#4
Very nice. Does she have a face, too? I didn't notice.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 6:30 Comments ||
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#5
It took me a bit, but I think that's a very large artist's palette, the kind where you stick your thumb through a hole. It seems to me that with thing that size, the artist would develop a very strong left hand, instead of focussing on painting his lovely model.
#8
Very nice, Fred. Good to see you're back on message....
Posted by: Huponter Scourge of the Algonquins5116 ||
08/25/2008 11:21 Comments ||
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#9
I would like to say that i really like your site 207.114.86.27 a lot
now.. back to the post lol
I cant say that i agree with what you wrote... care to explain deeper?
Posted by: christian ||
08/25/2008 15:01 Comments ||
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#11
That's a very large Artiste"s pallete. The other stuff is her hair. I think.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/25/2008 15:05 Comments ||
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#12
The hiarstyle gives everything away - the "Roarying Twenties". Pretty quiet where Maryjane's standing, I imagine. Just a lot of heavy breathing from the audience...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/25/2008 15:52 Comments ||
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The Department of Homeland Security has been notified of a homemade bomb discovered Wednesday along the train tracks which bring coal into TransAlta power plant outside Centralia. Lewis County Sheriff Steve Mansfield said this morning the investigation is continuing, with assistance from the Washington State Patrol. The sheriffs office told Homeland Security about the incident, in case it ever became a case of domestic terrorism, according to Mansfield. He stressed its not, at this point.
“What were really waiting on now is the processing of the tank,” Mansfield said. Specialists with the state patrol are examining the components and hoping for fingerprints, according to the sheriff.
Detectives are considering the possibility the explosive fashioned from a five-gallon propane tank fell off of a coal car coming into the coal burning plant. It was found upside down in a ditch along railroad tracks near a trestle, about a mile from the power plant. The blasting cap on the device had burned, but the tank did not explode.
The sheriffs office said on Thursday they were not aware of any threats made toward TransAlta.
Earlier this week, the sheriffs office in Thurston County was called to investigate a suspicious fire on a train trestle along state Route 507 near McKenna and Yelm. Mansfield said there is no known link between the two incidents.
An agent from BNSF was at the Lewis County Sheriffs Office on Thursday because it was possible the device was carried over their railroad tracks.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 7:08 Comments ||
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#2
Historically these kinds of terrorist attacks are related to labor disputes rather than Islamism, though more recently eco-terrorism has increased in importance. It's all still terrorism.
#4
There was a massive explosion of tanker cars carrying crude and ethanol in Oklahoma the other day and a couple in Texas awhile back, I think with anhydrous ammonia or other chemicals. Some of these tracks go through populated areas or even downtown. Cheap terrorism, indeed.
HERAT, Afghanistan, Aug 24, (Agencies): An investigation has found that more than 90 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in coalition air strikes days ago, an Afghan government minister told AFP Sunday. President Hamid Karzai ordered the investigation into FridayÂ’s operation in the western province of Herat after Afghan officials said high numbers of civilians were killed but the US-led coalition said only 30 militants died.
The toll is one of the highest for civilians since international troops arrived in Afghanistan to topple the hardline Taleban regime in late 2001 and comes after a string of such incidents, most of them involving air strikes. “We went to the area and found out that the bombardment was very heavy, lots of houses have been destroyed and more than 90 non-combatants including women, children and elderly people have died,” the Islamic affairs minister told AFP after his visit to Shindand district earlier Sunday.
“Most are women and children,” said the minister, Nematullah Shahrani. Shahrani said his investigation was continuing and he was due to meet US Special Forces who had been involved in the operation with Afghan troops and commandos.
“They have claimed that Taleban were there. They must prove it,” the minister said. “So far, it is not clear for us why the coalition conducted the air strikes,” he said. He said his preliminary investigation had also found that there was no coordination between the Afghan and international troops involved.
Karzai meanwhile issued a decree ordering the “immediate removal” of the top army general for western Afghanistan and a commando commander after the “tragic air strike and irresponsible and imprecise military operation.”
The two were fired for “negligence and concealing facts,” a statement from Karzai’s office said. The strikes have drawn angry reactions from locals, who demonstrated on Saturday, torching a police vehicle and brandishing banners reading “Death to America.”
