do not level the entire town, if we have to make an example of it, then make and example of it and get it over with. Enough of the death of a thousand paper cuts.
Simple fact; The terrorists dress in civilian clothing in order to better elude detection and capture. This practice knowingly endangers the civilian population. It's time to make sure (per Oldspook) that the civilian population realizes this. Once their casualty numbers surpass our troop fatalities the light may come on. If not, consider it a free edumahcation.
#21
Tipper---very interesting article. Thanks for pointing it out.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/23/2005 15:58 Comments ||
Top||
#22
Its not a matter of vengance. Its a matter of operational safety. War is hell - time you faced up to it my anonymous little pointy headed friend., and these peopel doing the bombings and supporitng the bombers have made a decision to be on the other side - they are our enemies by their own choice.
Here is the clubat coming to you with the nugget of truth you nutters on the "peace at any price" bandwagon seem to miss: these are not "innocent" people.
To dig a hole in the street, place several (LARGE!) 152mm shells in a hole in the street, wire it to where the detonate properly (you cant just pitch them in there - triggering is important), and then cover it, set up the wireless trigger, and an observation point - and then to set an ambush with automatic weapons (machinguns, grenades,etc) to kill survivors...
Thats pretty blatent and obvious to anyone within eyesight that they are not doing charity work - they are setting up and comitting an illegal act of war and hiding with cilivilans to cover thier actions. So the locals are allowing this and not reporting it - thats called aiding and abetting, and they share in the guilt - and consequences - for the actions comitted with their knowledge and support in their home area.
So, if the locals make themselves part of the problem, then they get to be involved in the solution. They ahve made themselves and thier areas combat zones, and they will be subject to combat actions. This includes demolition of areas to improve scurity.
The solution is to cordon and clear any area attacked, and to do demolitions to clear dangerous areas so they can be observed by non-hostiles.
This means after an IED goes off, the area is cordoned off, the locals are put onto trucks with whatever goods they cna manage, then transported away by the IP/ISF to relocation camps in another region. Then D-9's bulldoze a 100m radius around the detonation point where they can be clear observation of the point.
Repeat this until they realize that if they support terrorists, they pay the price with thier own houses, land and goods - and therefore stop aiding and abetting the terrorists. OR else we have a miltiarily clear set of objectives and they all end up relocated out of the "Sunni triangle" into a Shia or Kurdish zone.
Either way, the military objective is done: the supply routes are secured, and the attacks against troops are halted.
Dear God, please Provide the Wadmin and congress critters of all stripes and markings, with the spine required to support our Warfighters (i know... ["Spell-Chk" snafu]). In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
#26
#19 Too bad that we ate too civilized to go Roman on Ramadi. We would only have to do it once.
Posted by SR-71 2005-10-23 13:21|| Front Page|| Comment Top
Yep. I once suggested that we do so and the guys at Arrrgghhh!!! website jumped all over my ass for that one. If that's how the military types think, we're not going to do too well against these modern day Nazis in thobes.
At first we used such liquidations as our response to terrorist attacks: they start - we respond, then they respond again. But starting from February 2003 the liquidation practice was not in any way linked with their attacks. We just have a list of the key figures - the list of organization leaders, of the so-called "field commanders", etc. So we started neutralizing them according to our list: we arrested those we could and liquidated those we could not.
And in a short while, from mid-2003, the rate of terrorist attacks started decreasing - not only the rate of their successful attacks, but of the plotted attacks as well. After we first liquidated Sheikh Yassin and then his successor Rantissi, Hamas has not given up terrorism, of course. Quite the contrary - they have started planning a mega-attack, some kind of "Mother of All Terrorist Attacks" as they call it. But up to now, they haven't accomplished anything over the past two years.
... And you can see for yourselves that the dramatic decline of the number of planned terrorist attacks started when we were able to neutralize approximately one fourth of the activists from the list of militants from the three fighting organizations: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Arafat's radicals (Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades).
[Emaphasis Added]
Which is why I (and, I think, .com) keep harping about wetwork teams. You kill the serpent by cutting off its head, not its tail. The Israelis know this and the remaining world had better learn it d@mn soon. No waiting for logical conclusions, or for nature to run its course. You go out and find those who are spreading this pathogenic meme, and kill them.
Read tipper's linked article if you have any doubts.
At least one Iraqi province voted overwhelmingly against Iraq's new constitution in last weekend's landmark referendum, according to partial results released Saturday that demonstrated the sharp sectarian differences underpinning the vote.
The preliminary figures show that the constitution is heading for approval by a huge margin across the Shiite south and the Kurdish north of the country.
But in the majority Sunni Arab province of Salahuddin, where Saddam Hussein was born, 81 percent of voters rejected the draft, suggesting that Sunnis voted in large numbers against a constitution they widely perceive as favoring Kurdish and Shiite interests over their own.
With the ballots in four provinces still being audited in case of fraud, and these figures representing about half the votes cast in 13 of the 18 provinces, the sample is too small to draw conclusions about the final result, Iraq's electoral commission said. There are still no results available from the 18th province, Anbar, because of communications and logistical problems in the insurgent-infested region.
The preliminary tally nonetheless indicates the extent to which Iraqis appear to have voted along ethnic and religious lines, despite a last-minute deal that was aimed at securing Sunni approval for the constitution.
