[Quqnoos] At least five Afghan border policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.
Gen Abdul Raziq, a border security commander, told the Associated Press that the bombing occurred before dawn on a heavily used road in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province, the birthplace of Taliban.
The district is in a volatile area, which has been patrolled mostly by border security police.
No groups, including the Taliban, have made an immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
Roadside bombing is a frequently used tool for the Taliban militant to target Afghan and international forces across the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[3 views]
Top|| File under: Taliban
[Iran Press TV Latest] An Iranian oil tanker has escaped an attack by pirates in Bab al-Mandeb in waters north of Somalia, a media report has revealed.
According to Mehr News Agency, Iran Nesa, an oil tanker which belonged to the Iranian Oil Tanker Company, was attacked on Sunday in the waters of Bab al-Mandeb -- a strategic strait which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
The tanker was en route to Turkey, carrying two billion barrels of crude oil when it was attacked by two pirate boats.
The Iranian tanker managed to flee the pirates after one of their boats sank.
Ahem, there's a lack of details here: how did the pirate boat sink?
According to Mehr, 13 Iranian oil tankers have been attacked by pirates in the last two years. None of the attacks has led to the capture of the Iranian tankers, the report added.
According to Iranian military sources, the country's navy has dispatched four fleets of warships to fight pirates off the Somali coast.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Pirates
#1
Ahem, there's a lack of details here: how did the pirate boat sink?
Deferred maintenance. Lots of that in the Iranian military. Look at their aircraft safety record.
#2
Two billion barrels of oil! Let me see that is 2 B times $70 = $140B. Wow!! Someone is making money. And that is one tanker.
Posted by: Art ||
11/23/2009 9:36 Comments ||
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#3
two billion barrels?
Criminey that's one BIG ship.
I think that's a typo error.
A barrel holds 45 gallons or approximately 6 cubic feet of oil. two billion barrels is about twelve billion cubic feet of ship storage...did they make a boat out of that monstrosity that the UAE is building (world's tallest building) or what?
One of the twin towers was only 4.4 billion cubic feet.
Posted by: Karl Rove ||
11/23/2009 10:45 Comments ||
Top||
#4
They mean million. A supertanker can hold up to 500,000 Dead Weight Tons (2 million barrels). These are the largest of the tankers. Most hold half that.
#5
Ahem, there's a lack of details here: how did the pirate boat sink?
IIUC, large (huge) boats like a tanker actually can be very fast; the evasive protocol involves getting as fast as possible & zig-zaging, the trail of waves made by such a large boat can make navigation very difficult for the smaller pirate boats and even over-turn them.
Unless there was an exchange for fire and the pirates got it through an automatic GL or something, I think it sinked due to this evasive manoeuvering (as is the goal, really).
[Al Arabiya Latest] Two men who had been held for seven years in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of belonging to an extremist group were acquitted in an Algerian court on Sunday, state media reported.
The two men alleged during their trial in Algeria on terrorism charges that they were "brutally tortured" while in detention in Guantanamo Bay, Algeria's official APS news agency cited court documents as saying.
The men were arrested in Pakistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States and transferred to Guantanamo Bay where they were held without trial before being sent home to Algeria last year, the agency reported.
The court in Algiers rejected prosecution arguments the two men, named as Faghoul Abdelli and Mohamed Terari, were members of a terrorist group and acquitted them, the agency said.
The United States set up the prison at Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba, after the Sept. 11 attacks to detain terrorism suspects. Human rights activists say the detentions are in violation of international law.
U.S. President Barack Obama has said the prison will be closed by Jan. 22, 2010, although his officials have since acknowledged it will be difficult to meet that deadline.
Twelve Algerian citizens remain in the prison, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a U.S. non-governmental group that has represented many of the detainees seeking release.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
Since the judge refused to hear evidence they were terrorists, odds are damn good the judge is a terrorist too.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/23/2009 16:41 Comments ||
Top||
Four men have been charged with terror-related offences following raids by the North West Counter Terrorism Unit, Greater Manchester Police have said.
Officers arrested five people last on suspicion of inciting terrorism overseas.
Raids took place in Manchester's Longsight, Fallowfield and Levenshulme districts, Stalybridge, Deane in Bolton and a hotel near Heathrow Airport.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Compare wid WORLD NEWS/FREEREPUBLIC > THE AUTONOMOUS JIHAD IN AMERICA [disparate or formerly mutually exclusive Groups, e.g. Pol Activist + Militant, Non-Violent + Violent, etal. now working together in common agenda]???
* FREEREPUBLIC > IRANIAN OFFICIAL: THE US IS NO LONGER IMMUNE TO ATTACK [ 9-11, etc. terror assaults had proven that Amer stability can be compromised].
