Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I wish I was in Dixie, Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie Land IÂ’ll take my stand
to live and die in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
Away, away, away down south in Dixie
FOUR American and three British soldiers have been killed in attacks in Afghanistan in the past 24 hours.
The American service members were killed when their vehicle struck a homemade bomb yesterday, the US military said. A US military spokesman said the incident took place in Helmand province in the south. But spokeswoman Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker later said it took place in a nearby area to the west.
The NATO-led International Security and Assistance force said the British troops were killed by a homemade bomb followed by an ambush in the south, also yesterday. A fourth soldier remains in a critical condition.
The deaths brought the toll for the first week of August to 18 foreign troops, including 11 Americans, on pace to match the previous month, by far the deadliest of the war with 76 international fatalities. More US and allied troops have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of March than in the entire period from 2001-2004.
There are now more than 100,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, including about 62,000 Americans - nearly double the US strength at the start of the year as President Barack Obama has escalated the conflict in a bid to turn the tide. I don't think it will be too long before the exit from Afghanistan begins. The main thing preventing it is that it would leave the bad neocon war in Iraq won and the good UN approved war in Afghanistan lost.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A roadside bomb struck a tractor carrying people to a wedding in southern Afghanistan, killing 21 civilians in one of the deadliest strikes in weeks, Afghan officials said on Thursday.
O brave, brave Lions of Islam! I wonder how many in Afghanistan will quietly lose their faith as a result of such pius jihadi behaviour, as happened in Iraq?
Defense Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimi confirmed the incident and the death toll, as did the Interior Ministry in a statement, which said five other civilians were wounded. "A trailer being towed by a tractor was hit by a roadside bomb... and killed 21 civilians and wounded six others," Afghan General Shir Mohammad Zazai said.
Gen. Sher Mohammad Zazai, commander of an Afghan military unit in Helmand province, said the explosion happened in Garmsir, a district of the province where U.S. Marines launched the biggest operation of the war last month against Taliban fighters. It was one of the deadliest bombings in weeks and comes with Afghanistan buffeted by soaring insurgent attacks and suffering record levels of violence in the eight years since the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime. "It's the work of the enemy of the nation, it's the work of the enemy of peace and the work of the Taliban," Zazai said.
In rural Afghanistan, where most people live in poverty without private vehicles, trailers are often harnessed to farm tractors to transport people.
Second attack
A separate roadside bomb exploded next to a police vehicle on Thursday in another part of Helmand province, the Nad Ali district, killing five policemen and wounding three others, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
In another incident, a U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in the western province of Farah while on patrol on Wednesday, the U.S. military said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
O brave, brave Lions of Islam! I wonder how many in Afghanistan will quietly lose their faith as a result of such pius jihadi behaviour, as happened in Iraq?
Why none, of course, the Imams will blame it on the "Evil Mercans", and the fools will swallow the lie whole.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2009 23:04 Comments ||
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[Maghrebia] Algerian troops on Wednesday (August 5th) killed eight terrorists in Batna, local press reported. Some 23 armed fighters have been killed since the military offensive began on July 25th. The Algerian army is reportedly intensifying pressure ahead of Ramadan, a period often chosen by terrorists for perpetrating attacks. Some 10,000 additional soldiers will be deployed around the country and security services will be reinforced in the al-Qaeda stronghold of Tizi Ouzou.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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[The News (Pak) Top Stories] separately in Swat district on Thursday.
Sources told The News that elders of Totano Bandai and Qalagay formed the lashkar from 16 villages in Kabal tehsil. The lashkar, led by Said Bacha of Qalagay, Saifullah of Totano Bandai and Shah Zeb and others, killed three militants on the first day of its formation.
The slain militants were identified as Iftikhar, Habibullah and Sardar Hussain. Later, the lashkar showed the bodies to the security forces. The security forces handed over five rifles, 3,000 cartridges and a cheque of Rs50,000 to the lashkar to strengthen its efforts against the militants. The security forces also destroyed three houses of militants in Manpetai in Khwazakhela tehsil.
APP adds: Speaking on the occasion, Syed Bacha said so far 6,000 volunteers have joined the lashkar. He said the people of Swat have rendered great sacrifices in the war against militancy.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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CHENNAI: The Coast Guard on Thursday detained a ``suspicious'' North Korean ship, which had dropped anchor off Hut Bay in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, after more than six hours of high drama that ended with Indian sailors firing in the air. Officials of Army intelligence, Intelligence Bureau and other agencies are set to inspect the ship and interrogate its occupants.
