Under tight security, the one-hour rally in Kabul passed without any incidents. But protesters appeared angry and carried large banners with slogans as they chanted "Death to Pakistain" and "Death to ISI".
#1
Guitarist Nikita Makapenko said: "Rock and roll will change the world, and we hope it will change Afghanistan too. This is historic, and it's just the beginning."
I LOVE IT!!!!! The West's 'secret weapon' brought down the Berlin Wall and the USSR...Taliban is next :)
[Dawn] Afghanistan's intelligence service says it has handed Pak authorities evidence showing former Afghanistan's Caped PresidentBurhanuddin Rabbani's ... the murdered legitimate president of Afghanistan... liquidation was planned in Pakistain.
Lutifullah Mashal, a front man for the Afghan intelligence service, says the plot originated near Quetta.
Mashal told news hounds on Saturday that Sherlocks provided addresses, photos and maps to the Pak embassy in Kabul.
Rabbani was trying to broker peace with the Taliban when he was killed by a jacket wallah.
At the UN last week, Afghan officials said the killing was plotted for four months by the Afghan Taliban's governing council, the Quetta Shura.
The Taliban have not grabbed credit for Rabbani's death.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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Alleged Mossad spy Ilan Grapel, set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock in Egypt for nearly four months, will be released from custody on Tuesday, Israel Radio reported on Sunday, citing a report in the pan-Arabic daily Al-Hayat.
According to the report, Grapel, a dual US-Israeli citizen, will return to the US with US Defense Minister Leon Panetta ...current SecDef, previously Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993.... who was scheduled to visit Egypt this week.
Al-Hayat reportedly quoted an Egyptian source as saying that Grapel was being released because it had been determined that he did not take part in espionage activities as had previously been alleged.
Ons is bia jammer We are very sorry, the wife and I are out of town. Won't be able to make it to Durbs for the funeral. Sending a Cadbury Carousel tin instead.
My Dark Lord and Master speaks
Former Vice President Dick Cheney praised the B.O. regime Sunday for using a drone strike to kill American-born Mohammedanholy manAnwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is an Islamic holy man who is a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , but said President Barack B.O. Obama should now apologize for criticizing former President George W. Bush's actions against suspected terrorists.
Al-Awlaki -- an American whose fluency in English and technology made him one of the top terrorist recruiters in the world -- was killed Friday in Yemen, according to U.S. and Yemeni government officials.
The strike also killed Samir Khan, an American of Pak origin, and two others who were in the same vehicle as al-Awlaki, said the U.S. official, who was briefed by the CIA. Khan specialized in computer programming for al Qaeda and authored the terror network's online magazine, Inspire.
"I think it was a very good strike. I think it was justified," Cheney told CNN's Candy Crowley on "State of the Union." But "I'm waiting for the administration to go back and correct something they said two years ago when they criticized us for 'overreacting' to the events of 9/11."
Obama "in effect said that we had walked away from (America's) ideals," Cheney argued. "I think he did tremendous damage. I think he slandered the nation and I think he owes an apology to the American people."
Republican critics of the administration claim it is hypocritical for Obama to approve the killing of Americans without due process while criticizing Bush officials for signing off on the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques" such waterboarding.
The use of such techniques has been banned by Obama.
Former Rep. Jane Harman, D-Caliphornia, told CNN that she believes many of Obama's critiques of the Bush White House -- most notably its secrecy -- are valid.
"I don't think the B.O. regime should be repeating" those mistakes, Harman said. "I think the debate about the legal grounds (for counterterrorism strategy) should be more in the open," she said. In particular, "we should have a legal framework around our interrogation and detention policies far more than we do now."
Harman, a former top member of the House Intelligence and Homeland Security committees, also cautioned about the need for strict guidelines in the use of drone strikes, which have increased under Obama's watch. Critics of drone strikes argue that they undermine the U.S. cause by killing innocent civilians, infringing on the illusory sovereignty of other nations, and generating sympathy for al Qaeda and other thug organizations.
"We could abuse this program," Harman said. "We've got to have a counter-narrative (to dissuade potential terrorists). We've got to live our values."
Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, a former CIA director under George W. Bush, largely dismissed Harman's warning, telling CNN that critics of drone strikes "greatly exaggerate" their collateral damage.
The strikes are arguably the most critical weapon in the U.S. arsenal against al Qaeda, Hayden said.
Saudi Arabia is trying seven Saudis accused of forming an al Qaeda-linked "terror cell" and setting up a training camp in the mountains near the country's southern border with Yemen, al-Watan daily newspaper reported on Sunday. The trial is taking place in a special criminal court in Riyadh and is open only to selected local media.
Al-Watan said, "The court held its fifth hearing yesterday for the case against seven Saudi suspects... accused of setting up a terror cell with the aim of spoiling the land and implementing plans and goals of al Qaeda."
Al-Watan said the cell was discovered in 2003 after a local sighted the training camp and told the authorities. The militant group is thought to be the most long-standing in the country, set up in 2002, according to anonymous sources in the report.
The group has also been accused of attempting a suicide bomb attack at an airport in the north-eastern city of Arar in coordination with "terror members" outside of the country.
New Saudi high school text prompts controversy with attacks on West and UN; Education Ministry officials clash over foreign studies.
A power struggle usually ends with winners and losers. If a new religious textbook critical of Western culture is any indication of who is winning the role of guardian of young minds in Soddy Arabia, then Islamic conservatives are the clear victors.
In what amounts to a rebuke of a scholarship program under the aegis of none other than King Abdullah himself that sends thousands of young Saudis to foreign universities, a new secondary school textbook called Hadith argues that Western culture exposes students to corruption.
"The conservatives have the upper hand and have made sure that it's their voice that says what is permitted in Islam," Ehsan Ahrari, a Middle East analyst based near Washington DC, told The Media Line "The conservatives have the loudest voice in making a persuasive argument within the Saudi context. Soddy Arabia is truly concerned about modernization in its educational institution, but even the king doesn't know how to deal with it."
The publication of the book comes at a sensitive time for Soddy Arabia as it struggles to scrub its textbooks of derogatory language of other religions and cultures. The Ministry of Education has made progress to eliminate some passages, including controversial definitions of jihad.
More than 100,000 Saudis have obtained King Abdullah Foreign Scholarship to pursue studies in universities in professional fields such as medicine, computer science, engineering courses and administration and finance. About 30 percent study in the US, 15% in Britannia, 11% in Canada and 8% in Australia. Only about 6% study in a Mohammedan country, Egypt. Soddy Arabia has the largest number of citizens studying aboard of any country in the world.
The textbook, which warns students of democratic countries' attempts to Westernize Mohammedan countries by advancing the United Nations ...Parkinson's Law on an international scale... ' human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. agenda, has received little attention in the media, where restrictive laws passed in response to the Arab Spring. The Saudi government can levy fines and jail sentences for criticizing government institutions
As a result, few Saudis are willing to publicly criticize for the record the Ministry of Education. Religious conservatives, Ahrari says, are taking advantage of the chilling effect of those laws to broaden their power.
But the book has lit up the social media with complaints -- mostly anonymous -- that politics have no place in teaching hadith, sayings attributed the Prophet Muhammad. The authors are accused of attempting to politicize Islam by slipping criticism of the West into religious texts just as students are preparing to enter foreign universities.
