TALIBAN killers have blown themselves up laying booby-trap bombs, we can reveal. Up to 20 are thought to have died planting Improvised Explosive Devices. Do they still get their raisins?
They were racing to plant the IEDs before the Allied offensive Operation Moshtarak. The triggers on the IEDs have become so sensitive the terrorists are accidentally detonating them as they hide them. Remember, Abdul, don't run with it.
OK Mahmoud. Trip, stumble KABOOM.
Last night a highly-placed source said: "The Taliban know only too well how effective the IED has proved to be.
"It is designed to take out our lads at even the slightest touch but this has backfired on Taliban blown up by the sophistication of their bombs. Don't touch that! Waht, this? KABOOM!
"We have evidence a significant number of Taliban have been killed in this way.
"The IED does not discriminate. It wreaks carnage." Isn't a pressure-activated IED just a good ol' fashioned "land mine"??? Or is that term not sexy enough?
It is believed around half the 265 British fatalities suffered in Afghanistan were caused by roadside IEDs. Meanwhile the MoD confirmed the deaths of two British servicemen, one by IED. The airman from 2 Squadron, Royal Air Force Regiment, was patrolling in Kandahar. A soldier from A Company, 4th Battalion The Rifles was killed by small arms fire near Sangin.
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02/26/2010 10:46 ||
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Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses in downtown Kabul on Friday, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians in one of the deadliest attacks on foreigners in the Afghan capital.
The Islamist militia, which is waging a bitter insurgency against the US-backed Afghan government and more than 121,000 foreign troops based in the country, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to AFP.
A car bomb exploded and two smaller blasts resounded over downtown Kabul, heralding what police called a "well-planned and coordinated attack" soon after dawn as Afghanistan commemorated the birth of Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The attacks killed 16 people, including an Italian diplomatic adviser, a Frenchman and nine Indians, officials said. Another 38 people were wounded, including eight foreigners, police said.
Posted by: ed ||
02/26/2010 09:17 ||
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[ADN Kronos] (AKI) - Sudanese soldiers exchanged gunfire with Darfur rebels the same day the country's president supported a truce with another insurgency, while French aid group Doctors of the World said fighting forced it to suspend operations in the central Jabel Marra region on Wednesday.
More than 100,000 people had been displaced by fighting in the area over recent days, Doctors of the World said.
Darfur's insurgent Sudan Liberation Army, or SLA, said government forces attacked at least three areas in the mountainous region on Wednesday, including the busy market town of Deribat.
"Heavy fighting was going until late into the night," SLA spokesman Ibrahim al-Hillu said in one report.
"The government attacked in huge numbers backed up by Antonovs, helicopter gunships and MiGs [fighter jets]. This is the peace the government is offering."
Speaking at a Darfur rally, Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir on Wednesday declared the war in Darfur over on, announcing the release of 57 rebels a day after signing a ceasefire and initial peace deal with the separate rebel Justice and Equality Movement , or JEM.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
DAILY TIMES.PK > UN says approxi ONE-FIFTH OF CHADIANS [Chad] are FACING SERIOUS HUNGER = STARVATION.
[Maghrebia] Algerian security services killed three El Farouk terrorist brigade members in an ambush in Boukram, El Watan reported on Wednesday (February 24th). Khaled Abu Salman, a long-time ally of AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, was reportedly among the dead, ANSA reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The chief of Algeria's national police was shot dead on Thursday at his headquarters by another police official who was acting in a moment of insanity, the Interior Ministry said.
"The death of Ali Tounsi ... took place during a working session, in the course of which a police official, apparently gripped by an attack of madness, used his weapon and fatally wounded Colonel Tounsi," state radio quoted a ministry statement as saying.
"A judicial enquiry has been opened to determine the circumstances of this distressing event," the statement said.
There was no indication of any link between Tounsi's killing and al-Qaeda insurgents who periodically attack government targets in Algeria, a major oil and gas exporter.
The police force headed by Tounsi has played an important role in the effort to stamp out the long-running insurgency by Islamist militants.
Earlier, a security source told Reuters that Tounsi, national police chief for more than a decade and a veteran of Algeria's war of independence from France in the 1950s and 1960s, was shot inside his office by a senior police official with whom he was having an argument.
"This guy was unhappy, he took out his pistol and he fired it," the source said. "Police officers nearby fired back."
The Interior Ministry statement said that after shooting the police chief, the attacker shot himself and was now in serious condition in hospital. It made no mention of police firing back.
It was unlikely that Tounsi's killing would be a significant set-back for the government's counter-insurgency, which has been successful in reducing the rebellion to a hardcore of a few hundred fighters.
The police share responsibility for combating the insurgents with the gendarmerie, or paramilitary police, and the intelligence services and army.
"Tounsi's death is a big loss but it won't have any impact on the fight against terrorism," an official source familiar with security issues told Reuters.