K R Nautiyal, DIG, Coast Guard, Andaman and Nicobar Region, told TOI over phone that ``several things were amiss'' about merchant vessel MV Musen, which later declared that it was carrying 16,500 tonnes of sugar from Thailand to Umm Qasr in Iraq. ``She shouldn't have dropped anchor here in the first place, she didn't respond to our signals, and her log book was found to be vague,'' Nautiyal said.
North Korean ships have often been found to be involved in ferrying nuclear and missile components for regimes clandestinely seeking to acquire such arsenals. Early on, it was a recipient of clandestine transfers of weapons technology and materials from China. It has since emerged as a major source of proliferation; its alleged clientele include Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and now, Myanmar.
In fact, some years ago, India had detained another North Korean ship that was carrying missile components for Pakistan. Concerns about North Korean vessels have heightened since reports of Pyongyang's help to Myanmar's nuclear bomb-making programme have appeared. Myanmar's nuclear ambitions are also reportedly helped by some Pakistani nuclear scientists.
Musen had dropped anchor off Hut Bay island on Wednesday afternoon for which it had no permission. When Coast Guard ship Kanakalatha Barua approached it, Musen tried to escape, forcing coast guard men to fire in the air. The ship finally ``obeyed'', and was brought to Port Blair early on Thursday.
``We got to know about the ship around 3pm and immediately sent our Dornier. The aircraft flew low above the ship and the port office tried to contact the ship through channel 16, the international VHF used in such cases, but Musen refused to respond. We then sent our ship, which reached the spot around 9pm. As the ship approached, Musen tried to move out. We opened fire twice in the air and only then did Musen obey our orders.
The ship, with 39 people on board, has been brought to Port Blair,'' Nautiyal said.
Indian authorities are also investigating an unscheduled stop the vessel, which left Taem Chabang port in Thailand on July 27, made at Singapore on July 30. ``The vessel started from Singapore on July 31, but no passport stamping was done in Singapore. We are probing this angle too,'' Nautiyal said.
Preliminary inspections found that the vessel was carrying sugar. A detailed inspection will be carried out on Saturday by high-level intelligence officials.
The ship's captain, who had no answers to why he did not respond to coast guard alerts, later told the investigators that the ship, which was bound for Iraq, had made an impromptu change in schedule to take the cargo to Kakinada. ``Merchant vessels do change course sometimes, but there is no satisfactory explanation in this case,'' a coast guard officer said.
However, Interocean, the Delhi-based agent of the ship in India, told TOI that Kakinada was not a port of call for MV Musen on this voyage. ``We came to know about the ship heading towards Kakinada only from the Coast Guard, that too after it was detained. We did not have prior information,'' an Interocean spokesperson said.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/07/2009 15:43 ||
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#1
Accident at sea would be nice
Posted by: Steve ||
08/07/2009 18:33 Comments ||
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#2
If you can't trust the Norks, who can you trust?
Looks like another job for WJ Clinton....
#3
Let's not jump to conclusions here. Just because a ship has suspicious deviations from its scheduled route, a phony manifest and contraband hidden in secret holds under tons of sugar doesn't necessarily mean they are up to no good.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/07/2009 20:12 Comments ||
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#5
India is quite sensitive about the Andamans. Many islands are off limits because they are the home of stone age tribes. Other islands have sensitive military ELINT installations. There are Su-30 Flankers stationed at one base there with rumors of submarine basing facilities and nuclear weapons.
The Intelligence Bureau is going to tear that ship apart.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/07/2009 20:26 Comments ||
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#6
After the 2004 tsunami, an Indian Coast Guard chopper buzzed one of the islands to see if the stone age tribe had survived.
They were chased away by this fellow
Posted by: john frum ||
08/07/2009 20:35 Comments ||
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#7
perhaps if you bonked him on the head with a coke bottle...naaahhhh
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/07/2009 20:40 Comments ||
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#8
I recall reading that cocaine did not dissolve in water, I'd take a few bags and dissolve them and see what residue remains.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2009 23:12 Comments ||
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MUMBAI: Hours after informing a court that he wanted to plead guilty to all the charges framed against him in connection with the 26/11 blasts, prime accused Ajmal Kasab changed his mind and said he did not want to say anything.
