The Saudi authorities have confirmed that the five militants declared dead after a three-day stand-off in the eastern city of Dammam this week are all on their most- wanted list of 36 terror suspects. A statement read out on Saudi television on Thursday morning said DNA tests had confirmed the identities of the men as: Zaid al-Sammari, 31; Salih al-Firaidi al-Harbi, 22; Sultan Salih al-Hasri, 26; Naif al-Jihaishi al-Shammari, 24; and Mohammad al-Suwailmi, 23.
Al-Hasri was cited in the broadcast as having "taken part in the abduction and killing of a [foreign] resident", believed to be the American engineer Paul Johnson, kidnapped and beheaded in June 2004 at the peak of the attacks against Westerners in the kingdom. Al-Suwailmi is listed as being very skilled at using computers and the Internet. Three of the dead were thought to have been living in the al-Kharj area, near the capital Riyadh.
The stand-off began on Sunday when one militant opened fire on members of the security services who were tracking him, outside a supermarket in a busy shopping street in Dammam, the main city of the oil-rich eastern province. Other militants then holed up in a building in a crowded residential neighbourhood, which the security forces surrounded. After a series of gun battles the villa was stormed on Tuesday. Four members of the security forces also died during the three-day stand-off, and several were injured. No figure has been given on how many militants died, as the interior ministry has only said that "charred remains" had been found at the site, suggesting some of the militants had blown themselves up.
The ministry also explained that it took so long to storm the villa and end the stand-off because "members of the deviant group" [the official Saudi terminology for al-Qaeda suspects] had packed the site with explosives and first they had to evacuate the crowded neighbourhood. The security forces have also arrested eleven suspects of different nationalities and seized large amounts of weapons, explosives and "forged documents" which the statement said were meant to be used for entering public installations. The confirmation of the identities of the five terror suspects brings to ten the number killed or arrested from the most-wanted list of 36 released by the interior ministry at the end of June. However, the ministry believes 21 of those listed are outside the kingdom. In August the al-Qaeda leader in Saudi Arabia, Saleh al-Oufi, was killed in a security operation in the holy city of Medina.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:28 ||
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As extremists increasingly claim it is not, and attack Western values not only through rhetoric but acts of violence, many Muslims find themselves being forced to respond by re-examining their values. Here two Britons, both born into the Muslim faith, explain why they have ended up following different paths as far as their religion is concerned. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 09:32 ||
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#1
No. And it's not compatible with the East either.
#5
Actually a great article. Interesting that the female, whose father did not support her education or personal freedom says "Since leaving home I have not been in touch with my family. I would not be able to live my life the way I choose if my family have anything to do with it." Well that sure makes sense. More power to her.
And the guy says "Traditional Islam teaches how to view tribulation and oppression through prophetic eyes and not how to contribute to it. By restoring the equilibrium between the heart and soul, the intellect and creation, traditional Islam can help calm the frantic nature so prevalent in Muslim psyche today and, once again, marginalise and eject extremism from the Muslim discourse."
Oh how I wish these two could become the new leaders of Moslems everywhere. I know I'm dreamin', but it's nice to see some sanity now and then.
#6
Not the islam that's practiced in the Middle East, certainly.
Funny thing is, I know Muslims, and their religion never comes up except regarding dietary restrictions. Even then, it's no more obtrusive than dietary restrictions for Jews, or diabetics, or my friend who's deathly allergic to strawberries.
I know they're practicing Muslims because they observe Ramadan (which ain't easy in our society, especially if you're in a public school), but they're never pushy about it and they never bad-mouth people for eating pork or drinking alcohol in front of them. Even if it were offered to them, they don't get super-insulted, they just say no thanks. They dress Western, too, including the women.
In other words, they're just normal people. Therefore I KNOW it's possible for Muslims to be decent, normal, non-Jew-hating people who love their families (both genders) and help other people without expecting anything in return or demanding the helpee convert, just like other Americans do. And they're immigrants, so they had to adapt to our culture.
It's possible for islam to be compatible with the West, people. Just not the islam practiced by the hate-the-West-because-we're-jealous-or-we're-fanatics clowns so beloved by the Western press.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/09/2005 16:47 Comments ||
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#7
you know, Thong Wacker, the problem with you Southrons, is you think the Appalacians end someplace around West Virginia. They don't, son, they go all the way to Maine.