Meanwhile, the death of 10 French soldiers in an ambush by insurgents in Afghanistan has stoked a cry at home for France to rethink its commitment to the seven-year mission led by the United States. Most French voters want out, and the opposition is ratcheting up the pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government — though analysts say France and other allies will dig in for the fight even as they insist upon a new look at Nato’s strategy against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.
The word “quagmire” has popped up repeatedly when Afghanistan is discussed in Paris political circles — even in Sarkozy’s own party — since Monday’s well-planned ambush of a French-led patrol in the Uzbin Valley east of Kabul.
It was the deadliest attack on international troops in Afghanistan in more than three years, and the latest sign that the insurgency is growing stronger. “The pressure is going to be: How do we get this war right?” said Francois Heisbourg, who heads the state-funded Foundation for Strategic Research think-tank in Paris.
French Prime Minister Francois Fillon has ordered a parliamentary debate and vote on FranceÂ’s role in Afghanistan, part of a new law requiring a lawmaker vote on foreign military missions lasting more than four months. They are expected to take place between Sept 22 and Sept 30.
Analysts say there is little chance that parliament — where Sarkozy’s conservatives have a large majority — will vote to end France’s participation in the Afghan mission. But Afghanistan is likely to grow in the French public eye.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the defense and foreign ministers will separately face questions from parliamentary panels about the ambush — such as the intelligence failings that led to such casualties in a well-trained French patrol. Aside from the 10 soldiers killed, another 21 were injured.
#1
The war in Afghanistan is more about the protection of the world's heroin supply than it is anything political or religious. There are literally billions of dollars at risk and many of those billions get funneled off to the pockets of powerful regional figures.
There is going to be a lot of "inertia" to keep things as they are and keep the usual suspects in power as they facilitate a drugs trade that spans the globe and involves very powerful and very shadowy figures around the globe.
How much do you think the mob might want to invest to see that the flow of heroin is maintained?
#3
The war on drugs and the war on various kinds of militants cannot be separated cleanly. To make lots of money producing and selling dope, you need a large scale security force, i. e., a militia. To start a revolution you need a militia and lots of money. Dope and radical ideologs are made for each other.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 7:39 Comments ||
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#4
Our forces were unusually quick, adamant and precise in releasing their after-action report to the public. Our opposition has been even more adamant than usual in pushing their version of events. I hope we are not going to have to walk back our words and say 'oops, sorry', though given how we presented it is hard to see how we could be wrong (it would require outright lies up the chain of command.)
#5
Photography is so easy these days. When is Afghanistan going to release some photos of the strike areas so we can judge their claims for ourselves? So far, it's all talk.
#6
Ummm...
You know this sceanrio stinks of a counter-intel move against coalition forces.
It's just the type of move you'd expect from a desperate force seeking to forment hostility toward the 'enemy'...
#7
Photography is so easy these days. When is Afghanistan going to release some photos of the strike areas so we can judge their claims for ourselves? So far, it's all talk.
What good would photography do? I'm pretty sure the enemy is perfectly capable of producing 90 dead civilians, and pictures of same, on demand.
U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in Tagab valley of Kapisa province in northern Afghanistan on Sunday, killing six militants, officials said.
"Hmmm... Y'aint from around here, air yew?"
"Arrrr! We be Pashtuns!"
[BANG! BANG! BANGETY BANG!]
In southern Helmand province Sunday, four militants were killed by NATO aircraft and Afghan troops, the military alliance said in a statement. Troops fired on the militants after they attacked an Afghan army unit that was guarding a satellite station in Helmand's Musa Qala district, the statement said.
In Kunar province, a civilian Mi-8 supply helicopter contracted by NATO-led troops crashed shortly after takeoff Sunday, killing one person on board and wounding three others, the alliance said.
Separately, three civilians were killed and seven others wounded when their vehicle was hit Sunday by a roadside bomb in the eastern Khost province, provincial police chief said.
This article starring:
Helmand province
Kapisa province
Khost province
Kunar province
Musa Qala district
Tagab valley
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sacked two senior military commanders over an air strike two days ago that he said killed 89 civilians.
