The Taliban confirmed on Wednesday that its fighters were close to entering the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to launch a fresh assault on Afghan and Canadian soldiers.
[..]
"A group of attackers has entered Kandahar city and they want to carry out martyrdom operations against the Canadian occupation's high ranking officers and [Afghanistan's] puppet administration and puppet army," Taliban spokesperson Qari Yousuf told AKI.
He said that the group is known as the Khalid bin Walid of Martyrdom attackers.
Dozens, as in "mostly bad guys"...
KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two Afghan soldiers and at least 23 militants were killed Wednesday during a military operation to push out Taliban rebels from several villages in south Afghanistan, the country's defense ministry said. Afghan troops, backed by Canadian forces, targeted villages in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province, where 400 militants escaped from prison in a jailbreak Friday.
Meanwhile, four British soldiers were killed Tuesday in a separate operation in Lashkar Gah, also in southern Afghanistan. And in another incident on Wednesday, two NATO-led soldiers were killed and 10 wounded during a patrol in southeastern Afghanistan. The incident occurred in the Paktika province, the alliance force said without releasing the nationalities of these troops.
Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Zahir Azimi said thousands of soldiers and police officers -- with reinforcements from the capital city of Kabul -- began moving into Arghandab Wednesday morning."This clearing operation is a response to a direct Taliban threat to the people of Arghandab district, where insurgents have forced hundreds of innocent Afghans to flee their homes," a statement from NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. "The operation is expected to be completed within the next three days."
The two Afghan soldiers were killed in a gun battle with three Taliban fighters, the defense ministry said. A NATO air raid in the district killed 20 other militants, the ministry said.
Even with the operation under way, NATO said it had seen no evidence of an increased Taliban presence in the region. "The scale of the challenge is currently unknown," ISAF spokesman Mark Laity said. "What we failed to find is the large grouping [of militants] that some people claimed." Laity said the reports of militants overrunning villages was Taliban "propaganda precisely to scare people."
Throughout the night and into early Wednesday morning, residents reported seeing row upon row of military convoys moving into the district. As the operation got under way, planes and helicopters buzzed overhead.
Local elders said hundreds of militants streamed into the villages late Sunday night on motor bikes and pickups. Then, in apparent preparation for an impending military operation, they planted mines, destroyed bridges and forced villagers to stay and fight alongside them, a tribal elder said.
NATO aircraft dropped hundreds of leaflets Monday night asking residents to stay inside their homes, saying troops were "coming to remove the enemies of Afghanistan."
Locals differed on the number of villages they said the Taliban had seized, with figures varying from five to 13. The villages are about 20 km (12 miles) north of Kandahar, near the prison. Kandahar province is where the Taliban first rose to power and where it made its last stand before being toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001.
Meanwhile, the British soldiers were killed as they took part in an operation east of Lashkar Gah, the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement. The blast killed three soldiers immediately while a fourth died later, the ministry said. One of the victims served in the Intelligence Corps. A fifth soldier was wounded and is in stable condition.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown mourned the loss in the House of Commons, saying he was proud of them. "They were undertaking the most difficult missions in the most dangerous of countries," he said. "Our troops are second to none, the best in the world. They're on the noblest of missions. They are fighting for freedom for the Afghans in their own country and for the world in protecting us from terrorism."
Opposition Conservative Party leader David Cameron agreed. "When people ask us why we're sending our young men and women to fight and possibly die in the heat and dust of Afghainstan, let us be absolutely united in saying that their fight is our fight," he said. "This is a fight against terrorism and extremism, not just in Afghanistan, that affects the safety of our streets and our way of life, too."
The explosion occurred a day after Brown announced that Britain would send more troops to Afghanistan. British troops there primarily serve in the southern province of Helmand, where allied forces are battling a resurgent Taliban. Defense Secretary Des Browne said Britain would increase its troop presence in Afghanistan from 7,800 to 8,030 by next spring.
#2
Good that the bad guys died, sad that the good guys did, although the ratio is definitely in the right direction. How many of the British soldiers died because they were poorly equipped by their political masters who praise their courage from the safety of the House of Commons?
Taliban militants destroyed bridges and planted mines in several villages they control outside southern Afghanistan's largest city in apparent preparation for battle, residents and officials said Tuesday. More than 700 familiesmeaning perhaps 4,000 people or morehad fled the Arghandab district 10 miles northwest of Kandahar city, said Sardar Mohammad, a police officer manning a checkpoint on the east side of the Arghandab River. Police on Tuesday stopped and searched every person passing on the road.
On the west side of the river, hundreds of Taliban controlled around nine or 10 villages, Mohammad said. 'Last night the people were afraid, and families on tractors, trucks and taxis fled the area,' said Mohammad. 'Small bridges inside the villages have been destroyed.'
The Afghan army flew four planeloads of soldiers to Kandahar from the capital, Kabul, on Tuesday. Canadian forces have also moved in to the region. 'When we get permission from commanders, we will attack the Taliban,' Mohammad said.
Aircraft of the NATO-led security force dropped leaflets in the Arghandab area telling residents that Afghan troops were coming to force out the Taliban and warning residents to say indoors in case fighting breaks out, said spokesman Mark Laity. 'Some 700 Afghan troops have moved into Arghandab region,' he said.
The Taliban assault Monday on the outskirts of Kandahar was the latest display of strength by the militants despite a record number of U.S. and NATO troops in the country.
The push into Arghandab districta lush region filled with grape and pomegranate groves that the Soviet army could never conquercame three days after a coordinated Taliban attack on Kandahar's prison that freed 400 insurgent fighters.
Police and army soldiers increased security throughout Kandahar and enforced a 10 p.m. curfew. A Taliban commander named Mullah Ahmedullah called an Associated Press reporter on Tuesday and said that around 400 Taliban moved into Arghandab from Khakrez, one district to the north. He said some of the militants released in Friday's prison break had joined the assault. 'They told us, 'We want to fight until the death,'' Ahmedullah said. 'We've occupied most of the area and it's a good place for fighting. Now we are waiting for the NATO and Afghan forces.'
The hardline Taliban regime ousted from power in a 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan regarded Kandahar as its main stronghold, and its insurgent supporters are most active in the volatile south of the country.
The U.S. and NATO have pleaded for additional troops over the last year and now have some 65,000 in the country. But the militants are still finding successes that the international alliance can't counter.
Arghandab lies just northwest of Kandahar city, and a tribal leader from the region warned that the militants could use the cover from Arghandab's orchards to mount an attack on Kandahar itself. NATO officials dismiss the idea that the Taliban can mount an attack on Kandahar.
One of the thousands of Afghans fleeing Arghandab said Tuesday that families were being forced out just as grape groves needed harvesting, meaning financial ruin for thousands. Haji Ibrahim Khan said Taliban fighters were moving through several Arghandab villages with weapons on their shoulders, planting mines and destroying small bridges. 'They told us to leave the area within 24 hours because they want to fight foreign and Afghan troops,' Khan said. 'But within a week we should be harvesting, and we were expecting a good one. Now with this fighting we are deeply worriedthe grapes are the only source of income we have.'
