The Dutch military is red-faced following the revelation it has let confidential information slip through its fingers - twice.
The military recently had to own up to losing a USB memory stick with sensitive information. Then the news division of broadcaster RTL reported on Wednesday it had come into possession of top-secret information from a second misplaced memory stick.
This information was compiled by the military about Afghanistan. Parliament is expected to give the green light on Thursday to the controversial deployment of 1,200 Dutch troops to southern Afghanistan.
A captain in the Air Force, who had spent five months in Afghanistan, left the
unencrypted USB stick in a rented car two weeks ago. Two young men found it and copied the contents onto a computer.
The USB stick was returned to the captain a week ago and the finders received a gift certificate in return. The captain, according to RTL, said nothing about the incident and it only came to light when RTL received the information.
It included highly-sensitive recommendations on how Dutch troops should react when confronted with aggression. It also contained details on reconnaissance missions and security measures for Defence Minister Henk Kamp.
Kamp said on Thursday afternoon the captain has been discharged from the military.
This incident bears striking similarities to one last year when an employee of the intelligence service left computer disks in a lease car.
The disks included information about the sex life of murdered populist politician Pim Fortuyn. Crime journalist Peter R. de Vries featured the disks on his television programme.
The Public Prosecutor's Office (OM) announced on Wednesday De Vries would not be prosecuted for revealing State secrets.
#6
People do things like that all the time. It's easy enough to lose track of something small enough to fall out of a pocket -- my own experience with cell phones could have brought down several of our governments, if I actually knew anyone or anything important. ;-)
Fierce fighting involving U.S. warplanes and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan left at least six Taliban rebels and three police dead, officials said Friday. Ghulam Muhiddin, the chief of administration in southern Helmand province, said 100 Afghan police and army troops were hunting dozens of militants in Sangin district, and U.S. planes had bombed the area. "Right now we have got six dead bodies of Taliban. We are expecting there will be a lot more dead bodies," he told The Associated Press. He said 13 Afghan forces were wounded, four seriously. He said four Taliban were wounded, and two of them had been arrested.
Fighting began Thursday when police were deployed to the Haji Fateh area to hunt for Taliban rebels hiding there, Muhiddin said. Local police chief Abraham Jan said the fighting started after insurgents ambushed a police convoy. Clashes intensified Friday as Afghan army forces joined a search operation against the militants, with U.S. support. A U.S. military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara, said American forces, including A-10 war planes, responded to an initial attack on Afghan security forces by up to 30 militants. He said there were no reports of casualties among the U.S. troops, and that the fighting was ongoing.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2006 07:44 ||
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20 Taliban deaders and counting. 3 Afghan police dead.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2006 8:31 Comments ||
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The unfortunate situation the bad guyz now find themselves in is that they *have* to concentrate their numbers, having to bully the locals, who would be more than glad to inform on them or kill them outright.
However, this also means that whenever we find such a concentration, we can cull the whole herd at once.
#4
FYI: My unit was attacked by an A-10 in a training exercise once. I was about a half-mile away at the time and got a good vantage of the attack. It makes you a little queasy to realize, even in training, that you are the "sole survivor".
#6
Nope. The A-10 was slated for the scrapheap, but the wars in Iraq and Afganistan have kept it around since it is perfect for this type of war. The A-10 rocks.
Anonymoose, I know the feeling. I watched live fires of it too. Definately don't want to be on the receiving end of it.
#9
Rumor has it that the Army stepped forward to take the A-10 when the Air Force tried to drop it. The AF got real interested in the A-10 again as they didn't want fixed wing Army units.
That's what I heard anyway.
A suicide car bombing carried out by a man dressed as a woman killed three soldiers and up to two road workers in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, police said on Thursday. The attack against Afghan soldiers guarding a road construction site in southeastern Khost province late Wednesday was the latest in a spate of around 25 suicide blasts around the country in the past four months.
The explosives-filled car blew up after it was stopped at an army checkpoint in the provinces Bak district, a provincial police official said on condition of anonymity. As soon as the car was stopped, the person dressed as a woman started shouting to attract attention, he said. When the soldiers and roadworkers came close to the car, the explosion took place.
It killed three Afghan soldiers and two civilian roadworkers, one of whom was a tractor driver, he said. Another tractor driver was wounded, he said. The defence ministry said only one civilian was killed and the car had been driven into an army convoy near the construction site. Three soldiers and one civilian were martyred and three soldiers were wounded in the car bomb suicide attack, ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi said.
In a separate attack Wednesday, a remote-controlled bomb was detonated near an army convoy in the southern province of Kandahar. It damaged a vehicle but caused no casualties, Azimi said. Nine suspects were arrested.
The deadliest suicide blast killed at least 22 men at a wrestling match in the southern town of Spin Boldak bordering Pakistan in mid-January. The Taliban denied involvement in that blast. The attack was followed by demonstrations in cities across the country, in some cases accusing Pakistan of not doing enough to root out Taliban militants thought to have fled into its territory after 2001. In the latest protest about 1,000 people marched in the capital of the southern province of Helmand Thursday. We are asking Pakistan to take strong measures against specific circles in its country who support terrorists and their suicide attackers, demonstrator Ghulam Yahyah Dawari said in the town of Lashkar Gah.
Analysts have said the increase in suicide blasts and car bombs suggests the insurgents have adopted Iraq-style tactics or are increasingly being influenced by Al Qaeda. Counter-terrorism police announced Wednesday the arrest of an Iraqi, an Iranian and three Pakistanis whom they alleged were planning attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:19 ||
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A suicide car bombing carried out by a man dressed as a woman killed three soldiers and up to two road workers
I do hope the soldiers and the road workers are enjoying their Paradise. Wishful thinking: the family of such murderers should have to pay a murder-price to the family of the victim, and where the murderer can't be identified, the tribal elders must pay. They want to go all tribal and feudal on everybody, then the consequences should match. Oh, and I think we need a clarification that whatever a man dies in, that's what he's going to be wearing for all eternity (what do the houris think about men in women's clothing?).
Several Al Qaeda militants are coming from Iraq to take part in the insurgency in Afghanistan; a provincial governor said on Thursday after interrogating an Iraqi caught sneaking into the country illegally. The warning came amid an upsurge in suicide attacks, with the latest involving a transvestite bomber dressed as a woman who killed five Afghans at an army checkpoint in eastern Afghanistan.
More militants were expected to be trying to enter the country, said Ghulam Dusthaqir Azad, the governor of the south-western province of Nimroz. He made the comment after interrogating an alleged Iraqi member of Al Qaeda caught while sneaking into the country. There is a big group coming from Iraq, Azad said in a satellite telephone interview with the Associated Press. Theyre linked to Al Qaeda and have fought against US forces in Iraq. They have been ordered to come here. Many are suicide attackers.
It was not immediately possible to confirm the information from officials in Kabul. The defence minister and a spokesman for the Interior Ministry did not answer their phones. A spokesman for the US military, Lt-Mike Cody, said: We dont discuss detainees or intelligence matters. Rise in suicide attacks in recent months has fuelled suspicion that militants could be copying tactics of insurgents in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:02 ||
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#1
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat
Beat on the brat
With a baseball bat...
Posted by: The Ramones ||
02/03/2006 9:12 Comments ||
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The French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) on Friday denied a Sudanese media report that eight of its workers had been kidnapped by armed men in the country's troubled western Darfur region. "There was indeed a security incident on February 2 on the outskirts of Al-Feshir (western Sudan). Two of the six vehicles in the convoy were seized, but the rest left without difficulty," a spokesman for the group told AFP. "No one was injured and no one was kidnapped," he said.
"Er, you'd like to interview them? They're um...washing their hair right now."
Sudan's official news agency SUNA reported Friday that eight aid workers thought to belong to ACF were kidnapped Thursday near Al-Feshir by armed men linked to rebel movements in the region. SUNA said the team had called their Al-Feshir office to say they were in danger and failed to make further contact.
Denmark, where the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed has provoked the wrath of the entire Muslim world, should "look at what happened to Theo van Gogh", a radical Islamic group warned on Thursday, referring to a murdered Dutch filmmaker. "It says in the Koran that the death penalty should be used for anyone who insults the prophet," Anjem Ghoudary, a spokesman for the London-based Al Ghurabaa group, told Danish daily Politiken.
"Look at what happened to Theo van Gogh in Holland and you will understand that Muslims should be taken seriously," he added, referring to the 2004 murder of the filmmaker by a Muslim radical for linking Islam to abuse of women.
Ghoudary's comments came as Muslim anger continued to seethe balloon over 12 caricatures of Mohammed, which first appeared in Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, provoking burnings of Danish cars flags, the recalling of ambassadors, boycotts of Danish products and threats of violence against Scandinavians in Muslim countries.
The Al-Ghurabaa group, which counts as members many former students of the radical cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed who was stripped of his British residency last August as part of London's bid to rein in radical Islamic leaders, has also called for a demonstration on Friday outside the Danish embassy in the British capital.
On its website, the group calls Denmark, France and Norway, where the controversial drawings have also been published, the "Trinity of Evil", carrying an image of the three countries' flags ablaze. "The recent cartoons that appeared in a Danish newspaper and that were then re-printed ... which insult the Messenger Muhammad carry the death penalty in Islam for the perpetrators, since the Prophet said 'Whoever insults a Prophet kill him'," the group states on its site.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:41 ||
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Everyone in the Al Ghurabaa group should be immediately deported back to country of ethnic origin. If the Euros started doing that to everyone who makes these threats, there would quickly be a lot less "seething" amongst the European muzzies. They may not like Europe but they sure don't want to go back to the hellholes they came from.
Posted by: mac ||
02/03/2006 5:51 Comments ||
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#5
Nah, thousands of thumbtacks dipped in hot sauce.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2006 7:05 Comments ||
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"It says in the Koran that the death penalty should be used for anyone who insults the prophet," Anjem Choudary, a spokesman for the London-based Al Ghurabaa group, told Danish daily Politiken.
And if that aint fascism, nowt is. But the left in the UK will rally to assclowns like this time and time again. I don't give a f*ck what your fairy tale says, but if you bring it to my country and start using it as an excuse to threaten our way of life then it's hi-ho home you go... in a box. Now there's a threat Anjem.. and you're just down the road.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/03/2006 7:12 Comments ||
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Think it might be time for Anjem to...I dunno,... run with scissors maybe?
#10
Nah, thousands of thumbtacks dipped in hot sauce.
Sent via shotgun blast and followed up by rock salt dipped in bacon grease!
Posted by: BA ||
02/03/2006 10:32 Comments ||
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I was in Jerusalem today. You could hear the seething going on from the other side of the Wailing Wall. One can only assume much eye rolling accompanied it. Lots and lots of police on hand, so no gun sex (which, I'm sure, only got them more unhinged).
What a bunch of insecure hypocrites. They can heap scorn on Christians and Jews, but woa to those who might cast aspersions at them. Time to get a life.
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#13
BUT, THIS IS JUST HOW ISLAMOFASCISTS REACT TO THE INSULT OF ANY RELIGION, RIGHT?
