A suicide car bomb near a Canadian convoy in southern Afghanistan killed three bystanders yesterday, while a governor said four policemen and 18 rebels were killed in a battle nearby.
More than a dozen civilians were wounded in the Kandahar city blast which was also near a motorcade carrying provincial governor Assadullah Khalid, who has been critical of the Taleban movement rooted in the area. The bomber, driving a four-wheel drive pick-up, detonated his explosives between two vehicles in a coalition patrol, coalition spokesman Major Scott Lundy said. There were no coalition casualties.
The Canadian military said one of its soldiers had suffered minor injuries in a collision between two military vehicles as they were leaving the scene.
The interior ministry said the attacker had killed himself and three civilians, and wounded 13 other Afghans. "It was the work of the enemies of the government," ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanizai said, using a phrase that generally refers to the Taleban. The ministry said the governor appeared to have been the target of the attack but he rejected this. "The explosion was in between our convoy and a coalition convoy. The attacker tried to pass us and we let him go -- that means the target was not me, it was the coalition," he said.
President Hamid Karzai "ordered the security forces to pursue and punish those behind the brutal attack," his office said in a statement.
The blast shattered the windows of several businesses and at least one shop caught fire, witnesses said. There were body parts at the scene of the blast.
Meanwhile four policemen and 18 Taleban were killed on Saturday in a battle that erupted after the rebels attacked a police post in Kandahar province, governor Khalid told reporters. Police in the province also captured two men accused of rigging up car bombs and three militants suspected of attacks on police posts, he said.
The coalition reported meanwhile it had captured an insurgent suspected of building bombs in a cave near the Kandahar village of Gumbad, where Canadian forces have a base.
In the western province of Farah, suspected Taleban militants kidnapped four policemen after attacking their station, provincial governor Izatullah Wasifi said.
In the eastern city of Jalalabad, an Afghan soldier was killed by "the enemy" on Saturday while on patrol, security officials said. And five people were arrested after 450 kilogrammes (990 pounds) of explosives were discovered by another patrol near the city, they said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:42 ||
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Taliban leader Mullah Omar has asked all his followers residing in refugee camps in Pakistan to return to Afghanistan, especially those living in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The call has been given through posters inscribed with a message from the Taliban leader pasted outside Afghan refugee camps in NWFP. Security forces and intelligence agencies are monitoring the movements of suspected Taliban representatives living in refugee camps. Also, General Rasheed Dostum has given a green signal to his supporters residing in the refugee camps to come back to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Unfortunately for them, I suspect that this time, the gate will swing only one way, and once they're home, first the border will be sealed and the killing will begin in earnest.
#3
My raeding of various Net open-overt sources is telling me that the Taliban are unable to replace their losses - like Mao's boyz in post-Intervention KOREAN WAR 1, prohibitive losses or casualty levels is overstraining and threatening the integrity of the Taliban as an armed organization capable of defeating any internal or external threat. Looks like OMAR needs to rebuild and rebuild quickly and under security.
#9
Jojo is a boy who wants to be Jehadi
But not just for the big ole blast
Jojo left his home in funky Rawalpindi
For some Special Virgin Ass.
Get back, get back.
Get back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back.
Get back to where you once belonged.
Get back Jojo. Come home
Get back, get back.
Back to where you once belonged
Get back, get back.
Back to where you once belonged.
Get back Jojo.
#10
All quiet on the set.
Cue the Daisy cutters, the Thermobarics and Moabs
folks.
OK now, bring in the AC140 Gunships!
Action!
May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't.
There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death, and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time."
- General George Patton Jr
As many as a dozen civilians were killed and injured in a suicide car bomb explosion that rocked Afghanistan's troubled Kandahar province Sunday morning. Officials are tight-lipped as who was the target of the attack, but witnesses said the explosion took place when a convoy of Canadian forces was passing through the main city area. There are no reports of casualties among the foreign troops as a result of the blast.
Eight people were shifted from the site of the blast to the Kandahar main Mirwais hospital and the doctors confirmed three among them were dead. The bomber who was inside the car was bitterly maimed beyond recognition and his car was blown to pieces.
Several shops, situated in the Eidgah Jumaat area, where the explosion took place, have caught fire and smoke and flames could be seen billowing from the area. A police officer, who wished not to be named, told KUNA the blast was directed at the provincial governor Asadullah Khalid. He said the governor remained unhurt; however, the provincial government did not issue any statement so far. Two days back, three civilian motorcyclists were killed in a similar blast in the Arghandab district of the same province.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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BRITISH soldiers have killed five suspected Taleban fighters in an operation in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province. The troops joined coalition forces for the raid on a village in the south-west of the country. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said last night the operation was looking for evidence of Taleban militants. "There has been a coalition-led cordon-and-search operation involving UK troops in Nowzad in north Helmand. Five Taleban have been killed and two detained. There were no UK casualties." There was no let-up in the fighting, meanwhile, with at least 28 people killed, including four in an attempt to blow up Kandahar's provincial governor.
Somali Islamic fighters seized a key town in the north yesterday after heavy clashes with gunmen allied to a warlord alliance, expanding their territory outside the lawless capital.
Columns of heavily armed Islamic fighters surrounded and pounded Balad, about 30km north of Mogadishu, as militiamen loyal to the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) fled to safety, witnesses and militia commanders said. "After brief fighting, with the help of Allah and support of the people of Balad we have fully captured the town," Moalim Hashi, an Islamic militia commander said.
"Balad is now safe and secure and is under the control of the Islamic courts. The people have been liberated from the misdeeds of the ARPCT," added Hashi.
Independent sources have confirmed the take-over of the strategic town despite massive reinforcement from Mogadishu-based warlords led by Mohamed Afrah Qanyare and Issa Botan Alin, who rushed to the city with dozens of trucks mounted with machine guns and hundreds of fighters. Witnesses said several had people died - the exact figure was unclear - when the Islamic militia stormed the outpost, pounding it with artillery, rockets and machineguns.
They said the Islamic forces had captured 72 alliance fighters and had freed 18 prisoners from the Balad jail. There were also reports of massive defections to the Islamic militia's ranks.
The Islamists have been making steady gains in recent days, capturing various villages north of Mogadishu on Saturday amid artillery duels that killed at least 19 people. Since the war erupted in February, at least 332 people have been killed and more than 1,500 injured, many of them civilians.
Unfazed by dwindling battlefield fortunes, warlord Bashir Raghe Shirar, another key member of the ARPCT, vowed to fight on until they routed the Islamists. "We will continue fighting because Mogadishu is full of fugitive foreign fighters supported by few Islamic extremist elements. We want them out of this city," he said.
The ARPCT, formed in February, has reportedly received financial and intelligence support from the United States to help fight the Islamic courts, accused of habouring foreign fighters and of having links with groups such as Al-Qaeda.
The courts, which have declared a holy war against the alliance, deny the accusations and claim the warlords are fighting for the "enemy of Islam". The United States has refused to confirm or deny its support for the ARPCT. But US officials and informed Somali sources have said that Washington has given money to the ARPCT, one of several groups it is working with to curb what it says is a growing threat from radical Islamists in Somalia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:37 ||
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#1
If US and the west has to fight radical Islamists in Somalia, they have the warlord alliance to do it for them. The biggest mistake US is doing is to let the warlord alliance to loose. I do not understand who the stupid is allowing any victory to the radical Islamists in Somalia.
#2
The open US involvement against the Islamic courts looks to be a late addition to the game. Aweys declared war on the Somali government back in October and he was calling for jihad as early as last March. By taking Balad he has shown himself a force to be reckoned with, incidentally, by taking one of the new government minister's strongholds and sending him fleeing for safety.
My guess is that the US saw Aweys building up fighters in Mogadishu (he blew $50,000 on "armored vehicles" earlier this month, which means he isn't hurting for cash) and tried to stop him as quickly as possible without sending our own troops in, which means backing the resident warlords.
Bottom line is that al-Qaeda fighters and their allies are simply speaking better than your average Third World warlord or thug. Their fighters are better trained, better motivated, and almost certainly better paid, which translates to victory for the bad guys in a place like Somalia. One of the whole goals of General Wald's Pan-Sahel Initiative besides getting el-Para was to train elite units of African militaries to the point where they could trade punches with the GSPC without serious US backing. Keep in mind that even the PUK, whose militia I have enormous respect for, was unable to beat the relatively smaller Ansar al-Islam after more than 2 years of back-and-forth fighting. Hell, the PKK is still a serious security threat to a country with as modern and professional an army as Turkey. The Mogadishu warlords and their allies in the transitional allies are fairly easy pickings by comparison so Aweys is going to eat 'em for breakfast at the behest of his al-Qaeda masters.
If you want someone to stop him, the militias of Somaliland and Puntland are probably the best bet, followed by the Ethiopian army. Just my $0.02 on the situation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 2:44 Comments ||
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#3
Excellent insight, Dan. Thanks for the analysis.
#4
If the people there want their squalid little Islamic Court, let them have it. Next news you'll hear is "no women outside without burkas", "no music, dancing, fun of any kind", "death penalty for spitting on the sidewalk", they usual extreme Taliban type stuff. Have fun in Somalia guys.