*WORLD NEWS > [JANATA Party President Subramanian Swamy] SWAMY: PAKISTAN LIKELY TO FALL INTO TALIBAN, espec as approxi 70% of PAK Army + many Tribals ostensibly suppor the Talibs. SWAMY also repor claimed that INDIA IS AN "INCOMPLETE PROJECT" FOR BOTH THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA GROUPS [IMO read, MILTERR DESTABILZ + FINAL CONQUEST]???
[Dawn] At least six people were killed and 40 wounded in two bomb blasts in northeast India's troubled Assam state on Sunday, police said. Bombs hidden in bicycles exploded in front of a police station and a shopping complex in Nalbari town, about 70 km (43 miles) west of state capital Dispur, Jitmol Doley, a senior police officer told Reuters by telephone.
Police said the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was behind the blasts, but a senior rebel leader telephoned local newspaper offices and television stations to deny its involvement.
The blasts came soon after New Delhi announced the government will provide safe passage to top rebel leaders willing to talk and find a lasting solution to the decades old insurgency in the state.
Security forces have placed the entire tea-and oil-rich Assam state on high alert.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: ISI
[Dawn] As forces pound militant hideouts in Kurram Agency, residents flee to safer areas due to the threat of a possible military operation.
According to official sources, gunship helicopters targeted various areas of lower Kurram. It is beleived that the hideouts belong to militants linked to banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. On the other hand, residents of central Kurram have started migrating to safer areas.
Also, in Orakzai agency, militant hideouts in Mishti and Shahokhel areas were desroyed in airstrikes. Sources in the area claim that ongoing military operation in South Waziristan has forced militants to flee to areas of Lower, Central Kurram and Orakzai ageny.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[6 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
#1
I assume "Agency" Means the same as "Township" or maybe "County"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/23/2009 16:52 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Security forces have presented an alleged suicide bomber before the media in Swat on Sunday, according to a DawnNews report.
The 16-year-old suspect, Khair Hussain, claims he was forcibly recruited by the Taliban to conduct terrorist activities.
He revealed that he had been taken hostage by the Taliban and then shifted to a mountainous region of the valley.
Hussain said that he was being trained by the militants to conduct suicide attacks. The Taliban escaped when military pounded their hideouts during the Rah-i-Rast operation, leaving him behind.
According to official sources, the alleged suicide bomber was arrested three days back from in Kanju district.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
#1
Naah, that's just his Haloween costume, and now he's in deeper shit for celebrating an Infidel Holy Day.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/23/2009 16:44 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Two militants and an Indian soldier were killed during a gunbattle along the border that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Indian military said Sunday. 'The fighting erupted late Saturday when a group of militants tried to cross the Line of Control in (southern) Poonch district,' an army spokesman said, referring to the de facto border.
'Soldiers foiled an infiltration bid by killing two militants,' the spokesman said, adding a soldier also died during the fighting.
The latest clash came as regional police chief Kuldeep Khuda told reporters late Saturday that about 700 militants were active in Kashmir. Khuda said the number of active militants included people who had earlier surrendered to troops. 'But their number is negligible,' he said, adding that 2009 was likely to end with the lowest 'ever incidents of violence' since 1989.
Overall in the state, the number of insurgency-related deaths has fallen to around one daily from a peak of 10 in 2001. The fall in violence comes against the backdrop of a slow-moving peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to settle the future of the disputed region, which both claim in its entirety. India paused the dialogue after last November's Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed in a three-day rampage by gunmen.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[3 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
ION WMF > "INDIAN DEFENSE BUSINESS NEWS" - INDIA THREATENS CHINA: IFF CHINA REFUSES TO COMPROMISE ON DISPUTED TERRITORIES IT WILL TAKE INDIA'S ARMY ONE MONTH TO MILITARILY CONQUER ONE-HALF OF CHINA???
*SAME > KOREAN MEDIAS EXCLAIMED: CHINA CAN [economically only?] REPLACE THE US IN SOUTH KOREA; + 2010: THERE WILL BE APPROXI TWO MIYUHN KOREANS INSIDE CHINA [ most of whom repor do NOT desire home to KOREAS = SOUTH KOREA]???
versus
WAFF > KASHMIR SEPARATISTS: CHINA HAS A STAKE IN PEACE TALKS.
[Dawn] Thirteen militants and a security person were killed in fierce gun battle in Shahu Khel area in Hangu district on Sunday.
Sources confirmed that seven security personnel were also injured and were shifted to nearby hospitals for treatment.
Security forces reported taking complete control of the Shahu Khel area in Hangu district from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan after a month long battle on Sunday.
Soon after entering the area security forces imposed curfew in the whole locality and sealed all entry points from tribal Orakzai Agency, sources told Dawn.