Saudis have also expressed bewilderment that the Ministry of Higher Education, which administers the scholarship program, and the Ministry of Education, which published Hadith, do not have a shared strategic education plan.
However, a lie repeated often enough remains a lie... Hadith has brought renewed scrutiny to how the ministry vets textbooks that contain political opinion. The controversy also renews focus on how much influence Saudi conservatives wield at a time when Egypt's Moslem Brüderbund and the Islamic Ennahda Party in Tunisia are also flexing their political muscle.
The textbook details the "risks" scholarship students face. "A lot of them [student] have returned laden with the spirit of the West, breathe with its lungs and think with its mentality," the book states. "They echo their Orientalist teachers in their own land and spread their ideas and theories with deep belief, increasing enthusiasm and eloquence so they become a burden on their society."
"The percentage of those who survive from this influence is a very little one," the book's authors say.
Another section in Hadith, entitled "Westernization," targets the UN. The section characterizes the international organization as a tool for "dominating" Western powers to apply political pressure on Mohammedan countries to adopt more aggressive human rights legislation. The West, the textbook argues, uses "the United Nations, the Security Council and its different committees, on weak countries, especially the Islamic ones. This is done for the sake of westernization under slogans such as reform, democracy, pluralism, liberation and human rights, in particular those related to women and religious minorities."
The schoolbook also warns of Western attempts to subvert Islamic culture by distributing "immorality" through the media. It considers the media tools to advocate western values.
Turki Al-Dakheel, a journalist and presenter on Al-Arabiya television, complained in a column in the Arabic-language daily Al-Watan that the textbook's "extremist" portions are not consistent with the changes taking place in the international community and in Saudi society.
"The same educational institutes that send students abroad also criticize the scholarship [program]," Dakheel argues. "We should take out the mentality of disagreement from our curriculum in order to protect our students from being politicized or being slaves to one single notion."
Ahrari, the Washington-based analyst, told The Media Line that the book's content is less a challenge to King Abdullah and more of "classic bureaucratic" infighting in the Ministry of Education
A Saudi Ministry of Education official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the textbook, agreed. He told The Media Line that there are two factions in the ministry struggling to implement their ideology: Western-educated liberals and Saudi-educated conservatives.
Many of the ministry's decision-makers hold postgraduate degrees in education from the US and Britannia. These supervisors often square off with mid- and upper-level managers educated in Islamic studies from Imam Mohammed Bin Saud University in Riyadh and other Saudi universities.
"There is a great debate between conservatives and liberals. The conservatives are in the minority, but they are very active," says the official, although he notes the ministry's policy requires moderation in texts.
The infighting is so intense, he says, that the ministry recently began publishing school textbooks without authors' names to prevent accusations of extremism. Yet the anonymously authored books have also led to the lack of accountability within the ministry's ranks for authors failing to adhere to moderation guidelines.
Continued on Page 49
[Bangla Daily Star] Chowdhury Fazlul Bari, former second-in-command of Rab, during a June 2005 conversation with US embassy officials had described extrajudicial killings in the name of "crossfire" by the force as a necessary, short-term expedient, according to a diplomatic dispatch.
They've certainly made the Burg more enjoyable...
An influential figure during the 2007-2008 tenure of military-backed caretaker regime, Bari also had stated that a "due process" was the elite force's objective.
The cable, marked secret and recently posted on whistleblower website WikiLeaks, was sent to Washington by the then US ambassador in Dhaka Patricia A Butenis on April 13, 2006.
The killings in the name of "crossfire" or "encounter" by Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) have generated concern and ire among local and international rights groups.
After their calls for an end to the trend fell on deaf ears, Amnesia Amnesty International urged all countries in August this year to stop supplying arms to Bangladesh citing that those would be used by Rab and other law enforcement agencies to commit extrajudicial killings.
As if other countries could supply authentic shutter guns to the RAB...
An August 23 AI report said since its inception in 2004, Rab has been implicated in the unlawful killing of at least 700 people including about 200 killed after the Awami League-led government assumed power.
Bari, the former additional director general of Rab, later became the counterintelligence director of Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI).
"I was there at the initial planning," Butenis quoted Bari as saying. The diplomat also identified him as "a forceful advocate" for Rab, citing a discussion on April 15, 2006 on the margins of the 2006 PASOC conference in Hawaii.
Bari "recounted the origins of the controversial anti-crime unit, disparaged the skills and integrity of police", and cited the interrogations of Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh The JMB is said to be the youth front of Al Mujahideen, the parent organization that began working toward establishing Bangladesh as an Islamic state in the mid 1990s which remains obscure even today. Other organizations, such as Jama'atul Jihad, JMB, Jagrata Mohammedan Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), Hizbut Tawhid, Tawhidi Janata, Islami Jubo Shangha, Islami Shangha, Al Falah A'am Unnayan Shanstha and Shahadat-e al Hiqma are believed to be part of the Al Mujahideen network. The JMB at its peak was reported to contain at least 100,000 members, and an alleged 2,000-man suicide brigade, few of whom actually went kaboom!. JMB allegedly received financial assistance from individual donors in Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, Pakistan, Soddy Arabia and Libya. Reports have claimed that funding of JMB by international NGOs like Kuwait based Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage (RIHS) and Doulatul Kuwait, Soddy Arabia based Al Haramaine Islamic Institute and Rabita Al Alam Al Islami, Qatar Charitable Society and UAE-based Al Fuzaira and Khairul Ansar Al Khairia. The top leadership of JMB was captured in 2005 and hung in 2007, which pretty much shot their bolt. (JMB) suspects to suggest that Bangladesh's zeal in arresting the August 17, 2005 bombers ironically triggered JMB's deadly campaign of terror in late 2005 as retaliation.
Though the original plan had been to have 44 percent military, 44 percent police, and 12 percent from the paramilitary Bangladesh Rifles (BDR, now Border Guard Bangladesh), police were reluctant to fill their slots, Bari told US officials.
Explaining the reluctance, he said police "earned more money on the outside" from bribes and other illicit activities, the cable said, adding, "Senior coppers, he claimed, preferred to sit in their offices."
"Military disdain for the police is not new, and police failings are often cited to justify the military's continuing dominance of Rab -- about 80 percent of its total force structure and virtually all of its senior officers except for the director general himself," Butenis wrote in the cable.
"The police, he agreed, operate like a giant pyramid scheme, where street personnel pass payoffs up to their bosses. Corruption, he added, was one reason police failed to capture JMB commander Sheikh [Sheikh] Abdur Rahman."
Bari further complained that "police remain unwilling to second able personnel, often providing instead the old and physically unfit. Police personnel lack basic skills, such as shooting, and have no training in special operations", the cable read.
Asked if there was one political sponsor of establishment of the Rab, "Bari said no, there were several," the cable said.
The then prime minister Khaleda Zia Three-term PM of Bangla, widow of deceased dictator Ziaur Rahman, head of the Bangla Nationalist Party, an apparent magnet for corruption ... herself selected black uniform for Rab from six alternate designs, including the distinctive black Rab "doo-rag," it quoted Bari.