In the eight Shiite provinces for which a partial result is available, in excess of 95 percent of voters approved the constitution, and in the two Kurdish provinces of Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk, more than 98 percent voted "yes."
In the mixed province of Diyala, just northwest of Baghdad, where Sunnis and Shiites are roughly evenly distributed, the "yes" and "no" votes are running almost neck and neck, with 51.76 percent voting "yes" and 48.24 percent "no."
If more than two-thirds of the voters in three provinces reject the constitution, it will be scrapped and the process of writing a new one will start over, something U.S. officials are anxious to avoid because they fear a repeat of the political uncertainties of the past year will only prolong the violence and delay the day when U.S. troops can start returning home.
With Salahuddin on track to reject the draft, and the troubled Sunni province of Anbar also expected to produce a "no" result, all eyes are now on Nineveh, the only other province in which Sunnis are in the majority.
Nineveh, home to the troubled city of Mosul, is one of the four provinces from which results are being audited after U.N. observers monitoring the count noted suspiciously high turnouts at some polling stations, as well as suspiciously high numbers of "yes" votes at some of them, election officials said.
Also under scrutiny are the Kurdish province of Erbil, the mixed province of Babil and the mostly Shiite province of Basra in the south.
Iraqi election commissioner Safwat Rashid said that no evidence of "significant violations" has so far been uncovered but that the audit is likely to delay the final result at least two more days.
Most Sunnis have already accepted that they are unlikely to be able to defeat the constitution, but any question marks lingering over the legitimacy of the result risk alienating them once again from the political process and boosting support for the Sunni-dominated insurgency.
Overall turnout figures for the referendum suggest Sunnis voted in large numbers in the referendum, in contrast with the election in January, which they mostly boycotted. The election commission estimates 63 percent of registered voters cast ballots in this poll, up from 58 percent in January, although turnout in several Shiite provinces was significantly lower.
Recent weeks have witnessed reduced insurgent violence targeting the Iraqi population, but there has been no letup in the rate of attacks against U.S. forces. The U.S. military reported the deaths of four more troops Saturday, bringing to 26 the number of U.S. servicemen killed in Iraq in the week since the referendum and putting October on track to be one of the bloodiest months for U.S. forces this year.
In operations Saturday, the U.S. military said American troops and warplanes killed 20 insurgents and destroyed five safe houses during an action against militants suspected of sheltering foreign fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq near the Syrian border, The Associated Press reported.
Coalition forces raided two neighborhoods in Husaybah and discovered two large weapons caches containing small arms, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, explosives and bomb-making materials that included radios and detonators, the military said.
Soldiers destroyed a car bomb found near one of the buildings, and Air Force planes then used precision-guided munitions to destroy the safe houses, the military said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:44 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"But in the majority Sunni Arab province of Salahuddin, where Saddam Hussein was born, 81 percent of voters rejected the draft, suggesting that Sunnis voted in large numbers against a constitution they widely perceive as favoring Kurdish and Shiite interests over their own."
One of the interesting aspects of the vote, if the stats are accurate and granular enough, is that it pinpoints where there should be rubble bouncing and where there should be continued investment in infrastructure. Just one of those curious little factoids that pop up on the radar from time to time and say, "Look at Meee!"
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops and warplanes killed 20 insurgents Saturday while destroying safehouses for foreign militants near the Syrian border, and four more American military deaths edged the war's U.S. death toll closer to 2,000.
The day's heaviest fighting came when U.S.-led forces raided five houses suspected of sheltering foreign fighters in Husaybah, a town near Iraq's border with Syria, the military said. The troops reportedly killed 20 insurgents and captured one. The raiders found two caches of small arms, ammunition, rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds and bomb-making materials, the military said. Troops set off a car bomb found near one of the buildings, and the Air Force then used precision-guided munitions to destroy the houses.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/23/2005 00:18 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Bravely reported by AP's Lee Keath from the Green Zone which will finally be free when the 2000th MSM journalist dies. It may be from alcoholism, it may come from being kidnapped - mistaken for an infidel enemy, it may be from "friendly fire". Doesn't matter. Iraq won't be able to buy a break from assholes such as Keath until they are gone.
Posted by: DanNY ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Definitely one of those worthwhile articles which will be roundly ignored by the Moonbat MSM and the Kwagmire Krowd. It's to TWS's credit that they've picked it up and given it at least some circulation. Kudos to TWS.
Yon just rocks - and his stories are among the few believable accounts of what is actually going on in Iraq. From him, I gain credible confidence as well as factual knowledge. Thx, Michael.
#2
Yeah, I read the whole thing, but it is sooooo long! How can one expect the journalists to focus for such a long time? And the typical readers have such short --whatever
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/23/2005 18:22 Comments ||
Top||
#3
There was some confusion on the number of attacks. The DefendAmerica article (Armed Forces Press) said - "there were 299 attacks across Iraq on Jan. 30, while there were 89 on Oct. 15. And, he added, there were 88 insurgent attacks on polling sites during the Jan. 30 election, compared to just 19 on those sites on the day of voting for the constitutional referendum."
So both numbers Mr. Yon heard were correct!