Remember how outraged the whole Muslim world was at the desecration of the Church of the Nativity? See, e.g., this link. Oh, and the same outrage ensued when Josephs Tomb was desecrated, right? See, e.g., this link.
Oh, that's right. All we got was the sound of silence. Must be a version of Animal Farm . . . some religions are more equal than other religions . . .
#14
Everyone in the Al Ghurabaa group should be immediately deported back to country of ethnic origin.
Bullshit. There are plenty of artifical reefs that could stand some additional organic matter.
Every damned rat bastard who stands in the street holding a "Behead the Enemies of Islam" sign or the like should at the least be slammed into prison for inciting violence, terrorist threats, and -- since they're so keen on these laws -- religious hatred.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/03/2006 15:23 Comments ||
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The problem is, we haven't really put a whuppin on the Ayrabs, so they still talk their smack. What we need to do is to just crush unmercifully some bit of Arab real estate - Syria, Sudan, maybe even Saudi Arabia. Destroy everything standing higher than five feet above ground level. Let them taste the sour bile of total defeat - the bitter drink that Germany and Japan drank in full measure. We are at war. These people support and condone our enemies. It's time to teach them just what war with the WEST entails. It's the one thing that would guarantee they shut their filthy mouths for good. Maybe a complete nuking of every capital of every Arab state. Whatever it takes, we need to administer it, so they fear us enough to quit spewing this filth, and trying to murder us one by one. If they do try to retaliate, kill ten thousand of them for each life lost. Let them know that this "eye for an eye" stuff is their death rattle.
Some people cannot be reasoned with. You either ignore them, or you destroy them. The Arabs have already proven they cannot be safely ignored.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
02/03/2006 18:43 Comments ||
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#17
Nicely done, Robert. Might be an ace card. We should pull it out at very opportunity.
Let's make sure the game works both ways. Immediate diplomatic ejection of all muslim ambassadors from all western countries at the first "Death to jews" utterance from any of the countries protesting so piously.
Inciting religious hatred. So be it. Start with Palestine in an hour.
#18
Nah, thousands of thumbtacks dipped in hot sauce.
You left out the quick submersion in rubbing alcohol that should follow.
Bakri and his minions need to appear on the dance card of a hunter - killer team. The sooner these inflammatory morons start paying for such spewing with their lives, the sooner it will all end. This is a pathogen and we need to sterilize it. Isolation, immunization and acclimation will not work, only cauterizing this moral cancer gives any hope for our collective survival.
#19
All the lefty Euros better wake up from their slumber. It's time you boys became better acquainted with the MOOOOselimbs in your midst. Take them out for a late nite coffee. Give the a ride home...in the back of your truck Git'r up to about 80 kilos and yell...BAIL OUT. The cords around thier ankles will wera out in around 30 kilometers. Do this 4-5 times per week. Things will quiet down. Thank our locals in Texas for this lil tidbit.
When two explosions last month shut down the main pipeline delivering natural gas from Russia to Georgia, the last vestiges of dialogue between the two countries were destroyed. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili claimed that the explosions were aimed at destabilizing Georgia so that it would break apart and fall into the hands of Russia. North Ossetia, where the pipeline blasts occurred, borders the separatist Georgian region of South Ossetia, which seeks union with Russia. The Foreign Ministry replied in highly undiplomatic language, describing Georgias policy toward Russia as a mixture of sponging, hypocrisy and unruliness.
The angry rhetoric is easy to understand. Georgia was in the grip of a brutal cold snap when the gas went off. And there is little question that the pipeline explosions were part of a carefully coordinated terrorist operation in the North Caucasus region.
The accusations flying back and forth between Moscow and Tbilisi strain credibility. No one but the assortment of characters from Nikolai Gogols play The Inspector General now working in the Foreign Ministry could believe that Saakashvili, like the non-commissioned officers widow in the play, would flog himself when its 20 below zero out. The notion that the Russians would blow up their own pipeline just before the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe meets to discuss Russias attempts to use gas as a foreign policy weapon is equally hard to accept.
The simple truth is that separatists will continue to blow up gas pipelines in the Caucasus region whenever they please because the mountains lie outside the control of Moscow, Tbilisi and everyone else.
The pipeline explosions occurred several kilometers from the border between North Ossetia and Ingushetia. North Ossetia is Russias outpost in the North Caucasus. Ingushetia is a republic where Shamil Basayev happily gives an interview to Andrei Babitsky, and where the fighters on their way to Beslan set up their training camp near the obscure village of Psedakh. After Beslan you might have expected the feds to secure the Ingush-North Ossetian border, but that would amount to an admission that theyve lost control of Ingushetia.
The situation in the mountains of Karachayevo-Cherkessia is no different. These mountains belong to a people that was deported along with the Chechens and the Ingush in 1943 a people that has never forgiven Russia, and whose belief in Allah grows more fervid all the time. Karachayevo-Cherkessia today looks a lot like Chechnya did in 1993. In recent years, members of the dominant Karachai ethnic group have forced Russians out of nine large villages much as the Chechens drove Russians out of Grozny in the early 1990s. For Saakashvili its obviously more advantageous to talk about Russian intrigues than lawlessness in the Caucasus. But its interesting that Russia couldnt resist this temptation, either. The Kremlin had to decide whether to describe these attacks as part of the ongoing war with local separatists or as the work of foreign enemies. Not surprisingly, they went for door number two.
One thing stands out in all this. Whoever planned the explosions last month most likely Basayev possessed a network of agents capable of simultaneously pulling off two attacks hundreds of kilometers apart. He also had a far better understanding of the strategic consequences of the attacks than the Kremlin dinosaur, which is so entranced by its own enormous size that it still hasnt noticed that its long, craggy Great Caucasian Tail has fallen off.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:43 ||
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Two people were killed and 24 injured in three explosions on Thursday in gaming arcades in Vladikavkaz, the capital of the Russian republic of North Ossetia, officials quoted by AFP said.
Interfax news agency quoted the Caucasus republics health ministry as saying 15 people remained in hospital early Friday, three in serious condition.
The fatalities were a 25-year-old woman and a man whose age was not given, the Ria Novosti news agency reported, citing authorities.
The blasts occurred several minutes apart around 9:00.
An unexploded bomb was found in a fourth gaming hall and was made safe, police said.
The prosecutors office opened a criminal inquiry for murder, terrorism and illegal possession of explosives and munitions.
North Ossetia leader Taimuraz Mansurov called an emergency meeting of the government on Thursday during which he announced the closing of all gaming halls in the republic, restive North Caucasus region near Chechnya.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:40 ||
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When I first read this early this morning I thought "lions of allen" did it because allen doesn't like sexes mixing and video games. I though about it then before posting. This may be a simple protection racket by hoods or an act enginered to shut these places down by the government/local mafia instead.
Authorities in Central Asia suggest that an outlawed group responsible for terrorist attacks in the past poses a renewed threat in the region. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) was thought to have been largely destroyed in the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan. But officials in Tajikistan have blamed several recent incidents on the IMU, and they say the group has been increasingly active since an uprising was suppressed in neighboring Uzbekistan eight months ago.
PRAGUE, 2 February 2006 (RFE/RL) -- The most recent mention by Tajik officials came on 27 January from Abdugaffor Qalandarov, the chief prosecutor in Tajikistan's northern Soghd Province.
Qalandarov was speaking two days after a prison raid by masked gunmen in the Ghayroghum district of northern Tajikistan freed a prisoner with alleged IMU ties. He warned that the IMU has been increasingly active since an uprising and subsequent crackdown by security forces in Andijon, in eastern Uzbekistan, in May.
Qalandarov claimed the IMU has become even more dangerous than the banned Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamist group that seeks the creation of a global caliphate.
"[Hizb ut-Tahrir] is not as dangerous as the IMU," Qalandarov said. "We detained some [IMU] members and hold them responsible. We confiscated weapons and ammunition, including a Kalashnikov machine gun, a Makarov pistol, a grenade launcher, and military uniforms."
Tajik officials said they think the suspected IMU members who attacked the Tajik detention facility are hiding in the Batken region of southern Kyrgyzstan. Tajik and Kyrgyz security officials are meeting in the Tajik city of Isfarah today to discuss a joint plan to capture those responsible for the prison raid.
It is the cross-border aspect of the recent incidents that has authorities throughout the region concerned. But observers are quick to note that governments in Central Asia's post-Soviet republics have sought to use the Islamist threat to consolidate their already-firm grip on power.
Ahmed Rashid is the author of "Jihad: The Rise Of Militant Islam In Central Asia." He told RFE/RL that he has doubts about official statements warning of an IMU revival.
"Certainly we know that the IMU leaders are alive and well in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan," Rashid said. "There have also been accusations in Uzbekistan linking the IMU to killings there. But frankly, we have very little evidence on the ground that the IMU has been able to revive its movement in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. We should remember that Tajik and Uzbek authorities have a habit of first saying that Hizb ut-Tahrir now is a big danger, and then, a few months later, saying the IMU is a big danger -- and not giving any evidence."
The IMU's stated goal from 1999 was the overthrow of Uzbek President Islam Karimov and its replacement with a caliphate -- an Islamic state. Over time, the group has expanded its goal to include the creation of an Islamic state encompassing all of Central Asia.
Uzbek authorities blamed the IMU for deadly bombings in Tashkent in February 1999, and labeled the group a terrorist organization.
The group is also thought to have been responsible for numerous kidnappings, including that of four American mountaineers in August 2000. After IMU militants raided southern Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in the summer 1999 and 2000, the U.S. State Department placed the group on its list of terrorist organizations.
Its membership is believed to have totaled about 4,000 at its peak, and the IMU renamed itself the "Islamic Party of Turkestan" five years ago. The group also made clear its wider goal of establishing a caliphate to include Muslim-dominated provinces of western China that it calls "Eastern Turkestan."
IMU militants fought in Afghanistan alongside Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces. Its ranks were thought to have been massively depleted when the international community intervened in Afghanistan in late 2001.
At the time, reports suggested IMU military leader Juma Namangani had been killed. But those reports have never been independently confirmed.
A 34-year-old native of Uzbekistan spoke to RFE/RL on condition of anonymity about the IMU. He said he was an IMU member for more than two years, until late September 2001.
"After America's twin towers [of theWorld Trade Center] exploded on 11 September [2001], the U.S. bombed Afghanistan's Kabul," he said. "We realized that Taliban rule was over and decided to leave Afghanistan. [Namangani] was in Mazar-e Sharif. Mostly [ethnic] Uzbeks and some Tajiks live in Qunduz and Mazar-e Sharif. Namangani, who was in that area at the time, was killed in the first air strike by Americans. Yes, he was gone after the first [bombing]."
But the former IMU member claimed the group's political leader, Tahir Yuldosh, managed to survive and regroup. He claimed Yuldosh's forces are now hiding in the tribal belt along the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"No, [Tahir Yuldosh] sought refuge with other -- Afghan -- members of Taliban," he said. "He went to a mountainous area, forcing people to join him, and set up his camp there. He is still holding them by force. The lucky ones managed to escape; others are still there in special camps. There is no way to leave. If they tried, they'd face danger from two sides. [On the one side] there are Pakistani government [forces] who will shoot them. [On the other, there is] Tahir himself, who will shoot them too."