#5
Outstanding but scary comment, Dan, because it raises the spectre of the US having to put some troops in to stop the bad guys.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/05/2006 9:50 Comments ||
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#6
Special forces have the primary role here in bringing together a cohesive force to counter the fascists. More like initial work in Afganistan.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/05/2006 10:01 Comments ||
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#7
Unfortunately, the Somalia situation, like Afghanistan just before the Taliban gained power, is more ambiguous than Good Guys and Bad Guys; it's more like Bad Guys and Worse Guys. In Afghanistan after the Soviets were defeated the warlords ran rampant, killing and looting and playing their little wargames without worrying about how many civilians were blown up when they shelled Kabul. Thinking of the warlords in those days as Good Guys would have meant thinking of Hek and his ilk as a good guy. From a local citizen perspective, without our knowledge of the larger forces and principles involved, it would have been rational to look at the Taliban, before it took power, as the good guys who would lessen corruption and supply some semblance of order. Likewise, in Somalia, the warlords are the ones who stole international food aid shipments and murdered anyone who got in their way. Remember why we were at odds with Adid in the first place. Being associated with the warlords in local civilians' minds has risks as well as benefits. I'm not suggesting policy changes here -- there's not a lot of choice in picking which horse to back. It's just that, to the best of my knowledge, we haven't yet found or developed a leader with the qualities of a Masood.
#8
Troops on the ground aren't necessarily the only option, Steve, as I noted there are still two other militias of note before things get to that point. One problem that we should factor in is that most of the US aid to the Mogadishu warlords came in the form of cash, surveillance, and a handful of advisors rather than training, weapons, or perhaps even air support. The more territory these courts take, the more attractive that last option is going to become.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 12:18 Comments ||
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#9
BOTTOM LINE SAUDIS ARE FUNDING THE ISLAMIC TROUBLES WORLDWIDE!!!!DOES BUSH NOT REALISE THIS????
Folks here were having a high old time laughing at the TNG and the UN support for it. Well we went and supported the warlords, at whatever cost in multilateralism/hearts and minds, and now we have nothing to show for it. Zip. Nada. Maybe, just maybe, a different approach, working with the TNG might work better?
I wonder if Puntland and Somaliland are even interested in going after Mogadishu, since they want independence (I think). As for Ethiopia, theyve got their hands full with Eritrea. And I dont see that theyd go to war to pull our irons out of the fire. As long as the Islamists have the minimal sense not to directly challenge Ethiopian interests.
I dont think any options look to good. We just might be pushed into negotiating with the Islamists, to leave them alone as long as they dont support AQ. The deal we offered the Taliban along time ago, and are currently offering Hamas. Im not saying thats a great option (i dont know enough about the Somali warlords) but we have alot on our plate right now.
#11
Good points, LH. The Punts and the Somalialandis (eesh), I think, would happily write off the rest of the country on condition they could have their independence. The only way the Ethiopians would come in is if they could grab the disputed desert areas (just like them, too, to fight with two different neighbors over two different piles of sand and rock).
I'd voted for a bigger bowl of popcorn, but the Islamicists who are currently winning are gonna be trouble for us, no doubt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/05/2006 16:45 Comments ||
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#12
"The Punts and the Somalialandis (eesh), I think, would happily write off the rest of the country on condition they could have their independence"
Think Kurdistan, except not landlocked, and without Turkey breathing down its neck. Would they grab Baghdad? Dont think so.
#13
BOTTOM LINE SAUDIS ARE FUNDING THE ISLAMIC TROUBLES WORLDWIDE!!!!DOES BUSH NOT REALISE THIS????
I can't imagine the president is unaware, Cheregum Crelet7867 dear, but before he takes on the Princelings directly he MUST stabilize the oil situation, else the entire energy-using part of the world (ie pretty much all the countries on planet Earth) will head straight into a major economic depression when the supply is cut off. Upon which the entire world will blame the U.S., and immediately start to work as hard as ever they can to undermine our effort. We could fight a war against the entire world, but we'd best be prepared to move the entire country off-planet immediately thereafter.
Oh, and be a dear, and please don't shout so. It hurts my eyes. Thanks!
If I were a Christian Kenyan the prospects of an Islamic Somalia coupled with the indigenous jihadis would be troublesome.
Posted by: DanNY ||
06/05/2006 19:51 Comments ||
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#15
Unfortunately, the Kenyan Government is corrupt and dominated by socialists. And it has a lot of Muhammeds in the upper levels too, kind of makes it hard to do much cracking down. Besides which, cracking down on Somalia would kill the khat trade, which pays for those nice houses that so many Kenyan government officials live in.
Chad rebels clashed with government forces in a town on the border with Sudan at the weekend. "Two officers from the government forces were trying to join us and asked for help. We sent fighters to get these people out," said Yaya Dillo Djerou, of the Chadian rebel group SCUD. Chad's government said Tine was attacked by "mercenaries in the pay of Khartoum", the term it uses to describe rebels opposed to Idriss Deby, the president who has ruled the landlocked central African oil producer since 1990.
The militia of the Islamic courts union in the Somali capital Mogadishu who has these days been involving in truck-down assault against the anti terror alliances militia won to capture a very strategy Balad town in middle Shabelle region on Sunday.
The Islamic militiamen with militia loyal to Afgoie district of lower Shabelle Hussien Ali Irfo and the deputy chairman of peaceful commission in Balad town Mohamud Hussen Gudbaye, launched attacks from two directions to Balad town, 30km of the capital city and took the control of the town which formerly controlled by Muse Sudi, the trade minister in the transitional federal government and member of anti terror alliance. Local official confirmed Somalinet.
Before Balad town falling in hand, the fighting lasted for hour and half with both rival sides used all sorts of weapons with more casualties. At least 20 people including militias from both sides and civilians have been killed in the latest battle in which Islamic fighters took over the control of Balad, one of the most towns that anti terror alliance lose. Other sources from Balad town say the death toll mounts to 50 people because there are civilians in remote villages killed by stray bullets. It was the bloodiest battle since the start of the clashes between Islamists and secular warlords on 18 February 2006.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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The Islamic courts union in Somalia announced that they are planning to form an authority for the capital of Mogadishu, where the Islamic fighters overrun the warlords united with the alliance for restoration of peace and counter terrorism in several bloody clashes that engulfed the lives of more than 300 people mostly civilians and hundreds more injured. The chairperson the Islamic courts union Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed who held today a press conference in Mogadishu said they will launch the move when they finish what he called the operation against the militia of the evil and Satan anti terror alliance noting they have won the latest battles in northeast outskirt of the capital city. We will not alone form the authority but we will consult with society over the administration of the capital.
Sheik Sharif urged the recent defeated militia in northeast villages in the capital to repent to their Allah from the evils and do favors for their country and also abstain from the war against Islam. In other wards, Sheik Sharif gave an apology to the recent alleged acts for the Islamic militiamen in south of the capital city Mogadishu who were accused of disturbing the drivers of the public transport buses.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#5
It would be nice to see the Navy hit Mogadischu, just once, with everything a modern carrier battle group has. The local "islamic courts" could be specially targeted. Then drop ten thousand leaflets saying, "Be good, or we'll be back". The one thing we've consistently failed to do in the "war on terror" is inflict any significant terror on OUR part. We need to do that, so the islamoidiots understand that we have the biggest stick in this fight.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/05/2006 15:07 Comments ||
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Minister of national security in the transitional federal government and key member of anti terror alliance Mohamed Qanyare Afrah has reached Jowhar town of middle shabelle region with 55 battlewagons and hundreds militias on Sunday, where he was warmly welcomed by towns authority. The arrival of Qanyare and his militia in Jowhar, a town controlled by Mohamed Dhere came after his alliance was defeated in Mogadishus battles in which the alliance for restoration of peace and counter terrorism lose key positions, many lives and battlewagons. Mr. Qanyare was escorted to guest house in Jowhar town where he will be staying tonight, with the security was very tightened by troops of the town blocking all roads in and out of the town.
Qanyare reached Jowhar town while the chairman of middle Shabelle region authority Mohamed Dhere is away for trip in Ethiopia, as militia of Islamic courts took positions near Jowhar town for possible attack. Meanwhile Abdi Nore Siad known as Abdiwal who is member of anti terror alliance and now in Djibouti told the local media overnight that his alliance was defeated in many fronts by Islamic fighters who he said have taken the control of whole the capital Mogadishu. He mentioned they will convince the US government to make military intervention into Somalia particular in Mogadishu it dominated by islamists.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Mauritanian authorities have detained three individuals suspected of having links to an Algeria-based al Qaeda affiliate known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Mauritanian security forces said June 2. Among those detained was a man suspected of involvement in the 2004 Madrid al Qaeda bombing and the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The arrests were made during a search for three members of the GSPC who escaped from a jail in Mauritania's capital of Nouakchott on April 27.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 01:21 ||
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#1
There is an alarming degree of cynicism in the UK press over this matter. Law enforcement could use a big "get" here.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/05/2006 9:57 Comments ||
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#2
I would agree the World Cup games are a very likely target. Bastards. And yes, the usual suspects in the UK press are lining up to whack the Police over this.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
06/05/2006 12:51 Comments ||
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#3
A couple of years ago, my wife & I promised to bring our children to England instead of Germany for the World Cup because the UK has been a real friend to the US.
We're coming and I don't want any stunts pulled by London Jihadis so keep up the good work. Jolly good show, PC Plod!
A Russian soldier was killed and two others wounded when a Russian military vehicle was attacked in the Republic of Ingushetia, Interfax reported Sunday. The news agency quoted security sources as saying that unknown militants attacked the vehicle carrying a number of Russian soldiers while it was passing through the republic's capital, Nazran. The sources added that security forces were searching for the vehicle which the militants used.
Tensions in Ingushetia, located on the northern slopes of the Caucasus and neighboring Chechnya, had risen over the past three years with increasing activity of extremist militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Istanbul, 5 June (AKI) - An explosion on Monday rocked a military base in north-western Turkey, causing several casualties, according to local reports. At least one person was killed and two were injured in the blast at a base in Sakarya province, according to reports citing the local governor Nuri Okutan.
The casualty toll has not yet been confirmed.
The Turkish TV channel CNN Turk said some people playing with ammunition had triggered the blast at a base about 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Istanbul.
"Hey, watch me do this!"