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/23/2005 18:30 Comments ||
Top||
The Iraqi army arrested Saturday a half a dozen of Iraqi insurgents and seized a booby trapped car in Ramadi in the western side of the country in a couple of military operations, said a statement issued by the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The ministry said the six gunmen were detained after a confrontation in Jaffa street in Baghdad's heart. The detainees were involved in "several crimes targeting Iraqi civilians and the army and police forces," said the ministry, adding that two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the clash.
In the meantime, Iraqi soldiers seized and eliminated a booby trapped car in Grand Ramadi of the western Anbar governorate, said the ministry. In Basra, US-led forces stormed residential areas in the northern part of the southern city, said a statement by the forces. The forces seized explosives, heavy arms, and arrested nine suspects there, said the statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
The Multi-National Force (MNF) captured early Saturday three people who were with ex-President Saddam Hussein until the liberation of Baghdad, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said. A media source at PUK, headed by president Jalal Talabani, said the arrestees were the cousins of Saddam Hussein and special escorts. He identified them as Mohammad Ibrahim Omar, one of Saddam's counsins, Telfah Ibrahim Omar and Meslet Mohammad Ibrahim. The source did not say how and where they were arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
If I ever turn to a life of crime I'm going to wear a top hat and a mask.
Multi-National Forces from 172nd Infantry Brigade (Stryker Brigade Combat Team) uncovered 10 weapons caches and detained 16 suspected terrorists during two operations in northern Iraq Oct. 17-18.
Soldiers from 4th Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment detained 16 suspected terrorists and seized a weapons cache during a raid near Rawah along the Euphrates River Oct. 17. The cache included mortar aiming stakes, mortar launching equipment, mortar propellant, and explosive paraphernalia.
Soldiers from the 4-14th Cavalry also seized nine weapons caches during search operations near Rawah Oct. 17-18. The caches included over 600 various artillery rounds, over 700 various mortar rounds, mortar tubes, various rockets, several rocket and rocket propelled grenade launchers, over 100 RPG rounds, over 50,000 rounds of small arms and machine gun ammunition, machine guns, assault and sniper rifles, AK-47s, over 800 point detonating fuses, several feet of detonation cord, several feet of timed fuse, 80 pounds of TNT, several sticks of PE-4, landmines, fragmentation grenades, blasting caps, 100 kilogram fragmentation bombs, and various projectiles.
Iraqi security forces supported by Multi-National Forces continue operations in an effort to provide safety and security to the citizens of the region
Posted by: God Save The World AKA Oztralian ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#3
I know that Iraq is one big ammo dump - but at some point we will start to degrade this part of the enemies logistics. That's assuming we destroy this material instead of handing it over to 2nd parties.
Near Nablus, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian gunman after he fired on a military patrol in a West Bank town, the army said Saturday. The shooting took place late Friday in the town of Anabta. The army said two gunmen fired on the patrol, one using a hunting rifle, and a force nearby fired back, killing one of the assailants. Palestinian security officials confirmed a Palestinian had been killed and said he was hit by dozens of bullets. Palestinians identified the slain man as Raid Masharka, a 21-year-old member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, violent PLO faction.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A Palestinian woman was found Saturday hiding a hand grenade under her baby during a West Bank arrest raid, an Israeli army officer said. But the woman, Aziza Jawabra, said the grenade was in the pocket of her jacket and she did not know it was there.
"That ain't mine! Somebody left it there!"
The grenade discovery was made while soldiers searched a house in the town of Assira a-Shimaliya, north of Nablus. Soldiers arrested five fugitives, including Jawabra's husband, Lt. Col. Arik Chen told The Associated Press. The troops also found 22 pounds of explosives hidden in a suitcase in the house, he added.
"That ain't mine, either! It was in the suitcase when I bought it!"
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
But the woman, Aziza Jawabra, said the grenade was in the pocket of her jacket and she did not know it was there.
Is that a grenade in your pocket or do you just want to blow me ... up?
The Israeli occupation forces arrested Saturday 15 Palestinians mainly in the West Bank city of Khalil (Hebron). Eyewitnesses said, the Israeli occupation forces stormed homes in Hebron and arrested 12 Palestinians on allegation that they are Hamas members. In Asira town close to Nables the Israeli forces arrested one Palestinian working with Al-Najah University's journalism section. The Israeli Radio said that the Israeli forces came under fire from gunmen when attempting to make their way into Balata camp.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
AT LEAST 82 Jemaah Islamiyah (Jl) terrorists in Mindanao are in the military's order of battle.
Armed Forces Southern Command Chief Lt. Gen. Edilberto Adan said the terrorists from Indonesia could have already left the Philippines.
"More or less 82 (Jl) are listed in our order of battle," Adan said. "But the question is, are they still in 'the Philippines? They may or may not be." We are not very sure because they could move - they could go outside the country. The Jl terrorists change their names after they have sneaked into the country, he said.
Adan said Dulmatin, a key suspect in the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia that killed 202 mostly Australian tourists, is in the long list. The strategy of Australia is to move the battle against the terrorists down to their breeding ground, parts of which are in Mindanao.
"Australia also realized - that again their citizens were victims - and since it possible the Jl perpetrators were trained in the Philippines, it is their interest as well to help the Philippines in preventing, denying the use of Philippine territory in the training of their regional terrorists of Jl," he said.