The IMU membership is unlikely to exceed 200 men, according to analyst Ahmed Rashid. But Rashid added that the group's underground strength is still a question.
"I am sure they have an underground presence; I am sure that militants and [IMU political leader] Tahir Yuldosh, who is still in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, are in touch with their underground supporters in Central Asia," Rahid said. "[But] broadly speaking, I think the governments in Central Asia see that Hizb ut-Tahrir is a faster-rising movement than the IMU."
Rashid argued that there have been no clear signs that the IMU is regrouping or moving into Tajik territory in recent months.
Warnings from the region's governments of IMU activities invariably serve to remind many observers that those same officials have been keen to invoke counterterrorism to strengthen their political hands.
Arkady Dubnov, a Central Asia correspondent for the Moscow-based "Vremya novostei" daily, told RFE/RL that Tajik authorities' recent statements should be seen in the light of upcoming presidential election there.
"Tajikistan wants to demonstrate that threats to internal stability and to the regime are only external ones, and that the [President] Imomali Rakhmonov regime has the full support of the elite and of most political parties -- and no dissent or opposition is left. It is very similar to Tashkent's position; Uzbek authorities said there was an external factor in the Andijon events," Dubnov said.
Central Asia has seen a strong Islamic revival in the past decade. Many IMU leaders and militants have come from the Ferghana Valley -- which straddles Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It is a politically and economically depressed region that has provided fertile ground for Islamist militants.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:35 ||
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Four Russian soldiers were killed and six injured in the latest clashes in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya. An official in the pro-Moscow administration -- who asked to not be identified -- told the French news agency AFP that the four were killed over a 24-hour period in different parts of the republic.
Firefights occur almost daily between the estimated 80,000 troops and a mixture of independence fighters and Islamic radicals. Earlier today, the Supreme Court of Russia's southern republic of Ingushetia sentenced four Chechens to 17 years in prison over a deadly raid nearly two years ago. The four men were found guilty last week of involvement in the June 2004 raid when a group of armed men led by Chechen separatist commander Shamil Basayev attacked police and government targets in Ingushetia. The raid left 79 people dead and another 104 injured.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:25 ||
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Korea Exchange Bank, controlled by US equity fund Lone Star, has terminated all transactions with Banco Delta Asia, accused by Washington of laundering money for North Korea.
The bank is the first South Korean financial institution to join US-imposed sanctions against the Macau-based bank. "We terminated all transactions with the Banco Delta, including remittance and foreign exchange dealings, on Wednesday" a bank spokeswoman told AFP.
The decision was made to protect the interests of clients and the bank, she said. "This is a voluntary decision and there were absolutely no orders from the South Korean financial authorities or Lone Star," she said.
The US Treasury in September labelled Banco Delta Asia a "primary money laundering concern" and blacklisted eight North Korean companies in connection with the bank, saying they were involved in spreading weapons of mass destruction.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:37 ||
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Another day, another trial, another opportunity for the Dutch prosecutors to screw up the case against this scumbag.
Samir Azzouz resumed plotting terrorist attacks in the Netherlands almost immediately after his release from a short jail sentence last year, a prosecutor told a trial in Rotterdam on Friday. The criminal intelligence department of the police in Utrecht was told by an informant that the 19-year-old Dutch-Moroccan had had resumed his activities shortly after he served a a short sentence. That jail sentence was imposed on him for assaulting a photographer following his acquittal by another court of plotting terrorism.
The prosecutor told the panel of three judges on the first day of the new trial on Friday that Samir Azzouz "wanted to leave his mark on the world" and "die as a martyr". The informer told the police Samir A. had taken over the leadership role the man dubbed the "Syrian".
Apparently George Clooney was needed in Davos or Sundance or something...
This Syrian man left the Netherlands around the time filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered by Islamic extremist Mohammed Bouyeri.
"Oops, look at the time. I simply must be going. Keep up the good work, lads. Allan has a nice reward all picked out for you!"
The Syrian, the authorities say, was the spiritual leader of the Hofstadgroep. This is the code name investigators gave to a group of young Muslims, including Mohammed Bouyeri, who were allegedly part of a Muslim terrorist organization. Samir Azzouz and six young Muslims linked to him were arrested in police raids on 14 October last year.
Hofstad Group sounds less threatening than "Al-Qaeda in the Land of the Millions of Canals and Extremely Uncomfortable Shoes."
Two other people were arrested later. Four men remain in custody. The police say they carried out the raids to prevent attacks on national politicians. They discovered a video testament made by Samir Azzouz, which allegedly indicated he planned to launch a suicide attack.
SAN ANTONIO -- A pair of improvised explosive devices and materials to make 33 more were seized at a home in Laredo in late January, federal officials said Friday.
At a news conference in San Antonio on Friday, authorities were quick to play down any connection to the insurgency in Iraq, where IEDs are commonly used in attacks.
"Right now there is no connection to IEDs in Iraq," said Donny Carter, of the American Tobacco and Firearms. "These are pipe bombs, hand grenades."
Authorities said they wonder if IEDs will become the weapon of choice for cartels involved in a drug war in Nuevo Laredo.
Agents also found 300 primers, 1,280 rounds of ammunition, five grenade shells, nine pipes with end caps, 26 grenade triggers, 31 grenade spoons, 40 grenade pins, 19 black powder casings, 65 firearm magazines, a silencer, and other firearms components.
No arrests have been made.
Authorities said they seized a large cache of weapons at another home in Laredo on Jan. 26, authorities said.
A 30-year-old man, who is accused of trying to sell a fully loaded AK-47 assault rifle and cocaine to an undercover officer, was arrested.
Agents also found six kits to assemble fully automatic weapons and at least 20 assembled firearms, including AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles, pistols and rifles. Agents also found 26 firearm magazines, two silencers, two bullet-proof vests, sniper scopes, police scanners, pin-hole cameras, 2,600 rounds of ammunition, quantities of cocaine, methamphetamine and cash.
#2
IEDs could come in handy in a drug dealer turf war. These are becoming more and more heated on the border. I wonder if all the grenade parts are Mexican Army surplus?
#4
IMHO its evidencia/indicia that even the Crimicrats and Mafiosi know American Hiroshima(s) = RED DAWN = INVASION USA, etc. will come, and that anti-American American pols and aligned Internaionalists-Globalists will do their best to ensure America loses. I surmise that the last thing world mafias want is a GLOBAL RICO ACT andor STRONGER, US-led INTERPOL.
National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said Thursday that the al-Qaeda terror network remains the top concern of the U.S. intelligence community, followed closely by the nuclear activities of Iran and North Korea.
Negroponte told the Senate Intelligence Committee in a relatively rare public session that Iran probably does not yet have nuclear weapons, nor the fissile material needed for producing them.
Nevertheless, the danger that it will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with the ballistic missiles Iran already possesses is a reason for immediate concern, he said.
Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, Negroponte said.
Meanwhile, he said that North Korea's assertions that it has nuclear weapons are probably true.
Reading from a 25-page prepared statement, Negroponte told the panel some 40 terror groups, insurgencies or cults have obtained or want chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
Negroponte spoke as U.S. and European diplomats worked behind the scenes to build support for their decision to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over concerns that it seeking nuclear weapons.
The International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors began a two-day meeting on a European draft resolution calling for Tehran to be referred to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
It was Negroponte's first public appearance before a congressional committee since his confirmation hearings last April. His job was created by Congress to coordinate the work of the government's 15 intelligence agencies
Negroponte said great strides had been made in fighting global terrorism.
We have eliminated much of the leadership that presided over al-Qaeda in 2001, he said, and U.S. -led counterterrorism efforts in 2005 continued to disrupt its operations, take out its leaders and deplete its cadre.
But, Negroponte added, the terror organization's core elements still plot and make preparations for terrorist strikes.
He suggested that high impact attacks would continue, and said al-Qaeda continues to pursue chemical, biological and atomic weapons in hopes of attacking the United States.
Negroponte said the United States was more likely to see attacks from terrorists ... than from states, although terrorist's capabilities would be much more limited.
Meantime, in a separate appearance, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States has made strides in the war on terror, but that the threat may be greater than ever because the available weapons are far more dangerous.
The enemy while weakened and under pressure is still capable of global reach, and still possesses the determination to kill more Americans and to do so with the world's most dangerous weapons, he said in remarks prepared for the National Press Club.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the panel, told Negroponte it was unacceptable that the White House refused to share information on its warrantless eavesdropping program with anyone except for the chairman and ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee.
What is unique about this one particular program among all the sensitive programs that justifies keeping this committee in the dark? he asked.
It was a reference to the National Security Agency's much-discussed monitoring program. Approved by President Bush, it has allowed the agency to monitor without warrants the communications of people inside the country whose calls or e-mails may be linked to al-Qaeda.
Thursday's hearing also represented a major departure for the protocol in which administrations have publicly briefed Congress on intelligence issues.
In years past, the heads of the CIA, FBI and Defense Intelligence Agency have offered their own independent analysis on global and domestic threats to the intelligence committee. Providing a stark reminder that Negroponte is now in charge, he decided to change the format Thursday, and delivered one unified assessment for all U.S. spy agencies.
Al-Qaeda remains our top concern, he told the panel, while Iran and North Korea are the states of highest concern.
On Iraq, Negroponte said that Iraqi Sunni disaffection with the emerging government is the primary enabler of the insurgency there.
Even if a broad inclusive national government emerges, there almost certainly will be a lag time before we see a dampening effect on the insurgency, he added.
It was Negroponte's first public appearance before a congressional committee since his confirmation hearings last April.
His job was created by Congress to coordinate the government's 15 intelligence agencies.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:47 ||
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#1
Don't fergit the TAIWAN issue - wid evermore internal protests occurring in China over freedoms, lands and espec right to wealth, China and its CCP may end up resorting to supp a military agenda ags Taiwan, NorKor, and even Iran to divert from its growing domestic instabilities. STAY ARMED AND VIGILANT.
Al-Qaeda, Iran, and North Korea are main threats to US
Ima peon but taking a wider view I would add China to the USA significant threat list of foreign governments.
Foreign countries aside, in general I have plenty of faith in America and Americans, but the biggest threat by far to our American way of life are traitors amongst us, along with unassimilated immigrants who refuse to melt into our culture.
#8
Wonder no more HC9827. North Korea's plutonium pile attracts Iran
January 29, 2006
THE drab compound that houses the Iranian embassy in Pyongyang is the focus of intense scrutiny by diplomats and intelligence services who believe that North Korea is negotiating to sell the Iranians plutonium from its newly enlarged stockpile a sale that would hand Tehran a rapid route to the atomic bomb.
... In November western intelligence sources told Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, of a clandestine visit to Pyongyang by an unnamed high-ranking Iranian official who offered North Korea a huge amount of oil and natural gas in exchange for help on nuclear research and missiles.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2006 21:35 Comments ||
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Despite statements by senior al Qaeda leaders, U.S. intelligence agencies do not have information indicating the group is ready to conduct a major attack, U.S. counterterrorism officials said.