Two powerful anti-Taliban leaders from Arghandab have died in the last year, weakening the region's defenses. Mullah Naqib, the district's former leader, died of a heart attack in October. Taliban fighters moved into Arghandab en masse two weeks after his death but left within days after soldiers moved in. A second leader, police commander Abdul Hakim Jan, died in a massive suicide bombing in Kandahar in February.
The assault Monday came one day after President Hamid Karzai angrily told a news conference that he would send Afghan troops into Pakistan to hunt down Taliban leaders in response to the militants that cross over into Afghanistan from Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Thousands of residents fled villages near Kandahar as Taliban militants blew up bridges on Tuesday ahead of a looming offensive by Afghan and NATO troops, officials and locals said.
A Taliban commander said hundreds of fighters had hunkered down in troubled Arghandab district since late Monday, with many of them having escaped from the southern city's main jail at the weekend in a brazen insurgent attack. The wave of unrest in the strategic region has piled pressure on President Hamid Karzai, who threatened at the weekend that Afghan forces could attack militants on the soil of neighbouring Pakistan.
'Hundreds of families have left, we requested them to leave. Around 300 to 400 Taliban are on the move in the district, they are not stationed in one location,' defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP.
The Taliban had blown up one bridge 'so far' in the district, he said, adding that hundreds of Afghan soldiers had been deployed in Arghandab 'to clear the insurgents from the area.'
The interior ministry said army reinforcement had been sent to the area.
Afghan army General Aminullah Patyali said the rebels had reportedly destroyed several bridges and laid many landmines. One of the mines exploded, killing two Taliban, he said.
The US-led coalition said that a joint patrol with Afghan forces saw no massive presence of rebels in the district. The 'forces completed a patrol ... today and found no evidence that militants control the area,' it said in a statement.
Meanwhile, three security guards hired by a road construction company were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in Spin Boldak district late Tuesday, Kandahar provincial police chief Sayed Aqa Saqib said. Three guards were killed and another three were wounded in the blast,' he said.
Residents fleeing Arghandab, which is surrounded by pomegranate groves and agricultural fields, said the Taliban had seized much of the area and that many people had abandoned their harvests. 'There were Taliban everywhere. They have destroyed all of the small bridges leading to the villages,' Hazarat Jan told AFP on the road to Kandahar as he led a donkey carrying his sick mother.
An AFP reporter said dozens of NATO and Afghan security forces had set up checkposts searching vehicles and people. At one checkpoint, policeman Sardar Mohammad said about 700 families amounting to at least 3,000 people had fled.
Abdul Mohammad, another resident, said that helicopters from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force 'dropped leaflets on our village, asking us to leave the village before they launch an operation.' NATO civilian spokesman Mark Laity confirmed the leaflet drop but said the villagers were asked to stay in their houses until Afghan security forces remove the Taliban.
The Taliban build-up comes days after more than 1,000 prisoners including rebels escaped from Kandahar prison after suicide bombers attacked the main gate. A militant who claimed to be a group commander in Arghandab said that 'dozens' of the escaped prisoners were taking part in the Taliban's activities in the village.
'We're about 400 to 500. There are some Taliban who escaped the jail who have joined us,' Mullah Aminullah told AFP by telephone. There was no way of independently confirming his identity or location. 'We have planted lots of mines on the roads and destroyed small bridges leading to these villages,'
Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP by telephone that the rebels held most of the area apart from the district centre.
This article starring:
Mullah Aminullah
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Bad Guys
Residents flee as Taliban brace for Afghan offensive
A Taliban commander said hundreds of fighters had hunkered down in troubled Arghandab district since late Monday
************************************* good guys
Afghan army General Aminullah Patyali said the rebelshad reportedly laid many landmines. One of the mines exploded, killing two Taliban, he said.
[LOL!]
The US-led coalition said that a joint patrol with Afghan forces saw no massive presence of rebels in the district.
#2
they said no evidence militants CONTROL the area.
I read that, they sent a patrol down a main road, and the talibunnies went to ground. That doesnt mean theyre not there (though it does mean theyve decided not to spend resources on IEDs/ambushes along the main road) Now thats still promising - whatever road the patrol went through on, can be used to begin to divide up the district into sectors for search and destroy, etc. But I would count on no further kinetic operations before this particular op is done.
British troops have been flown into Kandahar to help regain control of the city following last week's jailbreak by hundreds of Taliban fighters. Chinooks carried paratroopers from 3rd Bn, The Parachute Regiment low over rooftops into the city's football stadium. The troopers immediately fanned out into the city to overwhelm the insurgent strongholds that have sprung up since Friday.
Ministerial approval was sought for the deployment of British troops into Afghanistan's southern capital for the first time since Special Forces forced the Taliban out of Kandahar in 2001. Senior officers described the operation as a "lock down" to push the insurgents out of the neighbouring Arghandab district. Thousands of Afghan civilians have fled the area since the militants escaped from a prison in Kandahar after a suicide bomb and gun attack.
Taliban fighters were reported to have blown up bridges and planted mines yesterday as they awaited a coalition assault. Scores of Taliban are also thought to be heading into the city from Pakistan and other areas of Afghanistan after their leadership called for the retaking of the city that was the movement's spiritual base during its rule from 1996 to 2001. Some officers have referred to the fight as the Taliban's "Tet Offensive" in reference to the 1968 Viet Cong operation that undermined US military authority in Vietnam. By the way, Charlie lost that one. It was the US press that underminded Vietnam.
Hundreds of Afghan national army troops have flown into Kandahar air base this week in readiness for an assault. Intelligence sources estimate that at least 400 Taliban are holed up in the city. The men of 3 Para were flown directly from their operation against the Taliban in neighbouring Zabul province. They quickly put in place vehicle check points and stopped cars to look for suspected bombers or escaped prisoners. Something they had years of training doing in Northern Ireland
"The main idea is to secure the city and protect the people and the functions of government," said Lt Col Huw Williams, the commanding officer of 3 Para. "There are key areas that we want to secure and identify if the insurgents are defending them. "We are looking at lockdown in Kandahar city and reasserting government control and to reassure the local population. "If the Taliban are grouped together in one place then it is a huge opportunity for us to find them and defeat them where they are. It is going to be tough for our soldiers because it always is in an urban situation."
The Paras have been joined by Canadian forces who have responsibility for the Kandahar area.
With dozens of coalition fighter aircraft on stand-by, a huge amount of firepower can be brought to bear on enemy targets within minutes, although commanders are wary of causing "collateral damage" to civilians. A number of surveillance aircraft and unmanned drones have also been flying over the city to pinpoint possible Taliban locations. Military sources are satisfied that if the insurgents do make a stand they will be chopped into cat food defeated easily by superior firepower.
But other sources have warned that Nato forces might have been "enticed" into the city so the Taliban can target them with suicide and roadside bombs. Yeah, we'd never think of that.
Yesterday's deployment came after Gordon Brown announced that the British force in Afghanistan would be boosted to more than 8,000 troops, the highest level since operations began in 2001. Taliban militants have launched their most sophisticated attacks in recent months, raiding a five-star hotel in January and opening fire on a televised military parade attended by President Hamid Karzai in April. What'd they do again, open fire from half a mile away wasn't it?