The president had previously criticised US forces for "unilateral operations" over the strike in the Afghan west. But he later appeared to suggest Afghan forces were partly to blame, ordering the removal of a general and a major. The US originally said its strike had killed 30 militants. It is looking into the claims of many civilian deaths.
A statement from President Karzai's office said he had ordered "the immediate removal" of General Jalandar Shah Behnam, head of the army in western Afghanistan, and Major Abdul Jabar, for "neglecting their duties and concealing the facts". Both were summoned to Kabul for further questioning.
"In the tragic air strike and irresponsible and imprecise military operation in Azizabad village... more than 89 of our innocent countrymen, including women and children, were martyred," the statement said. That was an increase on the death toll of 76 originally stated by the interior ministry.
The two Afghan officers were commanding forces in Herat province when the air strike occurred. A US coalition spokeswoman, Rumi Nielson-Green, said the operation on Friday was led by the Afghan National Army, with support from the US-led coalition. An Afghan general said the air strike was launched following intelligence that a Taleban commander, Mullah Siddiq, was presiding over a meeting of militants.
The US originally said 30 militants were killed, including Mullah Siddiq. Then it said five civilians - two women and three children connected to the militants - were among the dead. Later, it said it was investigating the Afghan reports of mass casualties.
'No clear reason for strike'
Afghan tribal elders say a bomb was actually dropped on a large group of mourners at a funeral wake. Most of those dead were reported to be children. "We went to the area and found out that the bombardment was very heavy. Lots of houses have been destroyed and more than 90 non-combatants including women, children and elders have died," said Afghanistan's religious affairs minister, Nematullah Shahrani, appointed by President Karzai to lead an inquiry into the incident.
Such attacks are undermining attempts to win over Afghans He said US forces "claimed that Taleban were there. They must prove it. So far it is not clear for us why the coalition conducted the air strikes." He also criticised a lack of co-ordination between Afghan and coalition forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#4
Just some generals that Karzai wants shunted aside - probably nothing to do with the strikes at all. Can a high-echelon general do anything about a forward observer, anyway?
#5
This version reminds me of a cartoon from back in the mookie campaign in Najaf/Karbala - thousands of dead found, but they were digging up a cemetery. I can create a 'story' that both makes sense and fits the versions of both sides: we dropped a bomb on a meeting of bad guys held at their ammo dump in a cemetery. Lots of secondaries and lots of bodies.
#6
I do think it's time for Karzai to have an "accident", and someone from another tribe other than the Pashtuns to be elected to the presidency. Karzai has sided with the enemy.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
08/25/2008 16:01 Comments ||
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(CNN) -- Families were beginning to bury their dead Saturday after three days of heavy fighting in the Somali port town of Kismayo left at least 89 people dead and 207 wounded, according to residents and human rights organizations.
Bodies littered the streets for two days after the clashes, despite the Islamic tradition of burying bodies within 24 hours of death, said Ali Bashi Abdullahi Igal, head of the Fanole Human Rights Organization, who is in Kismayo. Relatives and human rights workers, afraid to venture out because of ongoing fighting, did not retrieve the bodies until Saturday.
Only one doctor, surgeon Hassan Ahmed, remained in Kismayo to treat the wounded at Kismayo Hospital. He told CNN planes were continuing to fly over the city on Saturday, and residents were fearful the government might drop bombs in order to stop Islamist militants from taking further action.
Among his patients were a man and a woman -- both comatose after being shot in their heads, Ahmed said. He said he has advised their families to take them out of the country for treatment, since no hospital in Somalia has the facilities to deal with such serious wounds.
Igal said Friday that, with only one doctor and two nurses at Kismayo Hospital, the city's only operational one, patients were "suffering at the hospital."
Fighters from the Islamic group Al Shabab took control of Kismayo on Friday after three days of clashes. Igal said the fighting displaced some 5,500 people, triggering a humanitarian crisis. During Friday's final day of fighting, 15 civilians were killed, he said. They included a mother and two children, ages 3 and 5, who were crushed when their house collapsed under heavy anti-aircraft fire. "We are condemning this inhumane acts of violence," Igal said. "Both sides have breached the international laws."