The audio and video statements appear to be part of a propaganda campaign by the terrorist group to bolster morale in its ranks, the officials said.
Intelligence officials said al Qaeda has been damaged since the beginning of the global war on terrorism in 2001 but remains capable of a major attack.
John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, and senior intelligence officials are scheduled to testify today before the Senate as part of an annual threat briefing. Mr. Negroponte will highlight the continuing but changing threat posed by al Qaeda, which U.S. intelligence officials regard as the most serious national security challenge to the nation.
However, there are no signs of an impending attack like the hijacked airline strikes on the Pentagon and World Trade Center that killed almost 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, the officials said.
The officials discussed, on the condition of anonymity, the analysis of an audio statement by Osama bin Laden and a subsequent video from his key deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.
Bin Laden said in an audio message broadcast by Arab satellite television station Al Jazeera on Jan. 19 that an attack "is being prepared and you'll see it in your homeland very soon."
Eleven days later, al-Zawahri appeared in a videotaped message, also broadcast on Al Jazeera, saying that the "truce" offered by bin Laden had been rejected because of a Jan. 13 U.S. air strike that killed several top al Qaeda leaders but missed al-Zawahri.
Al-Zawahri said in the message Monday that al Qaeda would conduct further attacks on the United States.
A U.S. intelligence official said no hard intelligence relates to the al Qaeda statements and nothing indicates that the group is set to carry out an attack.
"Not every tape that comes out has been followed by an attack," the official said. "However, when they make these kinds of statements, you have to take them seriously."
This official said al Qaeda, and specifically its leadership, has been "damaged" by U.S. efforts, including the captures and killings of numerous top leaders.
"There has been a great erosion of the leadership, but al Qaeda does remain a danger and has [attack] capabilities," the official said.
The official noted that other groups that are "inspired" by al Qaeda have formed and may have "faint" ties or no links to "al Qaeda central" -- the group led by bin Laden and al-Zawahri.
A second official said bin Laden's offer of a truce and al-Zawahri's statements against U.S. leaders are part of "a propaganda ploy" designed to "buck up the morale of the rank and file" and prove they are still alive.
"It's also part of an effort to make the United States and Pakistan appear ineffective" in the war on terrorism, the official said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:12 ||
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There never is, until the boom. That's why terrorism is so efficient.
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Six years after suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat blew a hole in the USS Cole in Yemen, the Navy on Thursday commissioned its first active-duty unit with the job of thwarting a repeat of the attack that killed 17 sailors.
Naval Coastal Warfare Squadron Five will protect shipping lanes and U.S. forces overseas, defend harbors and provide port security with small, fast gunboats not seen since Vietnam. The squadron, expanding to 325 men and women, is expected to make its first deployment in 2007 to either Kuwait, South Korea or the Horn of Africa.
Interesting. I'd read somewhere that the Navy was looking for ways to use men who had tried out to be SEALS, or who were considered to be one step below the SEALS, in different ways. Is this one of them?
The squadron will deploy with a fleet of 18 aluminum-hulled boats equipped with machine guns and grenade launchers that can be loaded onto a C-17 transport plane and flown around the globe. In the water, they are capable of reaching speeds of more than 35 knots. Elements of the squadron can go ashore with a mobile sensor unit to provide surveillance of the operating area and relay communications.
Training scenarios include how to deal with a suicide bomber riding an explosive-laden Jet-Ski or in a fishing vessel, said Rear Adm. Donald K. Bullard, who oversees the squadron as head of a new Navy command for anti-terrorism and force protection.
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
first deployment in 2007 to either Kuwait, South Korea or the Horn of Africa.
Can I vote for pirate hunting around the Horn of Africa?
#2
Too short-legged a platform. DDG or similar (like USS Winston S. Churchill), a platform with more than a day's endurance, is much better choice.
Posted by: Bill ||
02/03/2006 8:04 Comments ||
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#3
I suspect that this unit is experimental. That is, the Navy wants a large littoral fleet, capable of policing long distances of shoreline. The primary ships to do this are the 500-600 ton Streetfighter class, but at $90M a pop, not enough of them can be built to do the entire job. However, they can be used as heavy weapons platforms for a region of coastline.
But they need to be augumented with a lot of very small PT-boat style gunboats that could be modular and forward positioned for quick assembly, or flown in by plane; which would use a Streetfighter much like a "mothership".
One such "swarm" of boats could control either many miles of coast, or could police a heavily trafficked sea lane, deploy area denial mines quickly, and perform all sorts of other operations.
#4
This is odd to me. Our larger capital ships, such as aircraft carriers, already have 35 foot rigid inflatables (RIB's) that can act as pickets. But the navy security folks I've spoken to say they are never deployed overseas where they are needed because of political sensitivites. Now those conversations took place a couple of years ago, so maybe something has changed, but the Cole was old news then. I don't see what is different here.
#6
At first glance this looks mlike an ideal anti-smuggling/dope running/pirate counter force.
Spot a Pirate boat trying to board a vessel at sea, fly in the mini-PT's and swamp them for firepower.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
02/03/2006 13:46 Comments ||
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Suspected militants carried out a rocket attack on Chinese-funded dam in South Waziristan tribal agency of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, but there were no human or major material loss reported, said security sources Thursday. Militants fired at least ten rockets at Gomal zam Dam in South Waziristan tribal agency of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Wednesday night, said sources. They said rockets landed in nearby abandoned fields, causing no human or property loss. Two years back, Islamic militants kidnapped two Chinese engineers, working on the Dam. One was killed and the other rescued alive by a commando team of the military. Due to the security concerns China has halted construction of the dam.
At least 27 Iraqis were killed, including 16 in a pair of Baghdad car bombings, while the US military said five of its troops lost their lives in attacks across the war-torn country.
Sixteen Iraqis died and 90 were wounded in two separate car bombings in Baghdad's Al-Amin neighborhood -- one near a gas station and the other in a market -- an interior ministry official said.
"Most of the casualties were from the blast in the market," the official said. The other car bomb blew up a parked gas tanker, setting off a huge fireball.
The US military announced Thursday that five soldiers had died a day earlier in separate rebel attacks.
Three soldiers were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad.
The fourth succumbed to wounds suffered when his unit came under small-arms fire in the southwest of the capital.
A marine also died of his wounds after coming under small-arms fire near the former rebel bastion town of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.
Four Iraqis were killed in heavy fighting reportedly between the Mehdi Army militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr and US forces in Baghdad's Sadr City, a US military spokesman said.
He said fighting began when US-led forces came under attack during a nighttime raid in the poor, predominantly Shiite district.
"The coalition forces conducted a raid in Sadr City to search for a known terrorist from (the Al-Qaeda-linked) Ansar al-Sunna group," the spokesman told AFP.
He said a US helicopter came under fire from some men on a nearby rooftop. "Another helicopter of the coalition forces returned fire to eliminate the threat," he said, adding that "four individuals were killed."
He did not say whether the four dead were members of the Mehdi Army. An interior ministry official said the fight was between US forces and Sadr's militia, and that a woman was also killed in the fighting.
Sadr's militia and US troops have often clashed in the past, most dramatically in August 2004 when the fiery cleric waged a bloody rebellion in the Shiite holy city of Najaf in which hundreds of his men were killed.
The interior ministry also reported that gunmen in a four-wheel drive vehicle of the kind used by foreign security details opened fire on a commuter minibus south of Baghdad, killing two and wounding seven.
In a separate incident, insurgents attacked an oil storage facility near the northern city of Kirkuk setting off a massive blaze, an official with the Northern Oil Company said.
In the restive city of Mosul, rebels killed three policemen and wounded 10 in separate attacks, police said, while gunmen assassinated the police intelligence officer responsible for an area south of Basra and his driver.
The US military said two children died in the town of Hit during a gunfight between security forces and insurgents on Wednesday.
In other violence, a high-ranking industry ministry official, Mary Hamza al-Rubai, was kidnapped on her way to work by gunmen who stopped her car but let her driver go.
The US military said that 11 Syrians, suspected to be insurgents, were captured Thursday during an Iraqi army raid in the restive town of Ramadi.
It said the raid against a suspected foreign rebel cell operating in Ramadi led to the capture of 15 suspected insurgents, four of them Iraqis and the rest from
Syria.
The raid targeted a factory in the Tameem district of Ramadi, the restive city located 100 kilometers (60 miles) west of Baghdad.
Iraqi and US authorities charge that foreign fighters, especially from Syria, infiltrate western Iraq to help the Sunni Arab-led insurgency across the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, the interior ministry reported the discovery of 14 bodies, blindfolded and with their hands tied, found in a ditch at the edge of Sadr City. They had been shot in the head.
Three policemen's bodies were found in Madaen, east of the capital, and two corpses were also found in Nabaie, north of Baghdad. They were all believed to be among an ill-fated expedition of police hopefuls from Samarra in mid-January.
At least 60 young men had been returning from Baghdad after failing to be accepted by the police academy when their bus was stopped by insurgents and they were taken off into the desert.
So far, police and medical sources have identified more than three dozen corpses from the group, mostly around Nabaie.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:30 ||
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As the kidnappers of two German engineers issue a chilling 72-hour ultimatum threatening to behead them, speculation mounts that Germans are being targeted for abduction in Iraq because Berlin paid a ransom to free archaeologist Susanne Osthoff in December. Meanwhile the engineers' employer is under fire for sending them to one of the most dangerous places on earth.
In a videotape aired on Tuesday, the kidnappers of two German workers in Iraq demanded that Berlin shut down its embassy in Baghdad and German companies cease all operations in the country, otherwise Rene Bräunlich, 31, and Thomas Nitzschke, 28, will be killed.
"We are moved and shocked by the video," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters. "It's testimony to a crime that shows a contempt for humanity." The engineers come from the eastern German city of Leipzig and had been in Iraq on a six-day stint to finalize the handover of a factory. The tape shows them wearing tracksuit tops and kneeling down in front of four masked men, three wielding guns and one shouting out the demands from a piece of paper.
The hostage-takers abducted the men last Tuesday outside their workplace in the industrial town of Baiji, 110 miles north of Baghdad, in the corner of the notorious Sunni triangle where the worst of the Iraqi insurgency has been concentrated, and where even heavily armed US soldiers can think of little else than making it back to their base alive. For western civilians, Baiji, site of Iraq's largest oil refinery, is a no-go area.
Experts from a crisis group led by Steinmeier are examining the pictures closely to determine what brand of kidnappers they are dealing with.
"We think the situation is serious," Steinmeier told reporters, adding that the government was doing "what is necessary and possible" to get the men released. He did not elaborate.
A first videotape sent out by the kidnappers last week alarmed Berlin officials because it showed a banner in the background that read: "Followers of al-Tawhid and Sunnah Brigades." Al-Tawhid used to be the name of the terror group led by Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, the notorious leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who has personally beheaded hostages in front of rolling video cameras.