Posted by: Steve ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The Paras were subject to the wosrt know IED attack, preIraq in Warrenpoint, N. Ireland. I am not sure if a attack in Iraq or Ghan has resulted in more coalition more casualties.
The expression 'Send in the Paras' means the situation is serious and requires the hard men.
#4
hmmm yesterday it was a quagmire because the Taliban was hiding in orchards and they had food and cover, now it's a quagmire because they're in the cities. All our base belong to them
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2008 8:20 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The Para's have had 40 years of modern urban combat training ala Northern Ireland .
The only difference today is the 'PC brigade' which wants kids_gloves_action .. Remove these idiots dictating that policy and Afganistan could be cleared up in 3 years , saving billions of dollar , and bringng that country in line with the 21st century , not the 3rd century . More importantly , relieving the stress and misery extreme Islam causes .
For the record , Lt Col Huw Williams is a solid strong commander and has lead some daring raids into the heart of 'Taliban' country . The opening attack on a stronghold during Operation Southern Earthquake springs to mind .
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ #8 They didn't have to. 'Uncle Walter' did their work for them after that.
God Damn 'Uncle Walter',
His progeny are vast.. but their venue is made pale by comparison, because we who are fully committed have finally joined the battle and are contesting their treasonous Lies here and at other places on the net..
#10
Some officers have referred to the fight as the Taliban's "Tet Offensive" in reference to the 1968 Viet Cong operation that undermined US military authority in Vietnam.
Apples and oranges comparison. The U.S. kicked enemy butt all over Vietnam. The MSM (a la Walter Cronkite) got all excited about the Tet Offensive and reported doom and gloom and quagmire. Johnson the Democratic President at the time lost his will to win the war despite a significant military loss by the enemy.
Four hundred prisoners broke out of prison with the help of other Taliban. This does not rise to the level of widespread attacks all over Afghanistan such as occurred during the Tet Offensive. I don't see this turning into a political capitulation such as occurred in 1968 in the U.S. unless the Democrats get elected in the fall. Hell, they capitualated long ago with regards to war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yemeni police have broken up an al-Qaeda cell that has been plotting terrorist attacks against foreign interests and government facilities in the capital Sana'a, an online news outlet reported Tuesday.
Officers from the National Security Agency raided the cell and arrested all its members late on Monday, the RayNews web site said, without giving numbers of those arrested. It said the group's leader, Riydh al-Salehi, was among the arrested suspects. The report describes al-Salehi as a 'leading member of al-Qaeda in Yemen.' The authorities did not comment on the report.
Yemen's Interior Ministry has said that security forces had arrested 11 suspected members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network in Sana'a late in May. It said the detained suspects gave information during questioning about acts of terror carried out by the network. An al-Qaeda arm in Yemen has claimed responsibility for several mortar attacks in Sana'a in the past few months, including one that targeted a residential compound housing US citizens on April 6 and another against the US embassy on March 18.
On Sunday, Yemeni Vice President Abdu-Rabu Mansour Hadi said his country had expelled 16,000 suspected members of the al-Qaeda network since 2005 as part of its efforts to fight terrorism. Hadi said the expelled suspects belonged to various nationalities and many of them were those known as the Arab Afghans. Arab Afghans are Muslim Jihadi veterans from various Arab countries who had fought against the Soviet army in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Yemen received thousands of those militants after the war ended in 1989. Hadi said the suspected militants were sent back to their home countries between 2005 and 2008. He did not name any of the countries.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, Yemen allied itself with the United States in the so-called war on terrorism and cracked down on armed groups affiliated with al-Qaeda. Security forces have also rounded up hundreds of Arab Afghans and foreign students at unregistered religious schools across the Arabian Peninsula country.
This article starring:
Abdu-Rabu Mansour Hadi
RIYDH AL SALEHI
al-Qaeda in Yemen
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Riyadh, 17 June (AKI) - Saudi sources say that eight Bahraini citizens have been arrested on claims that they were spying for Iran. The Bahrainis were arrested three months ago after allegedly spying at a prohibited military zone while travelling in Saudi Arabia, reported Bahraini daily Gulf Daily News. Three months in the tender hands of their brother muslims. Wonder if they have any skin left?
The alleged spies all teachers in their late 20's and mid-30's will face court in the next few days and under Saudi law they could be sentenced to death.
The Bahraini government and the men's relatives have denied any connection between them and Iran. "Lies, all lies!"
Posted by: Steve ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Four Harkatul Jihad (Huji) cadres were sentenced to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment (RI) in an explosives case in Magura yesterday. The special tribunal court also fined them Tk 5,000 each, defaulting on which will earn them additional one-year RI.
The sentenced are Mokaddes Ali, ameer of Magura district unit Khelafat Majlish, its general secretary Bakibillah, Khalilur Rahman and Rafikul Islam Sabuj. Earlier on June 10, the four Huji men were given 20 years' RI for possessing illegal arms.
According to the prosecution, Rab arrested Huji activists Mokaddes and Bakibillah, working incognito, on October 29 last year in Mohammadpur upazila following information given by its detained chief Mufti Abdul Hannan. On their confession, the law enforcers later dug out two Chinese rifles, 86 rounds of bullet, two bombs, two sets of military uniform and a huge cache of explosives from a field in the upazila.
Two days later two cases were filed against them with Mohammadpur Police Station under the Arms Act and the Explosive Substances Act in which the two other Huji activists were also implicated.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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A British woman who called herself the 'lyrical terrorist' and wrote a poem about beheading a hostage, won an appeal against a criminal conviction in London on Tuesday. Samina Malik, 23, had been convicted last year of possessing documents useful to terrorists and was given a nine month suspended sentence.
A former employee at a newspaper kiosk at Heathrow airport, she had written poetry which prosecutors said advocated violent extremism, and also downloaded Islamist literature from the Internet. One of her poems, 'How to behead', was read out in court during her trial. It contained a description in detail of how to slice off a hostage's head.
Her conviction spurred controversy, with human rights groups arguing she had been convicted of a 'thought crime' without having actually done anything dangerous.
The Court of Appeal threw out her conviction on Tuesday under a ruling from February that concluded documents need to actually be helpful to a terrorist, rather than merely encouraging terrorism, for possession to count as a crime.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not seek a retrial after Malik's successful appeal. 'Since Ms Malik's conviction, the law has been clarified by the Court of Appeal. The result is that some of the 21 documents we relied on in Ms Malik's trial would no longer be held capable of giving practical assistance to terrorists,' CPS head Sue Hemming said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"thought crimes" apply only to people which human rights groups disagree, not jihadists
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/18/2008 8:22 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Let out the hotstepper did they? (if you hit the link and think it catchy and innocuous, here are the lyrics and read without the background song noise and video).
A man accused of being part of a plot to blow up passenger planes has told a court how he agreed to appear in an 'al Qaeda-style militant' video. But Tanvir Hussain, 27, denied that the footage he recorded alongside five of his co-defendants in July 2006 was part of a set of martyrdom films.
"No, no, certainly not!"