"The fight against terror is not conducted by one person but by all of Algeria's institutions."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Shiite rebels in northern Yemen withdrew their forces from their stronghold of Saada on Thursday in order to allow civilians to return to the city, a spokesman said.
"To confirm our desire for peace, we have taken today a new step consistent (with that goal) and withdrawn from the city of Saada," which lies 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, a spokesman told AFP by telephone. This was done to "prevent the authorities from having any excuse to prevent the residents of the city from returning to their homes," he added.
The operation was completed by early evening.
The rebels made the announcement after accusing the army on their website of maintaining its blockade on roads leading into the city, which was the scene of fierce fighting during the five-month government campaign to crush the rebels.
"Up until now, the army is refusing to lift the siege of Saada and is blocking citizens from going home," a statement said.
As well as freeing all prisoners and opening roads in the north, the truce which went into effect on Feb. 12 requires the rebels to withdraw from government buildings, return arms seized from security forces and hand over captured army posts.
The rebels have accused the army of having set up its own roadblocks last week on all the arteries opened up under the truce and of blocking humanitarian aid from reaching affected areas.
The statement denounced "an aggressive attitude and the bad faith of the authorities, who are not looking for a genuine solution to the problem because they are ignoring the suffering of the population and the displaced."
"It is this that is placing obstacles on the path to peace."
The truce came after more than five months of heavy fighting between the rebels and the Yemeni government in the northern mountains, which pulled Saudi armed forces into the fray. Four committees in north Yemen are charged with implementing the ceasefire between the rebels and the government, which went into effect on Feb. 12.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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The feds have indicted two Queens men for working alongside self-proclaimed suicide bomber wannabe Najibullah Zazi in a bid to blow up the city's subway system last year with homemade bombs, officials said.
The Brooklyn US Attorney announced that a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment charging Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin with terrorism violations stemming from their alleged roles in the plot to bomb city subways.
Ahmedzay and Medunjanin, both 25, pleaded not guilty to the new charges during an appearance this morning in Brooklyn federal court.
During the hearing, prosecutors said the men wanted to detonate bombs in three coordinated subway attacks and that others involved in the plot are currently overseas.
"The facts alleged in this indictment shed further light on the scope of this attempted attack and underscore the importance of using every tool we have available to both disrupt plots against our nation and hold suspected terrorists accountable for their actions," said US Attorney General Eric Holder.
"This attack would have been deadly, and the many agents, prosecutors and intelligence professionals who worked together seamlessly to thwart it deserve our thanks."
Ahmedzay, who lives in Queens, was previously indicted on Jan. 8, 2010, on charges of making material false statements to the FBI about his travels to Pakistan and Afghanistan and about his conversations with a fellow traveler.
Medunjanin, also of Queens, had been previously indicted that same day on charges of conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization.
The five-count superseding indictment unsealed this morning charges Ahmedzay and Medunjanin with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
Ahmedzay and Medunjanin are also both charged with receiving training from al Qaeda. Ahmedzay was also charged with making false statements to the FBI in a terrorism investigation.
Zazi told a Brooklyn federal court judge on Monday how he had driven to New York City from Denver, where he lived, on Sept. 10, 2009, with a detonator in his bag and bomb-making plans on his laptop to launch a "martyrdom" massacre at the behest of al Qaeda operatives.
"It meant that I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the US military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan," the Afghan native said. "I would sacrifice my soul for the sake of saving others."
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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A federal judge here has ordered the release of a Yemeni prisoner who's been held at the Guantanamo detention center since January 2002.
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr., issued the order late Wednesday, telling the Obama administration to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps" to free Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman. Kennedy ordered the administration to report back on its progress April 1.
The order brings to 33 the number of people ordered freed under the Supreme Court's ruling that Guantanamo detainees have the right to challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts through a habeas corpus petition. Judges have authorized the continued detention of 11 prisoners in habeas cases.
The reasoning behind Kennedy's order was not released, pending a security review of his classified opinion. It was Kennedy's first ruling in a Guantanamo habeas case.
Uthman is now about 30 years old, according to Pentagon documents. According to a summary of Uthman's 2004 Combatant Status Review Tribunal, Uthman had traveled to Afghanistan from Yemen in March 2001. He left Afghanistan for Pakistan as the Taliban government collapsed in the face of a U.S.-led military offensive and turned himself into Pakistani authorities, hoping to be repatriated to Yemen. Instead, the Pakistanis surrendered him to U.S. authorities as a possible member of al Qaida. U.S. forces took him to Kandahar, Afghanistan, then flew him to Guantanamo.