"The moment we informed the court that FBI officials will be examined as witnesses, Kasab got up to say he wanted to plead guilty to all charges," he said.
This was done by Kasab to save his masters in Pakistan and it showed that the gunman did not want the prosecution to table evidence which FBI has collected in this case, Nikam claimed.
When asked by special judge M L Tahailiyani why he said he wanted to plead guilty in the morning session of the court, Kasab replied, "Yun hi (Just like that)."
The court then asked if he was being influenced by someone to admit his guilt, but the Pakistani gunman said he was not.
When the judge asked him whether he wanted the trial to go on, 22-year-old Kasab replied: "Ji haan, aapki marzi se (Yes sir, with your permission)."
As judge Tahaliyani expressed surprise over Kasab's behaviour, defence counsel Abbas Kazmi said it was due to the auspicious day of 'Shab-e-baraat (night of blessings)' which Muslims observed on Thursday night. On this day people believe that if you confess, you are forgiven by god, Kazmi told the court.
Later, Kazmi told reporters that Kasab was frustrated and was under the impression that a verdict will be given if he pleads guilty to all charges.
"I have explained to him that despite his pleading guilty to all charges the trial will go on because there are two other accused in the dock," Kazmi said.
In the morning when a witness was being examined, Kasab stood up in the dock and told Tahaliyani that he wanted to plead guilty.
However, the court felt that Kasab was being very vague about his admission of guilt and was asked to talk with his lawyer before doing so.
Outside the court, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam said Kasab was a great actor and had not only obtained military training from conspirators in Pakistan, but had also received training on how to mislead others.
"The moment we informed the court that FBI officials will be examined as witnesses, Kasab got up to say he wanted to plead guilty to all charges," he said.
This was done by Kasab to save his masters in Pakistan and it showed that the gunman did not want the prosecution to table evidence which FBI has collected in this case, Nikam claimed.
"Kasab's act will not affect the case and we shall conclude the trial within a month," he said.
Kasab had admitted his guilt before the court last month, but the court had decided to take the admission of guilt on record and continue with the trial.
The Pakistani gunman was reprimanded by the court on Thursday after he refused to accept food served by jail authorities and threw utensils given to him allegedly demanding he be served 'mutton biryani'.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/07/2009 13:53 ||
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#1
Just playing the game, doing as he was taught to do, gum up the system by any means possible ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/07/2009 15:27 Comments ||
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Pakistan's foreign minister says intelligence sources have confirmed that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed by Wednesday's missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region. Shah Mehmood Qureshi's remarks came Friday during a news conference in Islamabad.
Earlier, intelligence officers said Mehsud was buried in the village of Nargusai, not far from where the suspected U.S. missile fired from a drone struck. The area is controlled by the Taliban.
The Associated Press reports that fellow Taliban commander, Kafayat Ullah, confirmed Mehsud had died.
U.S. officials have said there are strong indications Mehsud died in the attack, but have not confirmed it.
Pakistani officials said Mehsud's second wife and his bodyguards were killed in the missile strike.
#2
'Fraid we need a head on a pike, or an identifiable fragment of jawbone, on this one. How many of these clowns will "die" like James Bond so that they can "only live twice?"
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/07/2009 10:44 Comments ||
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Two suspected militants arrested in the Indian capital were planning terror strikes ahead of India's Independence Day, news reports said on Friday. Javed Ahmed and Ashiq Ali, both in their 30s, were picked up by the Delhi Police anti-terror wing late on Thursday, PTI news agency reported, citing police sources. Two AK-47 rifles, two grenades, around 100 cartridges and some documents were recovered from the militants, police said. The two men are from Kupwara district of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and owed allegiance to the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Hizb-ul Mujahideen, police claimed. Delhi police gave no details of the strike plans of the alleged terrorists arrested on Thursday.
The arrests came a day after India's federal Home Ministry said intelligence sources indicated the Pakistan-based militant Lashkar-e-Taiba group was planning terrorist strikes in the cities of New Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad ahead of Independence Day which falls on August 15. The Home Ministry has asked the state governments where the three cities are located to put their security apparatus on a state of high alert, PTI news agency reported. Security arrangements at the Red Fort in New Delhi, where Prime minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to unfurl the Indian flag and deliver his Independence Day speech, were being constantly reviewed, the police said. This is an update of yesterday's story with some more details.