Posted by: Steve ||
06/05/2006 12:35 ||
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Fleets of unmanned "drone" aircraft fitted with powerful cameras are to be used to patrol Europe's borders in a dramatic move to combat people-smuggling, illegal immigration and terrorism.
London's Independent on Sunday today revealed that the tiny planes will fly at more than 750m over the English Channel and Mediterranean beaches as part of a £1 billion ($3 billion) programme to equip Europe's police forces, customs officers and border patrols with hi-tech surveillance and anti-terrorism equipment. The aircraft, called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are already being used by the Belgian government to catch tankers illegally dumping oil in the North Sea.
The European Commission now wants to use similar drones, which can have a 6m wingspan and weigh as little as 195kg, to patrol the Mediterranean coasts and the Balkans where illegal immigrants try to enter the European Union. The Russian government is also close to flying drones over its borders.
A senior commission official said: "We're convinced that this is a very good way of using military technologies for non-military purposes."
Alongside the new "spies in the sky", officials in Brussels have launched more than a dozen research projects to develop new technologies for counter-terrorism, policing and border security. They include body scanners that can see through clothing and detect explosive vests, guns or chemical weapons; portable devices that can "see" through walls and detect people moving inside buildings; and tiny radio tags that would be fitted on people inside buildings under surveillance.
However, the research programme, which will start in earnest early next year, has caused alarm among civil liberties groups and MPs. They accuse officials in Brussels of breaking EU law by starting these projects before they had been agreed by members of the European Parliament and member states.
A new report by the London-based civil rights group Statewatch and the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam claims that Brussels and the European defence companies are desperate to catch up with spending in the US, where President Bush has pledged to spend $1 billion ($1.6 billion) a year on "homeland security". Ben Hayes, the author of the report, said: "Everyone agrees with more money for the police and security services to combat terrorism, but the danger is that EU policy is increasingly skewed towards a particular brand of 'security', based on military, police and corporate interests."
A British-built "spy in the sky" is already in service with the US Immigration Department, patrolling the Mexican border where millions of illegal workers cross into the US every year.
#4
The illegals and terrorists are already in the countries, so all this drone stuff is delusional. The bureaucrats will save everyone from terrorism---like hell.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/05/2006 9:51 Comments ||
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#5
Nice, but much too late. The enemy resides within and is rapidly growing.
Posted by: Captain America ||
06/05/2006 10:04 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2006 14:34 Comments ||
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#11
", officials in Brussels have launched more than a dozen research projects to develop new technologies for counter-terrorism, policing and border security. They include body scanners that can see through clothing and detect explosive vests, guns or chemical weapons; portable devices that can "see" through walls and detect people moving inside buildings; and tiny radio tags that would be fitted on people inside buildings under surveillance.
All of which have already been invented and deployed by the US.
#12
Thermal imaging sights that see people through walls, even brick; microdot tracking bugs; the newer airport scanners that see through clothes; all of this stuff already exists and has been in use for at least a couple of years. And Brussels is going to have it re-invented? What do they smoke in Brussels?
Or is it that this stuff is invented in/used in the "evil US" and so the Polly Purebreds of Europe must come up with their own version so as not to be contaminated?
For most Canadians, ammonium nitrate even after it was used to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people, including dozens of kids in a daycare centre is nothing much more than a commonly used plant fertilizer. Farmers buy and use it by the tonne, mixing it into the soil to ensure a bountiful crop.
But mix ammonium nitrate with the inflammatory rhetoric of an Internet chat room, and it instantly acquires the potential to become something entirely different, needing only the addition of a little fuel oil to turn it into a lethal bomb.
So when a shadowy group of disaffected urban youth began talking in an Internet chat room in the fall of 2004 espousing anti-Western views, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service was listening. The spy agency, and an alphabet soup of other security agencies across the continent, closely monitor such sites, where talk may sometimes turn to buildings and bombs and bringing global jihad home to North America, to Canada.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:21 ||
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#1
Not exactly attending JROTC-ROTC drill, sports, Spring Break, or building a Saturn V working science rocket, etal. now are they. DECENT PANTY RAID OR GREEN BEER???
#3
So when a shadowy group of disaffected urban youth
The Media just won't call them what they are. Islamic Jihadis. Same way in France, it's always "dissafected youth". The Canadian Government official interviewed yesterday even went so far as to say this had nothing to do with religion but strictly political in nature. Bugwits. Enjoy your dhimmitude.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
06/05/2006 7:34 Comments ||
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#4
Arguably, not calling them for what they are does not fool anybody other than those wishing to be fooled. This approach seems to limit the inevitable PC blowback that in calling these terrorist muslims seems to overshadow the real story and mitigate their activity.
If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck....
Posted by: john ||
06/05/2006 9:35 Comments ||
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#5
High grade ammonium nitrate and fuel was used not only in OK City, but at the Beirut Marine barracks, orchestrated by Mugniyeh. Any chance they can track where they got the bomb recipe and see if there is a greater ME connection?
#6
ANFO has been used in the blasting/mining industry for decades.
Posted by: ed ||
06/05/2006 12:30 Comments ||
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#7
There was nothing "disaffected" about these 'youths' until their mentor mullah man introduced them to the wahabbi school of thought.
It was after the indocrination and brainwashing that they became "unhappy" and "depressed" - understandable. Dress strangely, isolate yourselves from your more moderate friends and spout drivel. That can lead to isolation all right. "Disaffected?" No.
#8
It was after the indocrination and brainwashing that they became "unhappy" and "depressed"
The brainwashing is just one step along the way. The first steps are always taken at home, with the parents "blessing".
Posted by: Rafael ||
06/05/2006 13:57 Comments ||
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#9
The brainwashing is just one step along the way. The first steps are always taken at home, with the parents "blessing".
Remember folks, the imams and mullahs aren't sending their own kids out with bomb vests strapped on. Almost 99% of these suicidal mass murderers come from the homes of those ever-beloved Moderate Muslims.
This is from the main editorial in the Daily Times, a Pakistani paper we've all grown to know and love over the last several years. Amazing how an op-ed in a majority Muslim country is far more up-front about what's going on here than our own Western press.
Twelve Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have been arrested in Canada before they could allegedly cause an explosion three-times bigger than the one in Oklahoma by the American terrorist Timothy McVeigh in 1995. The police recovered three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser from the suspects in a Toronto suburb. Some members of the group had allegedly attended a âtraining campâ north of Toronto where they had made a video imitating military warfare. The suspects had allegedly acquired weapons and decided upon their targets in Ontario. The group is being charged under new anti-terrorism legislation introduced into the criminal code in December 2001.
It has been revealed that the explosive material was planted on the would-be terrorists as part of an elaborate sting operation by Canadian police. No matter. It is saddening that the Pakistanis were planning on using it for purposes of terrorism. A Bangladeshi angle has existed ever since the Afghan jihad and the training of Bangladeshi mujahideen in camps located in Afghanistan and on the Pak-Afghan border. On May 29, a Bangladeshi court sentenced two such trainees to death. The convicting tribunal ruled that âBangla Bhaiâ and Abdur Rahman were responsible for killing two judges in a bombing in the south of the country in November last year. The two were also believed to have been the masterminds of a series of other attacks, including a coordinated terrorist attack in August last year in which 500 tiny bombs exploded almost simultaneously in 63 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh. The two were veterans of jihad with credentials from a Karachi seminary and were now âTalibanisingâ Bangladesh.
On Saturday, London police attacked a house with a 300-strong anti-terrorist posse to catch a Bangladeshi family making a âchemicalâ bomb similar to the one planned in Toronto, but thankfully found that its intelligence on the house was faulty. Earlier, two Muslims were indicted in London for trying to make a fertiliser bomb. This year London also put behind bars Abu Hamza Al Masari, the Egyptian-born former imam of the Finsbury Park mosque who had gained notoriety for his fire-and-brimstone preaching against the ânon-believersâ and for his links with terrorists. When detectives raided the mosque in January 2003 they found an arsenal of suspect items, including a stun gun, CS spray, chemical warfare-protection suits, blank-firing pistols, false passports, knives, radio equipment and an encyclopaedia of terrorism associated with Al Qaeda. Among the protesters against his arrest were Pakistanis carrying the banner of the Al Fuqara organisation whose chief in Pakistan was allegedly involved in the murder of Daniel Pearl.
Canadians need to worry but anything they do will have a negative fallout for Pakistanis needing to do business or visiting their relatives in Canada. In 2004, Abdur Rahman Khadr testified in a court hearing in Canada that he and his father were linked to Al Qaeda. Khadr, a 21-year-old Toronto man who underwent weapons and explosives training at four camps in Afghanistan, said that he had given CIA agents the names of several Canadians who had trained at camps in Afghanistan. His father Ahmed Khadr was the central figure in the Canada-based Al Qaeda and raised huge amounts of money for Abu Zubayda, the Al Qaeda number three caught in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Ahmed Khadr himself was caught in Pakistan for blowing up the Egyptian embassy on orders from Al Zawahiri but was sprung from jail by the then Canadian prime minister after an appeal to his Pakistani counterpart. Ahmed Khadr was finally killed in Peshawar in 2003. Two of his sons have landed in Guantanamo Bay.
Pakistan needs to worry too because of the image its Islamists are giving it. Pakistanâs ârich manâs preacherâ Farhat Hashmi, after making a lot of money off the penitent upper crust, has landed in Canada and bought property for her big Islamic institution. The school is the latest extension of Al-Huda International which Dr Hashmi founded in Pakistan in 1994 after graduating with a PhD in Islamic studies from the University of Glasgow. The school now counts more than 10,000 graduates and she has offered lectures to women in Dubai and London. She has moved to Toronto with her husband and family âin response to demand from young women in the city to gain a deeper understanding of Islamâ. For a nominal fee of $60 a month, students attend classes four days a week for five hours a day. The moderate Muslims of Canada call her Wahhabi because of her unbending doctrines.