Security forces and the police had started search-and-clean-up operation to secure the area for establishing permanent check posts to stop the re-entry of militants, reports reaching here said. The gunship helicopters and jets were flying over the area for the protection of the ground troops.
The TTP had vacated the Shahu Khel area after razing to the ground a whole village including schools, health centres and other offices last month. The militants blew up more than 120 homes after the residents were forced to leave Shahu Khel as a result of daily kidnappings and murders of locals by the militants.
Two policemen were also injured as militants opened firing at a police mobile pick up in Doaba area in Hangu district.
Orakzai operation
Security forces destroyed a communication tower, FM radio station and a training camp of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan in Kasha and Darha Darh Mamozai areas in Upper Orakzai Agency on Sunday.
The security forces were now marching towards Upper Orakzai Agency to capture important areas which were still under the control of the new amir (chieftain) of TTP, Hakeemullah Mehsud.
Meanwhile, the TTP is reported to have stopped tribesmen in Upper Orakzai Agency from fleeing the area so it could use them as human shields in eventuality of heavy fighting.
However, in the areas which came under heavy attack by security forces women and children were allowed to leave.
Any operation secure the TTP's stronghold in the tribal Orakzai Agency, would take several days, sources said.
The TTP was concentrating its firing squads at their check posts on the Orakzai border to stop the advancing security forces.
The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan beheaded a man and his son in Feroze Khel area in Lower Orakzai Agency on charges of spying, officials said. Their dead bodies of Awal Hassan and his son Inayatullah were found in Sam area of the Orakzai Agency.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: TTP
#1
PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > VARIOUS e.g. DAWN.PK = US IN SECRET TALKS WID SENIOR TALIBAN|ISLAMABAD: US-TALIBAN TALKS HAVE BEEN IN PROGRESS FOR THE PAST SIX MONTHS[POSTER > US-Talibs negotiations allegedly also includs PAK, Saudi Arabia, Britain/UK, + major Afghan Taliban Leaders]???
ARTICS > asks IS POTUS OBAMA [Bammer] GETTING READY TO REVERSE IN FULL THE COURSE OF US STRATEGY IN AFPAK INCLUD OPTION FOR US PULLOUT???
* SAME > AFGHAN TALIBAN LINK ASSURANCE OF PEACE TO [complete] US PULLOUT.
#3
Interesting, JosephM. I saw a MEMRI.org translation of a Saudi Arabian article (which I find myself unable to find again -- sorry) about the American ambassador being in discussions with the Taliban to essentially cede them five Afghan provinces in return for them giving up attacks in the rest of the country.
GUNMEN fired on the home of two US academics in the Indonesian province of Aceh today, the latest in a string of attacks directed against foreigners. ,No one was injured in the attack on the home of Michelle Ahmad and Sarah Willis in the provincial capital Banda Aceh at 5.45am local time, police said.
"I heard about six gunshots," said Ms Ahmad, who is understood to be teaching English to local students through a fellowship program with an Acehnese university. "We woke up and sprawled on the floor. A few minutes later, I called another friend... and we called the police."
Police intelligence chief Bambang Soetjahjo said the motive for the attack was unknown. Nope, nope, not a clue why anyone would shoot at infidels, nope, nope ...
He said it was not clear if it was connected to a recent spate of shootings targeting Westerners in the province, a deeply Islamic part of Indonesia that is recovering from a bitter separatist war.
"We don't know the motive and who did it and if it's connected to previous incidents," Mr Soetjahjo said.
Police said two shots hit the house's walls and one hit the roof.
The attack comes less than a week after motorcycle-riding gunmen fired on the home of the European Union's local representative, a British national, in the province. The representative of the German branch of the Red Cross was badly wounded in a shooting attack earlier this month, forcing the medical relief agency to briefly suspend its operations in Aceh.
No one has claimed responsibility for the shootings.
Police have said the attacks are aimed at creating a climate of fear among foreign workers in the province, on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
Aceh has experienced sporadic low-level violence, including armed robberies, kidnappings and politically motivated grenade and gun attacks, despite the 2005 end of a three-decade separatist war that claimed around 15,000 lives.
The staunchly Islamic province is home to a large but steadily declining number of international organisations, which arrived to help after the 2004 Asian tsunami killed 168,000 people in Aceh. Thanks for the help Kuffr, now piss off.
THE Philippines government has expressed outrage and vowed justice following the gruesome killings of 21 people who were among a group of politicians and journalists abducted in the troubled south.
"This is a gruesome massacre of civilians unequalled in recent history," said Jess Dureza, President Gloria Arroyo's adviser on the strife-torn southern region of Mindanao where the murders took place.
"There must be a total stop to this senseless violence. I strongly recommend that a state of emergency be imposed in the area and everyone be disarmed. Anything less will not work."