The National Highways and Motorway Police foiled a terrorist plot when they spotted four milk cans filled with explosives placed near the Sheikhupura Interchange and got them defused on Wednesday.
A spokesman said that motorway police officials Afzal Majeed and Rao Sajjad saw the milk cans near a fence along the road while patrolling an area near Sheikhupura. The cans contained explosive material with detonators attached.
They informed senior officials and personnel of a bomb disposal squad who defused the detonators. Each can carried 15kgs of explosives.
The spokesman said investigations were under way to trace the terrorists behind the plot. He said the explosives were enough to blow up the interchange.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I've heard of stills made out of Milk Cans but only a sick SOB would do a bomb.
[Dawn] Seven militants have been killed and another 17 arrested as security forces continue to conduct search and clear operations in Malakand, DawnNews reported.
Two suspects were killed during an operation in Amankot and six suspects were arrested from Jan Patai near Alpurai.
Security forces killed four terrorists during an encounter at Samsel Banda near Kabbal. Six suspected terrorists were also arrested during the clashes. A large cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from their possession.
In Jambil, a suspected terrorist was killed and two suspects were taken into custody. -- DawnNews
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Pakistan says it has arrested a key suspect linked with the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who had allegedly facilitated the Mumbai attacks late last year.
The Special Investigation Unit of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), which is leading Pakistan's probe into the November 26, 2008 Mumbai incident, said on Thursday that it has detained LeT operative Jamil Ahmed.
The Wednesday arrest was made on the basis of information provided by some suspects under interrogation, the Special Investigation Unit said.
An FIA source, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Ahmed, a resident of Battagram in the unruly North West Frontier Province, as an 'important suspect'.
Ahmed is suspected of facilitating the acts of terrorism in Mumbai on November 26, the source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] Provincial Minister of Balochistan Sardar Rustam Jamali has been killed in firing incident in Karachi. According to police sources, the unknown assailants got the Minister of Excise and Taxation out of his vehicle and shot three fires at him and fled from the scene here near Rado Apartments in Gulistan-e-Jauhar. Born on January 9, 1963, Sardar Rustam Jamali, son of Sardar Yar Muhammad Jamali, was elected Balochistan MPA as independent candidate in the last general elections. He hailed from village Sardar Rustam Khan Jamali in Osta Muhammad, Jafarabad. His body was taken to Agha Khan Hospital, where a large number of his supporters gathered outside the hospitals.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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Fida Hussein Ghalvi testified 12 years ago against Malik Ishaq -- a founding member of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi charged with 70 murders, including the killing 12 of Ghalvi's family members -- but the imminent release of the terrorist leader has added horror to Ghalvi's life of grief, already reduced to the limits of his house in Multan, reports New York Times.
"When Ishaq was arrested in 1997, he unleashed his broad network against his opponents, killing witnesses, threatening judges and intimidating police, leading nearly all of the prosecutions against him to collapse eventually."
The newspaper says Ghalvi still gets threats from followers of Ishaq -- who, maddeningly, has never had a conviction that stuck, although police records show a dizzying tally of murders against his name. "When Ishaq was arrested in 1997, he unleashed his broad network against his opponents, killing witnesses, threatening judges and intimidating police, leading nearly all of the prosecutions against him to collapse eventually," says New York Times. "Now, with the cases against him mostly exhausted, Ishaq (50) -- a 'jihadi hero' -- could be out on bail as early as this month. That prospect terrifies Ghalvi," says the newspaper. "My life is totally constrained," says Ghalvi. "I can't even go to funerals. What have I gotten from 13 years of struggle except grief?"
Although Ishaq "no longer seems to have official support ... convicting him has been all but impossible", says the newspaper. "One of the main reasons is fear. Beginning in 1997, Ishaq stood trial for the deaths of 12 people at a gathering of the Ghalvi family, who are Shias. Soon after the trial began, witnesses began to die." Through eight more deaths and eight years of court proceedings, the Ghalvis refused to compromise, but a judge ruled in 2004 that there was not enough evidence to convict. The case has been in an appeals court since.
A judge did hand down a guilty verdict in one case against Ishaq, but the Supreme Court overturned it. "It was fear," said the judge who delivered the initial verdict, explaining the SC decision. "It's as obvious as daylight."