Eight men deny conspiring to murder and endanger aircraft leaving the UK. Their arrests in August 2006 led to a ban on passengers carrying most liquids on board aircraft.
Prosecutors allege the men planned to make hydrogen peroxide bombs disguised as soft drinks to detonate in mid-air on at least seven planes flying out of London's Heathrow airport.
Mr Hussain told the jury at Woolwich Crown Court that the videos were meant to be included in a documentary protesting against western foreign policy. The messages would be interspersed with 'shocking images of people dying in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine', he said.
He said he was 'taken aback' when his friend and co-defendant Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, revealed plans to blow up a device in a public place as the two men spoke at his flat in April 2006. Mr Hussain said: 'He said to me: 'It ain't going to be nothing big, just a loud bang to cause panic and alarm.''
Michel Massih QC, for the defence, queried whether he had asked Mr Ali if he intended to kill anyone. Mr Hussain replied: 'I didn't ask him. I know Ahmed wouldn't do nothing like that.'
Mr Sarwar and Mr Ali's co-defendants are Tanvir Hussain, 27, of Leyton, east London, Waheed Zaman, 24, and Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, both of Walthamstow, east London. Also charged are Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking, east London, Ibrahim Savant, 27, of Stoke Newington, north London, and Umar Islam, 30, of Plaistow, east London. All eight deny two joint charges of conspiring to murder and to endanger aircraft.
"Lies! All lies!"
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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A man who was once called one of the world's most wanted terrorists is to be freed under similar bail conditions which led to the release of al-Qa'eda preacher Abu Qatada.
The man, referred to only as "U" in court papers, cannot be named under the terms of a court order but will be released as soon as his bail conditions have been agreed, the Daily Telegraph has learned.
He was implicated in separate plots to blow up Los Angeles airport and the Christmas market in Strasbourg and is said to have "direct links to Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qa'eda figures."
The Home Office claims he was a "leading organiser and facilitator of terrorist activity."
Eight explosive devices, found along railroad tracks on Monday night in Canada's western city of Calgary, were detonated by the police and caused no injuries, local police said Tuesday.
A Calgary transit employee found some of the devices along the light rail transit (LRT) line in the city's south. More explosive devices were also found near a rail line parallel to the LRT, a spokesman said at a press conference Tuesday.
All trains, halted in the area for several hours, returned to normal service after the police bomb squad detonated the devices.
The transit employee said the explosives may have been thrown over the fence near the tracks simply because it was a secluded area, and were not likely to have targeted any infrastructure.
In a startling operation that shook the Pentagon, the White House and the US administration some weeks back, the Taliban in the tribal areas captured parts of three US helicopters Chinook, Black Hawk and Cobra while they were being shipped in huge containers from Peshawar to Jalalabad in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have confirmed the capture while the US diplomats stationed in Islamabad are trying to fudge the issue without denying it outright. US embassy spokesperson Elizabeth Colton commented: "The embassy has no comment on this as the information appears to be only hearsay."
When this correspondent informed the embassy spokesperson that he had seen pictures of the stolen parts of helicopters, she again said "no comment". Some diplomats in Islamabad are very much aware of this recent Taliban operation but they were not ready to speak on record.
Diplomatic sources say the recent US air strike in the tribal areas was actually an attack on the location where the unassembled parts of the two helicopters, owned by the US armed forces, were stored by the Taliban.
Sources told The News US Assistant Secretary Richard Boucher was to visit Pakistan and Afghanistan soon in view of the situation in the region. What is shocking is the revelation that the US forces were transporting helicopters in unassembled form in containers, which landed at the Karachi Port and travelled all the way by road to Peshawar and then entered the tribal areas for onward journey to Afghanistan.
When these containers entered the Khyber Agency at Jamrud, the Taliban stopped the convoys and took away the helicopter parts. Pakistani paramilitary forces in the area tried to confront the Taliban but they suffered heavy losses due to darkness. This happened in the same area where Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin was kidnapped in February this year.
Chinook and Black Hawk were captured recently while the Cobra was hijacked some weeks back. When the Taliban first captured the Cobra helicopter, they filmed all the stolen parts and supplied the CD to their allies in Afghanistan.
Some people in the Farah province of western Afghanistan showed interest in purchasing the Cobra helicopter and subsequently its parts were smuggled to Farah. Taliban sold this Cobra to an unidentified customer for several hundred thousand dollars.
Following the latest ground hijacking, the Taliban have again filmed all the stolen parts of CH-47 Chinook and Black Hawk choppers. Chinook is a versatile twin-engine helicopter that was also used to help the earthquake victims in Kashmir in October 2005 by the US Army.
The Taliban have again sent the CD to people for attracting customers from neighbouring countries of Afghanistan. They do not seem to have hit any customer as the stolen parts with extra engines are still in their custody.
The Taliban captured some unexploded Tomahawk missiles in the Khost area of eastern Afghanistan in 1998. These missiles were fired on al-Qaeda hideouts after attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The Taliban handed over some of the unexploded US missiles to the Chinese in 1998.
Top US military officials have demanded recently from Pakistan to start an operation in the tribal areas for the recovery of their stolen helicopters. They have expressed concern that instead of initiating an operation against the Taliban, the new government is negotiating peace with the Taliban.
Concerned officials in the Foreign Office were of the opinion that the Taliban had increased their attacks in Afghanistan recently due to the incompetence of the Afghan National Army and the Nato forces.
The Taliban used a fuel tanker packed with 1800 kg of explosives a few days ago to break a jail in Kandahar. They got released their 400 comrades along with 1,100 other prisoners in that operation.
On Tuesday, the Taliban captured Arghundab district of Kandahar province. It was also a big blow to the credibility of Nato and the Karzai government but now both of them are trying to divert the international attention by threatening to attack the Pakistani border areas.
The Taliban have recently conducted bloody operations against the Nato forces in Shenwro district of Parwaon province in the north, Taren Kot city of Uruzgan province in the south and Poli Alm city of Logar province close to Kabul.
All these are not close to the Pakistani borders and the Taliban were attacking the Nato with the help of the local population.
It was learnt that the high command of Pakistani security forces has requested the government for permission to respond in a hard-hitting manner to any attack from Afghanistan in future.
Meanwhile, US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher would visit Pakistan and Afghanistan shortly. It is expected that he would try to narrow down the differences between Islamabad and Kabul.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/18/2008 07:02 ||
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#1
I got it one piece at a time, and it didn't cost me a dime...
#2
All according to plan. The Taliban will now be compelled to establish an air force, go "Joint" and be plagued by a downturn in combat effectiveness, female pilots, mission squables, inter-service funding rivalries, maintenance funding and run away replacement contract costs. Future plans call for the Taliban "capture" of an Amphibious Assault Vehicle and an Osprey.
#5
There is a lot of disingenuousness in this article.
I especially note:
The Taliban have recently conducted bloody operations against the Nato forces in Shenwro district of Parwaon province in the north, Taren Kot city of Uruzgan province in the south and Poli Alm city of Logar province close to Kabul. All these are not close to the Pakistani borders
Their proximity to the borders is irrelevant - the forces there CAME from the Paki border areas and are resupplied from there, and use the Paki border areas to reassemble, regroup, train and plan these operations. Lying scumbag Paki propagandist.