Halimo Mohamed Hassan, a mother in Kismayo's Alaney neighborhood, said Friday was the worst day of fighting, with "both sides using a lot of heavy guns including anti-aircraft guns. My children and I took cover under our beds and we stayed for three hours, 'til the situation subsided."
Hassan said heavily armed Islamist militias remained on the streets.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Pirates abducted 49 fishermen and looted 50 fishing trawlers in coastal areas in Bagerhat on Saturday night.
The fishermen, who returned from the Bay, said pirates in several groups attacked their trawlers while they were fishing in Narikelbaria, Kochikhal and Katka at about 10:00pm on Saturday. They looted nets and fish worth Tk 30 lakh and also beat up the fishermen leaving 25 of them injured. The pirates abducted 49 fishermen for a ransom of Tk 20 lakh.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Russia played a trump card in its strategic poker game with the West yesterday by threatening to suspend an agreement allowing Nato to take supplies and equipment to Afghanistan through Russia and Central Asia.
The agreement was struck at a Nato summit in April to provide an alternative supply route between the Afghan capital and the Pakistani border, which has come under fierce attack from militants on both sides of the frontier this year.
Zamir Kabulov, the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan, told The Times in an interview that he believed the deal was no longer valid because Russia suspended military co-operation with Nato last week over its support for Georgia. Asked if the move by Russia invalidated the agreement, he said: "Of course. Why not? If there is a suspension of military co-operation, this is military co-operation."
Mr Kabulov also suggested that the stand-off over Georgia could lead Russia to review agreements allowing Nato members to use Russian airspace and to maintain bases in the former Soviet Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. "No one with common sense can expect to co-operate with Russia in one part of the world while acting against it in another," he said.
His remarks are likely to alarm Nato commanders because the Taleban have been targeting the supply routes of the alliance this year, mimicking tactics used against the British in 1841 and the Soviet Union two decades ago. Nato imports about 70 per cent of its food, fuel, water and equipment from Pakistan via the Khyber Pass, and flies in much of the rest through Russian airspace via bases in Central Asia. It has not started using the "northern corridor" because the deal -- covering non-military supplies and non-lethal military equipment -- has yet to be cleared with the Central Asian states involved.
The need for an alternative route was highlighted by recent attacks on Nato supply convoys, including one that destroyed 36 fuel tankers in a northwestern Pakistani border town in March. Four US helicopter engines worth $13 million (£7 million) went missing on the way from Kabul to Pakistan in April. Last week militants killed ten French soldiers on the same route 30 miles from Kabul.
Western officials fear that such attacks could increase in the power vacuum in Pakistan created by the resignation of Pervez Musharraf as President last week and the collapse of the coalition Government yesterday.
Vladimir Putin, Russia's President-turned-Prime-Minister, was the first foreign leader to telephone President Bush after the attacks on September 11, 2001, and has supported the War on Terror ever since. The Kremlin has fears about the spread of Islamic extremism into Central Asia and Muslim regions of Russia, especially Chechnya, where it fought two wars with Muslim rebels in the 1990s.
However, many Russian officials have bitter memories of the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and strong reservations about the US presence in Central Asia, which they see as their strategic backyard.
"It's not in Russia's interests for Nato to be defeated and leave behind all these problems," Mr Kabulov, who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Kabul from 1983 to 1987, said. "We'd prefer Nato to complete its job and then leave this unnatural geography. "But at the same time, we'll be the last ones to moan about Nato's departure."
A Nato spokesman declined to respond to Mr Kabulov's comments and said that Russia had not informed the alliance officially of any decision to annul the northern corridor agreement.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 19:12 ||
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#1
Meanwhile, Russians in the Crimea cheer the return of ships of the Black sea fleet. Russia is surely violating some arms control agreement by having these people unclothed
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 19:55 Comments ||
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#2
Georgia-Azerbaijan-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan. Not a meter of Russian territory. This is just one reason why Georgia, the Poti-Baku railroad and the Nabucco gas pipeline is so important.
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 20:03 Comments ||
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#3
You with the flag, step forward for your Happy Meal. The rest of you STAND FAST!