According to an expert with the RAND Corporation, fair trials of jihadis who have committed violent crimes are the only way to expose them. But such trials are rare, leaving people like Ghalvi living in a strange state of suspended animation. "I sometimes feel like a prisoner, and the killers are at large," said Ghalvi, sitting in his large living room, dark from no electricity. "Where is the justice?"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] The spokesman Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence Agency (ISPR) Major General Ather Waheed said the death of Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud has not been confirmed. According to sources, ISPR spokesman said the evidences regarding the killing of Baitullah Mehsud, the Taliban commander in Pakistan, have not been ascertained.
Earlier, Interior Minister Rehman Malik was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying that Taliban chief in Pakistan Baitullah Mehsud was likely killed in pilotless US drone aircraft attack on his residence but he did not confirm the incident to happen through proper evidences. It is worth of mention that Mehsud is wanted by Pakistani government on account of involvement in assassination of former premier Ms. Benazir Bhutto and other terrorist attacks while US government had announced reward of five million US dollars for this head.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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[Geo News] There is a strong likelihood that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday. "We suspect he was killed in the missile strike," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. "We have some information, but we don't have material evidence to confirm it."
The attack in the South Waziristan tribal region of northwest Pakistan was believed to have been carried out by an unmanned U.S. drone aircraft at around 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Neither the Pakistan or U.S. government confirmed such attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
We can only hope he is in H*ll with allan and all the other jihadi murderers.
#9
This is a big deal. Job well done. Now, who's next on the list?
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
08/07/2009 7:38 Comments ||
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#10
Woohoo! Caught with his pants down.
Now to be cynical. Baitullah Mehsud was much more a thorn in Pakistan's side than ours. Funny how Paki intel doesn't have a problem locating those it wants dead, but can't seem to find those committing terrorist war on Pakistan's behalf.
I believe the Pakis will try to pick up the TTP pieces and reorient them into Afghanistan. So in total, it would have been better for us if that drone had a convenient navigation malfunction and rocketed the ISI HQ.
Posted by: ed ||
08/07/2009 7:54 Comments ||
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#11
but who inherits the pie hat?
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/07/2009 8:30 Comments ||
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#12
Frank , at a guess Zulfiqar Mehsud
But hes already on the radar , so easier to track . He likes celebrity appearances
[Iran Press TV Latest] An explosive-laden vehicle has been detonated at a crowded market in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing five people and leaving 30 others wounded.
The bomb went off at around 8:20 p.m. (1720 GMT) on Thursday, said a local security chief Nozad al-Barzanji. The incident took place in a Kurdish neighborhood of the ethnically mixed city, 255 kilometers (160 miles) north of Baghdad.
Kirkuk, Iraq's oil producing hub, is the center of a dispute between Iraq's ethnic Kurds, who consider it their ancestral homeland, and the Arabs and Turkmen. The Kurds want to fold the city into their largely autonomous enclave of Kurdistan in northern Iraq.
Meanwhile, a roadside bomb ripped through a car carrying Shia pilgrims as it drove through the mainly Sunni Arab neighborhood in south Baghdad, killing one pilgrim and wounding three, an interior ministry official said.
The pilgrims were on their way to the holy city of Karbala, 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Baghdad, AFP quoted the official as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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A teenage Iraqi girl who claimed her husband's female relatives strapped explosives on her has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for attempting to blow herself up at a checkpoint in northeastern Iraq, a provincial judge said Thursday.
The sentence comes amid a rising number of female suicide bombers in Iraq, which has prompted US and Iraqi forces to step up efforts to train more female police to search women for explosives.
Rania Ibrahim was sentenced Sunday in a juvenile court for the attempted attack on Iraqi security forces near Baqouba in August 2008, said Diyala provincial Judge Zaid Khalaf.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Jassim told The Associated Press about a plot in which young women were raped and then persuaded to carry out suicide attacks to reclaim their honor.
Boy, talk about a Pulitzer Prize there for the taking. Too bad the MSM's blinders will preclude any investigation, and if by some miracle an article did appear, it would be soundly ignored.
#2
Sorry Gromky,
The MSM is too busy investigating the swastikas Pelosi saw at the town hall meetings.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/07/2009 11:39 Comments ||
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#3
Jassim told The Associated Press about a plot in which young women were raped and then persuaded to carry out suicide attacks to reclaim their honor.