Arroyo's adviser on political affairs, Gabriel Claudio, expressed similar sentiments.
"We're in shock and in total outrage," Mr Claudio said.
"Justice will be served and the perpetrators punished, whoever they are."
The victims were among a group of about 40 journalists and local officials who were kidnapped on Monday morning by armed men in Maguindanao province.
The military said the others remained unaccounted for, but operations were under way to find them in a hinterland area.
The journalists were accompanying the wife of Esmael Mangudadatu and his supporters to file his candidacy for governorship of the mostly Muslim southern province of Maguindanao in next year's national elections.
They were stopped at a roadside checkpoint and forcibly taken to a hinterland area by men with links to the incumbent governor Andal Ampatuan, the military said.
The Mangudadatu clan is known to have a long-running feud with the family of Ampatuan, who police say is known to control his own private army. Members of the Ampatuan family were unreachable.
#1
Uh, uh, MONTAGUES + CAPULETS {Shakespeare's R & J]???
THE BARD'S END SCENE > "ALL ARE PUNISHED", iff Commies + Radical Islam, etal. insurgents succeed in breaking up the Philippines come Year 2020 or shortly after???
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran has jailed former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi for six years on charges linked to protests over June's presidential election while opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi called on the Sunday government to stop intimidating people to try and change their political views.
Abtahi, who was a close aide of reformist president Mohammad Khatami, was arrested with scores of opposition figures shortly after the publication of official results giving hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a second term. He has remained in custody ever since.
Mohammad Ali AbtahiOn Saturday morning, Abtahi appeared in court where "he was informed of a six-year jail term," Abtahi's daughter Fatemeh told Ayandenews.com.
He was found guilty of charges including "gathering and plotting against the country's security, propaganda against the regime, insulting the president and participating in an illegal demonstration and keeping classified documents," the website said.
The report said the court had used as evidence posts on his web log, an interview with the BBC's Persian service and participation in a protest rally on June 15, when hundreds of thousands marched across Tehran.
Abtahi, who was jailed only a few days after the June 12 vote, reportedly withdrew his accusations of electoral fraud when he appeared in court on Aug. 1 and expressed regret for taking part in the protests.
Government intimidation
" The government should not intimidate people to change their path ... this movement will continue and we are ready to pay any price "
Opposition leader Mousavi
Meanwhile opposition leader Mousavi said the government should stop intimidating people to try and change their political views, a reformist website reported, after a hardline Islamic group called for Mousavi to stand trial for spreading "big lies."
"The government should not intimidate people to change their path ... this movement will continue and we are ready to pay any price," Mousavi was quoted as saying by his Kaleme website.
Mousavi's remarks preceded a scheduled gathering on Sunday by moderates to commemorate the killing of a dissident nationalist couple, stabbed to death by "rogue" agents in 1998.
Iran's security forces have warned the opposition not to take part in "street riots", trying to avoid a revival of street protests that erupted after Iran's June 12 presidential vote.
The killing of Dariush Forouhar and his wife, who headed the illegal but tolerated Iran Nation Party, and at least two other secularist figures around the same time in the killing of dissidents, outraged Iranian society.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/23/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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.
[Quqnoos] At least five Afghan border policemen were killed in a roadside bomb blast in southern Afghanistan on Sunday.
[Iran Press TV Latest] An Iranian oil tanker has escaped an attack by pirates in Bab al-Mandeb in waters north of Somalia, a media report has revealed. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Two men who had been held for seven years in the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay on suspicion of belonging to an extremist group were acquitted in an Algerian court on Sunday, state media reported.
[Dawn] At least six people were killed and 40 wounded in two bomb blasts in northeast India's troubled Assam state on Sunday, police said. Bombs hidden in bicycles exploded in front of a police station and a shopping complex in Nalbari town, about 70 km (43 miles) west of state capital Dispur, Jitmol Doley, a senior police officer told Reuters by telephone.
[Dawn] As forces pound militant hideouts in Kurram Agency, residents flee to safer areas due to the threat of a possible military operation. 
[Dawn] Security forces have presented an alleged suicide bomber before the media in Swat on Sunday, according to a DawnNews report. 
[Dawn] Two militants and an Indian soldier were killed during a gunbattle along the border that splits Kashmir between India and Pakistan, the Indian military said Sunday. 'The fighting erupted late Saturday when a group of militants tried to cross the Line of Control in (southern) Poonch district,' an army spokesman said, referring to the de facto border.
[Dawn] Thirteen militants and a security person were killed in fierce gun battle in Shahu Khel area in Hangu district on Sunday.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran has jailed former vice president Mohammad Ali Abtahi for six years on charges linked to protests over June's presidential election while opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi called on the Sunday government to stop intimidating people to try and change their political views.