Posted by: ed ||
08/25/2008 20:06 Comments ||
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#5
"Vladimir Putin...has supported the War on Terror ever since."
I call BULLSHIT! Support for our enemies like Iran, Iraq and Syria! Other that that, he has been fine.
Two armoured vehicles of Nato forces were damaged when a group of people set a trailer transporting them to Afghanistan on fire at the Maripur truck terminal on Sunday night.
Witnesses said that 30 to 35 men, some of them armed, torched the trailer near the terminalÂ’s Gate No.5 when its driver and cleaner were having dinner at a nearby restaurant. The assailants also fired in the air, the witnesses said.
However, Keamari Town SP Rao Anwar Ahmed told Dawn that no incident of firing had taken place. “One of the Nato vehicles was damaged and the other was intact,” he added.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/25/2008 20:17 ||
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#2
A set up. Next time, when the mob shows up, neglect to tell them that the vehicle is full of drums of stuff that when burned, give off very toxic fumes.
#3
The Israeli skunk spray would do just as well, leaving them alive to spread, and embroider, the horrors awaiting in NATO trucks. Let them create their own fear that overcomes the desires of hate.
The terror email sent in the name of Indian Mujahideen on Saturday has been traced to a computer in Mumbai's Khalsa College.
The unidentified sender apparently took advantage of the unsafe WiFi internet system in the college. The eight-page email was sent from the email address alarbi.alhindi@gmail.com .
The sender threatened officers of the Mumbai anti-terrorism squad (ATS) and also some officers in the Gujarat police. "It was sent at 7.03 pm on Saturday to a news channel which forwarded a copy to the cyber crime cell and the ATS last night. We worked on it and traced the internet protocol address to Khalsa College's computer laboratory," an officer told TOI on Sunday.
The laboratory is located on the ground floor of the college which is hardly 10 metres from a lane. The WiFi system, which did not have any security, could have been used from a range of 20-30 metres.
A team of ATS officers reached Khalsa College at Matunga on Sunday morning and were busy examining all the computers. They are yet to seize the 'suspect' computer. "We have not recorded the statements of the students who were present in the laboratory at that time. We are making preliminary inquiries and will record their statements later," said an officer.
"One computer in the laboratory with an internet connection was switched on. However, the connection did not have any password and the accused might have taken advantage of this," said TOI's source.
At 7pm, three students were present in the laboratory and were working on their project. Students of biochemistry, computer science and even those doing their PhD use the laboratory. While the laboratory has 12 more machines, only one was connected to internet at that time. The laboratory was closed at 7.45pm, said the police. "The email is similar to several other mails sent on earlier occasions. Our teams are investigating the matter," said ATS additional commissioner P B Singh.
A similar email ID was used to send a message to TV channels after the July 26 bomb blasts in Gujarat. The Gujarat email had claimed that a new outfit, Indian Mujahideen, was responsible for the bomb blasts. The IP address of the Gujarat email was traced to a Navi Mumbai flat where US national Ken Haywood was staying. Even in that case, the accused had taken advantage of a WiFi network since Haywood's computer did not have any password or security system installed in it.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Pakistani troops killed seven militants in clashes in Bajaur tribal district near the Afghan border while Taliban rebels slaughtered an alleged spy, officials said Sunday. Troops launched a mortar attack on suspected militant hideouts in the rugged Bajaur tribal district overnight after their check posts came under attack, security officials said. "Five militants were killed in the mortar fire targeting suspected militant hideouts," an official said, requesting anonymity. Separately, militants also attacked two security posts in another tribal district of South Waziristan late Saturday, wounding three soldiers, officials said adding that two militants were killed in retaliatory strikes.
Meanwhile, officials said that Taliban militants in the area slit the throat of a 35-year-old man after accusing him of spying for US troops across the border in Afghanistan. The body was found dumped in a field on the outskirts of Khar, the main town in Bajaur district and a letter placed near the body said "This man was an American spy," local officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships targeted militant hideouts in the Swat Valley on Sunday, the military said, after fierce fighting killed 50 militants and 10 soldiers in the past 24 hours. "Fighting is still going on. We hit and destroyed over 40 militants' bunkers and a training camp," said Major Nasir Ali, military spokesman in the region. "We have confirmed reports that 50 militants were killed while 10 of our soldiers were martyred." Ali said the number of militants' deaths could be higher as many bodies had been taken away.