#7
Rope-a-dope. With plenty emphasis on the dope part...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/18/2008 12:58 Comments ||
Top||
#8
AFP sez...
In a further blow to Western forces, the separate US-led coalition said on Wednesday that four helicopter engines worth 13 million dollars had gone missing in the region.
The engines were being shipped by a Pakistani trucking company when they disappeared, some time before April 11, the coalition said.
#10
Why do we seem to be having so much trouble obliterating these 9th century scumbags? What is the prob?
It's kind of hard playing hide-and-seek with targets you can't sort out from the actual civilians. Especially when these targets are either tolerated or actively supported by the Pakistani government. And these aren't actually 7th century folks - they have a 7th century ideology, but are equipped with 21st century weaponry, communications technology and tactical manuals.
It may be that Obama is right, but not in the way he means. We may well have to invade Pakistan, after all. Wouldn't it be weird if we ended up going to war with China over Pakistan?
#12
Time to start napalming parts of the NWFP. ARCLIGHT strikes are also encouraged, beginning in Rawalpindi/Islamabad and Peshawar. We also need to bomb Quetta off the map and thus destroy half the Taliban "army". We also need to send a "stern note" to the Pakistanis that if they won't clean up their house, we'll do it for them. There might not be much of a house left when we finish, though...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/18/2008 13:32 Comments ||
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#13
#8 AFP sez...
Damn there's that AFP Rapporteur again... anybody else want to interpret him?
my take..
As per usual the Pakis are out and out shaking us down again, with a cargo protection racket this time.
#15
Couple thoughts come to mind; we could continue to ship parts through there, knowing they might get picked off, but these parts would be 'special;' as in defective and after a few minutes use come apart. the good guys would be told not use parts with certain serial numbers.
other thought has a visual of Wile E. Al-Coyote strapping those engines to an Acme camel......
#16
GPS and transmitter in every box to feed target coordinates to predators if it drifts off the preprogrammed path...
or just a built in bomb if it leaves the path...
#17
Wouldn't it be weird if we ended up going to war with China over Pakistan?
History shows that China will abandon Pakistan when the crunch time comes.
In 1971 Pakistan was sure that China would come to their aid, that they would never allow the country to be split in half.
Henry Kissinger even tried to convince Zhou Enlai to initiate some diversionary action on the Indo-Chinese border to take the heat off Pakistan.
When the besieged Pakistani troops saw paratroopers descending, their rushed out in joy, thinking their Chinese allies had come to their rescue. Well those paras were not Chinese and 90,000 Pak troops ended up as POWs in India.
In the end China didn't want to risk conflict with the Soviet Union, certainly not over Pakistan, which in the end was expendable.
Posted by: john frum ||
06/18/2008 17:34 Comments ||
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#18
Next, we will probably hear about Paki nuclear weapons being stolen by the Taliban. Inside job no doubt.
Security personnel blew up the house of a local Taliban commander during a pre-dawn raid in the city, said a district police official on Tuesday.
Security personnel carried out the operation at about 4.30am, blowing up the house of local Taliban commander Hayatullah who had allegedly carried out attacks on Manjhi Khel police checkpost on Monday night. Hayatullah and his brother Faridullah were not in the house at the time of the operation.
Separately, the security forces arrested at least three people during a search operation in the city, police confirmed. The police began a search operation inside Durand gate, which resulted in the arrest of Allah Naaz, Akhtar Naaz and Muhammad Bakhsh. Those arrested have been moved to an undisclosed location for further questioning.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Unidentified gunmen killed four people on Tuesday when they opened fire on a vehicle in Hangu Bazaar following a kidnap attempt, officials said.
Officials told Daily Times that gunmen opened fire on Malik Money Exchanges vehicle at around 8am. The gunmen managed to escape and Hangu Bazaar was closed after the incident. The dead were identified as Ansar Ali Karbalai, Ayaz Ali, Hassan Afraz and Zahid.
Sources said the gunmen had been chasing the vehicle from the Riasan area.
Hangu District Co-ordination Officer (DCO) Syed Shahab Ali Shah condemned the incident. After a meeting in his office, he told reporters that it was not a target killing. The gunmen wanted to kidnap the people in the vehicle and when they resisted, they were shot at.
Shah said the Hangu-Kohat main road had been closed for traffic to avert any further incidents and it would be opened as the situation normalised.
Local Shia community spokesman Razzaq Ali told Daily Times that the incident aimed to create a sectarian strife between the Shia and Sunni communities in the area, as three of the dead were Shia. He also criticised Hangu police, especially the emergency squad, for failing to achieve their objective of securing the area as armed men were frequently seen roaming Hangu Bazaar. The force should therefore be abolished, he maintained.
The incident came a day after four people were killed in a bomb explosion in a Shia mosque in Dera Ismail Khan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Local Taliban have warned women and school-going girls in a town near Kohat to wear burqas when going out and to avoid visiting markets without a male escort, a private television channel reported on Tuesday.
According to Dawn News, the warning was issued on leaflets posted on the walls of all mosques in the Billaybang area 22 kilometres east of Kohat. The channel reported that the Taliban threatened that people will face consequences if they tried to remove the leaflets. They also asked female teachers to strictly observe the Islamic dress code or face punishment, the channel said. Local Taliban have also over the past few nights blown up music shops in the Billaybang area, it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Enough with these edicts from Stone Throwbacks..
Drop leaflets and post notices putting every Talib, Cleric and/or A$$atolla on notice that if they so much as threaten a WOMEN they are to be shaven completely and then painted a DEEP Shade of HOT PINK preferably with a long lasting skin-staining dye.
[AND, if possible given a slow release depilatory injected under his skin]
2) Finally, any Talib, Cleric and or A$$atolla who so much as touches a woman's or female child's clitoris with a knife or a scalpel and/or harms her in any way shall be sent on his incarnational journey to HELL... Tout de suite!
#3
Dose the talibunnies with about 10,000 watts of microwave radiation from a B-52 jamming device twice each week until they curl up and die. If nothing else, there won't be a "next generation" to worry about. Might have to use it on a few of Amnasty Irritational people, as well, but that's a plus in my book. I'm TIRED of fighting a war with both hands tied behind our backs and one foot in a bucket. Let's do it, and do it right. When any congresscritter complains, invite him on a halfway ride in a BUFF.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/18/2008 13:48 Comments ||
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#4
Drop leaflets and post notices putting every Talib, Cleric and/or A$$atolla on notice that if they so much as threaten a WOMEN they are to be shaven completely and then painted a DEEP Shade of HOT PINK preferably with a long lasting skin-staining dye.
[AND, if possible given a slow release depilatory injected under his skin]
2) Finally, any Talib, Cleric and or A$$atolla who so much as touches a woman's or female child's clitoris with a knife or a scalpel and/or harms her in any way shall be sent on his incarnational journey to HELL... Tout de suite!
Actually give those idiots a botched sex change with breast implants.
Since The loony five on SCOTUS have tied our hands regarding prisoners at Gitmo. There will have to be new discrete ways of handling a "delicate" situation with certain "external organs" in situ.