In 2006, Uthman told another Pentagon board reviewing his detention that he'd gone to Afghanistan to teach the Quran, had never received training there except in "religion and soccer," was not a member of al Qaida or the Taliban, had not been armed when he fled Afghanistan and did not know anything about any plans for attacks on the United States.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
never received training there except in "religion and soccer,"
But that religious training included how to conduct violent jihad with various kinds of explosives? And that soccer training included how to booby-trap soccer balls?
The Karachi police arrested on Thursday a key Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and seized a huge cache of arms from his possession. SP Umar Shahid told reporters that Anti-extremism Cell raided a house situated in Sohrab Goth and arrested the alleged terrorist Abdul Aziz. A large number of arms were also recovered from the house, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
ION MEMERI.ORG > seems the HAGGANI arm of the Taliban are claiming to have up to 12,000 fighters + good number of suicide bombers in support of the general insurgency.
Perhaps most importantly, ARTIC > gives insights + NAMES of POTENTIAL "NEXT GENERATION" OF TALIB, JIHAD LEADERSHIP.
#2
ION MEMERI.ORG > seems the HAGGANI arm of the Taliban are claiming to have up to 12,000 fighters + good number of suicide bombers in support of the general insurgency.
Perhaps most importantly, ARTIC > gives insights + NAMES of POTENTIAL "NEXT GENERATION" OF TALIB, JIHAD LEADERSHIP.
[The News (Pak) Top Stories] The security forces Thursday carried out search in Mingora city for the second consecutive day to hunt down alleged would-be suicide bombers and their masterminds.
Over a thousand persons were brought to Nishat Chowk in pouring rain to undergo search. Curfew was imposed during the search operation, which paralysed life in the city that had recently returned to normalcy. Schools, banks and other government and private offices and businesses remained close. Fifteen suspects were arrested but there was no trace of the bombers and their masterminds.
It was the third day of curfew in Mingora. This has added to the sufferings of the people. There were allegations of taunts to the people of Swat but the military spokesman in Swat rejected it as unfounded.
The security forces claim to have information about the presence of one or two suicide bombers and their masterminds in the city and have been doggedly combing the city of 300,000 people to track them down. Landay Kas, Makan Bagh and all mohallahs in Wazirmal and the main bazaar were searched. "Me and my guests were brought out of the hotel at 7:00am in the morning. We didn't have breakfast. The security forces took us to Nishat Chowk where some 1,000-1,200 people were assembled in the open in rain," said Wakil Khan, general secretary Swat Hotel Management. The soldiers, he added, shouted at the people who budged from the line or moved their limbs. "Why this insulting behaviour?" he asked and said they were not opposed to search operations but objected to the humiliating manner in which it was done.
The spokesman for the army-run Swat Media Centre, Major Mushtaq, said the security forces were not misbehaving with people but the soldiers needed to be harsh at times to control such a large number of people. Wakil took exception as to why they were not searched on their respective premises and led to the Nishat Chowk where they were made to stand in queues for hours in rain. "They shouldn't damage our self-respect. It is intolerable," he said.
A man, who requested anonymity, said a soldier taunted the people of Swat to be "dirty." But Major Mushtaq said it was untrue as such behaviour was strictly prohibited. "Recently, a soldier was punished for showing such behaviour when we received a complaint. If any such incident happens, people should report to military officers, or directly or indirectly to me. We take such soldiers to task," he told The News.
The people were gathered from different localities at Nishat Chowk, the square where a suicide bomber killed 13 persons and injured dozens others. They were questioned and their identity cards checked.
Online adds: Sources said over 1,500 suspects were arrested from different areas of Mingora during the search operation. Security forces also claimed to have arrested Musa Khan, an important militant commander, and his two accomplices from Kabal during clashes. The arrested militants have been shifted to unknown place for interrogation while, the troops also destroyed Musa Khan's house.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Pakistani officials have confirmed that they have arrested top Taliban commander Abdul Kabir, an Afghan official said.
Siamak Herawi, a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said Thursday that Kabir was detained a week ago in Pakistan.
The arrest of Kabir, who ran Taliban operations in eastern Afghanistan, is part of a recent crackdown on insurgents in Pakistan.
He is one of at least four top Afghan Taliban leaders that Pakistani officials have detained in recent weeks.
Among them is Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar -- second only to the Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Baradar was arrested near Karachi several weeks ago by Pakistani officials with the aid of US intelligence.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
I read the below on BBC news that the Paks wont extradite the captured leaders to US/Afgan custody.Very suspicious indeed!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8538268.stm
[Dawn] Qari Zafar, an important leader of so-called Punjabi Taliban, was reported to be among the people killed in Wednesday's drone attack in the Dandi Darpakhel area of North Waziristan.
Officials said that six militants critically wounded in the missile strike died on Thursday, taking the death toll to 14. He added that all of them were believed to be members of the Punjabi Taliban.
It is said that Qari Zafar headed the Badar Mansoor organisation whose members are mostly militants from Punjab. Hailing from Karachi, he formerly belonged to Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.