Diplomats in Berlin say that means the engineers may be in greater danger than Osthoff, whose abductors were primarily interested in money. None of the three previous kidnappings of foreigners known to have taken place in the Baiji area have had happy endings. A Turkish hostage was killed and a Brazilian has been missing for over a year.
For Steinmeier, who only became foreign minister in November, the last few months have been a baptism of fire. His crisis team secured the release of Osthoff, but that may turn out to be a hollow victory if kidnappers now get the message that unlike the British and Americans, the Germans are willing to pay to get their people back.
In a gaffe that may yet come back to haunt him, Steinmeier confirmed indirectly that money did change hands to free Osthoff. Asked if the payment of ransom money in her case may have triggered the abduction of the two engineers, he said: "Not the payment of a ransom, but the media reporting about it."
It's not just the ransom payment for Osthoff that was a problem. In her case, the German government for the first time dealt with the kidnappers directly, handing over cash without involving a third country or an organization to cover its tracks. That means the government can't credibly deny that it paid money. In previous kidnapping cases, ransom payments were also reported to have been paid. But because the money flowed via third parties, Berlin could claim that it hadn't given in to the kidnappers. In Iraq, news that a government makes straight payouts is likely to get around among insurgents.
"Germans in Iraq are now particularly attractive," said Kurdish leader Dilshad Barzani who worked to secure Osthoff's release.
Steve Romano, until 2004 the head of the FBI's crisis negotiation team which specialized in kidnappings, said governments must under no circumstances negotiate directly with kidnappers through diplomats or intelligence agents.
"Governments are rich, the kidnappers know that they can pay any amount of money," said Romano. On the other hand it's incredibly difficult not to pay. "People could die, that leaves no one unaffected." But if you give in once, you have to give in always -- kidnappers know that, he said.
Security sources said the German government has not yet managed to make contact with the kidnappers. German media reports said a number of mediators had offered their services but none of them had been able to prove they had access to them.
Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler last week criticized Cryotec, the eastern German hostages' employer, for sending the engineers to Iraq despite the dangers that became evident to Germans only weeks ago with the kidnapping of Osthoff. "Those who sent these two technicians there and let them work without protection bear a high responsibility," said Erler.
A number of politicians have demanded that Cryotec should foot at least part of the bill resulting from efforts to release them. And the German business federation DIHK warned companies not to send staff to Iraq where insurgents have kidnapped over 200 foreigners since the US-led invasion in March. Hostage-takers have killed some 39 foreigners.
The latest kidnapping shows how lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure prove too tempting to resist, both for companies and the staff who venture into the death zone to earn fat bonuses.
Some 20 German firms are still represented in Iraq, according to the president of the German-Iraqi Association of Small and Medium-Sized Businesses, Gelan Khulusi. The number of German staff there is less than 50 according to official figures, but non-official estimates put it at several hundred, despite Foreign Ministry warnings.
To survive they either take the Rambo option of hiring heavily armed body guards earning $500 to $2,000 a day, or they try not to attract attention. Iraqi-born Khulusi wears a shabby suit when he goes to Iraq, always hires rusty old taxis and sits next to the driver.
Germans favor the high-speed option. Get in, do your job as quickly as possible and get out. That was the plan for Bräunlich and Nitzsche. Last year their 15-man company, which had a contract to build a plant that separates oxygen from nitrogen for the state-owned Arab Detergent Chemicals Company (Aradet), flew six Iraqi technicians to Germany to train them on the equipment.
But Aradet pressed Cryotec to send some German staff to start up the plant, so the two men traveled there on Sunday, Jan. 22. They planned to stay for six days. They seem to have felt safe. Bräunlich told his girlfriend there was no need to worry. In reality they were lucky even to have made it to Baiji, having traveled overland from Turkey.
Even the short trip from Baghdad airport into town is so risky that security services want $2,000 for the drive in an armoured convoy. It's unclear what arrangements the two kidnapping victims made to protect themselves. The company hasn't said whether it provided them with bodyguards. "In preparing the trip everything possible was done to minimize the danger," is all Cryotec managing director Peter Bienert has said on the subject.
Bräunlich, a keen amateur soccer player, went because he wanted to keep his job, people who knew him have said. "We know Rene Bräunlich very well and know that is was only the desire to protect his livelihood and keep his job that caused him to take on such a risky task," members of his soccer club, SV Grün-Weiss Miltitz, said in a statement.
In Baiji the two men intended to sleep in a building adjacent to the factory but they were moved to a guesthouse a kilometer away. In Iraq, even that short distance can be deadly.
When they drove to work last Tuesday, with an interpreter and an Iraqi driver, they were stopped by at least least six men in Iraqi army uniforms, handcuffed and put in the trunk of a car. The kidnappers let the two others go.
The German crisis team is preparing for all possible outcomes. Specialist negotiators from the Federal Criminal Police, Germany's FBI, have traveled to Baghdad and the Jordanian capital Amman. Before thery left they took some personal items belonging to Bräunlich and Nitzsche, such as a toothbrush. For a DNA test in the event of the worst possible outcome.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:27 ||
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speculation mounts that Germans are being targeted for abduction in Iraq because Berlin paid a ransom to free archaeologist Susanne Osthoff
#3
As the kidnappers of two German engineers issue a chilling 72-hour ultimatum threatening to behead them, speculation mounts that Germans are being targeted for abduction in Iraq because Berlin paid a ransom to free archaeologist Susanne Osthoff in December. Meanwhile the engineers' employer is under fire for sending them to one of the most dangerous places on earth.
A year after its police force melted away and the streets descended into anarchy, Mosul has climbed up from the abyss. But this city of 2 million, a key battleground in the Iraq war, still teeters on the edge of chaos.
Insurgents have tried to assassinate the province's governor three times during his 18 months in office. They have killed his son, five other relatives and 27 bodyguards. The provincial police chief was fired late last year after he was accused of having ties to the insurgency. Unemployment hovers at about 40 percent. The number of reported attacks is down 57 percent since the battle for the city last year, according to Lt. Col. Mitchell Rambih, operations officer for the U.S. Army's 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team. But residents say violence remains a serious problem.
"Every day there is shooting," Likaa Talal, a mother of five, told reporters accompanying U.S. and Iraqi troops in Mosul's Jamiilah Circle neighborhood. "There used to be more bombs before, more attacks, but now there is less. I sit at home. I don't know what's going on outside."
Though the political, economic and military situations in Mosul are still tenuous, U.S. officials here say the city's fate will soon be in Iraqi hands. Confident in the skills of the newly trained Iraqi army and political and military leaders who say they are fiercely opposed to terrorism, U.S. commanders have started giving small units responsibility for protecting areas of this ethnically divided city.
So far, two Iraqi battalions, roughly 1,500 men, have been given authority over sectors of the city formerly patrolled by American units. U.S. commanders plan to put a third battalion in charge of another area soon. If all goes as planned, Mosul and surrounding Nineveh province will be in the hands of 24,000 Iraqi troops by November.
Ten months ago, U.S. military officials said they hoped to hand over the province by the end of 2005. After putting an Iraqi battalion in charge of a sector in the center of Mosul last March, some commanders told a Washington Post correspondent that the training of the Iraqi units was proceeding swiftly. Others, however, warned that it might be better to take a more deliberate approach, making sure the Iraqis were trained properly. The U.S. military followed their advice, and progress has been modest.
Col. Michael Shields, commander of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, stressed that giving Iraqi units responsibility would remain "event-driven" and that problems with politics or insurgent attacks could slow the transition. He also noted that U.S. forces would remain in the region after the handover to give logistical, air and ground support to the Iraqi army.
Interviews with the Iraqi political and military officials who will take responsibility for running Mosul and Nineveh province, and with residents of the city, reveal a conflicting picture of progress mixed with persisting problems.
There are the rivalries between the city's Arabs and Kurds, played out in politics and assassinations. There is the high unemployment that leaves young men with little to do but fight or turn to crime. Police and army officials complain that the city's judges are afraid to imprison insurgents they've captured. And despite the $61.5 million spent so far on rebuilding the city's infrastructure, residents say they receive only a few hours of electricity and water a day.
The central question is whether Iraqi army and police units will be able to control the restive city with limited help from U.S. forces or will desert en masse, as they did in November 2004.
In that crisis, insurgents led by the radical Muslim organizations Ansar al-Sunna and al Qaeda in Iraq routed the city's 8,000-member police force in a campaign of intimidation and coordinated assaults on police stations. U.S. troops, backed by newly raised Iraqi units, reasserted control after months of fierce combat and say they have captured or killed 110 insurgent leaders.
While those who work regularly with Iraqi troops say their professionalism and skill have improved over the past several months, a joint U.S.-Iraqi mission into Mosul showed that the Iraqis still have a long way to go.
After U.S. armored vehicles had sealed off the ends of a two-lane street in the Jamiilah Circle neighborhood, American troops fanned out with practiced speed, carefully sweeping the rooftops, windows and doorways on both sides of the road with the muzzles of their rifles. The Iraqis milled around in the middle of the street, chatting, while curious residents watched from the sidewalk.
"We shouldn't be standing around like this," said 1st Lt. Devin Hammond, the leader of 1st Platoon, A Company of the 2-1 Infantry. He gently shepherded the Iraqi troops into a nearby courtyard.
As the mission wore on, the Americans started to give their partners tips: Don't walk around with your rifle's safety off. When you're leaning back against a wall to check the other side of the street, leave a small space so your comrades can walk behind you instead of having to cross in front of your weapon. When you enter a house, check it for weapons before you strike up a long conversation with the owner.
"We had to coach them a little bit, at the beginning," said Hammond, of Staunton, Va.
The Americans said the Iraqi troops had been friendly and eager to learn but could do better at taking the initiative.
"They needed someone to go in with them" into the houses on the street, said Sgt. Christopher Haggett of Montpelier, Vt. "I think their biggest problem is they want to be with us. We're like their big brother. They look up to us."
Another problem is the overrepresentation of Kurds in units deployed in this predominantly Arab city. The troops Hammond's platoon was working with were all Kurds from Irbil, east of Mosul, and from Dahuk province to the north -- both located in the Kurds' largely independent region. Few spoke Arabic, and many had Kurdish flags sewn on the shoulders of their camouflage uniforms, even though the practice is against regulations.
Although ethnic rivalry in Mosul has been a problem in the past -- many Arabs were upset in 2003 when, during the U.S. invasion, Kurdish militiamen entered the city -- the Iraqi soldiers, both Kurds and Arabs, say they have put aside their differences.
"What I have told my soldiers is that it does not matter who are or where you're from, as long as you protect this city," Lt. Col. Amar Abdullah, the Arab commander of the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade of the Iraqi army's 2nd Division, said after his unit formally took control of a sector of Mosul in a ceremony last week.
"Most people in Mosul, in general, they respect us," said Hazim Mohammed Khorsheed, a Kurdish soldier working with Hammond's unit. "Some don't respect us, so we shouldn't respect them."
As Khorsheed and his fellow soldiers picked their way through the street, rapping on gates and doors, they found that most residents agreed that the security situation had improved. Yet they remained pessimistic about the future.