Residents in Kabal, about 20 km west of Mingora, the region's main town, said intermittent mortar bombing by security forces had continued since Saturday while Cobra helicopter gunships carried out strikes early Sunday morning on militants' positions in the mountains. Seven villagers were killed and three wounded in mortar bombing, residents said. "We can't even flee. There's curfew on the one hand and on the other hand, militants use us as a human shield when they are attacked. What we can do?" villager Khaisat Bacha told Reuters.
Separately, suspected militants killed and dumped bodies of four men on the roadside in a village, police said, adding the men's hands and legs were tied with rope.
More than 200,000 people have fled fighting in northwestern Pakistan this month and are in urgent need of relief assistance, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday. The Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 30 trucks of relief goods were being sent for displaced people in various camps.
Meanwhile, in the South Waziristan tribal region, militants ambushed a military convoy near the Afghan border on Sunday, wounding three soldiers, security officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/25/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Even against the Pak army and asociated corruptions, the militants lose badly. Put a good force in their and watch things change in a hurry. Where in the world did you get that picture? No faces, no shoes, but lots of legs. Still, not a very pretty sight.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 7:23 Comments ||
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See clip at link.
A TEENAGE Iraqi girl wearing a vest packed with explosives turned herself in rather than go through with a suicide bombing in a violence-torn city north of Baghdad, police and the US military said.
The military said the girl surrendered to police on Sunday in Baquba, capital of Iraq's restive Diyala province, where Sunni Arab al-Qaeda militants are waging war on US and Iraqi forces.
She was still wearing the vest, which police had to remove before detaining her.
Iraqi police and US sources differed on the girl's age, with estimates ranging from 13 to 17.
"Reports are that she approached the IPs (Iraqi police) saying she had the vest on and didn't want to go through with it," US military spokesman Lieutenant Commander David Russell said.
"If she was forced to put on the vest or if she did it voluntarily, that is still being reviewed."
Police footage obtained by Reuters showed a girl with dyed red hair talking with four Iraqi policemen from a distance, her back against a wall. After some minutes, one them approaches her and ties her arms back onto a railing.
Two policemen then remove the vest. After searching her, one takes off his jacket and drapes it over her to cover the girl's bare shoulders.
Under interrogation in a police station later, she said an older woman had strapped the vest to her and had told her to go near the entrance of a local school and await instructions from someone who would meet her there, police said.
Suicide bomb attacks by women and girls have become increasingly common in Iraq this year.
US forces say al-Qaeda militants favour female bombers because they can escape detection by police reluctant to search women.
Female suicide bombers attacked Shiite pilgrims during two annual rites in recent weeks, killing dozens. Many attacks by female suicide bombers have taken place in Diyala.
"The surrender of the suicide bomber indicates that the Iraqis are continuing to reject al-Qaeda and its practices," the US military spokesman for north Iraq, Major Jon Pendell, said.
A male suicide bomber killed 25 people at a banquet in western Baghdad's Sunni Arab Abu Ghraib district on Sunday.
By Bill Roggio Coalition and Iraq forces captured Three Senior al Qaeda Killers in Iraq; These Big Shot Murderers were behind some of the deadliest violence over the past several years.
Two of the men were detained during the past two weeks in raids by Task Force 88, the hunter-killer special operations teams assigned to dismantle al Qaeda's networks in Iraq.
First The special operations teams captured Salim 'Abdallah Ashur al Shujayri during an operation on Aug. 11. Six days later, Ali Rash Nasir Jiyad al Shammari was captured.
The locations of the raids were not disclosed by Multinational Forces-Iraq. Today, Iraqi forces announced the capture of Mahdi Mosleh al Djeheishi.
[remember all 3 names as there will be a flash test later this semester]
Shujayri and Shammari are senior al Qaeda in Iraq leaders and have been "assessed to be longtime members" of the group. Both men are Iraqi citizens, a senior US military intelligence official who wishes to remain anonymous told The Long War Journal.