Adan said he viewed the strategy of visiting Australian Minister of Defense Robert Mill to fight terrorists was the right one.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:46 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
It must be a great relief for the Phils to know the 82 members of JI have left. But only after they received 3 months of bomb making training. The Ozzies and Malays should be happy that the Phils have allowed them to move to their countries. Adan and GMA should be held accountable for the next round of bombings.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
10/23/2005 9:08 Comments ||
Top||
Indonesian police in East Kalimantan have arrested four people with hundreds of kilos of ammonium nitrate and detonators, local media reports said Saturday.
One man and three women were arrested in the provincial capital of Balikpapan on Friday with 375 kilos of the powerful explosive, which was allegedly purchased in Tawau, Malaysia before being brought to nearby Kalimantan by sea, authorities said.
The explosives, along with detonators and 1,000 metres of cable cut into 50-metre pieces, were allegedly destined for Pare-Pare, a town in South Sulawesi.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:41 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
Lebanon on Sunday arrested a member of a pro-Syrian Islamist group, taking its first action in response to a UN report that pointed to Syrian involvement in the February assassination of Rafiq Hariri, the country's former prime minister.
As the US and Britain kept up the pressure on Syria ahead of a meeting at the UN Security Council on Tuesday, a politician close to the Syrian government said Russia and China, permanent members of the Council, had given assurances to Damascus that they would block punitive measures against Syria.
Syrian officials ratcheted up the anti-Lebanese rhetoric, accusing anti-Syrian elements in Lebanon of having influenced the report. But they held out the prospect of co-operating with the inquiry, led by Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor.
The Mehlis report, released last Thursday, said there was "converging evidence" pointing at "both Lebanese and Syrian involvement" and called for a deeper probe of the Syrian role.
It also cited a witness account of meetings at the presidential palace in Damascusto discuss the assassination. The witness claimed participants at the meeting included President Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher and his brother-in-law, Assef Chawkat, who is also the head of Syrian military intelligence.
In Beirut, the Lebanese government at the weekend issued a statement fully supporting the findings of the UN team. Saad Hariri, son of the murdered leader, called for an international court to try the perpetrators.
Lebanese police arrested a member of the Sunni Muslim al-Ahbash group, Mahmoud Abdel-Al. He was mentioned in the report as having made a call to the mobile telephone of Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, minutes before the blast that killed Hariri and 22 others in the centre of Beirut.
In Damascus, George Jabbour, a Syrian member of parliament who is close to the government, told the Financial Times that Russia and China had given assurances that they would block punitive measures at the Security Council.
Riad Daoudi, an adviser to the Foreign Ministry who is in charge of liaising with the UN investigation, said the Damascus government would study any request to interview Syrians outside the country, one of the UN team's key demands. At a press conference, Mr Daoudi insisted that "figures opposed to Syria in Lebanon" had influenced the UN report, an allegation that he repeated several times.
Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, yesterday urged a "firm" international reaction. Jack Straw, the UK foreign secretary, said the findings were "very serious" for Syria. "What we do know is that the report indicates that people of a high level of this Syrian regime were implicated," he said.
The US and its European allies are considering measures against Syria, possibly including sanctions on individuals named in the report. Pressure for strong action could further increase with the release, perhaps as early as today, of another report that looks at Damascus' compliance with UN resolution 1559, passed last year and calling for an end to outside interference in Lebanon.
Israel's Haaretz newspaper yesterday said it had obtained a copy of the new report, which it claimed would indicate that "Syria's indirect military intervention and direct intelligence intervention in Lebanon continues, including arms shipments to various militias". UN officials, however, denied the Haaretz account. Additional reporting by Roula Khalaf in London and Mark Turner in New York
A Syrian Foreign Ministry official has denied that Damascus failed to cooperate in the UN investigation of the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri. "Everything that was mentioned with regard to Syria's non-cooperation is baseless, and I was sorry to read that" in the report, said Foreign Ministry Adviser Riyad Dawoodi on Saturday.
"Lies! All lies!"
Repeating initial Syrian denials, Dawoodi said the findings of the UN investigation into al-Hariri's 14 February assassination were politicised and targetted Syria rather than finding the truth. "We cooperated, but this cooperation was misunderstood. I hope that (misunderstanding) was not intentional," Dawoodi said.
Then his lips fell off.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Frankly, Iâm fed up with all these self-proclaimed Lebanon âexpertsâ avidly commenting excerpts from the Mehlis report as if it were some kind of exercise in exegesis.
Rafiq Hariri was a notorious Saudi-sponsored fraudster and embezzler who had stolen billions from the Lebanese governmentâs coffers with the complicity of resident Syrian Gen. Ghazi Canaan who skimmed his infamous âkhamseenâ percent commission for the big boys back in Damascus and Qardâha.
Faux âsheikhâ Hariri was most likely killed in a settling of accounts between rival Syrian mafia gangs: that type of crime happens every now and then in Palermo and in the south side of Chicago without eliciting the appointment of a German special prosecutor or impromptu meetings of the UNâs Security Council!