âHardlineâ political Islam has been leveraged in Canada with Saudi-Wahhabi funds. A 2004 study found that millions of dollars were funnelled to extremist Islamic institutions. It said Saudi Arabia spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fund 210 Islamic centres and 1,359 mosques around the world, including in Canada. It cited an official Saudi report in 2002 that stated âKing Fahd donated $5 million for the cost of an Islamic Centre in Toronto, Canada, in addition to $1.5 million annually to run the facility.â The Saudi factor has since faded away but the âzone of contactâ of Pakistanis with their Arab brethren remains the mosque, facilitated by the English language, not available as effectively in the Arab world where a large number of expatriate Pakistanis live.
Pakistan is trying hard to clean up its international image so that it can get its economy to move forward and its trade gap to narrow. In Canada there is a strong moderate Muslim organisation, which protects the rights of Muslims while opposing the extremist elements among its own community. It has thanked the Canadian authorities for capturing the latest gang of alleged terrorists and for their vigilance, and assured them that âsuch elements do not represent the Muslim community or Islamâ. Its leader was fearful that âunless we eliminate from among our ranks people with such distorted thinking and utterly erroneous interpretations of Islam, I fear the future of Muslim communities in the West is riddled with uncertaintyâ. It hardly helps if the extremist in Pakistan is pacified but expatriate Pakistanis and Muslims remain radicalised because of the conditions in which they live and the hardline ideologies that are still being instilled in them by the proponents of Wahhabism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:10 ||
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Oh Pakistan! The biggest pain in the ass of every civilized nation. If you deal with the devil, you have to pay for it. Arent we doing the same for this two mouthed snake?
#2
Amazing how an op-ed in a majority Muslim country is far more up-front about what's going on here than our own Western press
Pak newspapers have always been quite upfront about the jihad. There is none of the "The Pakistan government denies the claim" stuff that you see in AP, Reuters, AFP. The Pak military support for the terrorist training camps is quite open and Pakistanis come across them, or know people in them, or donate money to terrorist groups quite frequently. It is no surprise that their newspapers report these facts.
The Nobel Laureate VS Naipaul has commented that Indians can read the true history of the islamic conquest of the subcontinent, not in their own textbooks, but in Pakistani ones.
Indian textbooks, written by marxist historians, present a whitewashed and sometimes fabricated account of history, inspired by marxist notions of class warfare and a desire to avoid anti-muslim sentiment.
Pak textbooks are far more open. They reproduce actual historical accounts - noting with relish the numbers of temples burned, the numbers of hindus slaughtered and enslaved.
Posted by: john ||
06/05/2006 6:42 Comments ||
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The arrest of 17 terrorism suspects in Canada is part of a continuing, multi-national probe into suspected terrorist cells in at least seven countries, a U.S. counter-terrorism official confirmed Sunday.
The senior U.S. law enforcement official said authorities are combing through evidence seized during raids in Canada this weekend to look for possible connections between the 17 suspects arrested Friday and at least 18 other Islamist militants who have been arrested in locations including the United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.
The investigation began as separate probes into what authorities believed were localized cells of militant Muslim young men, who shared an interest in radical ideology on the Internet in various countries and, to a lesser extent, in local mosques and training camps.
But over the past year, the counter-terrorism authorities of those countries began to see connections among the cells, in part through electronic surveillance of phone calls and Internet correspondence, as well as ground surveillance of individual suspects, several U.S. officials said in interviews Sunday. "The case is a very good example of how things work in the post 9/11 world. In this case law enforcement and intelligence services from half a dozen places coordinated daily during a very complex investigation," said the U.S. law enforcement official. "It involved surveillances (of) every mode of travel and crossed multiple borders. Each set of arrests were coordinated between all agencies and considered carefully for how they might effect the ongoing probe."
#2
Arrests in: United States, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Britain, Denmark and Sweden.
*
They are residents of Canada "for the most part," police said on Saturday. Their ethnic or national origins include Somali, Egyptian, Jamaican and Trinidadian.
The suspects came from all walks of life, ranging from a sandwich-shop worker to a computer programmer, according to local media reports.
Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, was a health-sciences graduate from McMaster University, and was born in Canada after his father, a urologist, immigrated from Trinidad and Tobago in 1955, according to attorney Rocco Galati, who is representing Ghany and another suspect, Shareef Abdelhaleen. Galati said Abdelhaleen is a 30 year-old unmarried software programmer who emigrated from Egypt at the age of 10.
Both Mississauga, with a population of nearly 613,000 residents, and Scarborough have large Muslim populations and count several mosques and hundreds of businesses that cater to them. The 2001 Canadian Census counted 42,000 Muslims living in Mississauga and 165,135 Muslims living in Toronto, or about 7 percent of the population.
Many in the Muslim community worry about a violent backlash violence as a result of the terrorism arrests. A Toronto mosque was apparently vandalized overnight Saturday.
Omar Farouk, pres. of the International Muslim Organization, said the attack on his mosque "clearly showed hatred."
LOL, we all hate you because we are all basically racist to the bone!
Sayed Reza, an administrator with the Understanding Islamic Academy in Mississauga said he remains confident that Canadians will remain tolerant.
lets certainly hope not.
"Generally, the Canadian public do support us in times like this," he said, though he later added that he did feel suspicious looks over the weekend since the arrests were announced. "I do feel the hysteria. People were looking us in shock when they drove by the school."
And "shocking looks" are the worstus kind of hateful Hate Crime, don't ya know!
At least 6 of the 17 people arrested by Canadian authorities in a sweeping counterterrorism operation over the weekend regularly attended the same storefront mosque in this middle-class Toronto suburb of modest brick rental townhouses and well-kept lawns, fellow worshipers said Sunday.
Their attendance at the mosque, Al-Rahman Islamic Centre for Islamic Education, is one of the few public pieces of information that clearly link any of the suspects 12 adults and 5 youths in one of the biggest antiterrorism arrests in North America since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Members at a mosque prayer meeting on Sunday said the six fellow worshipers who were arrested included the eldest, Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, described by several acquaintances as a school bus driver and an active member of the mosque who frequently led prayers, made fiery speeches and influenced young people who attended the services.
"He spent a lot of time with youth," said Faheem Bukhari, a director of the Mississauga Muslim Community Center who sometimes attended prayers at the mosque. "He'd take them for soccer or bowling, and talk to them."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:06 ||
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Toronto Star:
Although police haven't officially said so, sources have told the Star's Michelle Shephard that the final act in the multi-year investigation came when federal agents intercepted the group's order for the fertilizer, and arranged to have it delivered by truck.
But, the Star has learned, police switched the fertilizer with a harmless powder before making the delivery.
The three tonnes of ammonium nitrate found with the Totonto terrorism suspects was planted by the police in an elaborate sting operation. According to Toronto Star, Sources say investigators who had learned of the groups alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertiliser, a key component in creating explosives. Once the deal was done, the RCMP-led anti-terrorism task force moved in for the arrests.
At the news conference held by the police, there was no mention of the sting operation. Among the intended targets of the group, one report said, was the Parliament in Ottawa and the headquarters of Canadas premier spy agency.
The 12 adults charged are: Fahim Ahmad, 21; Jahmaal James, 23; Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19; and Steven Vikash Chand, 25, all of Toronto; Zakaria Amara, 20; Asad Ansari, 21; Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30; Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21; Saad Khalid, 19; and Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, all of Mississauga; and Mohammed Dirie, 22 and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, 24. Six of the 12 suspects lived in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, four came from Toronto and two from the town of Kingston in Ontario. The last two are already in custody on a gun smuggling charge.
The police also arrested five youngsters but their identities or names have not bee made public. At a court hearing in Toronto on Saturday, all the suspects were produced and Canadian newspapers published photographs of head-to-toe, black burqa clad group of women said to belong to the one or more of the families of the men arrested. One whose face was visible looked like a Pakistani. Several of the men, photographed as they were being brought in police cars, were bearded.
The charges include participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group, including training and recruitment; providing or making available property for terrorist purposes; and the commission of indictable offences, including firearms and explosives offences for the benefit of or in association with a terrorist group.
According to the Toronto Star report, Anser Farooq, a lawyer who represents five of the accused, pointed at snipers on the roof of the courthouse and said, This is ridiculous. Theyve got soldiers here with guns. This is going to completely change the atmosphere. I think the police cast their net far too wide, he said.
According to the Globe and Mail, defence lawyer Rocco Galati, who was representing some of the suspects, protested the intense security measures at the court. Galati later scoffed at the allegations. Ive seen fertiliser for the last eight years, he said.
Aly Hindy, a Toronto imam, said he knew several of the accused because they prayed at his mosque but said they were not terrorists. The charges are to keep George Bush happy, thats all, he added sardonically. The Globe and Mail did not mention that all incriminating evidence had been planted on the suspects.
AP adds: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was no indication that the arrested were trying to plan an attack in the United States. We certainly dont believe that theres any link to the United States, but obviously we will follow up, said Rice. I think we will get whatever information we need, she said. But its obviously a great success for the Canadians. Theyre to be congratulated for it.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"Police planted evidence"
I can hear the defense in the courtroom/media already:
"Yer Honor, my client wuz framed!!"
Posted by: N guard ||
06/05/2006 0:54 Comments ||
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Posted by: Captain America ||
06/05/2006 10:09 Comments ||
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#4
IANAL, but as I understand it, if the accused seeks out the material, it's not entrapment or planting. It's a sting, which is perfectly OK.
Furthermore, their crime wasn't possession of fertilizer, it's what they were planning to do with that fertilizer. Not that I expect the Lions of Islam -- or their servants in the press -- to make that distinction.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/05/2006 10:22 Comments ||
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#5
Seems like this group actually tried to buy the fertilizer. Anyone trying to buy that much nitrate without having an agricultural reason would be a red flag to any legitimate dealer. They tipped off the cops. The cops made a switch.