Law-enforcement agencies have arrested 14 terror suspects from Lahore and Rawalpindi and seized more than 330 kilogrammes of explosives from them.
Sources in an intelligence agency said on Tuesday that 11 terror suspects had been arrested in the Shadhra area of Lahore and 80kg of explosives had been recovered from them. They said that law-enforcement officials had also seized explosives-laden suicide belts and a hit list containing names of important people and addresses of police stations from them.
They said the suspects, from the Qari Zafar group, were arrested following a tip-off. Information gleaned from the suspected terrorists during initial investigations led to the seizure of more explosives and suicide belts from various rented places in the city, they said.
Separately, Dawn News reported that the Special Investigations branch of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) had arrested three alleged terrorists from Rawalpindi and recovered 250kg explosives from their possession.
FIA Director General Tariq Pervez told the channel that the three terrorists were arrested on a lead given by six terrorists arrested earlier this month. He said the police had obtained a seven-day remand against the three accused. Geo News reported that the alleged terrorists had confessed that they wanted to target the Presidents Camp Office.
The channel also quoted FIA officials as saying that the arrested men belonged to a group of suicide bombers that was threatening security forces and the FIA investigation team. Security has been beefed up around FIA headquarters, the channel added.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Six would-be suicide bombers were arrested during the lawyers long march last week and law-enforcement agencies recovered 45 kilogrammes of explosives from them, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said on Tuesday.
He told the National Assembly that the media would be informed of the incidents soon. Rehman also complained of misreporting by the media of a US drone attack in South Waziristan on June 14, demanding that the matter be investigated by the house committee concerned. The adviser said that the government had started satellite monitoring of Pakistans western borders from June 16 to allow authorities to monitor the situation from Islamabad. Rehman also noted that overall street crime in the country had decreased since the new government came into power.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Swat police allowed a safe exit to a potential suicide bomber on Monday following negotiations to protect nearby civilians, sources said on Tuesday. The sources said police had confronted a potential suicide bomber in the Rahimabad police station jurisdiction who threatened to attack the police party if they made an arrest attempt. For one hour, police spoke to the potential suicide bomber, who demanded a safe exit in return for not detonating the bombs on his body, said the sources. Swat District Police Officer Waqif Khan confirmed the report. We took this decision in the larger interest of the civilians working in nearby fields, a police official told Daily Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
One 7.62mm round through the cerebral cortex would end his threats once and for all. Why are the Pakistanis being so foolish? Never mind, I forgot who I was talking about.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/18/2008 13:51 Comments ||
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The Lashkar-e-Taiba had sent money to Gujarat to fund the telecommunications of an operative, Shahnawaz Bhatti, lodged at the Sabarmati Central Jail.
This amount, though a paltry Rs 10,000, was used by an accused, Nizar Rajwani to procure a SIM card. Bhatti had used the SIM card to make calls to LeT headquarters in Pakistan. Nizar was arrested recently by the crime branch.
Crime branch sleuths said that Bhatti had actually called up Azam Chima of LeT who is said to be the mastermind of many terrorist attacks in western parts of India.
The money was sent to Nizar through an illegal, international money transfer service. He used the money to buy SIM cards and the rest of the money was with Bhatti. Bhatti, an LeT member, was arrested from Kutch in July 2001 after he crossed over illegally. Nizar was convicted of rape and lodged in the same jail for years. He was released only a couple of months back.
'We got a tip-off about Bhatti's accomplice Nizar Rajwani, 26, a resident of Dhoraji, Junagadh, who supplied him four SIM cards and the money in jail premises. When Bhatti was frisked, he was found in possession of Rs 4,400. Rajwani later told us that he got the money through an international money transfer company situated in Ranavav. He then paid Rs 1,100 for one SIM card as he bought it without providing for any identity proof,' said a senior crime branch official.
Bhatti had also lent his SIM cards to other prisoners who made calls outside the state. Police officials are right now in process of procuring the data from the service provider companies. Crime branch officials, working on a tip-off provided by the central IB, found that Bhatti was conspiring with LeT operatives to help him stage a jail break.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD Iraqi Army Soldiers seized eight weapons caches June 17 as they continue efforts to make Sadr City a safer place.
At approximately 6 a.m., Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade, 1st Iraqi Army Division, discovered two weapons caches. The first cache consisted of two 130 mm rounds and one 122 mm round. The second cache consisted of three 57 mm rounds and 31, 12.7 mm rounds.
A few minutes later, Iraqi Army Soldiers in the same unit uncovered a cache consisting of two RPG-7 rounds and one rifle.
At 6:45 a.m., Iraqi Army Soldiers from the 1st Bn., 3rd Bde., 1st IA Div., discovered one RPK machine gun, one rifle, two rocket launchers, an AK-47,10 AK-47 magazines, two 60 mm rounds, a radio, an Egyptian sniper rifle, two remote-control devices, two rolls of detonation cord, five initiation devices, and one RPG-7 anti-personnel round.
Soldiers serving with the 2nd Bn., 3rd Bde., 1st IA Div., seized two more weapons caches at approximately 7 a.m. The first cache included two 155 mm improvised explosive devices, nine 120 mm rounds, one 82 mm mortar round, three grenades, and one 12.7 mm machine gun. The second cache consisted of one 155 mm round, one 122 mm round, and one 100 mm round.
At approximately 8:30 a.m., Iraqi Army Soldiers from the 1st Bn., 3rd Bde., 1st IA Div., found two more weapons caches. The first cache consisted of one AK-47 rifle, three 120 mm mortar rounds; 18, 82 mm mortar rounds; eight 60 mm mortar rounds, one 60 mm smoke round, and four RPG-7 anti-tank rounds.
There were 96 PKC rounds and two 82 mm mortar fuses seized in the second cache.
In other areas of Baghdad, Iraqi National Police and Multi-National Division Baghdad Soldiers seized other weapons caches as well.
Soldiers serving with the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, MND-B, found 21 57 mm artillery shells, 87 57mm warheads, and one mortar round at approximately 9 a.m. in an area north of Baghdad.
At approximately 2:30 p.m., in the West Rashid district, policemen with the 5th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi National Police Division, seized four rocket rails and seven 60 mm mortar rounds.
Since May 20, 270 weapons and munitions caches have been seized by Iraqi Security and Coalition forces in the Baghdad area, said Col. Allen Batschelet, chief of staff, MND-B and the 4th Infantry Division spokesman.
These caches included 449 explosively formed projectiles and improvised explosive devices, 1,268 mortar rounds, 606 rocket-propelled grenades, 178 rockets and 3,012 rifles. This is very good news for the Iraqi people, our Soldiers and the folks back home.
#1
Very great news. I'm sure the MSM will declair Iraq weapons free, and the war a final victory....NOT. However, this is, although more boring, far better news than bombs going off and killing innocents just to advance the chaos Mohammed loved so.
#3
When you are talking about 3K rifles and 600 RPGs, that is a lot of firepower taken off of the streets. As a matter of fact, those seizures sound like someone is turning in the Saddam-era "Fedayeen" caches since that is enough to equip a light infantry brigade. The "Fedayeen" were to be Saddam's version of the Nazi "Werewolves" - behind the lines guerrillas and terrorists to drive out the Allies. Of course, during WWII we were a lot LESS tolerant of such activities - we tended to hang the 15 year olds involved in the town square and leave them there for awhile.