Contrary to the tall tales peddled on Fox News, Future TV, Al-Nahar-al-Wahhabist and other Saudi and/or Hebrew controlled media outlets, âsheikh Rafiqâ was no âdisinterested defender of freedomâ
Actually, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Saddamâs Iraq and the French government were the only members of the international community who stood squarely on the side of Lebanonâs sovereignty while the country was being ripped/raped by Syria and Saudi Arabia: in those days, the White House courageously looked the other way while Syrian generals tortured at will from Beirut to Zahleh and âsheikhâ Rafiq handed no-bid government contracts to his familyâs construction firms and organized Oriental orgies cum crystal waterpipes and deluxe Lebanese sex slaves for his Saudi masters.
Eternally Yours in Liberty,
Dr Victorino de la Vega
Chair of the Thomas More Center for Middle East Studies
http://www.mideastmemo.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Dr Victorino de la Vega ||
10/23/2005 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Excuse me, Doctor, but which are the Hebrew controlled media outlets? I want to make sure I know the proclivities of my news sources.
Hey, tw! You can't talk that way to The Doctor! It has a Chair! Give that a full .5 second to sink in, heh. Okay, now that you're suitably shushed, it also has a decidedly screecherific blog, pontificates from the sadly under-represented Massively Muddled POV, leaves little turdlets about Harriet Miers all over the 'Net (trying to drum up traffic from the looks of 'em), and, and, well, and everything!
Sir Thomas would donate polite laughter mixed with substantial spittle to the faux "doctor", methinks, for he eschews the core of More's behavioral dictum: "I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm."
Lol. Another twisted life-form emerges from the fevered swamp. Soon to return.
#4
... âsheikh Rafiqâ was no âdisinterested defender of freedomâ
I'm beginning to think that, along with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus, an Arabic âdisinterested defender of freedomâ is just another mythical creature. The unbounded rapacity demonstrated by most Arabic cultures would be a thing of wonder if it weren't so ghastly.
#5
Actually, throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Saddamâs Iraq and the French government were the only members of the international community who stood squarely on the side of Lebanonâs sovereignty while the country was being ripped/raped by Syria and Saudi Arabia: in those days, the White House courageously looked the other way while Syrian generals tortured at will from Beirut to Zahleh
#9
I know I wasn't quite as polite as I ought to have been, .com, and I apologize. In the circle I grew up in everybody had a PhD (except some of the MDs, of course, and us kids). But despite being a Chair, it wasn't clear the man is an actual professor -- other than by courtesy, I mean. So how else was I to address the man -- one uses Chairman only in meetings, after all. And that whole Hebrew thingy -- last I heard, the Hebrews (hebiru, meaning dusty ones in the ancient Egyptian writings) evolved into the Israelites in the time of Jacob the Patriarch, and certainly it was as Israelites that his decendants escaped the Egyptian slavery. But thanks for checking into the man, so that I don't have to! :-)
Lebanese police have arrested an Islamist who was being investigated by a UN commission probing the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, security officials said. Mahmud Abd al-Al, a member of the pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash Sunni Muslim Orthodox group, was detained in Beirut early on Saturday upon orders from Lebanese Magistrate Elias Eid.
His arrest was the first since chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis released his findings into the investigation of al-Hariri's 14 February slaying in a Beirut car bombing that killed at least 20 others. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Eid based his decision to detain Abd al-Al upon a recommendation from chief UN investigators. Mehlis's report alleged that Abd al-Al called pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on his mobile telephone minutes before the blast that killed al-Hariri.
In a reasonable world, that'd mean Emil was going down. We'll see how much sweet reason applies in Leb. So far there hasn't been a lot...
Lahoud denied receiving such a call.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened. Wudn't me."
The UN inquiry claimed that shortly after, Abd al-Al also contacted one of four Lebanese pro-Syrian generals who have since been arrested in the probe. Police also seized unspecified documents during the raid on Abd al-Al's home, the officials said without elaborating. Abd al-Al's brother is a prominent figure in the Al-Ahbash group, Ahmad Abd al-Al, whom Mehlis identified as a "key figure" in the ongoing investigation. Ahmad Abd al-Al had extensive contacts with top Lebanese security officials before and after the blast, and tried to hide information from investigators, according to the UN report. He was recently arrested in Beirut in connection with a weapons depot discovered in southern Lebanon in July.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Emil needs a gun with a couple bullets, to go down semi-honorably
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/23/2005 14:16 Comments ||
Top||
The mystery of Abu Adas, a Palestinian refugee living in Lebanon, was resolved by the UN report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on Friday as he was acquitted of any involvement in the murder. The 24-year old had appeared in a videotape broadcast by al Jazeera television on February 14th 2005 , and announced he had carried out the bombing.
A previously unknown group, Victory and Jihad in Greater Syria, âAl Nusra wal Jihad fi Bilad al Shamâ claimed responsibility for the murder and announced in a videotaped statement that the ex- Prime Minister had received the punishment he deserved. Shown on the Qatar-based channel, the tape featured the confessions of Ahmad Abu Adas, who alleged he murdered Hariri, accusing him of being a Saudi agent, in revenge for those killed in the Kingdom.