Identifying the JMB as a "home grown" military organization, the former Rab second-man described JMB operatives as poor people who flunked out of madrasas. "Being poor, they could easily blend in as rickshaw pullers and hawkers and go anywhere to recruit for JMB."
Bari, who attended many of JMB leader Abdur Rahman's interrogations in his capacity at the DGFI, said law enforcement personnel quickly tossed in the clink 70 persons involved with the August 17 countrywide bomb kabooms by the JMB.
The arrests "angered the JMB rank-and-file and generated internal pressure on Rahman to retaliate and demonstrate that JMB remained a viable entity. The result, Bari claimed, was the onset in October [in 2005 when a number of people including two judges were killed] of the deadly attacks on the judicial system".
Butenis found it as an "interesting twist" to suggest, as Bari did, that the deadly JMB attacks in late 2005 were an unplanned action triggered by Bangladesh government's zeal in rounding up August 17 bombers.
Along with downplaying JMB's religious credentials as failed madrasa students and describing JMB as home-grown, Bari is toeing the government line that JMB operatives were basically local yokels with little or no interest in "true" Islam, the cable adds.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
The fact that the local justice system is broken doesn't make any effect on the "human rights campaigners". The whole cause-and-effect thing is lost on them.
#2
That's because the dry-cleaning gets delivered on time, the (CFL-equipped) lamp always comes on, the bidet always works, the housekeeper always shows up, the hired driver and bodyguard are always there at the appointed hour, and there's always a seat at the restaurant-of-the-month.
And there's always a lawyer or two to deal with the justice system.
#3
I question whether their justice system is broken. Crossfire seems a highly cost-effective way of dealing with violent criminals and terrorists.
Imagine how different a place America would be if criminal murderers (as opposed to domestic murderers) were guaranteed hanging within a year of conviction. The cost savings alone would be in the billions of dollars.
Mrs May uses an interview with The Sunday Telegraph to warn that the Act is hampering the Home Office's struggle to deport dangerous foreign criminals and terrorist suspects.
"I'd personally like to see the Human Rights Act go because I think we have had some problems with it," she says.
The Home Secretary's words will be cheered by many Conservative MPs as well as Tory ministers across Whitehall.
However, they are likely to be greeted with dismay by leading Liberal Democrats, some of whom have signalled the future of the Coalition would be under threat if any serious action was taken against the Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law.
At last month's Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham, Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, was loudly cheered by his party's activists as he declared: "Let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I'll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay."
Mrs May says today: "I see it, here in the Home Office, particularly, the sort of problems we have in being unable to deport people who perhaps are terrorist suspects. Obviously we've seen it with some foreign criminals who are in the UK." The Coalition has set up a commission of human rights experts to report on the possibility of bringing in a British Bill of Rights to replace the Act by the end of next year.
Campaigners see the chances of the commission -- which will report to Mr Clegg and Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary -- recommending any serious changes as negligible, however. There had been widespread belief that it would not recommend the abolition of the Human Rights Act because of the make-up of the panel, which includes pro-rights lawyers, and the determination of the Liberal Democrats to keep the legislation.
But the force and timing of Mrs May's comments, just two weeks after Mr Clegg's declaration, dramatically changes the political landscape.
The Home Office has itself begun a review into the particularly controversial Article 8 of the European Convention, which sets out the right to a "family life" and which campaigners say has been abused by criminals fighting deportation.
In one of the highest-profile cases involving convicts and their human rights claims, a failed asylum seeker who killed 12-year-old Amy Houston, from Blackburn, in a road accident, used the law to avoid deportation.
Other shocking examples uncovered by this newspaper include an Iraqi who killed two doctors but successfully argued that it would breach his rights to send him home.
Activists and MPs will raise a whole host of issues -- including the European Arrest Warrants, which are valid in all member states of the EU and saw 1,000 people in Britain last year seized by police on the orders of European prosecutors, a 51 per cent rise in 12 months.
There will also be anger over last week's threat by the European Commission to take legal action against Britain if ministers do not water down rules limiting foreign nationals' ability to claim benefits. Doing so could potentially cost British taxpayers £2 billion.
Mr Cameron is facing pressure from a new Eurosceptic group of MPs, led by Chris Heaton-Harris, George Eustice and Andrea Leadsom, all members of the party's 2010 general election intake, to recast Britain's relationship with the EU.
Last night Mr Heaton-Harris backed Mrs May's call. He said: "The Act has caused way more damage than good and it is time to stick it in the dustbin."
#2
Here's an idea: Get out of the EU and get your sovereignty back, then kick the bastards out. If you really think you need a "Human Rights Act," pass your own.
There - problem solved. You're welcome.
Posted by: Barbara ||
10/02/2011 13:28 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Suggestion: contact Chowdhury Fazlul Bari, former second-in-command of Rab, for some 'guidance' on how to impact the miscreats causing all the ruckus. (see previous post) There probably is, however, legislation that prohibits exporting of shutter guns, so you will have to improvise.
#4
At some point the Anglo world should get wise and before passing a law they should send the law out to universities with the challenge of finding loopholes and unintended ways the law might be abused. Then loopholes can be shut up and at least the law (no matter how stupid) will act as intended.
[Al Arabiya] Venezuela's Hugo Chavez said on Saturday he was praying for Libya's deposed leader Muammar Qadaffy ...whose instability has been an inspiration to dictators everywhere... and sent a message of solidarity to Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... against "Yankee" aggression.
Chavez -- who has inherited Fidel Castro's mantle as Washington's main irritant in Latin America -- views the wave of uprisings in the Arab world as Western-led destabilization and has been a strong ally of Qadaffy.
"The Libyans are resisting the invasion and aggression. I ask God to protect the life of our brother Muammar Qadaffy. They're hunting him down to kill him," he said.
The whereabouts of Qadaffy, who ruled the north African nation with an iron fist for more than four decades, are unknown.
"No one knows where Qadaffy is, I think he went off to the desert ... to lead the resistance. What else can he do?" Chavez told television channel VTV
The 57-year-old Venezuelan supremo has defended Qadaffy since the start of the uprising against his regime, accusing NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... of using the conflict to gain control over Libya's oil.
Chavez has refused to recognize Libya's new interim leadership, ridiculing its U.N. representative, Ibrahim Dabbashi, as a "puppet" and a "dummy."
With a presidential vote scheduled for Venezuela in 2012, Chavez's opponents have leaped on his support for Arab strongmen -- and friendship with Qadaffy -- as a sign of autocratic tendencies. But he has been undeterred, and even sent support to the government of Syria.
"I spoke yesterday with the president of Syria, our brother President Bashir al-Assad," Chavez said.
"From here, we send our solidarity to the Syrian people, to President Bashar. They are resisting imperial aggression, the attacks of the Yankee empire and its European allies."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 11:48 ||
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#1
He'll soon be sending it in person to his "brother" Saddam.
For a map click here. For a map of Nuevo Leon state, click here. For a map of Monterrey, click hereEl Diario de Coahuila is reporting 130 police officers detained. Proceso is reporting 157 police officers detained. Other updates included in the story
At least 157 police agents in the Monterrey, Nuevo Leon metropolitcan area have been arrested and detained for suspected links to organized crime, according to Mexican news accounts.