#5
Looking at the finds on a daily basis, the EFP's found is an amazing stat. All Iranian or Iranian trained. Lots of other Iranian stuff turning up, too.
Every EFP found is 4 less dead Americans or Iraqi SF.
#8
Network centric warfare. Rollup the networks faster than they can respond.
That appears to be happening. The only way that can happen is with good intelligence. It appears we have won the hearts and minds of more than a few Iraqis despite what Harry Reid said and what the MSM would like to report.
SG org charts undergo yet another adjustment. Shiastan 'Green Cards' available for immigrant applicants for vacated leadership positions.
BALAD, Iraq Iraqi Special Operations Forces captured a suspected Special Groups criminal leader in Baghdad June 16.
The ISOF conducted the operation to capture the criminal believed to be responsible for emplacing improvised explosive devices and organizing meetings of Special Groups criminals targeting Iraqi and Coalition forces. He is also suspected of an IED attack against a U.S. convoy in November 2007, which damaged an M1 tank.
Iraqi Security Forces continue to demonstrate their effectiveness in taking criminals off the street. The capture of this individual will likely affect the ability of Special Groups criminals to conduct IED attacks against Iraqi and Coalition forces, said Lt. Col. Neil Harper, a Multi-National Corps Iraq spokesman.
#1
All the Iraqi services are going gangbusters these days. I wonder if each command has a tally board, and sends down memos exhorting the troops to do better than the other guys...'cause that sure is the result! :-) No wonder all the prisons are overfull.
(VOI) - Police forces on Tuesday seized in Wassit a vehicle laden with an amount of Iranian-made bombs and arrested its driver, a police source said. Policemen detained a vehicle laden with 27 Iranian-made bombs and arrested the driver, the source, who asked to be unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI). The operation came within the tight security measures in the province prior to the onset of the military campaign next Thursday, he explained.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, Short Round has stated they have stopped doing what they never admitted to doing in the first place, so this must be the Jooos trying to make them look bad.
Yeah, that's it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/18/2008 6:15 Comments ||
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#2
Bobby, it wouldn't matter if the bombs were personally autographed "Love, Mahmoud" in Farsi. People would still deny that Iran is meddling in Iraqi affairs, and that it is a causus belli.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
06/18/2008 16:27 Comments ||
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#3
IRNA > LARIJANI: THE IRANIAN NATION WILL CHANGE THE STATUS OF THE USA IN THE REGION IFF A MISCALCULATION OCCURS. Also argues that in Iraq-ME, the Amer people are slowly ENTRAPPING THEMSELVES IN AN EVER-DEEPENING ABYSS/MORASS???
(VOI) - Police forces on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of kidnapping a woman in Karbala, the province police chief said. Transport police patrols arrested a man suspected of abducting a woman in southern Karbala, Brig. Gen. Raid Shakir, Karbala's police chief, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). The police chief noted security forces foiled the kidnapping before the kidnapper forced the woman into the trunk of a blue Opel," adding the suspect was under investigation to uncover the motives behind the kidnapping."
Karbala emergency battalions captured a suspect in a forgery and conning operation, Brig. Gen. Shakir also noted. He said the detained was identified as a non-commissioned border guard in Najaf. The police official highlighted the suspect was arrested while receiving money from a person in central Karbala.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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(VOI) - Security forces arrested a gunman from what is called Ansar al-Sunna group during a security operation in south of Kirkuk, a media source said on Tuesday.
Security forces waged a crackdown operation in Yarmaga village, south of Kirkuk where they arrested an element of Ansar al-Sunna group, the source, who refused to be identified, told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI). The detainee confessed during the preliminary interrogation to planting bombs and booby-trapping vehicles, as well as shootings, he said, noting that the man was a detainee and then released within the general pardon law recently approved by the Iraqi government. Ansar al-Sunna is one of the armed groups working under the mantra of al-Qaedas Islamic state of Iraq. It is active in the northern regions of Iraq.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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(VOI) Police forces on Tuesday arrested eight wanted people, and seized quantities of drugs and different ammunition in raid operations throughout different locations in Basra, a source from the province's police said. "Basra police forces conducted raids in the areas of al-Zubair (35 km western Basra), Shatt al-Arab (eastern Basra), and al-Maaqal (8 km northern Basra)," the source told Aswat al-Iraq Voices of Iraq (VOI) on condition of anonymity.
"Eight people wanted for criminal and terror cases were arrested, including a drug dealer," he said. "A quantity of drugs were seized with the dealer who was arrested in Shatt al-Arab area," he noted. He did not mention any further details.
On Monday, the same source said that Iraqi police forces arrested two drug dealers in raid operations in Basra. "17 mortar shells, three Katyusha rockets, nine cannon shells, and five RPG7 missiles were also seized during the raids," he said. "Three roadside bombs were defused at Abu al-Khaseeb suburb (20 km southern Basra).
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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A powerful car bomb exploded in a crowded market area of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 51 people and wounding 75, in the biggest attack in the Iraqi capital in months.
The bomb blew up near the main market in the predominantly Shi'ite neighborhood of al-Hurriya in northwestern Baghdad, police said. It left a heap of smoking, mangled wreckage. Before the blast, the market would have been packed with late-afternoon shoppers buying food before returning home.
The blast set fire to about 20 shops and leveled a multi-storey building, a security source said. Many vehicles were damaged by the blast, which cut off electricity to the area. Ambulances raced back and forth taking casualties to nearby hospitals.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
#1
Update:
Bill Roggio reports bomb was set off by Shia special group as part of extorsion scheme.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
06/18/2008 11:58 Comments ||
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#2
But the ABC reporter I just heard on the radio said that some unnamed Iraqi officials were saying it was AL Q, with the upshot that no one really knows who did it. The last bit was, of course, his editorial spin on it. I'd go with Roggio's report.
BAGHDAD, June 17 (UPI) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki gave the Mehdi Army until Thursday to hand over their weapons in Maysan province amid reports some gunmen have surrendered.
The Iraqi news agency al-Sumaria reported this week that Maliki issued a decree demanding all militias in Iraq's eastern Maysan province disarm. The U.S. military dropped leaflets over the provincial capital, Amarah, during the weekend calling on the militias to surrender. Iraqi Gen. Nassir al-Abadi with the Defense Ministry said Iraqi forces have the capital surrounded and maintain total control over the area, the Iranian Press TV said Tuesday.
His comments came amid reports that gunmen from various militias started surrendering to Iraqi troops Tuesday, the Alalam news network reported. "Big groups have started surrendering themselves and their weapons," Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf told reporters.
In contrast to earlier Iraqi-led offenses targeting Shiite militias in the southern port city of Basra, there has been little fighting reported in the latest operation in Maysan.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
has been little fighting reported in the latest operation in Maysan.
thats how it should work, right? They learn from whats happened elsewhere.
Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire arrangement, according to Egyptian and Palestinian officials. 'Implementation of the truce will begin at 6am (0300 GMT) on Thursday,' a Palestinian official said on Tuesday.