It seems like the informal monitoring system the fertilizer industry uses worked as planned. Unfortunately, fertilizer sales in Canada will probably be placed on the explosive goods list, which means every purchase will require a permit. More cost, red tape.
Posted by: john ||
06/05/2006 10:40 Comments ||
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#6
Run a search on Rocco. He's got an interesting client list. Some guys do divorces, some do drunk driving. It appears Rocco specializes in Canadian terror suspects
#8
Is the reporter dishonest, or just stupid? Or both?
A sting operation is where the police pose as the sellers of some illicit item the targets are trying to get their hands on-- in this case, three tons of ammonium nitrate-- and when the deal is sealed the targets of the sting are arrested for trying to procure the prohibited item.
"Planting evidence" would be where the police come to arrest the targets of the investigation and during the arrest, one of the cops pulls three tons of ammonium nitrate out of his hip pocket and slips it into a dresser drawer-- and then pretends to "discover" it there.
Can't the reporter tell the difference?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
06/05/2006 11:46 Comments ||
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#9
The old "it's Georges fault" defense is now out there.
#10
Declining to give your terr suspects possesion of 3 tons of real AN is probably a good idea. I don't think "planted" is the right verb. "Fooled" maybe. "Supplied bogus explosive in place of AN" would be more truthful.
#11
Is the reporter dishonest, or just stupid? Or both?
I think "reporter", "dishonest", and "stupid" are found together as frequently as bacon, lettuce, and tomato.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/05/2006 14:57 Comments ||
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#12
"This is Chewbacca... a wookie from the planet Kshykkt..."
Posted by: Phil ||
06/05/2006 15:20 Comments ||
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#13
One of their lawyers is already talking about entrapment, as if this sting was run by some slack-jawed local cop trying to collar a pot dealer. Sorry, but this operation involved top authorities from the federal level to the local, including the mayor and police chief. I hope the trial is more public than most canadian trials, including releasing the transcripts of the chat rooms and message boards.
#15
Run a search on Rocco. He's got an interesting client list. Some guys do divorces, some do drunk driving. It appears Rocco specializes in Canadian terror suspects
The jihad network has established a lawyer network as well for the hard boyz who get caught. Victor Koppe in Holland performs much the same services for the Hofstad Group.
An enterprising reporter might choose to research and report on how their fees are paid and by whom. Assuming the current crop of reporters found such a line of research interesting, that is.
#22
LOL - I could claim you threw me with "Thurman", but in truth it was waaaay too subtle for me, LOL. I'm nowhere near that clever. A regular dunce. My knuckles are skinned and I breathe through my mouth snore. I do know what I'd do if I could get my paws on Uma, though, heh.
Seventeen suspected terrorists arrested overnight in Canada may have been on the verge of launching a series of massive bomb attacks in Ontario. And they may have had ties to two Metro-Atlanta men who are already in federal custody suspected of plotting with some of the Canadians to attack targets in the U.S.
The FBI believes that in March, 2005, the two Metro Atlanta men, Syed Ahmed and Ehsanul Sadequee, met with some of the suspected terrorists in Canada during seven days of meetings to discuss targets across North America.
Ahmed, a Georgia Tech engineering student, admitted it, according to the FBI, when he was arrested in March, 2006. The FBI says that Ahmed admitted taking a Greyhound bus out of Atlanta a year earlier his friend, Sadequee, and they went to Canada and met regularly with at least three, like-minded Islamic extremists to discuss attacking U.S. oil refineries, military bases and other targets in the U.S.
So, Canadian authorities moved in Friday night, and stopped, they say, a potentially massive series of bomb attacks.
Terror expert Neil Livingstone says the case is a reminder -- that terrorists from all over the world can easily enter the U.S. from Canada.
"If this group is out there, there are bound to be others that we haven't uncovered yet that we don't know about,â Livingstone told NBC News, âand they are going to continue to plot and to organize and to acquire explosives. And, ultimately, they are going to cross the border and carry out some sort of attack here."
Authorities in the U.S. and Canada believe the suspects made up a terrorist cell that was homegrown, and inspired by Al-Qaeda, but had no direct ties to it.
The Associated Press reports that Ahmedâs court-appointed attorney, Jack Martin of Atlanta, said he does not know if there was any connection between Ahmed and the Canadian suspects.
Ahmed was arrested in March, 2006, and a federal Grand Jury indicted him in April -â the only international terrorism indictment ever in Georgia.
Sadequee was taken into custody in April, 2006.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:18 ||
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"Targets across North America" - Yoo-hoo, oh Dubya, can we have a draft now!? BTW, Dubs, you yours, Admin. and the GOP-Congress keep watching your respective sixes.
#2
The only purpose of a Military Draft right now would be to dilute the excelent military we have now with disgruntled civilians who will do their damndness to do as little as they can, and get out as soon as possible.
In short, calling for a draft except in very trying times, is intended to wreck the military.
Don't fall for this trick.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/05/2006 9:48 Comments ||
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#3
I would like to see Bush announce that we are embroiled in a global war against a shadow enemy that wants to kill or enslave us all, and ask Congress to increase the size of the VOLUNTEER military by five or six divisions, both active and reserve. That would probably be the only act that gets the nation's attention. Otherwise, it's just a big show, as far as the MSM is concerned.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/05/2006 15:32 Comments ||
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A curfew was imposed here on Sunday after militants attacked a paramilitary checkpost in the Datakhel area and two soldiers were killed and three injured when a convoy hit an improvised explosive device in Shena Khowar, about seven kilometres from here.
One soldier was injured in the attack on the checkpost. He was identified as Kamal Bhittani.
The convoy was en route to Miramshah, the North Waziristan Agencyâs headquarters, from the Datakhel area.
Hospital sources said that a Khasadar soldier was killed and another wounded, while nine civilians were injured, when Cobra helicopters fired rockets on hotels and other public places in the main bazaar in Miramshah.
The sources said that three children were among the injured. A mosque, four hotels and two vehicles also came under fire. Security forces fired 130mm artillery and machine-gun shots from the scoutsâ fort, which damaged some nearby buildings.
According to eyewitnesses, gunshots were heard in the main town soon after the security forcesâ vehicle struck the explosive device. After the incident, security forces started heavy artillery fire from the main base camp.
They said that troops the artillery fire and rockets hit four hotels in which three people were wounded. Cobra helicopters shelled markets and residential compounds, the witnesses said.
Officials said that troops had fired in self-defence after the paramilitary fort in the town had come under fire.
A resident said that two Khasadar men, identified as Gul Shireen and Hassan Khan, were injured. They were taken to a local hospital where Gul Shireen died because of severity of his wounds.
Three children, who were in a dry water course, were hit while the firing on the mosque injured three people. The local vegetable market also came under attack.
Some of the wounded were identified as Zubair Khan, Faqir Mohammad, Munawar Khan, Haider Khan and Sardar Khan. All of them are said to be civilians.
Heavy shelling from helicopters and artillery fire rocked the town and thick smoke was seen billowing from hotels and other buildings. Two pick-ups loaded with vegetables caught fire.
Officials said that security forces had thrown a security cordon around the troubled town and the administration clamped curfew for an indefinite period. Residents have been warned not to go out of their homes. Helicopters kept hovering above the city throughout the day.
Agencies add: The Khasadar (tribal policeman) was killed in the exchange of fire while trying to run for cover, an official said.
After the mine blast that hit the security forcesâ convoy, security forces attacked positions in Miranshah, that were apparently being used as militant hideouts, residents and the intelligence official said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:44 ||
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Two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three wounded in a landmine blast yesterday in the North Waziristan region on the Afghan border, security officials said.
Waziristan is Pakistanâs main front in its war against Islamist militants allied with Afghanistanâs Taleban and the Al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
A military convoy was hit by a landmine blast as it was passing through a village near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, said an army official.
âTwo of our soldiers were martyred,â said the official, who declined to be identified. An intelligence official also said two soldiers were killed and three wounded.
After the mine blast, security forces backed by a helicopter gunship attacked positions in Miranshah, that were apparently being used as militant hideouts, residents and the intelligence official said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:40 ||
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Two soldiers were killed and two others were critically wounded Sunday when militants attacked their convoy in Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan agency, said security officials.
A military convoy was coming from Datta Khel tribe when few kilometers from Mir Ali village, it came under attack by suspected local Taliban militants, officials told KUNA. The attack left two soldiers killed and critically wounded two others, they added.
Immediately after the attack, officials said further, forces backed by gunship helicopters launched a search operation in the area to arrest the militants. They shelled suspected militants hideouts but there were no casualties, officials added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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AN Italian soldier was killed and four others wounded in Iraq early today when their military convoy was attacked near Nassiriyah in the south of the country, a defence ministry official said.
The Italian soldiers' vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb, Admiral Gianpaolo Di Paolo said.
One of the wounded soldiers suffered serious injuries, he said.
The soldiers were escorting a British convoy on its way to Tallil, and were some 100km north of Nassiriyah about 3.30am Tuesday AEST when the attack occurred.
Prime Minister Romani Prodi expressed his "sorrow for this new grief to befall the Italian people".
Mr Prodi's centre-left government, which won general elections in April, has announced plans to reduce the number of Italian soldiers deployed in Iraq from 2700 to 1600 during this month and to repatriate the remainder by the end of the year.
The military contingent will be replaced by a civil group still to be defined.
Several leaders of the centre-left coalition government tonight called for an immediate withdrawal of the troops from Iraq.
The Italian troops were sent to Iraq in 2003 under former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was a strong ally of US President George W. Bush.
Italian public opinion has been against the Iraqi war.
In the past three years, 34 Italian soldiers have been killed in Iraq, including the latest casualty.