The arrests were conducted as a sweep by Mexican Army and marine units in various locations throughout Monterrey. A total of 80 police officers in Apodaca were taken to facilities of the Agencia Estatal Investigaciones (AEI).
Another 27 were detained in Santa catarina.
Others were arrested in the rural municipality of Pesqueria, where 13 were detained and Mina, where 46 were detained. All the arrests were said to have been done simultaneously around shift change of the three municipalities.
Reports say 27 total have been released while another 18 have been charged,
The newest arrest sweep follows on the heels of an August arrest of 113 municipal police officers in Santa Catarina. From that arrest 53 officers remain in detention.
The newest detainees will undergo tests to determine their links to organized crime which usually include drug, psychological tests and polygraph examinations.
Increasingly assertive Turkey is setting the scene for clashes in the eastern Mediterranean. Since Thursday, Sept. 29, Turkish warships have been harassing Israeli merchant vessels in waters off Cyprus, debkafile's military sources report. They come close enough to establish wireless communication and caution the Israeli vessels they are in contravention of international law and ordering them to change course. The Israeli crews mostly ignore these "orders", treating them as Ankara's latest bid to assert Turkish naval mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the situation is getting explosive enough to spark a major incident.
Over the weekend, Israeli Air Force planes circled near the sites of the incidents but not directly over the Turkish vessels. At the same time Israeli missile ships sailed close to Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone waters, where the Houston-based Noble Energy began drilling for natural gas on Sept. 19 in the face of Turkish threats. The rig is situated 160 kilometers south of Cyprus adjacent to Israel's Leviathan gas field.
Western naval sources tracking the new Turkish and Israeli deployments reported Saturday, Oct. 1: "Turkey and Israel are in a constant muscle-flexing contest in the eastern Mediterranean. They are metaphorically shaking fists in each other's faces and raising the risk of a confrontation that could quickly veer out of control."
Last week, Ankara retaliated for Cypriot and Israeli deep sea gas explorations by sending an exploration ship of its own escorted by a frigate and a submarine to Cyprus. Ankara sources also disclosed that Turkish F-16 fighters had been deployed in the northern part of the island.
Voicing concern over Turkey's assertiveness, NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Friday, Sept. 30, said: "Obviously, the tensions between Turkey and Israel are a matter of concern. It's a bilateral issue NATO is not going to interfere with that. But it is the interest of the alliance to see these tensions eased, because Turkey is a key ally and Israel is a valuable partner for the alliance."
The NATO Secretary contradicted Ankara's claim that Israel would not be allowed to open an office at alliance headquarters in Brussels. "NATO defense ministers agreed during the meeting in April that NATO partners can have offices
Increasingly assertive Turkey is setting the scene for clashes in the eastern Mediterranean. Since Thursday, Sept. 29, Turkish warships have been harassing Israeli merchant vessels in waters off Cyprus, debkafile's military sources report. They come close enough to establish wireless communication and caution the Israeli vessels they are in contravention of international law and ordering them to change course. The Israeli crews mostly ignore these "orders", treating them as Ankara's latest bid to assert Turkish naval mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the situation is getting explosive enough to spark a major incident.
Over the weekend, Israeli Air Force planes circled near the sites of the incidents but not directly over the Turkish vessels. At the same time Israeli missile ships sailed close to Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone waters, where the Houston-based Noble Energy began drilling for natural gas on Sept. 19 in the face of Turkish threats. The rig is situated 160 kilometers south of Cyprus adjacent to Israel's Leviathan gas field.
Western naval sources tracking the new Turkish and Israeli deployments reported Saturday, Oct. 1: "Turkey and Israel are in a constant muscle-flexing contest in the eastern Mediterranean. They are metaphorically shaking fists in each other's faces and raising the risk of a confrontation that could quickly veer out of control."
Last week, Ankara retaliated for Cypriot and Israeli deep sea gas explorations by sending an exploration ship of its own escorted by a frigate and a submarine to Cyprus. Ankara sources also disclosed that Turkish F-16 fighters had been deployed in the northern part of the island.
Voicing concern over Turkey's assertiveness, NATO secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Friday, Sept. 30, said: "Obviously, the tensions between Turkey and Israel are a matter of concern. It's a bilateral issue -- NATO is not going to interfere with that. But it is the interest of the alliance to see these tensions eased, because Turkey is a key ally and Israel is a valuable partner for the alliance."
The NATO Secretary contradicted Ankara's claim that Israel would not be allowed to open an office at alliance headquarters in Brussels. "NATO defense ministers agreed during the meeting in April that NATO partners can have offices...
#1
Turkey's Estrogen I believe has a hormonal imbalance. Well anyway he met with O for about 90 minuets and he walked away happy. He got his spy birds and some other things on his wish list. What we got was ... a moment of silence.
#5
Glusorong Tingle1642 They have tried before. They have the hots for this island. They believe it is theirs. Argentina is just as keen in securing the Falkland Islands. They tried before and will again if they think they have a chance. All this talk about how weak England is or the USA brings a smile to the face and a dreamy look to the eyes. I prefer all parties work together rather than at each other. Unfortunately the world doesn't work that way many times.
CHARLOTTE: FROM his parents' basement in a part of town where homes have lots of bedrooms and most children go to college, Samir Khan blogged his way into the highest circles of al-Qaeda, waging a media war he believed was as important as the battles with guns on the ground.
His parents were worried about the increasingly radical nature of their son's philosophy and the media reports that exposed it.
They turned to members of their religious communities to impress upon their son the perils of such thinking and behaviour.
It didn't work. In 2009, he left his comfortable life in North Carolina for Yemen, started a slick magazine for jihadists called Inspire that featured political and how-to articles written in a comfortable American vernacular and continued to dodge government and civilian efforts to stop his self-described ''media jihad''.
That'd one of those soft jihad thingies to be undertaken from within Dar al Harb, the land of war, as opposed to the hard jihad of the sword, waged from the borderlands.
His life ended in Yemen on Friday, when Khan, 25, was killed in a drone strike that also took the life of radical holy manAnwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is was an Islamic holy man who is was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... and two other men.
At the Islamic Society of Greater Charlotte, few of the several hundred Mohammedans gathered for Friday prayer wanted to talk about Khan.
''This is a very dangerous road when you go and kill someone like this,'' Ayeb Suleiman, 25, a medical resident, said. ''He was just an editor. He was just writing.''
Whatever happened to "The pen is mightier than the sword"?
Others felt grief for a family who had lost a son. Khan's father, Zafar, is an information technology executive and a respected worshipper who bought his family a two-storey house near a golf course. Mustapha Elturk, the imam and president of the Islamic Organisation of North America, met the family in the mid-1990s. Khan was interested in Islam as a way to ''stay away from the peer pressure of his teenage days,'' he said.
But after the September 11 attacks, Khan's radical views grew to the point where his father intervened.
''He tried his best to make his son meet imams and scholars to dissuade him from those views.''
#3
Yah, and now he is dead. He got the big pay off in the wages of sin lottery.
The point of the biblical story of the prodigal son, is that were he to turn back to the path of righteousness his father would be encouraged to forgive him and restore him in the family. It is a beautiful illustration of the charity and forgiveness central to christian philosophy.