Shammari, who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Tiba, was al Qaeda in Iraq's "senior advisor in Baghdad, providing guidance and targeting assistance to subordinates throughout the city," Multinational Forces-Iraq reported in a press release. He served as al Qaeda's leader in the Karkh district before being promoted to manage al Qaeda's overall terror campaign in Baghdad in early 2007.
He provided operational and financial support to 15 terror groups operating in Baghdad. "He is alleged to have personally approved targets for car and suicide bombings targeting Iraqi civilians, intended to incite sectarian violence," the press release stated.
[I hope the Iraqis use pliers on him!]
In this capacity, Shammari directed the siege of Baghdad, which was facilitated by al Qaeda's control of critical regions in the outlying areas of Baghdad and neighboring provinces. Al Qaeda used attacks against civilian and sectarian targets as part of its strategy to fragment the military and government and draw the country in a wider civil war.
Shujayri, who is also know as Abu Uthman, served under Shammari as the emir, or leader in Baghdad's Rusafa district. He had close connections to Abu Ayyub al Masri, al Qaeda in Iraq's emir, and other senior terror leaders. Shujayri directed suicide and car-bomb attacks against Iraqi civilians. [[Pleasant A$$HOLE]
Shujayri was a member of an indigenous Iraqi Salafist terror group prior to joining al Qaeda in Iraq, the senior US intelligence official said. Osama bin Laden's sanctioning of Abu Musab al Zarqawi as the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was crucial in bring Shujayri and other Iraqi Salafists into the ranks of al Qaeda.
............
Margaret Hassan was the Baghdad director of CARE International, a nongovernmental aide group. She was kidnapped in October 2004. Her body was discovered four week later in Fallujah, brutally butchered, with her throat slit and her arms and legs hacked off. In spite of the fact that these three al-Qaeda leaders could have safely released her in Baghdad.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
08/25/2008 03:44 ||
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#1
To all the Al Qaeda in Iraq, turn the light off when you slink away in the dark of the night.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/25/2008 7:44 Comments ||
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#2
88 is a code word used by white supremacists to mean Heil Hitler. I hope it's a coincidence in this case.
#3
You "hope it's a coincidence"? What a terrible thing to imply. Surely you haven't the slightest doubt that it is purely coincidental?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/25/2008 8:26 Comments ||
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#4
Gromky that is deeply insulting to the US military.
Task forces are numbered sequentially based on their composition. For instance, the combined joint task force that took on Afghanistan in 2001 was CJTF 180.
Task force 88 has been operational for years. It has been responsible for taking down the worst of the Ba'athists including Saddam himself.
You owe those servicemen and women a public apology.
The wife asked me the other day..."why are my muslim patients always changing their names? - It ruins our record keeping and makes the mandated lifetime mental health assessments a disaster."
I just had to tell her it goes with the religion and being truthful.
Gunmen seriously wounded a Shiite cleric and an outspoken critic of sectarian militias in an ambush on a van carrying his wife, mother and sister, police and hospital officials said Sunday. The cleric, Haider al-Saymari, was attacked Saturday in the southern city of Basra. His relatives were not harmed, said police and hospital officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Al-Saymari, 38, is a follower of Iraq's top Shiite leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a moderate. Al-Saymari is known as a critic of extremists and armed groups in Basra, particularly the Mahdi Army militia of al-Sistani's rival, radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Saymari had lived and worked in the holy Iranian city of Qom since 1991, but returned to his native Iraq to take part in a Shiite religious ceremony earlier this month. He was heading back to Iran Saturday, passing through downtown Basra, when gunmen firing from a car ambushed his van. Al-Saymari was rushed to a nearby hospital.
Iraqi police officials initially said he was pronounced dead but other police and hospital officials contacted later said he was seriously wounded.
"He's not dead yet!"
This article starring:
Haider al-Saymari
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Iraqi police and hospital officials say at least 25 people have been killed and 29 wounded in a suicide bombing on the western outskirts of Baghdad. The officials say the attacker detonated his explosives inside a tent as people were gathered to celebrate the release of a former detainee from the U.S. detention center Camp Bucca.