#1
As was his life, may his memory be for a blessing. For the rest, may their recovery be swift and relatively painless. They uphold the honour of their country, though the new government will not.
Among experts on the American-led team investigating Iraq's mass graves, the skeletal remains lying face-up at the rear of the tangled grave here have been given a name the Blue Man that speaks for a sorrowful familiarity developed by some of those who work with victims of mass murder.
But more than his blue shirt, and his blue-striped trousers, what distinguishes the remains is the way they speak for the terror of death under Saddam Hussein. The man was thrown backward by automatic weapons fire, his eyes blindfolded and his arms tied behind his back, his skull jerked upward at the neck, his fleshless mouth gaping, his two rows of teeth stretched apart, as though in a primal scream. An example of what the NYT can do right, especially when their best correspondent - John Burns - is at the keyboard. I know someone who went on this trip, he said the remains were incredible, and every bit as dramatic as Burns describes. The commitment and investment of America and Americans (and in this case, the usual band of others like Aussies, Brits, etc.) in doing so many right things in Iraq can be hard to discern through the fog and tragedies and mistakes of war, but it's a story to be proud of, and one hopefully Iraqis will appreciate some day.
Posted by: Verlaine in Iraq ||
06/05/2006 15:27 ||
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But of course, Iraqis were better off under Saddam. /heavy sarcasm.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
06/05/2006 17:25 Comments ||
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#2
If you want to see what a monster Saddam was, check out this Mass Grave Website.
And the LLL never gets into this. They are all worried about the environment, but they never condemned his blasting of the oil wells in Kuwait during GW1. They don't give a rat's behind about anything but their agenda, certainly not these poor souls that were eaten up by the Saddam regime.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/05/2006 17:52 Comments ||
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#3
I saw the dead tree version of the NYT. This story was front page, above the fold. What dirt does Mr. Burns hold on his editors to get such treatment when it goes so against the party line, I wonder?
#4
TW - Did the dead tree version include this money quote:
What happened here is not only a macabre marker in the history of Iraq under Mr. Hussein, but a harrowing footnote in American politics. The victims here, American and Iraqi officials say, died in Mr. Hussein's suppression of the Shiite uprising across southern Iraq in early 1991. It was a rebellion that survivors and American critics of the President George H. W. Bush say that the president encouraged after halting American troops at Iraq's southern border with Kuwait at the end of the Persian Gulf war.
For years, Middle East experts have debated Mr. Bush's role in encouraging Iraq's Shiites and Kurds to mount a challenge to Mr. Hussein after the war over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait ended, before ruling out American military action to halt the mass killings of Shiites that Mr. Hussein initiated to crush the uprising. Mr. Bush himself has said that what happened to the Shiites was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency.
#5
I'm afraid I've no idea, Crazy Fool. I just noticed it walking by in the grocery store, chatting on the phone with the clever people repairing Mr. Wife's car. ;-)
#6
I'm not surprised to see this story under John Burns' byline. What does surprise me is that he can still stomach working with that filthy nest of Walter Duranty wannabees. About the time that Eason Jordan wrote his crocodile-tears "apology" for CNN's collaboration with the Saddam regime, Burns told an interviewer for Editor & Publisher that he had personally witnessed numerous American journos competing aggressively with each other to see who could do the best job of sucking up to the Baathists.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
06/05/2006 23:49 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD, Iraq Soldiers from 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted a cordon and search at 5 a.m. June 3 in order to capture anti-Iraqi force leadership in the Adhamiyah district located in eastern Baghdad. One is never sure how many of these captures are real and how many either 'set-up' or 'trumped-up', but at least it was Army and not Police.
The intelligence-based, precision mission, Operation Roaring Tiger, netted 19 suspected terrorists that will, according to Multi-National Division Baghdad, disrupt the AIFs ability to conduct future attacks in the Adhamiyah area. 19 down, 25 million to go.
One detainee, while being processed, reported having difficulty breathing. The individual was transported to al Yarmook Hospital, where he was pronounced dead of a heart attack. He was scared to death of how he would be treated.
There were no Iraqi Army or Coalition Force casualties. This was a complex operation, that netted 19 suspected terrorist leaders from 14 different locations, said Maj. Gen. J.D. Thurman, commander, MND-B. It was planned and executed by 2/6 Iraqi Army. It is not only indicative of their capability, but shows the Iraqi people their Soldiers are not only taking the fight to the enemy, they are winning.
Four Russian Embassy employees were released hours after being seized by gunmen in an attack in western Baghdad that left one of their colleagues dead, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said Sunday.
The Russians were released at 7 p.m. Saturday after Interior Ministry commandos raided the hideout of the kidnappers in the Jadriya neighborhood in southeastern Baghdad, ministry official Lt. Colonel Falah al-Mohamedawi said Sunday. He said the kidnappers were arrested.
The Russian Embassy in Baghdad said it could not immediately deny or confirm the report.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 01:58 ||
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Sectarian tensions escalated dangerously Sunday after gunmen north of Baghdad shot dead 21 Shiite commuters and police in Basra killed at least nine Sunnis, capping a bloody weekend in which more than 100 people died in a variety of shootings, bombings and assassinations around the country.
The bloodshed came as Iraq's new legislature failed for a second consecutive week to come up with candidates for the Interior and Defense Ministries, posts left unfilled when Iraq's government was formed over two weeks ago, and which are considered crucial if the country's slide into sectarian violence is to be halted.
The besieged U.S. military, battling allegations that vengeful Marines willfully shot dead 24 civilians in the western town of Haditha, announced that three Iraqi civilians were killed Friday when a mortar round fired during an exercise at a base near Baqouba landed in their village.
The stalemate over the appointment of the ministers of Interior and Defense, promised respectively to a Shiite and a Sunni, is symptomatic of the power struggles threatening to tear Iraq apart despite the formation of what was hailed as a national unity government.
A session of parliament was called Sunday for legislators to approve the candidates, but it was canceled after the factions failed to agree - and because not enough of the 275 legislators showed up to meet the 50 percent requirement for a quorum.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took office May 20 amid high hopes that a new government including Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds would be able to quell the violence and unite Iraqis. Promising tough action to defeat terrorism and disband militias, al-Maliki said he would name the security ministers "within days."
Since then, hundreds of people have died while the squabbling continues. In the absence of leadership at the Interior and Defense Ministries, a promised plan to restore security to the capital has not materialized.
In the worst incident Sunday, gunmen ambushed two minivans carrying commuters outside the village of Qara Tappah, about 70 miles north of Baghdad, and hauled out their passengers, many of them students traveling to Baqouba to take year-end exams.
The shootings came two days after the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, urged Sunnis to take up arms against Shiites in a rambling audiotape that blamed Shiites for most of the region's woes over the past 1,400 years.
In the Basra incident, which threatens to further inflame sectarian tensions in that troubled southern city, Iraqi police who shot dead nine people also detained six in a raid early Sunday at al-Arab Sunni mosque. Police said the men were gunmen who died in a shootout triggered when police raided the mosque, several hours after a suicide bomber killed 28 people Saturday in a busy marketplace in the mostly Shiite city.
But Sunni politicians said that the nine people slain were ordinary civilians and that the bodies of the six who were detained later showed up at Basra's morgue.
"What's happening now in Basra is an organized campaign of displacement and expulsion of Sunnis," said Sunni politician Nour Eddin al-Hayali.
Last week, al-Maliki declared a state of emergency in oil-rich Basra in an attempt to curb the rampant lawlessness that has taken hold there over the past year.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 01:00 ||
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gunmen north of Baghdad shot dead 21 Shiite commuters and police in Basra killed at least nine Sunnis
Noor and her boyfriend used to go out a lot and listen to dance in their favourite restaurant in Baghdad. The 26-year-old university lecturer also used to enjoy going window shopping at night in the city's once-glitzy Mansour district, dressed in the latest fashions.
That was before the "men in black", the Taliban-style militias waging terror against the urban middle class, arrived in Noor's neighbourhood, threatening to shoot, kidnap and shave the heads of anyone who challenged their draconian strictures.
The militias are part of a hardline religious crackdown organised by Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. On Friday he released a four-hour sermon, effectively a message of hate, calling on Sunni Muslims to confront adherents of the rival Shi'ite branch of Islam.
Zarqawi, who appears to act with impunity in Iraq despite a £13m bounty on his head, has printed pamphlets that were delivered through doors in the Amariya district of Baghdad, one of his self-declared Sunni "emirates".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
06/05/2006 00:57 ||
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#1
Just nuke this hell hole called the middle east. The women will be beter off dead. I read this and my blood boils, islam and tribalism just are not compatable with life in this century. islam and tribalism are not compatable with truly happy women and children. We are wasting out time since the Iraqi's will not stand up against these thugs. Like good little muslims they lay there and take it because other muslims and tribe members say it must be this way or allah will be mad or it goes against the koran.
We are wasting out blood and treasure I fear. We can replace the treasure but not the blood.
Cook this fecal hole and be done with it. Start with Pakistan and don't stop until you hit the Strait of Gibraltar.
#3
The seeds of their defeat are in their own barbarism. The lost in Algeria and they can be beaten in Iraq. Another Tall Afar type operation is imminent in Baghdad, hopefully with the Iraqi army taking the lead.
#4
You can't fight ruthlessness with "sweetness and light". Turn the entire iraqi army into one big Wolf's Head Brigade and let them eat these guys for lunch.
#5
Zarqawi is moving freely and so do his killers. No one is turning him in. The old islamic and tribal ways stop that from happening. He can kill a 1000 fellow muslims and they till not raise a finger against him or turn him in. If we kill one he are murdering crusaders.
We are spinning our wheels here. They are going to pcontinue to play their islamic and tribalist gamess. Either we smash them or we leave. They have jacked about long enough. They have had since January to get their act together and haven't. Their is no central government to be loyal to so they aren't.