Oh, wait his dad is not a christian, so that wasn't going to happen. No wonder he chose to hang with his homeys in Camelbutt Yemen and double down on his big bet on jihad rather than go home. Did I mention the wages of sin thing earlier?
#4
''This is a very dangerous road when you go and kill someone like this,'' Ayeb Suleiman, 25, a medical resident, said. ''He was just an editor. He was just writing.''
Others felt grief for a family who had lost a son.
Not much grief expressed for the Americans killed by those Inspired by Khan. Do tell, how Muslims in America are so integrated and loyal?
Anwar al-Awlaki... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen.
I heard an excerpt of al-Whacky's speech on T.V. He was preaching about the wonders of the 72 virgins. The guy was working himself (and his followers) into a lather. Like many narcissists the sound of his own wheels was driving him crazy. Honestly, one ought to question the sanity of those who listen to this silly little man.
[Dawn] A former resident of the southern state of North Carolina resident killed Friday in a US strike on an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen had described himself as a "traitor to America" as he promoted a Mohammedan jihad boy message to the English-speaking world.
Samir Khan was killed along with American-born holy manAnwar al-Awlaki ... Born in Las Cruces, New Mexico, al-Awlaki is was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Yemen. He is was an Islamic holy man who is was a trainer for al-Qaeda and its franchises. His sermons were attended by three of the 9/11 hijackers, by Fort Hood murderer Nidal Malik Hussein, and Undieboomer Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is was the first U.S. citizen ever placed on a CIA target list... , described by President Barack B.O. Obama as a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
A Saudi-born man of Pak heritage, Khan left his family in Charlotte for Yemen in 2009 after several years editing a web site praising al-Qaeda leaders.
"I was quite open about my beliefs online and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that I was al-Qaeda to the core," Khan wrote in the fall 2010 issue of Inspire magazine, an online publication. "I am a traitor to America because my religion requires me to be one."
Hence the death sentence. A proudly self-proclaimed traitor deserves no less.
Khan's life in Yemen involved helping produce the irreverent, graphics-heavy Internet magazine aimed at recruiting young Mohammedans to the jihadi cause with articles such as, "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."
Khan cut off ties with his family when he went to Yemen to join the Islamic version of a gang, even though such ideology runs counter to Islam,
It does?
said Jibril Hough, front man for the Islamic Center of Charlotte.
"Gangs don't operate by rules.
Eh? Gangs operate by very elaborate rules, including the colour and style of permitted attire. They just aren't the same rules sane, peaceful people live by.
People who support terrorist ideology when it comes to killing innocent people do not believe in rules. As Mohammedans, we believe in rules," Hough said.
Hough said Khan's family was in mourning Friday and did not want to talk about their son, who was 25.
"Even though we don't believe in the path he was going or the way he was thinking, he was still a human being, still a human life, and he was still someone's son," Hough said.
Hough said he called Khan's father in 2008 after Samir's ideology became known and arranged a counselling session, "an intervention of sorts." There were two meetings in Hough's home over the course of a month involving Khan, his father and a handful of other respected members of the Mohammedan community, Hough said. Each lasted several hours.
"He was very respectful -- kind of quiet. He didn't give us a big argument. There was a time or two he tried to state his case. He was pretty much respectful of the circle we'd set up, and he listened," Hough said.
The few words Khan tried to offer then involved defending his view supporting the killing of innocent people, Hough said.
Khan, who came to the US with his family when he was seven, was influenced in his radical views while living in New York as a child and before his family moved to Charlotte when he was a teenager, Hough said.
"The Charlotte community had nothing to do with contributing to his thought process. We did have something to do with trying to stop it with going down that path, and that I feel good about," Hough said.
"We didn't turn our head like sometimes we get accused of, not wanting to stop something...as a Mohammedan, I opposed it, but as an American you have to support his right of freedom of speech. It's a fine line in this country."
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
the Jawas and Rusty Shackelford have been having celebrations at Jawa Report recalling "Inshallahshaeed" and his threats on Rusty's family.
"He who laughs last, laughs loudest.
Also, the guy not killed in a drone strike. He laughs loudest, too."
LOLz. Good times, good times
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/02/2011 9:55 Comments ||
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#2
"We didn't turn our head like sometimes we get accused of, not wanting to stop something...as a Mohammedan, I opposed it, but as an American you have to support his right of freedom of speech. It's a fine line in this country."
Sure Jibril. As a Muslim, you are against jihad*, but as an American, do your own thing. Kill Americans. Whatever.
* Qur'an:2:216- "Jihad (holy fighting in Allah's Cause) is ordained for you (Muslims), though you dislike it. But it is possible that you dislike a thing which is good for you, and like a thing which is bad for you. But Allah knows, and you know not." [Another translation reads:] "Warfare is ordained for you."
#3
Eohippus, I don't think it's that straightforward.
I know a few Muslims well. Naturalized citizens, PhDs, moderate/modernized in their dress, speech, habits. They have no discomfort working with me as a Western woman - including when I push hard in the work place.
I've given this a lot of thought and observation. I don't think they are secret Islamicists. But they do keep halal (despite the difficulties of doing so while on business travel here) and they do retain cultural roots for which Islam is a center.
So they're caught in an awkward place, not supporting radical interpretations of Islam but also feeling besieged and assuming that most Americans have concerns about Islam out of ignorance and maybe some racism as well.
Even if I were much more knowledgeable than I am about the 1500 year tradition of Islamic interpretations of the Qu'ran, I would not be a credible voice on such matters. So instead I quote the modern Muslims who make it clear *they* interpret the verses in ways we've come to know, and that those interpretations have led to ongoing attacks and murders.
And I tell them what we all know here - that patience is running out on the part of Americans who are beginning to be fed up with the attacks, with Pakistan, etc. A backlash is coming, I warn - and while I sympathize with them I also warn that if they cannot effectively disassociate themselves from Islamicism by generating a compelling counter-narrative, they too will be swept up in the backlash.
And therein lies the problem. As one of my Muslim colleagues describes his commitment to Islam, he refers to it as "not a religion (beliefs) but a way of life". He's bright, articulate and Westernized, but he's no theologian and neither has developed a counter interpretation vs. the hard jihadis nor carries the clout to be influential if he had done so.
One last point: he is a dual citizen in the eyes of his country of origin and he doesn't understand why the US doesn't recognize dual citizenship. He thinks that the US is about equality and freedom for all. And it is - but the way we do that is to fiercely protect the secular identity of our laws and government. And we demand loyalty to the Constitution, and that each adult citizen take seriously his/her responsibility for protecting this rare way of governance. After a few rather heated exchanges, I think he's beginning to realize that for me and others, that principle is something we would fight and die to preserve.
#4
One comment that seems to get through re: Shariah is:
"My mother's ancestors left their homes and came to American in 1733. They fought in the Revolution to avoid having to live under the Calvinist equivalent of Shariah.
My father's family fought and died opposing the tyranny of the Soviets.
I will fight and if necessary die to protect what they built here: a place where no religious laws or ideological control of people's daily lives will be imposed on me and mine."
They may not quite understand why this is so important to me, but they do understand and respect the idea that an American might have principles worth more than life itself.