"We always hear shooting and stuff like that," said Abdullah Abbas, standing in his pharmaceuticals shop, where boxes of drugs shipped in from India and elsewhere were stacked high in every room. "We hear that the Iraqi forces are getting better and better. Lately, I think things are getting a little better, but not 100 percent."
Abbas, 36, said he was still worried about the long run: "Since the fall of Saddam, we haven't seen any changes in the situation. We thought it was going to get better -- the oil prices, the election -- but it hasn't."
Basaa Abdulahmed, who teaches microbiology at Mosul Medical College, said her husband had been kidnapped in August as he was leaving a mosque. He escaped after four days, but insurgents demanded $15,000 from the family anyway. She paid the ransom.
"What will I do?" she asked. "If I don't pay, they will kill us."
Hammond dutifully wrote down the details of the incident and left a phone number for Abdulahmed's family to call if they had any more trouble.
Abdulahmed's daughter-in-law, Laela Shaikhow, was watching an episode of "Melrose Place" as soldiers entered the house. She didn't need the Arabic subtitles; born in Manchester, England, she spoke perfect English.
Shaikhow, 26, returned to Britain for six months last year, but came back to Iraq in October because she found it difficult to adapt to life in the West, especially as a religious Sunni Muslim. Despite the violence in Mosul, she said she intended to stay.
"I still prefer it here to over there," she said. "Even over there, the crime is terrible."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:17 ||
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I liked Dan's title better than the WaPo version. "Gains" is much better balanced then just-a-little-bit-better-than "Chaos"
Posted by: Bobby ||
02/03/2006 7:23 Comments ||
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Israel has erected an undersea barrier to defend against Palestinian insurgency infiltration. Bwahahaha
The Israel Navy has completed the first stage of a barrier off the northern coast of the Gaza Strip. The barrier was built to prevent the infiltration of Palestinian fishermen or insurgents from the Gaza coast into Israeli territorial waters.
"The aim is to prevent Palestinian boats of any kind from wandering into Israeli waters," an official said.
[On Feb. 1, Palestinian insurgents blew up a boat near an Israel Navy patrol off the southern Gaza coast, Middle East Newsline reported. Israel did not report any injuries or casualties.] remote control boat bomb - cute, but too scared to stay in range of control?
The first phase of the $4 million project consisted of a 150-meter cement wall embedded three meters into the sea floor. Officials said the project began in May 2005 and ended in September as Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip.
Since then, the navy has been working on the second phase of the sea barrier. Officials said this comprised of a 10-meter-deep floating steel fence anchored by concrete bolts. The fence was designed to extend 800 meters into the Mediterranean.
The floating fence was designed to stop Palestinian insurgency speedboats from entering Israeli waters, particularly toward the nearby port of Ashkelon. The fence, which acts as a net, was meant block a vessel that travels at speeds of up to 50 knots. put sharks with lasers ...no lasers? What do we have? ...angry sea bass?
Officials said the project could be replicated along Israel's sea border with Lebanon. Israel has maintained an underwater rope barrier that extends two kilometers into the Mediterranean along the northern border with Lebanon.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/03/2006 15:35 ||
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damn - pg2 puhleaze....
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/03/2006 15:42 Comments ||
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#2
Yes, but will the little fishies be okay?
Posted by: Captain America ||
02/03/2006 15:56 Comments ||
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#3
Seaweeds and such will anchor to the fence and the cement wall below, providing a home for all sorts of pretty critters. Give it a decade and the Israeli side will be a joy to snorkel/scuba dive, Captain America.
ISRAELI warplanes raided southern Lebanon overnight, after the militia of the Shiite group Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, police and the Israeli military said. Police said Israeli aircraft flew five sorties over the area, striking near the towns of Kfarshouba, Hibbariyeh and Khiam. Israeli artillery also pounded the area with 155 mm guns, with more than 100 rounds striking in less than an hour, the police said.
A young woman and several baby ducks was reported to have been wounded in the counter-attack, while a house was destroyed in Kfarshouba, windows blown out at a school in Hibbariyeh and houses damaged in Khiam.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that "our aircraft attacked targets from which our positions were fired on." Later, senior army spokesman Avital Leibovich said: "It was a serious provocation from Hezbollah, which is tolerated by the Lebanese government. "Any attempt from Hezbollah to link this attack with Wednesday's incident is illogical and out of proportion," the spokeswoman added.
Friday's attack came two days after a 15-year-old Lebanese shepherd, Ibrahim Rahil, was killed by Israeli gunfire in the area. Ms Leibovich accused Hezbollah of "using innocent civilians to gather information and launch attacks," saying the dead boy had approached an Israeli position. The army is on a heightened state of alert in the volatile northern border region, she added.
The Israel raids came less than an hour after Hezbollah fired on an Israeli position at Roueissat al-Aalam. The army spokeswoman said one person was lightly wounded in the attack, in which Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said some 500 rockets pounded the tiny Roueissat al-Aalam position in 45 minutes.
"We chose this post to punish it" for the killing of Lebanese teenager Ibrahim Rahil, Nasrallah told a news conference carried by Al-Jazeera television.
On Wednesday, the Hezbollah chief had threatened reprisals after Rahil's body was found near the border. Four Hezbollah fighters were killed and 11 Israeli soldiers wounded in fierce clashes in the Shebaa Farms sector last November.
Israel captured the Shebaa Farms from Syria during the 1967 Middle East war. The mountainous area is now claimed by Lebanon, with the backing of Damascus.
The area is frequently a flashpoint as Hezbollah probes Israeli defenses.
On Friday, Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh met with representatives of UN Security Council member countries to inform them of the "new Israeli aggression." He said Lebanon "hoped for a firm condemnation by the UN of the Israeli acts of aggression that threaten the stability" of the border region.
#3
nothing sez "we heard you" like 155mmm artillery, does it?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/03/2006 15:15 Comments ||
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A young woman was reported to have been wounded in the counter-attack, while a house was destroyed in Kfarshouba, windows blown out at a school in Hibbariyeh and houses damaged in Khiam.
What a terrible waste of ammo---should've potted several thousand of the vermin at the price.
A second terrorist organization made threats Thursday night against European nationals if Denmark does not issue a formal apology by early Friday morning.
The Abu-Rish Brigades demand followed a similar one made earlier in the day by another Fatah-related terrorist group. The demand for apologies from European countries where drawings of the Muslim prophet Muhammed were printed in newspapers added a threat to attack European citizens if EU countries did not cooperate.
Well abduct and hurt all citizens of the European countries who hurt Islams feelings and honor, said a statement by the terrorist organization.
The EU building in Gaza was also surrounded and then stormed by gunmen from the Islamic Jihad and Fatah terrorist organizations on Thursday, demanding an official apology for the published drawings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:28 ||
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See post on fabrication of offensive cartoons by Learned Elders of Islam/muslim brotherhood in p.4.
Is anyone paranoid enough to even begin to think perhaps this provoked flare-up of seething directed at us euros is engineered by the mb (parent org of the hamas) to get a lever on the EU regarding Gaza? Perhaps to drive them out, or ask for mo'money, or something?
#3
What the hell is anyone who doesn't absolutely have to be there doing in Gaza? Even the paleos don't want to be there - hell, they didn't bulldoze that wall into Egypt because they love their home.
If someone wants to live (and presumably help) in a third-world country, there are plenty of them around the world where the would-be helpers could actually accomplish something worthwhile, and not be threatened with murder for their mere existence.
Of course, if their desire to "help" consists of enabling Jew-murderers.... >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
02/03/2006 17:04 Comments ||
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Hey Mahmood, I think I see an outline of Mohamed on my crying towel...
Islamic militants in Thailand are spreading a murderous message to would-be informants that government collaborators face death, further hardening the battle lines in a bloody insurgency.
Nowhere is that clearer than in this southern village, where Sudeng Warebuesa's empty bullet-riddled house stands as a haunting reminder.
He, his wife, 8-month-old daughter and five other relatives were slain in the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 15 by a half-dozen gunmen who stormed their house, firing a barrage of bullets as they slept.
Outside, other gunmen sprayed bullets into neighboring homes - an apparent warning to keep away.
One of 300 so-called red-zone villages, Kathong is one of the most dangerous places in the country's increasingly restive southernmost provinces. It is in the middle of an Islamic insurgency that has killed more than 1,200 people in two years, with almost daily bombings, beheadings and drive-by shootings.
One way to stay safe, villagers say, is to steer clear of the path that Sudeng took - betraying the insurgents.
"Sudeng was a key member of the rebel movement. He turned his back on it about four or five months ago and became an informant," said Col. Somkuan Saengpataraneth, spokesman for the regional army headquarters. "He was terminated by the movement."
Relatives and friends are incredulous, saying the man they knew was a rubber tapper who made his livelihood at plantations around Kathong, a village of 120 people in Narathiwat province, bordering Malaysia.
"People said my uncle was a member of the rebel movement, but I don't believe it," said Ha Salae, 25, who lives nearby and recalls huddling with his family in a bedroom during the gunfire that killed his uncle.
Security forces have blamed the slayings on insurgents, though, as in every attack before and since, no one has claimed responsibility.
More than 20,000 soldiers and police across the region are hunting for an estimated 2,000 insurgents, but the true number remains unknown.
The insurgency, rooted in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala - the only ones with Muslim majorities in predominantly Buddhist Thailand - seeks a separate Islamic homeland.
Zachary Abuza, an expert on terrorism in Southeast Asia who recently visited the region, said the militants are intent on imposing a strict interpretation of Islam - and punishing Muslims who don't heed their vision.
About 10 percent of Thailand's 65 million people are Muslims. Most live in the three southernmost provinces, where they have long complained of second-class treatment.
The violence has mostly targeted Muslims, who represent more than half the victims, according to Abuza and other experts. Official statistics do not provide breakdowns by religion.
"Since March 2005, most of the victims have been Muslims," Abuza said at a seminar in Bangkok. "They're trying to impose their hard-line vision on society."
Others see the movement as nationalist rather than religious, with Muslims targeted mainly if they work for the local government and are seen to be siding with authorities.
"This is a way to scare the people who work for the government - or take the government's side," said Srisompop Chitphiromsri, a professor at the Prince of Songkhla University in Pattani.
Either way, fear among villagers has become pervasive - partly because it has become difficult to tell if a father, son or neighbor has joined the insurgency.
Mana Jehsani, 48, looked pale and shaken on a recent afternoon as he sat in a military safehouse watching an army video in which his son confessed to membership in the rebel movement.
"I was recruited into the black organization several years ago," his son, Masorey Jehsani, 25, said, staring into the camera. "I had strict orders to keep the secret and tell no one - not even my mother or father. Nobody was allowed to know about our mission for God."
Masorey was one of 16 people arrested in December during raids in Pattani province. He is charged with the murder of a Buddhist monk and the beheading of another man, as well as membership in the rebel movement, and faces the death penalty.
The confession could yield a reduced sentence, but his father was weighed down by additional concerns.
"I am frightened that my family will meet the same fate as the family in Kathong," he said.
Since the violence started in January 2004, the militants' bombs have grown larger and more sophisticated, lending weight to speculation that they get help from abroad - though there remains no hard evidence of outside involvement.