Hamas said it would respect the six-month deal, which materialised after months of mediation by Egypt. 'Hamas will adhere to the timetable which was set by Egypt but it is our legitimate right to respond to any Israeli aggression before its implementation,' Fawzi Barhoum, a Hamas spokesman, said.
Israeli officials, however, have yet to confirm the Egyptian-brokered deal. David Chater, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Jerusalem, said Ehud Barak, Israel's defence minister, said it was too early to talk about a truce and that the details of any deal were still being finalised. 'A senior Israeli delegate is travelling to Egypt tonight [Tuesday] to meet [Egyptian intelligence chief Omar] Suleiman, who is leading the negotiations, brokering this deal,' Chater said. 'The Israelis have not rubber-stamped any deal yet. There is no agreement yet, as far as the Israelis are concerned, and they are a vital part of any truce.'
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
since this is ops, I wont discuss the politics of the deal, which ive briefly talked about in the non-ops thread.
here, the first question is, how long will the calm last? In particular, does everybody in the strip, IJ, dogmush, etc support the deal, or will they try to undercut it by attacking Israel (either defying hamas, or with a wink from Hamas). Lots of Israelis (including, I think, Barak) would like an excuse to toss the deal aside, so winking would be a dangerous game for hamas. Theres supposed to be a couple of days of quiet before Rafah opens, so they will probably want to hold at least that long.
Gunfire erupted overnight in two neighboring villages in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, leaving several casualties. Lebanon's New TV reports that dozens of villagers have fled their houses in the towns of Saadnayel and Taalbaya because of the fighting and that the Lebanese Army is trying to regain control of large swathes of territory controlled by rival militiamen. The main highway was also reportedly closed due to the fighting, with rockets landing near the roadside, frightening motorists.
It was the second time in a week that pro-government Sunni militiamen have clashed with pro-Hezbollah Shi'ite rivals. Shi'ite and Sunni muslim communities in the Bekaa Valley have a lengthy history of clan rivalry. The French press agency, AFP, reports that overnight fighting quickly got out of hand, with rival militiamen "firing automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar shells."
Member of Parliament Assem Araji, who belongs to the pro-Hezbollah "People's Movement" pleaded with Lebanon's top political leaders to intervene quickly to quell the recent wave of violence. He says negotiations need to be held on the local level, and especially high-level political talks in Beirut to stop the deterioration of the situation in the Central Bekaa region, because it is a tinderbox. He says anyone who knows the area knows that a crisis there will affect the entire region and that everyone is pleading for something to be done.
Unrest and sectarian violence between Lebanon's Sunni-muslim and Shi'ite-muslim communities spread from Beirut to other parts of the country, after a military show of force by the pro-Syrian Hezbollah, which briefly took control of mostly Sunni West Beirut on May 9. The fighting in Beirut ended with a political agreement between feuding Lebanese leaders in Doha, Qatar, and the election of a new president, Army Commander Michel Suleiman, alongside an accord to form of national unity government, which remains in limbo.
Dr. Paul Salem, Director of the Carnegie Center for Peace in the Middle East, says that one should not read too much into the recent Bekaa Valley fighting, and he does not think that the situation is going to spiral out of control. "I think its part of this aftershock of the earthquake that happened in May in Beirut," he explained. "Tensions rose all over the country, in the north and in parts of Mount Lebanon, and parts of the Bekaa. But, I think the Bekaa is more prone, because people are more armed, they are more clannish, and things got a bit out of hand. I do not see it as an overwhelming concern, because I think between the army and the president, Hezbollah and Syria, in general - who are now closer to be reading from the same page - they do sort of want to clamp down on things."
Tensions between Lebanon's Sunnis and Shi'ites, however, have yet to subside, and the country's top Sunni religious leader, Sheikh Mohammed Rachid Qabbani is demanding that Hezbollah "apologize for last month's attack on Beirut."
Posted by: Fred ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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Pro-government and opposition forces traded accusations on Tuesday over responsibility for deadly clashes that erupted overnight in the Bekaa Valley. Three people were killed and several wounded in fighting between supporters of the Future Movement, on the one hand, and Hizbullah and Amal on the other, the worst violence since a nascent process of reconciliation got under way with the Doha agreement last month.
Future's leader, MP Saad Hariri, urged supporters in the towns of Saadnayel and Taalbaya, where the clashes took place, to practice restraint and cooperate with security forces to prevent more bloodshed. In a statement, he also backed efforts aimed at defusing the situation.
Hizbullah and Amal accused Future supporters of provoking the clashes. In a joint statement, they said all factions should follow the instructions of the army so that it can help stabilize the situation. "Those who provoked the clashes and the criminals should be brought to justice," the statement added.
The Lebanese Army on Tuesday did not issue a statement detailing the incident or steps to avoid escalation. However, a report published by the Central News Agency said said the army established checkpoints and conducted extensive patrols in Saadnayel and Taalbaya, "to avoid further escalation or renewed exchange of fire." An AFP correspondent in the Bekaa area said machine-gun fire, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades could be heard from midnight on Monday and continued sporadically until dawn.
The violence erupted just hours after United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a surprise visit to Lebanon to bolster new President Michel Sleiman and push for the creation of a national unity government.
Two of the dead were killed in a drive-by shooting thought to have sparked the clashes, medical and security officials said. "There was an exchange of fire in mixed [Sunni-Shiite] areas. We sent in a large force and the situation is now under control," an army official told AFP. The toll was the highest since rival factions reached a deal in Doha last month aimed at ending a tense 18-month political crisis which drove it to the brink of civil war.
Posted by: Steve ||
06/18/2008 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Yemeni police have broken up an al-Qaeda cell that has been plotting terrorist attacks against foreign interests and government facilities in the capital Sana'a, an online news outlet reported Tuesday. 
Unidentified gunmen killed four people on Tuesday when they opened fire on a vehicle in Hangu Bazaar following a kidnap attempt, officials said.
Law-enforcement agencies have arrested 14 terror suspects from Lahore and Rawalpindi and seized more than 330 kilogrammes of explosives from them.
Six would-be suicide bombers were arrested during the lawyers long march last week and law-enforcement agencies recovered 45 kilogrammes of explosives from them, Adviser to Prime Minister on Interior Rehman Malik said on Tuesday.
Swat police allowed a safe exit to a potential suicide bomber on Monday following negotiations to protect nearby civilians, sources said on Tuesday. The sources said police had confronted a potential suicide bomber in the Rahimabad police station jurisdiction who threatened to attack the police party if they made an arrest attempt. For one hour, police spoke to the potential suicide bomber, who demanded a safe exit in return for not detonating the bombs on his body, said the sources. Swat District Police Officer Waqif Khan confirmed the report. We took this decision in the larger interest of the civilians working in nearby fields, a police official told Daily Times.
BAGHDAD Iraqi Army Soldiers seized eight weapons caches June 17 as they continue efforts to make Sadr City a safer place.
A powerful car bomb exploded in a crowded market area of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing 51 people and wounding 75, in the biggest attack in the Iraqi capital in months.