#5
feeling besieged and assuming that most Americans have concerns about Islam out of ignorance and maybe some racism as well.
The problem is not American ignorance but Muslim obtuseness. How many of the Imams of the various schools preach submission of Dar al Harb to Dar al Islam to be the goal of ALL muslims? Are Americans supposed to discount all of that in favor of a few (maybe) Muslim equivalents to Easter Catholics? Islam as defined and preached in the Koran is an all or nothing philosophy of theocratic totalitarianism.
He thinks that the US is about equality and freedom for all. And it is
What he doesn't understand is that America is NOT about geography, but about belief in a political philosophy that is the antithesis of everything Islam stands for. You can no more be a devout Muslim and an American than you can be a male bearing children. You can't say I'm free to murder because America preaches freedom.
Islam means submission to the entire way of life. It is much more than a religion in the way we mean that now, more than an individuals relationship to the meta-physical realm. It purports to define, prescript and conscript every action and relationship among men and among men and goats.
#6
I'm not quite as certain as you are, AlanC, that every mosque here and abroad preaches jihad as its key repeated focus.
I am certain that the Islamicists want them to, and make the argument that it is required by Islam. I am also certain that at least a sizeable minority of muslims in the US just want to stay connected to the tradition they came from, and perhaps value the structure and discipline they associate with that tradition, without wanting to deal with the literal meanings.
All or nothing demands are not unique to Islam, although that tradition seems to have taken the approach to an art form. Consider this Biblical verse:
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
A pretty clear injunction, and one which the Salem, Massachusetts believers felt they needed to obey literally (as did quite a few Catholic believers in Europe a century or two earlier). So they tortured and then murdered a number of young and probably innocent women in the name of God.
Fortunately, Christianity had and has developed theological approaches that allowed Christians to leave behind literal application of Old Testament laws and injunctions without leaving behind their faith.
I say 'fortunately' because that was a key step that enabled the founding of this country on our Constitutional system.
It won't be easy for Islam to make a similar growth in interpretation. Christians took centuries and a number of bloody wars until it got worked out in Europe and here, and I haven't a clue (and not much hope) that Islam will make the same leap. Moreover, for the many Muslims around the world who are virtually illiterate, 'Islam' = 'how we've always done things, our identity as a people'. Such identities don't change easiily even if dozens of internationally respected imams were to issue fatwas from Mecca.
"Not much hope" is different, however, from "no hope, no possibility". And it appears that the community attempted to influence Khan away from violence and al Qaeda. They deserve credit for so doing.
You may think you know some moderate Muslims, but Islam is pretty explicit on how to be two faced when they do not have power. You want to know what they really think? Observe their wives who don't get out as much and are not as versed in the ways of taqiyya. Don't fall for it.
Quran 3:28 Let not the believers Take for friends or helpers Unbelievers rather than believers: if any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah: except by way of precaution (prevention), that ye may Guard yourselves from them (prevent them from harming you.) But Allah cautions you (To remember) Himself; for the final goal is to Allah.
In Islam, the end justifies the means. Any trick to advance Islam is not only approved but celebrated.
#9
LOTP, if you're not familiar with MEMRI I suggest that you look them up. The mosques in the US are not the ones that control or spread the REAL word. Look up what the mosques in Mecca, Medina, Cairo, Qom, et al preach.
That is the gospel of Islam. They preach slaughter and slavery. That is what they want in their Dar al Islam.
Eohippus, you left out the doctrines of abrogation and of gradual disclosure. The former, combined with estimated date order of the verses in the Qu'ran, explains why there are peaceful (earlier) and violent (later) verses that contradict one another.
The doctrine of gradual disclosure explains how many muslims can *honestly* say Islam is a religion of peace - they never get to the 'let us tell you the real meaning here' stage and quite happily and peacefully fast, pray daily and otherwise order their lives around Islam as they understand it.
Sigh. Look - I know the dangers. I work in the national security arena. I've gotten some of the background briefings.
By the way, 'taqiyya' is a much over-used term these days. Properly speaking, the term and doctrine were Shia, allowing deception of Sunni oppressors. Deceit against the infidel is a different doctrine. I suspect you're referring to the latter when you suggest that no Muslim can be trusted, ever.
And the reason the Shia needed taqiyya is that some Sunnis invoked takfir against them - i.e. declared them non-Muslims and therefore no longer under the protections established for fellow Muslims.
I personally hold to the Reagan Doctrine: trust, but verify - and no mercy to those who are shown to deceive.
The best estimates of Pakistans nuclear arsenal are that the country has about a hundred warheads, and has already produced sufficient fissile material to manufacture another hundred.
Pakistan is also building new nuclear facilities and delivery systems, including ballistic missiles, and expanding its output of fissile material.
As part of the latter process, Pakistan is building three more heavy-water power reactors at its Khushab nuclear complex to generate additional weapons-grade plutonium.
Pakistans two existing reactors already manufacture about two dozen kilograms of plutonium annually, which Pakistani technicians use to make as many as four nuclear weapons each year. Pakistan wants to produce more advanced miniaturized warheads, which are easier to move and fire at more distant targets. Smaller, more sophisticated nuclear warheads require the use of plutonium rather than highly-enriched uranium.
With new reactors and a reprocessing facility under (re)construction, Pakistans rate of production is considered the highest in the world.
Pakistans nuclear arsenal has doubled to approximately 70 to 120 warheads over the last four years, with the capacity to produce an additional 7 to 14 weapons annually.
The construction of the three additional heavy-water reactors, which will manufacture weapons-grade plutonium for decades, should propel Pakistan past India and make Islamabad the fourth or fifth largest possessor of nuclear weapons.
Russia, the United States, and China will have more nuclear weapons than Pakistan, but Pakistans nuclear weapons total should surpass that of the major European nuclear powers of Britain and France as well as that of India.
Although the primary purpose of Pakistans nuclear arms build-up is to counter India, suspicions also exist that Islamabad wants to pressure Washington not to ignore it, move too close to India, or take other actions that Islamabad opposes. Another objective is to continue to receive US financial and other assistance despite their bilateral disputes over Afghanistan or terrorism.
But Islamabad may also see a larger nuclear weapons arsenal as a means to guard against any US effort to seize, disable, or destroy Pakistans nuclear arsenala concern that Pakistanis now openly express.
One Pakistani concern is that a freeze on the production of new fissile material would place Pakistan at a distinct disadvantage vis-a-vis India. Although the nuclear warhead totals of both countries are roughly equal, India has a larger stockpile of fissile material thanks to its beginning such production earlier.
Pakistanis also complain that the Indian-US nuclear cooperation agreement and similar international nuclear deals with India will place New Delhi in a superior position unless all stockpiles are eliminated.
In return for Indias cooperation on a number of nuclear non-proliferation measures, these deals permit India to import dual-use technology as well fuel for its nuclear reactors. Complemented by a waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the deals will integrate India into international markets for trade in nuclear fuel and technology.
Only China, Islamabads long-time great power patron, is prepared to assist Pakistans nuclear programme, and Beijing is being pressured by other governments to end this cooperation.