The casualty toll from Sunday's attack was given by police and confirmed by Yassir al-Jumaili, a doctor at the Fallujah hospital where many of the wounded were taken.
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Three bomb attacks and a shootout claimed the lives of nine people and wounded more than two dozen in Iraq on Sunday, security officials said. Four Iraqi soldiers were killed and eight others were wounded when a roadside bomb blasted their patrol in the town of Bala Druz, near the restive city of Baquba. In Baquba itself, two policemen were killed and six others including a woman were wounded in a shootout when insurgents fired at a police patrol, a security official said. Up to three people were killed and eight wounded, including five policemen, when a bomb targeting a patrol exploded on a through-road leading to Iraq's interior ministry in Baghdad, security sources at the ministry said. As police ran to the scene to help a second bomb went off, wounding another five officers, they said.
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Security forces raided the offices of the Islamic Movement in the northern Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm early Sunday and accused it of aiding the Palestinian Hamas movement, police said. The raid on the offices of the Al-Aqsa institution, operated by the Israeli Arab Islamist party, saw police confiscate documents, computers, and a safe with money. The operation was ordered by the defence ministry, an official added.
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Three persons, two women and a man, were killed early Sunday in continuing violence assumed related to Thailand's ongoing insurgency in this southernmost province. Teacher Suwannee Salae, 32, and her sister Sunisa Salae, were gunned down as they were riding a motorcycle in Raman district Sunday morning. In another shooting incident, 37-year-old rubber plantation worker Sama-ae Jema was gunned down in the same district.
Six Thai soldiers assigned to protect teachers were slightly wounded on Monday when a bomb planted by suspected separatists exploded outside a school in the country's south, police said. The troops suffered minor injures to their chests and ears in the mobile phone-triggered blast in Narathiwat province, which left a small crater in the ground outside an elementary school.
Government troops attacked Tamil Tiger rebels in Sri Lanka's north, triggering battles that killed 30 rebels and three soldiers, the military said Sunday. The latest battles erupted Saturday along the front lines separating government-held territory and the rebels' de facto state in the north, military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. In the worst fighting, troops clashed with rebels in Welioya, leaving 16 rebels and one soldier dead. Another eight soldiers were wounded. Soldiers also attacked two rebel bunkers in Vavuniya, killing nine guerrillas, he said. Other fighting in the region killed five rebels and two soldiers, he said. Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan could not be reached for comment on the military's claims.
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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.
HERAT, Afghanistan, Aug 24, (Agencies): An investigation has found that more than 90 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in coalition air strikes days ago, an Afghan government minister told AFP Sunday. President Hamid Karzai ordered the investigation into FridayÂ’s operation in the western province of Herat after Afghan officials said high numbers of civilians were killed but the US-led coalition said only 30 militants died. 
U.S.-led coalition troops clashed with a group of Taliban fighters in 
Pirates abducted 49 fishermen and looted 50 fishing trawlers in coastal areas in Bagerhat on Saturday night.
The terror email sent in the name of Indian Mujahideen on Saturday has been traced to a computer in Mumbai's Khalsa College. 
Pakistani troops killed seven militants in clashes in Bajaur tribal district near the Afghan border while Taliban rebels slaughtered an alleged spy, officials said Sunday. Troops launched a mortar attack on suspected militant hideouts in the rugged Bajaur tribal district overnight after their check posts came under attack, security officials said. "Five militants were killed in the mortar fire targeting suspected militant hideouts," an official said, requesting anonymity. Separately, militants also attacked two security posts in another tribal district of South Waziristan late Saturday, wounding three soldiers, officials said adding that two militants were killed in retaliatory strikes. 
Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships targeted militant hideouts in the Swat Valley on Sunday, the military said, after fierce fighting killed 50 militants and 10 soldiers in the past 24 hours. "Fighting is still going on. We hit and destroyed over 40 militants' bunkers and a training camp," said Major Nasir Ali, military spokesman in the region. "We have confirmed reports that 50 militants were killed while 10 of our soldiers were martyred." Ali said the number of militants' deaths could be higher as many bodies had been taken away. 