If I recall correctly, the Iraqis picked up the woman running that program.
NOORDIN MOHAMMED TOP, the man suspected of masterminding a series of terrorist attacks across Indonesia, including the Jakarta hotel bombings last month that killed three Australians, has been arrested, according to reports late last night. 48 hour rule applies
Indonesian media were reporting a firefight, believed to be in Central Java, between Indonesian police and alleged terrorists about 4pm, Jakarta time yesterday. According to Al Jazeera, the shoot-out led to the arrest of Noordin, South-East Asia's most wanted man and a radical Islamist who has played a role in all the major terrorist attacks in Indonesia since 2002, and masterminded the last four. Today just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?
Local television quoted an unnamed police source saying a person in the house that was raided yesterday afternoon ''looked like'' Noordin, without confirming one way or another if it was the terrorist leader. The arrest could not be independently confirmed by an Indonesian police spokesman last night but Al Jazeera's Jakarta correspondent, Step Vaasen, quoted ''a very reliable source on the ground'' confirming that Noordin had been arrested.
Ms Vaasen has been a long-time and respected Jakarta reporter although the Qatar-based network has made false reports from Indonesia before, including the timing of the execution of the Bali bombers. Twin bombings at the JW Marriott and Ritz Carlton hotels on July 17 killed seven bystanders, as well as the two suicide bombers.
Noordin has evaded Indonesia's largest manhunt for more than six years and is widely considered to have orchestrated the attacks. A statement written under his name and posted on the internet claimed responsibility for the mass murders.
If the arrest is confirmed it will mark a coup for Indonesian police, who were coming under increasing pressure for their failure to make any key arrests or identify the suicide bombers involved in last month's attacks.
Noordin, a Malaysian university graduate, is a bomb-maker who deeply admires al-Qaeda, and may continue to have links with the organisation. If not grabbed yet, maybe soon:
INDONESIAN police are engaged in an armed standoff with gunmen in a suspected hideout of alleged Asian terror mastermind Noordin Mohammed Top, a spokesman says. Shooting erupted after crack counter-terrorism police surrounded a house in rural Central Java as part of investigations into last month's twin suicide bombings on hotels in the capital Jakarta, he said. "There was shooting between the special detachment team and the people inside the house," spokesman Nanan Soekarna said. "This house was our target," he added.
The news network Al Jazeera, meanwhile, reported on its website that Top had been arrested and taken into custody. "Officially the police are still denying that they have captured Noordin Top in central Java, but a very reliable source on the ground have told us they captured a man very likely to be Noordin Top," Step Vaessen, Al Jazeera's correspondent, reported. "How reliable?"
"Very"
The house siege began around 4pm yesterday (7pm AEST Friday) in Beji village, Temanggung regency and sporadic shooting could still be heard after midnight into the early hours of this morning. Up to four suspected Islamist militants were holed up in the squat, single level house, Soekarna said, without confirming media reports that police believed Noordin was among the occupants. We're at the "You'll never take us alive part".
He said two people "connected to the group in the house" had been arrested, but gave no further details. "The police right now are still trying to besiege the house. We suspect that there are about three or four people inside," he said. Bring up the siege guns
Posted by: Steve ||
08/07/2009 10:56 ||
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#1
A fine day so far, here's hoping for confirmed kill.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/07/2009 19:00 Comments ||
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Follow-up and more info on the post Ed made earlier.
COLOMBO, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka on Friday said it had captured and was interrogating the new head of the Tamil Tigers, their most-wanted target since crushing the separatist rebels and their 25-year insurrection in May. But mystery remained over exactly where Selvarajah Pathmanathan, who ran the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) lucrative arms and smuggling operations for decades, was arrested.
Pathmanathan is the public face of the LTTE's post-war remnants and the highest-ranking Tiger still alive, after troops killed LTTE founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran in the war's cataclysmic final battle on the northeastern coast on May 18.
The fact that Pathmanathan was in Sri Lankan custody helped push the Colombo Stock Exchange .CSE to its highest level in more than 14 months, gaining 0.7 percent in the first 90 minutes of trade.
Sri Lanka declined to say where he was arrested, after initially saying Pathmanathan -- better known by his nickname KP -- had been picked up in Thailand.