Pakistan presently operates three known centres of plutonium production: the pilot Pakistan Research Reactor (PARR) III, known as New Labs, attached to the PINSTECH Laboratory; the two active reactors at the Khushab Nuclear Complex; and a probable nuclear reprocessing facility at the Chashma Nuclear Site.
#2
This is why Pakistain doesn't have any electricity for the rest of their population.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/02/2011 18:28 Comments ||
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#3
Allan will provide - if you're sufficiently Islamic and have enough nukes to extort aid. I say F' Em
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/02/2011 18:51 Comments ||
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#4
Will Pakistan become the leader of the Islamic world by building nukes and deploying them throughout the Islamic world? And then daring the West to stop any conventional assaults - across Europe etc.?
A TALIBAN plot to snatch the late Osama bin Laden's ... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... youngest widow from custody has been foiled, it was revealed last night. "Curses! Foiled again!"
Terror chief Mullah Omar ordered 500 men to raid a safe house in Pakistain where Amal Abdulfattah was being interrogated with two more Bin Laden brides.
It is thought the location was leaked by an informer in Pakistain's ISI intelligence service. But the assault was cancelled when the trio and up to five of Bin Laden's children were moved after tip-offs.
An ISI source told The Sun: "For weeks we've been intercepting calls and getting alerts from our men in tribal areas that the raid was on. Now we are all under orders to tighten security around the Bin Laden family.
"Concern is so great we moved them three times in recent weeks."
The family was last night believed to be at a fortified compound in the capital Islamabad.
Amal, 29, was injured leaping in front of the al-Qaeda chief as US soldiers killed him in May. Pak security sources say she is refusing to co-operate with them. The Yemeni-born firebrand has a daughter, ten, by Bin Laden and officials fear they may be new figureheads for the terror organization if they are sprung. Another source close to the ISI said: "Amal boasts that she can use guns and even rocket-launchers. She says she wants to lead a war on infidels and train her kids as mujahideen."
[Dawn] President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... has said that the recent verbal assaults by a section of the United States government has not only helped Orcs and similar vermin but also affected the war against terror.
The president, in his recent article published in the Washington Post by the name of "Talk to, not at, Pakistain", stressed the need for resumption of serious dialogue between the two countries.
The strategy of blaming Pakistain not only had a damaging impact on the relationship between the two countries, it also compromised common goals of defeating terrorism, extremism and fanaticism, President Zardari wrote.
"It is time for the rhetoric to cool and for serious dialogue between allies to resume."
The president elaborating the challenges faced by the country said: "Pakistain is pounded by the ravages of globally driven climate change, with floods once again making millions of our citizens homeless, we find that, instead of a dialogue with our closest strategic ally, we are spoken to instead of being heard. We are being battered by nature and by our friends. This has shocked a nation that is bearing the brunt of the terrorist whirlwind in the region. And why?"
"Pakistain sits on many critical fault lines. Terrorism is not a statistic for us. Our geopolitical location forces us to look to a future where the great global wars will be fought on the battleground of ideas," he said.
He also mentioned the sacrifices made by Pakistain in the decade old war on terror and said "we have suffered more than 300 suicide kabooms by the forces that allegedly find sanctuary within our borders. We have hemorrhaged approximately $100 billion directly in the war effort and tens of billions more in lost foreign investment."
"The war is being fought in Afghanistan and in Pakistain, yet Washington has invested almost nothing on our side of the border and hundreds of billions of dollars on the other side," Zardari said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
OK President Zardani: We're adding you to the Facial Recognition data base of our Predator system unless you reign in the ISI and stop the rope a dope campaign. Any questions to add to the dialogue?
Posted by: jack salami ||
10/02/2011 9:36 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Representative Sunni Tehreek A Brelvi political group founded in bloody Kärachi in 1992 by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. Its political wing is the Pakistan Inqilabi Tehreek. As the MQM's power declined it became the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque hard boyz in the heyday of Nizamuddin Shamzai. By coincidence, Muhammad Saleem Qadri was bumped off by Deobandi button men of the SSP in 2001. Even more coincidentally, SSP's funding comes from Kärachi, where‐also strictly coincidentally‐Binori Mosque is located. Go figure. Muhammad Shahid Ghuori has strongly criticised verdict of capital punishment to Mumtaz Hussain Qadri and termed it as un-Islamic.
He was addressing to a large gathering protesting in front of Bloody Karachi Press Club on Saturday. He said that if the government does not implement the laws of blasphemy then thousands of Mumtaz Qadris would emerge.
He questioned the government that if anti-state actors like Raymond Davies can be released then why Mumtaz Qadri, who he said is hero of Mohammedan Ummah cannot be released.
He announced that Sunni Tehreek is willing to pay Rs. 200 million to heirs of Salman Taseer as blood money. He said that Salman Taseer had repeatedly offended the religion but no action was taken against him by the sitting government.
In such situations the people themselves start taking the decisions and Mumtaz Qadri is a prime example.
He said that Christians and Jews have also realized that they cannot eliminate the love and passion of Mohammedans for the Last Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be upon Him).
Shahid Ghouri said that Sunni Tehreek believes in the rule of the law but they would not accept any anti-Islamic decision. He asked the government to play its part on the release of Mumtaz Qadri.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty ... said on Friday that the United States might move a resolution in the UN against Pakistain on its nuclear programme or terrorism and the country should counter the possible move by mustering international support, especially from China and Russia.
Addressing a presser, he termed the US an unreliable ally and accused it of conspiring to weaken Pakistain after announcing a timetable for withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan.
"Pressurising Pakistain to wage a war in Wazoo would lead to a series of catastrophic repercussions and eventually shift the war from Afghanistan to Pakistain. This is what the US wants," he said.
The JUI-F chief said the joint resolution adopted at the all-party conference had been proposed by the JUI-F, adding that it envisaged a fresh look at the country's foreign policy as well as a reappraisal of cooperation with international powers if the US did not withdraw its recent allegations.
"The APC and parliament's resolutions are the last hope of the nation and now it's up to the government to deal with the situation."
The maulana said he had been disappointed by non-implementation of resolutions unanimously adopted by parliament, adding that it had a bearing on national cohesion.
He said the US wouldn't have dared to level such allegations if the resolutions had been implemented.
He accused the US of exercising double standards by going for reconciliation in Afghanistan but "aggression in Pakistain".
He said blaming Pakistain for having ties with the Haqqani network was just the beginning and the US had played its first card.
Maulana Fazl said more such accusations were in the offing and the issue of 'Quetta shura' could also be raised anytime.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Quetta shura should have been addressed on Sept 12, 2001.. 10 yrs later and the POS is still there.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
10/02/2011 1:22 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... on Saturday lauded the country's politicians for responding positively on his call and sitting together regardless of their political differences to discuss the issue of Pakistain's security.
Speaking in Multan, Gilani said he could have summoned a joint sitting of the parliament on the issue but he opted to call an APC so that the political parties that had boycotted the previous elections could also be represented in this important national moot.
"The APC was aimed at sending a message to the world that on the issue of Pakistain's security, the whole nation and political forces were united," he said and added that the APC proved that the Pak nation was 'one like a rock' on the issue of the country's security and defence.
Prime Minister Gilani said Mohammedans were not inferior to anyone. He, however, criticised turban elements, who he said were bringing bad name to Islam.