An' the only real difference 'twist us is:
a) we speak better English and
b) our momma's whip the sh*t out of us if we wear our hats in the house...
During the British general election in May, Iraq was ignored as much as possible by Tony Blair, who merely said that we must draw a line under the war and "move on," although moving on from a calamity is never easy. But now the issue has erupted onto the political stage here, and in unforeseen fashion.
After the Conservatives' third successive defeat, Michael Howard resigned as party leader. As the contest to succeed him warms up, the question of Iraq is eclipsing the divisions over Europe that have for too long poisoned the Tory party.
When Kenneth Clarke, the chancellor of the Exchequer in the last Conservative government, stood before for the leadership, he was unpopular with some Tories because of his attachment to European integration. But with that issue faded, he has now staked his renewed bid on his opposition to the Iraq war, which was "a disastrous decision," he says.
Both in America and England, the politics of the war were never clear-cut. Differences cut across party lines and defied the stale metaphor of left and right. In Washington, bizarrely as "the realists."
In London, Blair cajoled or bullied a majority of his MPs into supporting the war and relied on the support of the official Conservative opposition during the brief sojourn of Iain Duncan Smith as party leader before he was brutally ejected in a party coup. Duncan Smith vied with Blair in his enthusiasm for the war and his uncritical support for the Bush administration, as did his predecessor, William Hague. His successor, Howard, went further still.
Yet there are also Tories who opposed the war, including men eminent in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major. One is Douglas Hurd, a former foreign secretary. His warnings were echoed by other former cabinet ministers like John Gummer and Douglas Hogg.
Another ex-chancellor, Norman Lamont, has endorsed Clarke's bid, as well as his description of the war as "a diversion from the core task of the pursuit and destruction of Al Qaeda." Malcolm Rifkind, one more former foreign secretary, also a contender, repeats his view that the war was "extremely foolish and unnecessary."
All this has much enlivened the Tory contest, but it should not really be so surprising. Polls confirm that the Iraq war was markedly more unpopular among ordinary Conservatives than Labour voters. Some Tory MPs say privately that their constituency party members were 2-to-1 against the war even when it began.
There has always been a curious paradox in the position of Tory right wingers, violently hostile to the European Union but supporting the United States without question, even when it is perfectly obvious that American and British interests cannot always coincide. In most European countries, there are parties of the right on the Gaullist model, whose primary definition is the national interest of that country. Only here do we have a dominant section of the Tory party who believe that they should always support the national interest of another country.
Those Tory Europhobes rage against the threat to our sacred national sovereignty from bureaucrats in Brussels, and yet seem happy for England to become a client state of Washington, and for the British Army to serve as the American Foreign Legion. At times the Tories have looked like what, in a lethal phrase, Leon Blum years ago called the French Communists, "a foreign nationalist party."
Now the contradiction is sharper than ever. Toryism, or English Conservatism, has traditionally been pragmatic and unideological, and the conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott used to say that it had nothing in common with any of the categories of Continental politics. Today one could add that English Conservatism has nothing in common with American neoconservatism. Oakeshott also said that Conservatism was not a doctrine but a disposition; neoconservatism is a doctrine and a half.
Polls show Clarke far ahead of his Tory rivals in public support. Iraq may not be not the main reason for that, but the fact that all along he called the war dishonest and said that it would lead to chaos in Iraq and an increased terrorist threat here has done him much good.
He and those other Tory sceptics are entirely different from the reflexively anti-American left. They would warmly embrace American allies: not the neo-cons, but men like Haass. "Democracy is difficult to spread and impossible to impose," he has said, and Clarke and Rifkind would surely echo those words.
For some time past the Tories have looked in deep trouble, maybe even terminal. It might just turn out that their salvation is as a truly sceptical or realistic party of the national interest.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:26 ||
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#1
The Tories are starting to sound as embittered and irrelevant as the Democrats. The current leadership makes John Major look like a giant by comparison.
#2
Ken Clarke is not a mainstream Tory. He is far too far to the left to be elected leader. The MSM in the UK have been trying to talk up his prospects, but he doesn't stand a chance. WRT British machinations on the WoT it pays to remember two things:
a) It was only necessary for the UK to give token support to the military action in Iraq - the US does not need military assistance.
b) The centre-left was in power in the UK during 9/11 - imagine what some Republican senators would be saying if this was Gore's war.
#3
The centre-left was in power in the UK during 9/11 - imagine what some Republican senators would be saying if this was Gore's war.