UN investigator Detlev Mehlis indicated, in his report released on Friday, âAbu Adas was in Syria and forced to read out the statement at a military checkpoint after which he was killed. The tape was sent to Beirut the morning of February 14 th 2004 and a civilian with past criminal convictions was asked to accompany a security officer to the Hamra district in the capital where they were to leave the videotape and then contact Ghassan bin Jeddo, al Jazeeraâs chief in Lebanon to inform him about the its location.â
In a chapter entitled Ahmad Abu Adas, the report reconstructed the Palestinian Islamistsâ final hours. It also described how, around 2:11pm on the day of the assassination, an hour after Hariri was killed, an unknown individual telephone Leila Bassam, the Reuters bureau chief in Lebanon and spoke to her in a non-Lebanese accentâ. Fundamentalists in London who analyzed the videotape told Asharq al Awsat, âThe message by Abu Adas broadcast on al Jazeera is highly suspicious.â Dr, Hani al Sibai, an Egyptian Islamist and Director of al Maqrizi Center in London said âThe appearance of Abu Adas barefaced and the language he used were suspect.â In his view, the intelligence services implicated in the murder hid behind the âeasy targetâ, which is al Qaeda and organizations that are linked to it, in an attempt âto blame Islamistsâ for the murder. Watching Abus Adas on screen, âI felt he was being held captive and made to read a message prepared by someone elseâ, al Sibai recalled, adding that he had never heard of the organization which allegedly masterminded the attack on Hariri.
In her testimony to the UN probe, Bassam said an unknown individual contacted her at the office and dictating the following message: âWe, the Victory and Jihad in Greater Syria organization, claim responsibility for murdering Rafik Hariri. His killing should serve as an example to others.â
For his part, Bin Jeddo remembered receiving four separate telephone calls on February 14 th, from the same unknown group announcing it carried out the assassination. The first caller, who had an âAfrican, or Afghan, or Pakistani accent claimed he was from the al Nusra wal Jihad group which killed Haririâ, according to bin Jeddo. Sometime later, the al Jazeera offices received a second call from another member of the organization who spoke fluent Arabic and explained to the staff how to retrieve the videotape with information on the attack. Ben Jeddo said he sent a colleague to a building in Beirut where he found an envelope with the tape and a written detailed explanation of the assassination inside. Following repeated calls from members of the group inquiring why the Qatar based satellite channel had not yet broadcast the statement, the channel showed Abu Adas claiming responsibility for the assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister.
Subsequent investigation revealed that Sheikh Ahmad Abdul Al, current leader of the fundamentalist al Ahbash group, which has a large following in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, received a telephone call from the presidential palace requesting information on Abu Adas. UN investigators revealed they had evidence suggesting âThe Syrian Presidentâs brother-in-law, Asef Shawkat, took part in forcing Abu Adas to record the videotape, two weeks prior to Haririâs assassination.â
The report added that the killing occurred over ground and no proof existed that Abu Adas drove the car which carried the explosives, adding that the Palestinian Islamist was used to mislead the investigation and that the tape was sent from Damascus to Major General Jamil Sayyed in Beirut before being left in the Hamra district and broadcast on the afternoon of February 14 th 2005. âAbu Adas who left his home in Beirut in January for Damascus was killed in the Syrian capitalâ, the report indicated.
Al Qaeda organization in Syria âal Qaeda fi Bilad al Shamâ denied in a statement broadcast on the internet the involvement of any Islamist militant groups in the assassination of Hariri. âThe attempt to blame salafi or jihadist organizations aims at fostering conflictâ, the message said, blaming instead the Syrian or Lebanese security services for the murder.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
Al-Qaidaâs second in command Ayman al-Zawahri urged Muslims to help Pakistanâs earthquake victims despite the countryâs close ties to the United States.
He was speaking in a video aired on Al Jazeera television on Sunday in which he sat next to an assault rifle.
âI call on all Muslims and Islamic charity organizations in particular to go to Pakistan and give a lending hand to the victims there,â Zawahri said on the tape. "We all know that (President Pervez) Musharraf's government is an agent of the United States but despite that I call on all Muslims to run to the help of their brothers in Pakistan."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 11:30 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Oh darn! Allan killed nearly 80,000 of his worshippers and he missed this guy!?!
U.S. intelligence officials say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has expanded his terrorism campaign in Iraq to extremists in two dozen terror groups scattered across almost 40 countries, creating a network that rivals Osama bin Laden's.
In interviews, U.S. government officials said the threat to U.S. interests from al-Zarqawi compares with that from bin Laden, whom al-Zarqawi pledged his loyalty to one year ago.
The director of the National Counterterrorism Center considers bin Laden a strategic plotter who is deep in hiding and out of regular contact with his followers, while al-Zarqawi is involved broadly in planning of scores of brutal attacks in Iraq.
"He is very much a daily, operational threat," said Scott Redd, who is in charge of the government's counterterrorism strategy and analysis.
In figures not made public before, counterterrorism officials say that Zarqawi's network of contacts has grown dramatically since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and now includes associates in nearly 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe.
Those Muslim extremists are members of at least 24 groups, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to much smaller organizations in Indonesia.
Al-Zarqawi is now seen as the top general who is putting in place al Qaeda's long campaign to establish an Islamic society throughout the Middle East, with Iraq at its heart.
Al-Zarqawi is a hero to extremists. One of the London suicide bombers equated al-Zarqawi with bin Laden and al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri. In a video released last month, the bomber cited the three as his heroes.