The government insists the insurgency is "homegrown," and no foreign terrorists are involved.
But authorities have been stumped about exactly who is leading the movement. There have been few arrests of leaders and no clear statement of purpose by the rebels.
Najmudeen Umar, a former lawmaker who was acquitted of involvement in a raid by insurgents, said authorities need intelligence few villagers are willing to provide.
"No one dares to tell the truth about what is happening here," he said, "because they fear for their lives."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:29 ||
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I blame President Bush, though not personally since he is simply performing his societal function and is supported by the webs of deceit formed by the corporate-owned FREE PRESS.
About 300 militant Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage inside the lobby of a Jakarta building housing the Danish embassy on Friday in protest over cartoons that Muslims say insult Islam and the Prophet Mohammad.
Shouting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), the white-clad protesters from the hardline Islamic Defender's Front (FPI) smashed lamps with bamboo sticks and threw chairs around in anger at cartoons originally published by a Danish daily.
They also threw rotten eggs and tomatoes at the Danish embassy symbol inside the lobby. The embassy is on the 25th floor of the building and protesters were unable to get past security in the lobby, a Reuters photographer said.
Outrage has erupted in the Middle East after more European newspapers published the cartoons, which were originally published by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten last September. Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.
About 100 Indonesian policemen watched the FPI protesters as they made fiery speeches calling on the government of the world's most populous Muslim nation to sever diplomatic ties with Denmark and evict its ambassador.
The protesters dispersed after an hour. There were no arrests.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:24 ||
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Muslim assassination teams coming to your neighborhood. According to Hizbollah - which the West could eliminate in the blink of an eye, if we weren't blind to the jihad peril - the kaffir wouldn't dare blaspheme the murder cult, if Muslims had murdered Salman Rushdie.
#3
The Iranians sent an assassin to London but he was totally shit. He's buried in East London somewhere. Think MI5 must have got there first.
Anyone got any eg's of anti-semitic / anti-christian cartoonery from the Arab press? Sure I read the ol' descendants of apes and pigs stuff all the time but does anyone have a dedicated site detailing it? Just having a bitchfight with the office moonbat s'all.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/03/2006 5:17 Comments ||
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Howard - Try the Green Truth, lol. Cartoons are on the right and you can browse a cornucopia of hateful BS in one place.
#5
Thanks, .com - may pigs be upon you - The Green Truth - like it! Yup, 5 mins of searching produced some rather rabid examples of caricature. May have to subdue the moonbat with thorazine darts, however. Getting spittle flecks from 20 yards.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/03/2006 5:32 Comments ||
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#6
Heh, The Umma has declared today Angry Day or sumptin...
Grrr.. Grrr.. Seethe..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
02/03/2006 5:34 Comments ||
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#7
Spittle flinging TRANZI moonbats, too bad they are not an endangered species.
#10
RD - Hey, you're right - they've taken the navigation off the window. Wankers.
But, of course, where there's a will, there's a way, heh. If you right-click on the cow cartoon and select Properties, you see the URL for the cartoon.
To wit:
http://www.arabnews.com/cartoon/2006/02/03.jpg
Now just put that into the address bar and edit the date desired. You can roll back through time and see all that they have online... I looked all the way back to 2002/01/01 before I got a 404. Note that month abd day must be 2 chars each...
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#19
Note to CaziFarkus: Your comments are inappropriate for Rantburg. Rein in the spittle or your commenting privileges will be revoked. This is your second warning; there will not be another.
#20
Just wondering Howard - what possible justification are you hearing from the bats? Even here in CA lefty land I am having trouble finding someone to justify the reaction from the muslim world. I'll keep looking though. I think they should re-publish the cartoons every day.
#27
The Power of the Muslim and Arab Worlds --Ray Hanania, Arab News
This week, we witnessed the power of the Islamic and Arab worlds to bring a Western nation virtually to its knees. I was amazed at that power. This is over an issue that the nations government had nothing to do with. All I can wonder is why the Islamic and Arab world doesnt harness that power more effectively and change policies that directly impact our causes and our beliefs?
A newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, published a series of cartoons . . .
This is the mindset. This is why, as fruit-cake as they are, better to be armed than stupid.
#28
May I suggest somebody repost Cartoons from the Arab World here (which are "offensive" to the West), for all to see, once they're available--I keep getting a message that the link bandwidth has been exceeded.
#29
CraziF is one of those "Bush is a faith-based extremist Moslem cartoon protester supporter" types. Agenda: attempt to turn Bush supporters against the President. Yawn. Zenster's already tried and failed on that one, CraziF. Not only is it boring, it's disingenuous.
#30
Mr. Farkus demonstrates his trollery by refusing -- repeatedly -- to understand. The good people at LGF are venting their spleens --Charles is doing all the work there. Rantburg is a group blog, and we're trying to figure out what is going on, and how best to fight it; the clever snarking is merely (for me highly educational) frosting on the cake.
#33
I don't think of this place as a blog, either. More a neighborhood tavern where it's OK to smoke but almost no one does. And the food is good. But not as good as the conversation. And the bartenders take guys like cazi Farkus by the collar and belt and throw them out into the street when necessary.
There's more, but I wouldn't want to offend your sensitive nature with my fantisies.
#34
good analogy - BTW the french tickler dispenser in the men's room is STILL empty
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/03/2006 17:59 Comments ||
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#35
I wish we had a troll cemetary, we could rate 'em amd laugh and sigh about their weirdness. It would be fun. But damned if I'm paying for the Milk Duds.
#36
ex-lib, send me an email to jas9146 at yahoo .com and I will email you a zip file of that page from my cache.
Posted by: ed ||
02/03/2006 21:39 Comments ||
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#37
Proof that religion is the crack-cocaine of the stupid class. Bush sided with the carpet-humpers in the French hijab case. Now Bush backs the jihad chimps who shout "DEATH TO BLASPHEMERS." And cars are offensive to the Amish, so we shut down Detroit and buy donkeys:
State Department, 3 February 2006
The United States blasted the publication by European newspapers of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed as unacceptable incitement to religious or ethnic hatred.
"These cartoons are indeed offensive to the beliefs of Muslims," State Department spokesman Justin Higgins said when queried about the furore sparked by the cartoons which first appeared in a Danish newspaper.
"We all fully recognize and respect freedom of the press and expression but it must be coupled with press responsibility," Higgins told AFP.
"Inciting religious or ethnic hatreds in this manner is not acceptable. We call for tolerance and respect for all communities and for their religious beliefs and practices."
The cartoons have caused an international furore, with protests in many Muslim nations and from Muslim political leaders.
While many European newspapers have turned the publication into a free speech debate no major US newspaper has published the cartoons.
Editors at several US news organizations told AFP they were covering the escalating row but had decided not to reprint them or air them on television out of respect for their readers or viewers.
#38
I knew this would happen. Bush administration sides with the faith-based cartoon protesters. If you climb in a toilet, you float with crap. Pig Crap Be Upon Muhammed and anyone who thinks he created a "noble faith":
GUNMEN attacked a group of Christian families in the southern Philippines yesterday, leaving at least six dead on the island of Jolo, a mainly Muslim island hotbed of Islamic militants, police said.
The apparently sectarian violence in the town of Patikul occurred in a cluster of houses behind a Philippine Marine camp, and came less than three weeks before a small group of US soldiers deploy on the island for joint military exercises.
At least five unidentified gunmen opened fire on three thatch houses before dawn, killing three men.
The Muslim wife of one of the victims and their eight-month old baby girl were killed along with the teenage daughter of one of the other male victims.
One child wounded in the attack told reporters that the gunmen knocked on their doors to inquire if the families were Christian or Muslim.
They then left but returned a few minutes later, firing their guns at the houses.
Patikul is a known hotbed of the Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim extremist group linked by both Washington and Manila to the Al-Qaeda network.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:34 ||
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US troops are going to Jo Jo to train with Phillipine partners, this month. Its the usual bloody Muslim welcome.
#2
Looks like they are trying to get the Manila Govt to stop the training event. They do this every Balikatan. Once the Marines arrive things will change.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
02/03/2006 7:15 Comments ||
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Jemaah Islamiah (JI) has a house in Pakistan where students from Malaysia and Singapore are indoctrinated and prepared for militant activities.
Gungun Rusman Gunawan, a brother of Ridwan Ishamuddin (better known as Hambali, a key man in al-Qaeda's operations in South-East Asia who was captured in Thailand in August 2003) revealed this in his confession to the Indonesian police last year.
A source disclosed the contents of the confession to The Star recently.
Gungun and 18 others, including 13 Malaysians, were picked up by the Pakistan Federal Agency and the United States Central Intelligence Agency in Karachi in September 2003 for suspected militant activities.
The arrests were based on information gleaned from US interrogations of Hambali, who had been under US custody at a secret location after his capture.
The Malaysians, pursuing religious courses in Karachi universities, were arrested under the Internal Security Act after they were deported. Eight were released after being questioned by police.
Gungun, who was deported to Indonesia after his arrest, is now serving a four-year jail sentence in his homeland for helping to finance the Jakarta J.W. Marriott hotel bombing.
In his confession, Gungun said Malaysians who made frequent visits to the house after completing their studies in Pakistan would be persuaded to undergo a military stint in Afghanistan.
He told police that he was ordered to set up the house by Abdul Rahim, the youngest son of jailed Indonesian Muslim leader Abubakar Ba'asyir - who has been accused of heading the JI network in Indonesia.
The house was set up at Johar Square, Karachi, in 2000. Kompak (an Indonesian militant group allegedly involved in a series of bomb blasts in the Poso region as well as in the Muslim-Christian conflicts in the Moluccas) paid for its rental.
The confession did not specify if the house still exists or how many Malaysians had gone to Afghanistan after the Pakistani authorities and the CIA arrested Gungun and the 18 others.
Gungun revealed that recruits for the Afghan military stint had to undergo a 40-day tadrib (military training) before they were introduced to light weaponry for 20 days.
They were exposed to the theory and handling of AK-47 assault rifles and Pulemyot Kalashnikov general purpose machine guns.
They were also introduced to RPG (rocket propelled grenade) guns, M-16 rifles and a wide range of pistols.
Gungun, a former student of the Abu Bakar Islamic University, said the recruits were also taught how to read the compass and maps and use explosives like Molotov bombs, grenades, anti-tank mines and TNT.
He added that Malaysian and Indonesian students in Pakistan were closely knit and met weekly at the home.
The brotherhood also saw them forming a study group called al-Ghuraba under Abdul Rahims tutelage.
However, according to the source, the authorities are concerned that the so-called study group could be part of a JI sleeper cell that could be activated any time.
Based on Gunguns evidence, the police in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore are working together to identify those who had been to the house, said the source.
In July last year the Pakistani government deported hundreds of foreign students, including some 200 Malaysians, in a move to curb militancy in the country.
This followed their finding that two out of four Pakistan-origin terror suspects involved in the London bombings on July 7 had studied at the same madrasah (religious community school).
The Pakistani move had also put the Malaysian authorities on a similar alert.