Thailand's prime minister on Friday denied Pathmanathan had been arrested there. The LTTE, in an emailed statement, said he had been arrested by Malaysian intelligence officers on Wednesday, but Malaysian authorities denied that.
Sri Lankan officials said diplomatic necessities precluded naming the exact location where he was arrested. "It is a sensitive issue and the government wants to respect the wishes of all parties involved," a senior Sri Lankan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
Thai authorities arrested Pathmanathan in 2007 and were ready to hand him over on condition their involvement was not known. But he escaped after Sri Lanka publicised his arrest there, and Thailand denied he was ever in custody, diplomats with knowledge of the incident say. Earlier this year, Sri Lanka was infuriated when a European diplomat met KP in Kuala Lumpur.
After a brief feud with other LTTE officials overseas, which analysts say was over control of the hundreds of millions in hidden Tiger assets, Pathmanathan emerged as the new leader. He pledged to create a government-in-exile to push the LTTE's vision a separate nation for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils in a non-violent and democratic way.
One of the original Tigers, Pathmanathan dodged authorities for nearly three decades and built the LTTE's smuggling, weapons procurement and fundraising capacity into a multi-million dollar enterprise known as the "KP Department". At the height of his powers, KP operated a fleet of freighters for smuggling, dealt in arms bazaars in Eritrea, to Afghanistan and Ukraine and raised millions from fundraising appeals and outright extortion from expatriate Tamils.
Long believed to be in hiding in bases from Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand, he had dozens of passports and more than enough money to buy his way out of trouble -- security experts say the LTTE was earning between $200-300 million annually.
However, the LTTE's presence on U.S., EU, Indian and Canadian terrorist lists sharply curtailed his operations, and KP re-emerged earlier this year when Prabhakaran named his old friend the LTTE's head of international relations.
The new head of the Tamil Tigers, the separatist group defeated by the Sri Lankan military after a 25-year war, has been arrested in Thailand, Sri Lanka's military said on Thursday.
Posted by: ed ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Loser. There is no more Tamil Tigers, this guy is like the third cousin of Admiral Doenitz.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian police acknowledged on Thursday that some demonstrators arrested during protests over June's disputed presidential election had been mistreated and said several prison warders face punishment.
The abuses took place in the Kahrizak detention center in south Tehran originally built for suspected violators of Iran's vice laws, a police statement carried by the ISNA news agency said, adding that the detained protesters should have been held in the capital's main Evin prison. "There were breaches of the rules and negligence by several managers and staff of the Kahrizak detention center," the statement said. "Two officers have been punished for beating prisoners."
Several managers and employees have been "sacked and face other sanctions for having received more prisoners than the center was intended to accommodate, for not reporting the problems encountered and for failing to check on the prison conditions of the detainees," it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/07/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Nice story, I doubt a word's true.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
08/07/2009 12:58 Comments ||
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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.
[The News (Pak) Top Stories] separately in Swat district on Thursday.
Pakistan's foreign minister says intelligence sources have confirmed that Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was killed by Wednesday's missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region. Shah Mehmood Qureshi's remarks came Friday during a news conference in Islamabad.
Two suspected militants arrested in the Indian capital were planning terror strikes ahead of India's Independence Day, news reports said on Friday. Javed Ahmed and Ashiq Ali, both in their 30s, were picked up by the Delhi Police anti-terror wing late on Thursday, PTI news agency reported, citing police sources. Two AK-47 rifles, two grenades, around 100 cartridges and some documents were recovered from the militants, police said. The two men are from Kupwara district of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and owed allegiance to the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Hizb-ul Mujahideen, police claimed. Delhi police gave no details of the strike plans of the alleged terrorists arrested on Thursday.
[Dawn] Seven militants have been killed and another 17 arrested as security forces continue to conduct search and clear operations in Malakand, DawnNews reported. 
[Geo News] There is a strong likelihood that Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed along with his wife and bodyguards in a missile attack, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Thursday. "We suspect he was killed in the missile strike," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. "We have some information, but we don't have material evidence to confirm it."
A teenage Iraqi girl who claimed her husband's female relatives strapped explosives on her has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for attempting to blow herself up at a checkpoint in northeastern Iraq, a provincial judge said Thursday.
NOORDIN MOHAMMED TOP, the man suspected of masterminding a series of terrorist attacks across Indonesia, including the Jakarta hotel bombings last month that killed three Australians, has been arrested, according to reports late last night.