Qari Zafar had joined the TTP in North Waziristan some time before the army launched an operation in South Waziristan. He was seen in a video, sitting next to TTP chief Hakeemullah Mehsud and his deputy Waliur Rehman.
The US has announced a reward of $5 million for information leading to the capture or death of Qari Zafar.
This article starring:
HAKIMULLAH MEHSUD
Punjabi Taliban
QARI ZAFAR
Lashkar-i-Jhangvi
QARI ZAFAR
Punjabi Taliban
WALIUR REHMAN
Punjabi Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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[Ma'an] Fatah-allied Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces arrested four members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday.
A source close to the PA security establishment told Ma'an that the arrests were made at Israel's request. If they four had not been arrested, the source said, Israeli forces would have invaded Nablus and taken them to Israeli prisons.
Khalida Jarrar, a PFLP-affiliated member of the Palestinian Legislative Council slammed the arrests as "serving Israeli security interests." "It was a concession to the Israeli conditions and dictates that are imposed on the Palestinian Authority," she said, urging the PA to release the four and cut security ties with Israel. She said such security coordination "serves the occupation."
President Mahmoud Abbas came under renewed pressure to cut security ties with Israel after the assassination of three Palestinian men in Nablus on Christmas night. Israel accused the three of plotting the killing of an Israeli settler. The PA said it would have arrested the suspects if it had been asked.
Earlier this week the Israeli military announced that the PA and Israel had cooperated in foiling a plot to launch a homemade rocket from the West Bank into Israel.
The secular-nationalist PFLP has long been an opponent of security coordination with Israel. In 2006 Israeli soldiers seized PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sa'adat from a PA jail in Jericho where he had been held under an arrangement with Israel following the PFLP's 2001 assassination of the Israeli tourism minister.
This article starring:
MUHAMAD AL MADANI
PFLP
MUHAMAD AT TERIAQI
PFLP
MUHAMAD JIHAD AN NATUR
PFLP
OMER TAISIR ABDUL HAQ
PFLP
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] A Lebanese national arrested on espionage charges by Beirut, has confessed to spying for Israel's secret service, Mossad.
Betcha they didn't use waterboarding to get that confession.
Lebanon's police chief, Major General Ashraf Rifi, not disclosing the name of the spy, said that he was arrested two weeks ago after he returned from Israel. He is currently in custody and will face trial in a military court, Rifi told AFP on Thursday.
"He has visited Israel twice, in 2000 and 2004, and was trained by and met with Israelis abroad," said the police chief.
The latest detention brings the number of people under investigation in the spying probe to 17, he said and added that all have been charged and referred to judicial authorities. However, Rifi said, at least three alleged spies have fled to Israel.
Last year 35 people were arrested on charges of spying for Israel. One of them is believed to have been involved in the assassination of Ghaleb Awali, a senior Hezbollah commander, who was killed in a car bombing in 2004, Rifi said.
Last week, a retired member of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces was sentenced to death for having spied for Israel and for his involvement in the murder of two Palestinian leaders.
Israel has not made any public comments on the arrests.
Posted by: Fred ||
02/26/2010 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.
Taliban suicide bombers targeted guesthouses in downtown Kabul on Friday, killing 16 people including Westerners and Indians in one of the deadliest attacks on foreigners in the Afghan capital.
[Maghrebia] Algerian security services killed three El Farouk terrorist brigade members in an ambush in Boukram, El Watan reported on Wednesday (February 24th). Khaled Abu Salman, a long-time ally of AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, was reportedly among the dead, ANSA reported.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The chief of Algeria's national police was shot dead on Thursday at his headquarters by another police official who was acting in a moment of insanity, the Interior Ministry said.
The feds have indicted two Queens men for working alongside self-proclaimed suicide bomber wannabe Najibullah Zazi in a bid to blow up the city's subway system last year with homemade bombs, officials said.
A federal judge here has ordered the release of a Yemeni prisoner who's been held at the Guantanamo detention center since January 2002.
The Karachi police arrested on Thursday a key Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and seized a huge cache of arms from his possession. SP Umar Shahid told reporters that Anti-extremism Cell raided a house situated in Sohrab Goth and arrested the alleged terrorist Abdul Aziz. A large number of arms were also recovered from the house, he said.
[The News (Pak) Top Stories] The security forces Thursday carried out search in Mingora city for the second consecutive day to hunt down alleged would-be suicide bombers and their masterminds.
[Dawn] Pakistani officials have confirmed that they have arrested top Taliban commander Abdul Kabir, an Afghan official said.
[Dawn] 
[Ma'an] Fatah-allied Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces arrested four members of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A Lebanese national arrested on espionage charges by Beirut, has confessed to spying for Israel's secret service, Mossad. 