Trouble in river city folks. The islamicists are taking over. Suni or Shia the radical islamicists are calling the shots.
#6
Like I've said before, Iraq is the trial run to see if the Arab nations (and Muslim nations in general) can move into the modern world. It looks like they're trying, at least some of them, but it's not clear if it's enough.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/05/2006 9:29 Comments ||
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Iraq is the trial run to see if the Arab nations (and Muslim nations in general) can move into the modern world.
#8
I was unaware there was an attempt. Sure, they were told to elect their own leaders -- but did anyone expect them to elect anyone but more of the same?
We removed the tyrant from a Middle Eastern nation. Now it's up to the people of that nation to grow out of tyranny.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/05/2006 9:49 Comments ||
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#9
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT Rob. If the people of Iraq do not rise up themselves and put an end to the insurgents and stabilize their own country, they are undeserving of freedom. One cannot be given character...it must be there already.
#13
I don't get any sense that the pressure cooker is even simmering, let alone being anywhere near to exploding. Even those nice secular-looking Iraqis in the government who wear Western-style suits wanted Islam as a part of their constitution. Well, they got it.
#15
Zenster, I've been wondering about that, and how much bloodshed does it take for India or Thailand to lash out against the religion of pieces.
It's like a domestic dispute, authorities choose to leave it alone. Not my ox.
#16
We can't stop the terrorism until we cut off the money source. That means taking out Riyadh and Tehran/Qom. Until we do that, we're fighting the tentacles rather than the head of the octopus. Nuke Riyadh, Tehran, and Qom, and the amount of trouble will drastically decrease. Of course, every muslim with even a bit of radicalization will rise up in arms. When they do, whack 'em, regardless of who they are or where they live. Time to put an end to this whole mess once and for all.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/05/2006 15:46 Comments ||
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I wonder too, wxjames. Fer Chrissakes, falafel? If anything, falafel was being eaten in the time of Mohammed. What do these morons propose to do, pull the rebar out of every building in town? Take the headlights out of all cars? Revert to mud-brick architecture?
This is why I talk about Global Cultural Genocide. My Iranian friend estimated, and I agree with him, that easily HALF the world's population would perish under global shariah law. Unless Islam relenquishes its lust for global dominance, exterminating all Muslims may well prove a small price in order to save the lives of half this world's people.
Can anyone tell that I am fed up to here with radical Islam's daily 9-11 death toll? Yup, every day Islamists abet yet another 3,000 deaths through their diversion of such immense wealth and manpower to combat terrorism that would be better spent fighting famine, disease, natural disasters and illiteracy. The sooner these modern-day Nazis are all dead, the better.
#19
Moose they are not striking back or even defending themselves. That is the problem. If they won't why should we do it for them.
This is a mess but it was a mess before we ever arrived. Kill Saddam in his cell and level any place that offers resistance of any kind. Force these idiots to submit to us or die. It's all they understand.
#20
We've read here about the militias in some neighborhoods, keeping out the bad guys. And in another story recently, how the neighbors of one Muslim faction (Sunni? Shia?) protected the one man who was of the other faction from black-clad demanders of his head. It isn't all bad or all chaos, and they aren't all hopeless. It took Germany and Japan at least five years to settle down after they were defeated, and they'd only been under totalitarian, fascist rule for about a decade. The Iraqis have had a full generation of this, and no tradition of self-governance; give them a little time to figure it out.
#21
You are so full of it, zenster. Your Iranian friend? Boy howdy, he must be a real winner to be friends with someone who wishes to exterminate him and his entire family. Quite honestly, I think you are a troll who thinks its fun to come in here and brind down rantburg with your calls for genocide. F off.
A number of people have been killed after Iraqi police stormed a mosque in Basra. Ali Muhammad, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera that up to 16 people had been killed in clashes between the police and guards at the al-Arab mosque in the southern city on Saturday night. According to Muhammad, witnesses said Iraqi National Guards and policemen stormed the mosque after fighting in the area that had lasted for three hours. "All those inside the mosque have been killed," said Muhammad. It is unclear whether policemen were among the dead.
A Sunni religious group, the Sunni Endowment, described the incident as police gunning down unarmed worshippers. Police, however, said they were returning fire against gunmen.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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What really happened there I wonder. The MSM have been listing this along with the bus incident as "sectarian violence" but it sounds alot like a legitimate raid to me. If it wasnt the Basra police, Id assume it WAS a legitimate raid.
#3
Target one missile per Mosque, hit at Friday prayers, do NOT use large missiles, just enough damage to hopefully kill the Imams and some of the "Worshipers" and collapse the roof if possible.
Repeat until the violence either stops or you run out of Mosques.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/05/2006 9:58 Comments ||
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#4
"Live by the Bomb, die by the Bomb".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
06/05/2006 10:01 Comments ||
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Target one missile per Mosque, hit at Friday prayers, do NOT use large missiles, just enough damage to hopefully kill the Imams and some of the "Worshipers" and collapse the roof if possible.
No, use MOABs - or tac nukes. Destroy the mosque and all the terrorists inside. Make DA$$$$ sure you kill the imams and all their enablers. Don't limit it to Iraq - destroy all the mosques in the middle east, especially the "grand mosque" in mecca. Take out the islamoidiots wherever they live and breed. Convert the survivors to buddhism.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/05/2006 15:51 Comments ||
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According to Muhammad, witnesses said Iraqi National Guards and policemen stormed the mosque after fighting in the area that had lasted for three hours.
A Sunni religious group, the Sunni Endowment, described the incident as police gunning down unarmed worshippers.
Yeah, gunning down 16 unarmed worshippers always takes about three hours.
It just goes to show the kind of intelligence you are dealing with. If the Sunni Endowment is willing to put that kind of $hit out there for their target audience to consume, it means that they expect that they will believe it. Sad thing is, they are probably correct to assume so . . . .
Posted by: grb ||
06/05/2006 16:44 Comments ||
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Some 19 civilians were killed in a shooting by unknown militants in the Governorate of Diyali north east of Baghdad, while four others were killed in a different incident in the eastern part of the capital, Iraqi police said Sunday.
A statement by the joint coordination center said there was an attack with light weapons on civilian cars in Ein Layla area northeastern Baquba, Diyali's main city. Two other civilians were injured and taken to hospital, the statement added.
In another shooting, four people were killed in the eastern parts of Baghdad according to Iraqi Police reports. A police source told reporters the attackers opened fire on a bus of civilian employees in Al-Talibiya area. In addition to the four dead, the attack injured two other civilians who were taken to Al-Kindi hospital for treatment. According to the same source, the employees work for a communications department in Baghdad.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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A militant group kidnapped three people from a school southern Baghdad, Iraqi Police announced Sunday. A source from the police told KUNA that the group stormed Amouriya primary school in Al-Latifiya town and kidnapped the principal Hasiba Kazim, a teacher, and a policeman, who was guarding the school. The source added that the militants were between six and eight people and that they drove away in two cars after the kidnapping.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Iraqi Police in Mosul announced Sunday that six of its members were killed in attack by unknown militants. A source from the police in Mosul told KUNA that unidentified militants opened fire on the policemen who were in a civilian car wearing civilian clothes in Al-Mothana district in the city's center. Earlier today, about 19 civilians were killed in a shooting by unknown militants in the Governorate of Diyala north east of Baghdad, while four others were killed in a different incident in the eastern part of Baghdad.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Two members of the Salah a-Din faction, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees, were reported killed Monday evening in an IAF airstrike in the Jebaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Eiman Assiylia, 26, died immediately and Majdi Hamed succumbed to his wounds approximately half an hour after three IAF missiles struck their car, Palestinian sources said.
Hope it was a painful 30 minutes
Two passers by were also reported wounded.
The IDF reported that Assiylia was involved in terror activity targeting Israeli, including numerous Kassam rocket attacks. Hamed was a senior intelligence officer and was involved in two attempted terror attacks at the Karni crossing.
Earlier Monday, a bomb went off in the camp, killing a Hamas activist. Israel denied responsibility. Gaza has been wracked by clashes between rival forces loyal to the Hamas-led government and Fatah, which is headed by Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/05/2006 14:45 ||
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Ooops. Better get Mutual of Gaza down there with their Safety in the Workplace videos. Doesn't look like they took...
An explosion has killed a Palestinian militant and injured two others. A powerful explosion destroyed a house in the Jebaliya refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip.
The blast killed Ahmed Ibrahim Sari - a member of the armed wing of the Hamas militant group. Sari's wife and eight-year-old child were also injured in the blast. Ahmed, come to bed.
In a minute, woman! I just have to check one more...
A spokesman for the Israeli military says the Israeli Army was not involved in the incident. Nope. We're not sorry it happened though.
More than a dozen Palestinians have been killed in recent days in worsening violence between the Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah. Occasionally, Palestinian militants are accidentally killed while handling explosives. Yes, so we've heard...
#1
How can it be an accident when you're deliberately handling explosives? It can be carelessness, stupidity, clumsiness, etc., but none of that is what I think of as an 'accident'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/05/2006 14:25 Comments ||
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Gaza City, 5 June (AKI) - A group of eight gunmen on Monday raided a building housing the Palestinian Authority's television station smashing a satellite antennae, local witnesses said. The attack in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip was apparently carried out by Hamas militants in retaliation for the fatal shooting on Sunday evening of the wife and brother of a local Hamas leader, allegedly by gunmen of rival faction Fatah.
The Palestinian television is controlled by PA president Mahmoud Abba, who heads Fatah.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/05/2006 09:43 ||
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Democratic Palestine in action. Good thing 'Apartheid Israel' is no longer in control of Gaza, repressing freedom of assembly. Now gunsex practioners can exercise their freedoms without any demurs from gentle Europe.