Like bin Laden, al-Zarqawi has managed to evade capture, despite the attention he has garnered and a $25 million U.S. bounty.
U.S. officials say al-Zarqawi is believed to be traveling around the Euphrates River Valley of western Iraq's Anbar province â an area the size of Florida, much of which is uninhabited desert.
Current and former government officials say he moves as often as every four hours. They say he relies on an extensive "early warning system" of associates who use Iraq's cellular network, high-power cordless phones, computers and other means to let him know when U.S. and Iraqi forces are moving toward his location.
All these officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitive nature.
Al-Zarqawi keeps a low profile and does not talk on cell phones, intelligence officials said. He is thought to be protected by various tribes, which, like all Muslims, follow a Quranic code requiring them to shelter one another.
He also is helped, said one U.S. intelligence official, by the fact that there is not a large, constant American military presence in Anbar, but rather pockets of forces that are bolstered during operations. Iraq's largely Shiite security forces do not want to go to the Sunni-dominated area, either.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have managed to kill or capture a number of al-Zarqawi's deputies, most recently Abu Azzam, in battles and air strikes
U.S. intelligence officials said they nearly have captured al-Zarqawi several times. They got exceptionally close in February when he was pursued by U.S. forces in Anbar. But he jumped from his vehicle and hid under an overpass while his driver and another associate were captured.
His network remains somewhat of a puzzle. The U.S. officials say precise figures on its size are hard to come by, as are details about how his associates coordinate with the native Iraqi insurgency, largely made up of Sunnis.
One U.S. intelligence official said just 2 percent to 5 percent of attacks, generally those involving suicide bombers, can be directly blamed on al-Zarqawi.
Al-Zarqawi has 2,000 to 5,000 hard-core fighters, while the larger Iraqi insurgency easily numbers over 20,000, with over 100,000 broadly defined supporters.
The persistence of their attacks and subsequent media exposure have made al-Zarqawi the public face of al Qaeda and the broader insurgency. He has become so central to al Qaeda's operations that some evidence suggests he is providing money to bin Laden.
In a letter released this month containing the group's battle plan, top deputy al-Zawahri asked al-Zarqawi to send money â 100,000, without being clear about denomination. The letter's authenticity is in dispute.
The letter and other communications also point to some differences between al Qaeda's central leadership and al-Zarqawi, including over whether to Zarqawi should be attacking Shiite Muslims and the direction of the jihad.
Al-Zawahri sees Iraq as the beginning of a campaign to set up an Islamic society in the Middle East and wants al-Zarqawi to think outside of Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
10/23/2005 01:39 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
...and wants al-Zarqawi to think outside of Iraq.
What Rantburger first said it? Think outside the mosque.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/23/2005 2:49 Comments ||
Top||
#2
so he is sending money to Osama. well, i will repeat myself: go after one or two mullahs and one or two bankers in Saudi Arabia and a great miracle will take place: the money flow will stop........
#4
If he is rivalling OBL, he must be fading into powerless, impotent obscurity. See how easy it is to spin?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/23/2005 10:34 Comments ||
Top||
#5
"Al-Zarqawi is a hero to extremists.""The persistence of their attacks and subsequent media exposure have made al-Zarqawi the public face of al Qaeda and the broader insurgency."
Yes, give him more of the not-so-grudging admiration he craves. I'm surprised we haven't nailed this creep; they can't blame that failure on Musharraf's delicate sensibilities.
#6
Consolidation is the sign of a contracting industry. Short Z-man, Inc
I quite agree. When a company downsizes, upper management must tunnel down into the organization to handle the tasks formerly the responsibility of those no longer there, while madly training those lower still in the hope that the #4s will be able to quickly obtain the skill sets they would otherwise have had years to learn. Until then, of course, nobody gets much sleep, and their spouses grow deeply, and loudly, resentful. (I think Iowahawk addressed that in a recent post.) Poaching by competing organizations merely exacerbates the whole situation -- and the Coalition isn't likely to stop even if Zarqawi asks nicely.
Taliban insurgents killed a police commander along with seven others following an overnight clash in southern Afghanistan, while an Afghan journalist was killed in a bomb blast in eastern part of the country. Provincial officials said commander Safa Jan was on his way home along with others, when they were ambushed by insurgents on the Lashkargah-Baghran Highway. The clash occurred in the Zarkhak area, said Mohiuddin, secretary to the provincial governor. He added, the commander and his body-guards were killed in the clash that lasted several hours.
Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack saying they had killed 10 policemen during the exchange of fire. The Taliban suffered no losses in the fight, said the spokesman. But the Afghan Interior Ministry claimed four insurgents were also killed in the firefight. Stanizai, spokesman for the ministry, said beside the four killed, another key commander Mullah Shahzada was injured but he managed to flee. He added fresh contingents had been deployed in the area to arrest the attackers.
A bomb blast in a military vehicle in Khost province killed an Afghan journalist and wounded three soldiers, officials said. Sadiq Tarakhail, a senior provincial police officer said the journalist was standing on a road when the remote-controlled bomb went off. The journalist was identified as Mewand, while the injured also included son of an eminent pro-government commander.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
...while an Afghan journalist was killed in a bomb blast in eastern part of the country
Outrage from the MSM in 7,6,5...oh, wait, it was done by the Taliban. Ok, nothing to see here, move along.