He further said that the country's elders, including his ancestors, had rendered great sacrifices to get a separate homeland and therefore he could not compromise on national interests.
"My father was a signatory to Pakistain's resolution," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Gilani apparently hasn't talked to the Taliban yet...
* DEFENCE.PK/FORUMS > TALIBAN UNSURE IT WILL SUPPORT PAKISTAN IN CASE US ATTACKS: TTP.
Taliban Shura to review + evaluate the matter closely before it will commit to anyone.
Israel on Sunday formally accepted the Quartet's initiative for re-starting negotiations with the Palestinians, after a meeting between Netanyahu and his senior ministers.
"Israel welcomes the Quartet's call for direct negotiations without pre-conditions with the Palestinian Authority, which was already suggested by US president Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, even though Israel has a number of reservations which it will bring up in the negotiations."
Asked about Netanyahu's acceptance of the Quartet's proposal, Nabil Abu Rdainah, a spokesman for Abbas, said "returning to negotiations requires Israel to commit to stopping settlement."
He added that Israel must also recognize the "1967 borders".
In the past, Netanyahu has objected to the idea presented in the Quartet proposal of isolating security and territories from the issues of Jerusalem and refugees, saying that if an agreement on the territorial issue was reached, the Palestinians would have no incentive to compromise later on the other issues. His position had been that all issues should be discussed simultaneously.
A 25-year-old man died of electrocution in a Gaza smuggling tunnel on Sunday morning, Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.
Probably bringing in more brass and marble for the next big shopping mall to be built over there -- they're mall-mad in Gaza these days.
Bilal Islam sustained an electric shock while working in a tunnel beneath the Gaza-Egypt border, Ma'an quoted medics as saying.
According to the report, 160 Palestinians have died in underground tunnels since 2006, when Israel imposed a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.
At the same time Egypt closed off the Gaza Strip from the other side. Were it otherwise, either the Egypt/Gaza border would be wide open to trade, or the Gazans would be digging tunnels under their border with Israel.
[Melanie Phillips] Back in 2008, when the terrorist Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus by a car bomb, I referred in my blog to speculation that he had been involved with al Qaeda and may even have been involved with 9/11. This would have been remarkable, since Mughniyeh was the deputy head of Hezbollah, the killing arm of the regime in Shiite Iran.
...
Now it appears that a law suit, brought by Ellen Saracini, the widow of the captain of one of the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers, is about to make precisely this case in court, backed by a large amount of hitherto unknown secret intelligence information. According to the respected Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, who is also an expert witness due to be called to give evidence in this case, Saracini's legal team believe that this intelligence detailing the ties between al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Iran contains the smoking gun that ties Iran to 9/11. Read it all at the link.
#2
Of course we all know that Iran and Iraq never had anything at all to do with Al-Q or 9/11! Why our betters on T.V. always tell is so - so it must be true.
#3
Not saying it isn't possible, but it seems just a bit convenient that these dead poor guys are directly connected to somebody with money that has been impounded by the US government, i.e. Iran.
Suing anyone else would not turn up even one thin dime. But here, a win would turn over as much filthy lucre as the court orders.
#4
Irans Dirty 9/11 Secrets The page and a half section that made the final cut (see pages 240-241) details repeated trips to Iran by 8-10 of the muscle hijackers between October 2000 and February 2001. Flying in from Saudi Arabia, Damascus, and Beirut, the future hijackers were accompanied by senior Hezbollah operatives who were in fact agents of the Iranian regime.
The information was so explosive that the CIA lobbied hard to get it expunged from the final report, in part because they had detected some of the movements as they were occurring but failed to appreciate their import. They saw them as travel through Iran, not travel to Iran, a senior 9/11 Commission staffer told me at the time.
Put simply:
The Islamic Republic of Iran helped design the 9/11 plot;
provided intelligence support to identify and train the operatives who carried it out;
allowed the future hijackers to evade U.S. and Pakistani surveillance on key trips to Afghanistan where they received the final order of mission from Osama bin Laden, by escorting them through Iranian borders without passport stamps;
evacuated hundreds of top al Qaeda operatives from Afghanistan to Iran after the 9/11 just as U.S. forces launched their offensive;
provided safe haven and continued financial support to al Qaeda cadres for years after 9/11;
allowed al Qaeda to use Iran as an operational base for additional terror attacks, in particular the May 2003 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
[An Nahar] Hizbullah has recently formed a committee of legal experts to carefully examine the cooperation protocol signed between Leb and the Special Tribunal for Leb, opposition political sources told al-Liwaa newspaper in remarks published on Saturday.
The committee will then seek to introduce a number of amendments to this agreement, they revealed.
These amendments will include Prime Minister Najib Miqati's observations over the tribunal that he discussed with U.N. chief the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... during his U.S. trip, they continued.
The changes will be based on assertions that the tribunal is politicized and Hizbullah has reservations over its purposes because it believes it to be an American-Israeli product bent on destroying the party, added the sources.
They stressed that efforts are being made to ratify these amendments before the STL's tenure is renewed for another year.
A legal source told al-Liwaa however that the extension of the STL's term for another three years is not related to the tribunal's protocol.
Only Ban has the authority to renew the tribunal's functioning seeing as it was formed under chapter seven of the U.N. charter, it explained.
The March 8 forces ... the opposition to the Mar. 14th movement, consisting of Hizbullah and its allies, so-called in commemoration of their Mar. 8th, 2006 demonstration of strength in Beirut ... 's belief that the cooperation protocol violates the Lebanese constitution does not alter the fact that the STL has become a reality, it stressed.
Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... March 8 ministerial sources told al-Liwaa that the government will be held accountable for whatever decision it takes regarding the STL.
They revealed that Miqati and Minister Mohammed Safadi will present the discussions they had with American officials over the STL before cabinet.
The premier and minister had traveled to New York City recently where Miqati chaired the United Nations ...where theory meets practice and practice loses... Security Council.
The sources added that Miqati and Safadi will demand that a decision that does not jeopardize Leb's economy be taken over the STL.
Parliamentary majority sources meanwhile told the newspaper that the case of the funding of the tribunal will be set aside for the moment.
OTV reported on Friday that a decision was made to prevent the funding of the tribunal through cabinet at all costs.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/02/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
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.
Under tight security, the one-hour rally in Kabul passed without any incidents. But protesters appeared angry and carried large banners with slogans as they chanted "Death to Pakistain" and "Death to ISI".
's
Khaleda Zia
President-for-Life Bashir 
Increasingly assertive Turkey is setting the scene for clashes in the eastern Mediterranean. Since Thursday, Sept. 29, Turkish warships have been harassing Israeli merchant vessels in waters off Cyprus, debkafile's military sources report. They come close enough to establish wireless communication and caution the Israeli vessels they are in contravention of international law and ordering them to change course. The Israeli crews mostly ignore these "orders", treating them as Ankara's latest bid to assert Turkish naval mastery of the Eastern Mediterranean. But the situation is getting explosive enough to spark a major incident.
A TALIBAN plot to snatch 
Asif Ali 
[Dawn] Representative 
Maulana Fazlur Rehman
[Dawn] Prime Minister 
Najib Miqati