The Malaysian police would be keeping an eye on local students who return home as a precautionary measure, said the source.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:21 ||
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The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, is set to report Iran to the UN Security Council today amid frantic efforts to keep hope alive of a diplomatic solution to the dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
Meeting in Vienna yesterday, a majority of the IAEA's 35-nation board indicated it favoured a European resolution that would take Tehran to the Security Council, although Cuba and Syria said they would vote against.
Iran has said it would suspend all voluntary co-operation with the IAEA if it was reported to the Security Council. Yesterday, Ali-Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, warned the board against taking the "confrontation route" and making "a historic mistake".
In Tehran, a regime insider said the leadership was braced for referral and even sanctions. "It seems escalation will go on until Iran finds the price too high, but we won't back down easily," he said. "Of course, Iran would be concerned by the prospect of either oil sanctions or war. But is the west ready for either?"
On a provincial tour to Kangan in southern Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadi-
Nejad said the western countries were like "elderly lions whose mane and fur are worn out, and who can only roar [without biting]".
The IAEA meeting, which also saw members of the non-aligned group of nations express reluctance about reporting Iran to New York, will resume today.
While Iran insists its intentions are purely peaceful, the US and the European Union have been alarmed by documents that appear to link its nuclear programme to possible military uses and want to prevent Tehran from carrying out nuclear enrichment - the process that can produce weapons grade material.
"We are reaching a critical phase but it is not a crisis," said Mohamed ElBaradei, IAEA director-general. "It's about confidence building but it is no way an imminent threat."
An end to Iran's voluntary co-operation with the IAEA would greatly hinder the agency's attempts to detect clandestine nuclear activities - and therefore prevent it from certifying whether or not Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons. But the agency would still be able to monitor nuclear processing at known sites, an important step in ensuring that material is not diverted for weapons use.
Yesterday diplomats said that even in such circumstances it would be important to keep pursuing attempts to find a compromise.
"There's still time for Iran to act constructively," said Grigory Berdennikov, the Russian ambassador to the IAEA. This week Russia and China agreed to back the US-EU initiative, but insisted on delaying substantive discussion of the file in New York until next month. The extra time is intended to allow Mr ElBaradei to provide an assessment on Iran's co-operation with the IAEA, and also to allow Russia and Iran to continue talks.
Mr Berdennikov indicated his country's negotiations with Iran could still continue even if Tehran ended its voluntary co-operation with the IAEA. "But he underlined that Russia's proposal to solve the dispute would place all uranium enrichment activity outside Iran - an idea Tehran has rejected.
The resolution being debated calls for Iran to reinstate its suspension of uranium enrichment and step up co-operation with the IAEA. It also requests Mr ElBaradei to "report to the Security Council . . . that these steps are required of Iran by the board and to report to the Security Council all IAEA reports and resolutions relating to this issue".
In Washington, Stephen Rademaker, assistant secretary for security and non-proliferation, said that once Iran's file reached the UN Security Council, the US would seek measures to enhance the legal authority of the IAEA to carry out its inspections. He noted that the agency had access problems in Iran.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:44 ||
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A bomb exploded near a Lebanese army barracks in Beirut early on Thursday, destroying a car and slightly wounding one soldier, security sources said.
The sources said a local newspaper had received a telephone call from someone claiming to speak on behalf of al Qaeda and declaring that a security target would be bombed in Beirut in retaliation for the arrest last month of 13 group members.
The explosion occurred some three hours later at around 2 a.m. (7 p.m. EST) outside the Fakhreddine Barracks in Ramlet al-Baida district of the capital, shattering windows in nearby buildings.
The sources earlier said the blast was caused by a car bomb but they later said it had been caused by an explosive charge near or under the car.
Lebanon has been rocked by more than a dozen explosions in the past 12 months, the largest of which was a truck bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 22 others in Beirut on February 14.
A U.N. inquiry has implicated senior Syrian security officials and their Lebanese allies in the murder. Three anti-Syrian politicians and journalists have been killed and two wounded since in separate smaller explosions.
The Lebanese authorities last month said they arrested 13 members of al Qaeda and sources say they had been setting up a network for the group in the country.
The group had been believed to have recruited Lebanese and Palestinian refugees to fight U.S.-led forces in Iraq under the leadership of Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi, the sources said. But in recent months there have been indications that the group was stepping up its activities in Lebanon.
Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for a Katyusha rocket attack against northern Israel from south Lebanon in late December. But though Lebanese security sources believe pro-Syrian Palestinian guerrillas were behind that attack, they say Zarqawi's willingness to take credit for it showed he might have an agenda in Lebanon.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:12 ||
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The Lebanese army revealed Thursday that a phone call was received Wednesday night from a public booth in the Palestinian Refugee camp of Ain Al-Helweh predicting an impending bomb attack against the army. The army said in a statement that recent attacks against Lebanese army posts on the outskirts of the camp were preceded by similar calls.
The callers demanded the immediate release of Palestinian detainees in connection with terrorist acts including Umm Al-Walid and her daughter, who was engaged to get married to Badih Hamadeh. He was caught by the authorities after he shot dead three Lebanese army soldiers.
On Wednesday night, Feb 1 2006, a similar phone call was received prior to an attack against an army barracks in West Beirut. A local daily, Al-Balad said it had received a similar phone call Wednesday about an impending attack against an army barracks. The hand grenade attack had injured a soldier and caused material damage to nearby cars and houses.
A detailed guide for making detonators using mobile phones was made available on a password-protected al-Qaeda-affiliated forum. The guide, seemingly intended for a technologically sophisticated audience, suggests optimal circuits for a universal mobile phone remote detonator triggered by pressing the seven key. A member responding to the manuals posting claims that during battles in Palestine, the mobile circuits do not work, and additionally, reminds readers to account for the additional expense of buying air time for the cell phone detonator to work.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 01:05 ||
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No fewer than 18 organizations are loosely affiliated with al Qaeda and are conducting terrorist attacks across the world, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday.
Lemme see, here... That'd be GSPC, Moroccan Salafi Jihad, or whatever they're calling themselves this week, the Taliban, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Jemaah Islamiyah...
In the war on terrorism, the enemy was not a nation and not even one particular organization, Rumsfeld said at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
... al-Tawhid, assuming it's still a distinct organization. That's a half dozen. TNSM, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakland. That's half the list.
"No fewer than 18 organizations loosely affiliated with al Qaeda are conducting terrorist acts in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Somalia, Algeria, Russia, Indonesia and elsewhere," he said.
... al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Chechens, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Ansar al-Sunnah, al-Ittehad, assuming it hasn't fallen apart like the rest of Somalia. There's a separate Qaeda organization in Yemen, descended from the Aden-Abyan Islamic Armmy, and another in Turkey, descended from the Great Eastern Psychopathic Raiders Front. That's 16.
The defense secretary warned that despite progress made in fighting terrorism, the threat today might be greater than ever before because the weapons available were far more dangerous.
The Dinnieh group in Lebanon as probably been absorbed into another Zark front, which'd be 17...
He said the anti-terrorism war, the enemy, while weakened and under great pressure, was still "capable of global reach" and still trying to do kill Americans with increasingly powerful weapons.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi makes 18, and SSP would make 19, assuming it's actually a separate organization from LJ, which it really isn't.
The U.S. strategy was to prevent the enemy from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, improve homeland defense and intelligence gathering and help friendly nations enhance their capabilities to fight terrorism in their own countries, he said.
Then there's JMB in Bangladesh. That'd be an honest 19, with JMJB added to the list but the number still now growing because they're the same anuses as JMB. Hmmm... They're right. It is only 18 or 19. There are so many false nose and moustache organizations, and so many similar organizations that aren't actually affiliated with al-Qaeda, and so many front organizations and support organizations, that it seems like there's more.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
02/03/2006 00:46 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Fierce fighting involving U.S. warplanes and Afghan troops in southern Afghanistan left at least six Taliban rebels and three police dead, officials said Friday. Ghulam Muhiddin, the chief of administration in southern Helmand province, said 100 Afghan police and army troops were hunting dozens of militants in Sangin district, and U.S. planes had bombed the area. "Right now we have got six dead bodies of Taliban. We are expecting there will be a lot more dead bodies," he told The Associated Press. He said 13 Afghan forces were wounded, four seriously. He said four Taliban were wounded, and two of them had been arrested.
A suicide car bombing carried out by a man dressed as a woman killed three soldiers and up to two road workers in insurgency-hit Afghanistan, police said on Thursday. The attack against Afghan soldiers guarding a road construction site in southeastern Khost province late Wednesday was the latest in a spate of around 25 suicide blasts around the country in the past four months.
Several Al Qaeda militants are coming from Iraq to take part in the insurgency in Afghanistan; a provincial governor said on Thursday after interrogating an Iraqi caught sneaking into the country illegally. The warning came amid an upsurge in suicide attacks, with the latest involving a 
The French aid group Action Against Hunger (ACF) on Friday denied a Sudanese media report that eight of its workers had been kidnapped by armed men in the country's troubled western Darfur region. "There was indeed a security incident on February 2 on the outskirts of Al-Feshir (western Sudan). Two of the six vehicles in the convoy were seized, but the rest left without difficulty," a spokesman for the group told AFP. "No one was injured and no one was kidnapped," he said.
Denmark, where the publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed has provoked the wrath of the entire Muslim world, should "look at what happened to Theo van Gogh", a radical Islamic group warned on Thursday, referring to a murdered Dutch filmmaker. "It says in the Koran that the death penalty should be used for anyone who insults the prophet," Anjem Ghoudary, a spokesman for the London-based Al Ghurabaa group, told Danish daily Politiken.
Four Russian soldiers were killed and six injured in the latest clashes in Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya. An official in the pro-Moscow administration -- who asked to not be identified -- told the French news agency AFP that the four were killed over a 24-hour period in different parts of the republic.
Korea Exchange Bank, controlled by US equity fund Lone Star, has terminated all transactions with Banco Delta Asia, accused by Washington of laundering money for North Korea.
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. (AP) - Six years after suicide bombers in an explosives-laden boat blew a hole in the USS Cole in Yemen, the Navy on Thursday commissioned its first active-duty unit with the job of thwarting a repeat of the attack that killed 17 sailors.
Suspected militants carried out a rocket attack on Chinese-funded dam in South Waziristan tribal agency of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, but there were no human or major material loss reported, said security sources Thursday. Militants fired at least ten rockets at Gomal zam Dam in South Waziristan tribal agency of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on Wednesday night, said sources. They said rockets landed in nearby abandoned fields, causing no human or property loss. Two years back, Islamic militants kidnapped two Chinese engineers, working on the Dam. One was killed and the other rescued alive by a commando team of the military. Due to the security concerns China has halted construction of the dam.
ISRAELI warplanes raided southern Lebanon overnight, after the militia of the Shiite group Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions in the disputed Shebaa Farms border area, police and the Israeli military said. Police said Israeli aircraft flew five sorties over the area, striking near the towns of Kfarshouba, Hibbariyeh and Khiam. Israeli artillery also pounded the area with 155 mm guns, with more than 100 rounds striking in less than an hour, the police said.