A Taliban ambush touched off fierce fighting in southern Afghan mountains that left eight police and four rebels dead, officials said Saturday. Insurgents hiding behind rocks attacked the police as they were driving slowly on rough roads in Helmand province late Friday in search of a rebel hideout, said provincial administrator Ghulam Muhiddin. A two-hour gunbattle ensued before the rebels fled, he said.
The government sent 200 police reinforcements into the area to hunt down the attackers. The assault was the latest blow for the police force after a string of deadly ambushes in recent weeks. The violence highlights the challenge facing President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government, as well as the 30,000 foreign troops based here, in trying to end a stubborn insurgency that has left more than 1,400 people dead this year. This month has seen a spike in attacks against prominent senior officials, teachers and religious leaders â many of whom had recently spoken out against the insurgents.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/23/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A regional leader of the outlawed Purba Banglar Communist Party (PBCP) was killed in âcrossfireâ during a shootout between his accomplices and police in Sirajganj early yesterday. 
The Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) recovered huge firearms, ammunition, magazines and military equipment in a pre-dawn swoop at a remote hilly border area of Naikkhangchhari upazila of the district on Friday. On a tip off, BDR Commander lt. Col. Mohammad Awal raided a temporary hideout of terrorists at Harinkhaia area and recovered two modern 303 rifles, One AK-47 rifle, 40 magazines, 2,500 bullets of 303 rifle, 200 bullets of AK-47 rifle and huge quantity of military equipment, official sources said. Sensing the BDR presence in the area, the terrorists soon fled the hideout leaving behind their arms and ammunitions. The BDR jawans are continuing their drive in the area to arrest the terrorists.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has directed the law-enforcing agencies to arrest Rohingyas living outside the refugee camps in Bandarban and Coxâs bazaar as many of them were found involved in militancy. The Myanmar ethnic Muslim minority known as Rohingyas, who fled to Bangladesh to reportedly avoid military persecution, were kept under strict vigilance as many of them were found linked with the local Islamic militants.
The trial of Saddam Hussein is in danger of collapsing because dozens of witnesses are refusing to testify against him after being told the former dictator had issued death threats from his cell. More than 40 people inside a special compound in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone had been due to give evidence of Saddam's alleged crimes against humanity.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - U.S. troops and warplanes killed 20 insurgents Saturday while destroying safehouses for foreign militants near the Syrian border, and four more American military deaths edged the war's U.S. death toll closer to 2,000.
The Iraqi army arrested Saturday a half a dozen of Iraqi insurgents and seized a booby trapped car in Ramadi in the western side of the country in a couple of military operations, said a statement issued by the Iraqi Defense Ministry. The ministry said the six gunmen were detained after a confrontation in Jaffa street in Baghdad's heart. The detainees were involved in "several crimes targeting Iraqi civilians and the army and police forces," said the ministry, adding that two Iraqi soldiers were wounded in the clash.
The Multi-National Force (MNF) captured early Saturday three people who were with ex-President Saddam Hussein until the liberation of Baghdad, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) said. A media source at PUK, headed by president 
Near Nablus, Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian gunman after he fired on a military patrol in a West Bank town, the army said Saturday. The shooting took place late Friday in the town of Anabta. The army said two gunmen fired on the patrol, one using a hunting rifle, and a force nearby fired back, killing one of the assailants. Palestinian security officials confirmed a Palestinian had been killed and said he was hit by dozens of bullets. Palestinians identified the slain man as Raid Masharka, a 21-year-old member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a small, violent PLO faction.
A Palestinian woman was found Saturday hiding a hand grenade under her baby during a West Bank arrest raid, an Israeli army officer said. But the woman, Aziza Jawabra, said the grenade was in the pocket of her jacket and she did not know it was there.
The Israeli occupation forces arrested Saturday 15 Palestinians mainly in the West Bank city of Khalil (Hebron). Eyewitnesses said, the Israeli occupation forces stormed homes in Hebron and arrested 12 Palestinians on allegation that they are Hamas members. In Asira town close to Nables the Israeli forces arrested one Palestinian working with Al-Najah University's journalism section. The Israeli Radio said that the Israeli forces came under fire from gunmen when attempting to make their way into Balata camp.
A Syrian Foreign Ministry official has denied that Damascus failed to cooperate in the UN investigation of the murder of former Lebanese prime minister 
Lebanese police have arrested an Islamist who was being investigated by a UN commission probing the assassination of former prime minister 
The mystery of 
Taliban insurgents killed a police commander along with seven others following an overnight clash in southern Afghanistan, while an Afghan journalist was killed in a bomb blast in eastern part of the country. Provincial officials said commander Safa Jan was on his way home along with others, when they were ambushed by insurgents on the Lashkargah-Baghran Highway. The clash occurred in the Zarkhak area, said Mohiuddin, secretary to the provincial governor. He added, the commander and his body-guards were killed in the clash that lasted several hours.
A Taliban ambush touched off fierce fighting in southern Afghan mountains that left eight police and four rebels dead, officials said Saturday. Insurgents hiding behind rocks attacked the police as they were driving slowly on rough roads in Helmand province late Friday in search of a rebel hideout, said provincial administrator 