#2
maybe the Hamas contestant was voted off Paleo Idol?
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/05/2006 10:53 Comments ||
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#3
Hey, the POPOV (Paleo On Paleo Overt Violence) is thoroughly entertaining. Like all Rantburgers, Ima up to here in popcorn. The one thing to remember is that Iranian proxies, al Q, and friends are building Gaza, and possibly the West Bank into a staging area for possibly launching a major attack against Israel. With Iran stirring the pot in many places, making threats, and going ahead with fissile-carrying missiles, Israel is facing the gravest danger she has ever faced.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/05/2006 11:23 Comments ||
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#4
I dunno, perhaps there's hope... I mean, they could have been protesting against all thoses jew-hating programs, who knows?
Up to five Palestinians were wounded, including a women, during armed confrontations Sunday between a Palestinian family and the Hamas-formed Interior Ministry force in Rafah, South Gaza.
According to eyewitnesses, the confrontations erupted after a personal dispute occurred between a member of the force and a member of Qashta family in Al-Brazil neighborhood in Rafah. The eyewitness added that five Palestinians were wounded, including a women belonging to the family, that is loyal to Fatah, and an armed man, who is in critical condition.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Israeli forces stormed on Sunday Al-Terha neighborhood in Ramallah and detained two Palestinians. Eyewitnesses said that the force surrounded a complex in the neighborhood and evacuated its residence before the arrest. They added that the two Palestinians worked in an apartment which belongs to the deputy chief of the Palestinian Intelligence Tawfeeq Al-Tairawi.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Kota Baharu - Malaysia has again denied that Kelantan state, which borders on southern Thailand, is the hotbed for Thai separatists and rebels.
Official Bernama news agency quoted Eighth Infantry Brigade Commander Datuk Mahdi Yusof, whose unit operates in the area, as saying he had not even received evidence of separatists from southern Thailand hiding in Kelantan - a charge frequently levelled from Thailand.
"I can assure you there is no such thing. Our security checks at the Malaysia-Thailand border are very tight," Bernama quoted the officer as saying. Bernama asked him to comment on recent Thai media reports that pro-separatist Muslims were taking refuge in Kelantan to plot their anti-government activities.
Mahdi said security forces manning the checkpoints and carrying out border patrols were also tasked to monitor smuggling activities and check unlawful entry of illegal immigrants from Thailand.
He said the Malaysian and Thailand security forces worked closely to tackle potential security threats.
"We liase closely with our Thai counterparts to share intelligence information. We are in constant contact with them to exchange information on security threats ," he added.
Ahead of peace talks between Sri Lanka's warring parties in Norwegian capital Oslo, two soldiers and a bus station guard were killed in separate attacks in the island nation, where eight prisoners including two suspected Tamil rebels escaped from a high-security jail Sunday.
The two soldiers were killed Sunday in separate claymore mine attacks in the Sri Lankan districts of Mannar and Jaffna, news agency Press Trust of India reported from capital Colombo. A civilian guard of a bus station was also shot dead by a fighter from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Batticaloa district.
In another incident, eight inmates, including two suspected LTTE rebels, escaped from the Batticaloa prison Sunday morning.Batticaloa jail is known for frequent breakouts, the agency reported.
Peace facilitator Norway called the two-day meeting starting June 8 in the absence of any other contact between the two sides amid an escalation in violence. The talks are to focus only on the safety of the 60-member Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission comprising monitors from five Scandinavian countries.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/05/2006 00:19 ||
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#1
This is known as "infighting." The army usually wins.
Well, you know how it went down with the coup attempt against Chavez a couple years back. Everyone remembers the coup attempt, noone remembers that it came on the heels of an incident where Chavez supporters were shooting protesters.
Same situation applies here. Suddenly everyone's talking about the choice being Erdogan vs. a military coup, and not islamicist assasins vs. sitting judges.
#3
PS. I just googled picayune (it being a completely unfamiliar word). I hope you use it because Rantburg is free as Rantburg is certainly not "Something of small value; of something petty or worthless."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A suicide car bomb near a Canadian convoy in southern Afghanistan killed three bystanders yesterday, while a governor said four policemen and 18 rebels were killed in a battle nearby.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar has asked all his followers residing in refugee camps in Pakistan to return to Afghanistan, especially those living in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The call has been given through posters inscribed with a message from the Taliban leader pasted outside Afghan refugee camps in NWFP. Security forces and intelligence agencies are monitoring the movements of suspected Taliban representatives living in refugee camps. Also, General Rasheed Dostum has given a green signal to his supporters residing in the refugee camps to come back to Afghanistan.
As many as a dozen civilians were killed and injured in a suicide car bomb explosion that rocked Afghanistan's troubled Kandahar province Sunday morning. Officials are tight-lipped as who was the target of the attack, but witnesses said the explosion took place when a convoy of Canadian forces was passing through the main city area. There are no reports of casualties among the foreign troops as a result of the blast. 
BRITISH soldiers have killed five suspected Taleban fighters in an operation in Afghanistan's troubled Helmand province. The troops joined coalition forces for the raid on a village in the south-west of the country. A Ministry of Defence spokesman said last night the operation was looking for evidence of Taleban militants. "There has been a coalition-led cordon-and-search operation involving UK troops in Nowzad in north Helmand. Five Taleban have been killed and two detained. There were no UK casualties." There was no let-up in the fighting, meanwhile, with at least 28 people killed, including four in an attempt to blow up Kandahar's provincial governor.
Somali Islamic fighters seized a key town in the north yesterday after heavy clashes with gunmen allied to a warlord alliance, expanding their territory outside the lawless capital.
The militia of the Islamic courts union in the Somali capital Mogadishu who has these days been involving in truck-down assault against the anti terror alliances militia won to capture a very strategy Balad town in middle Shabelle region on Sunday. 
The Islamic courts union in Somalia announced that they are planning to form an authority for the capital of Mogadishu, where the Islamic fighters overrun the warlords united with the alliance for restoration of peace and counter terrorism in several bloody clashes that engulfed the lives of more than 300 people mostly civilians and hundreds more injured. The chairperson the Islamic courts union 
A Russian soldier was killed and two others wounded when a Russian military vehicle was attacked in the Republic of Ingushetia, Interfax reported Sunday. The news agency quoted security sources as saying that unknown militants attacked the vehicle carrying a number of Russian soldiers while it was passing through the republic's capital, Nazran. The sources added that security forces were searching for the vehicle which the militants used. 
Istanbul, 5 June (AKI) - An explosion on Monday rocked a military base in north-western Turkey, causing several casualties, according to local reports. At least one person was killed and two were injured in the blast at a base in Sakarya province, according to reports citing the local governor Nuri Okutan. 
The three tonnes of ammonium nitrate found with the Totonto terrorism suspects was planted by the police in an elaborate sting operation. According to Toronto Star, Sources say investigators who had learned of the groups alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertiliser, a key component in creating explosives. Once the deal was done, the RCMP-led anti-terrorism task force moved in for the arrests. 
Two soldiers were killed and two others were critically wounded Sunday when militants attacked their convoy in Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan agency, said security officials.
BAGHDAD, Iraq Soldiers from 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division conducted a cordon and search at 5 a.m. June 3 in order to capture anti-Iraqi force leadership in the Adhamiyah district located in eastern Baghdad.
A number of people have been killed after Iraqi police stormed a mosque in Basra. Ali Muhammad, an Iraqi journalist, told Aljazeera that up to 16 people had been killed in clashes between the police and guards at the al-Arab mosque in the southern city on Saturday night. According to Muhammad, witnesses said Iraqi National Guards and policemen stormed the mosque after fighting in the area that had lasted for three hours. "All those inside the mosque have been killed," said Muhammad. It is unclear whether policemen were among the dead. 
Some 19 civilians were killed in a shooting by unknown militants in the Governorate of Diyali north east of Baghdad, while four others were killed in a different incident in the eastern part of the capital, Iraqi police said Sunday.
A militant group kidnapped three people from a school southern Baghdad, Iraqi Police announced Sunday. A source from the police told KUNA that the group stormed Amouriya primary school in Al-Latifiya town and kidnapped the principal Hasiba Kazim, a teacher, and a policeman, who was guarding the school. The source added that the militants were between six and eight people and that they drove away in two cars after the kidnapping.
Iraqi Police in Mosul announced Sunday that six of its members were killed in attack by unknown militants. A source from the police in Mosul told KUNA that unidentified militants opened fire on the policemen who were in a civilian car wearing civilian clothes in Al-Mothana district in the city's center. Earlier today, about 19 civilians were killed in a shooting by unknown militants in the Governorate of Diyala north east of Baghdad, while four others were killed in a different incident in the eastern part of Baghdad.
Gaza City, 5 June (AKI) - A group of eight gunmen on Monday raided a building housing the Palestinian Authority's television station smashing a satellite antennae, local witnesses said. The attack in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip was apparently carried out by Hamas militants in retaliation for the fatal shooting on Sunday evening of the wife and brother of a local Hamas leader, allegedly by gunmen of rival faction Fatah.
Up to five Palestinians were wounded, including a women, during armed confrontations Sunday between a Palestinian family and the Hamas-formed Interior Ministry force in Rafah, South Gaza.
Israeli forces stormed on Sunday Al-Terha neighborhood in Ramallah and detained two Palestinians. Eyewitnesses said that the force surrounded a complex in the neighborhood and evacuated its residence before the arrest. They added that the two Palestinians worked in an apartment which belongs to the deputy chief of the Palestinian Intelligence Tawfeeq Al-Tairawi.
Ahead of peace talks between Sri Lanka's warring parties in Norwegian capital Oslo, two soldiers and a bus station guard were killed in separate attacks in the island nation, where eight prisoners including two suspected Tamil rebels escaped from a high-security jail Sunday.