*snort*
1) Republicans actually give a rat's ass about the country, and would support it regardless of the party in the White House.
2) Al Gore is not "center left". He's hard left. Had he been in power, we'd still be seeking a UN resolution to consider the possibility of debating the consideration of the use of sanctions against the Taliban.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 8:45 Comments ||
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...or at least coming to terms with the wording of a letter to Mullah Omar.
#5
... or sending Jimmy Carter on a mission to see if we can find common ground.
Posted by: Curt Simon ||
09/09/2005 9:14 Comments ||
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We only need to look at Clinton's adventures in the Balkans. Republicans opposed it at the time as a strategic error, but once the shooting started, publicly supported the policy. None of this "I support the troops but..." crap.
But then again, while there are tens of millions of patriotic Americans who routinely vote Democratic, most patriotic elected officials are Republicans.
#7
Change the setting, and why does this sound like some MSM intonation about "John McCain *leading* the republican party"?
John McCain is a party of one. The only reason he is re-elected in Arizona is because his wife pays his way and the State party is too cheap to pay for a challenger. They would run Hillary as a republican if she ran here and paid for herself.
#8
Democracy is difficult to spread and impossible to impose
Dickhead doesn't read history does he? It was imposed on Germany and Japan with good results. Statements like that make me wonder at the mental capacity of some politicians.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/09/2005 12:43 Comments ||
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#12
Look at the source; IHT. Enough said.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
09/09/2005 12:43 Comments ||
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I'd categorize this strange article as media 'displacement activity', because they can not bring themselves to discuss the elephant in the room, namely politicians who supported the iraq war are being reelected with large majorities - Koizumi being the next and those who opposed it are going down to historic defeats - Shroeder being next. The only exception being Aznar, due to the special circumstances of Madrid.
An Algerian who claimed to be a "drifter" but refused to deny any connection with any "al-Qaeda network" today became the first none loyalist or republican alleged terrorist to be tried under Northern Ireland's none jury Diplock Court system.
Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Weatherup will be trying the case alone of 27-year-old Abbas Boutrab who denies possessing and collecting information "for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism".
Boutrab, also charged under three other aliases, also denies, having and using a doctored Italian passport. and handling a stolen Nokia phone.
Among the documents, which were allegedly downloaded from the internet, were plans to construct a device to bomb an aircraft, how to smuggle the bomb onboard, and how to make a silencer from simple household items such metal tubing, a pot scourer and rubber door stops.
Prosecuting QC John Creaney claimed that Boutrab had been travelling around Europe under several assumed names for a decade before his arrest in April 2003 at an address in Whitehouse Court on the outskirts of Belfast.
During his first police interview when asked if he was involved "in Islamic terrorism", Boutrab replied, "I am not answering".
Mr Creaney said that he gave "a similar reply" when asked, "are you a member of any organisation connected to the Al Quaeda network?".
The prosecuting lawyer further revealled that by the 23rd of Boutrab`s 30 police interviews, his solicitor on his behalf stated, "he has asked me to say in relation to the aliases, some of which he accepts, that they were used simply to facilitate his drifter lifestyle throughout Europe - not for terrorist purposes".
However, refuting this claim Mr Creaney said it was the Crown case the aliases were used "to conceal himself as he carried out his sinister activities" and that "they were elaborate and carried out over a period of ten years".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:08 ||
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Russia would accept international help in finding Chechen terrorist Shamil Basayev, a Russian anti-terrorism official said Thursday.
"Basayev's end is inevitable. I am sure it will happen and we will not turn down help on this," said Anatoly Safonov, the special representative of the Russian president for international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and organized crime.
Moscow is actively conducting talks with the international community over Basayev, who is on the UN Security Council's terrorist list.
"We know that Basayev is within Russia's territory, in Chechnya," he said.
Basayev's movements are being monitored, and if he was to attempt to leave the country, he would be caught, Safonov said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:31 ||
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#1
'Puttie Pu' can start by crawling to the Chi-coms first! I can't wait to hear their answer!!
#2
More likely he'll get European help. The key phrase is 'terrorism and organized crime'. The Chechen mafia is linked to the terrs, and has tentacles throughout the Continent.
BEIJING - Talks with North Korea on dismantling its nuclear program will resume next week, China said on Thursday, but Pyongyang raised a possible obstacle to progress by renewing its demands for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula as a sign of good faith.
Talks are due to resume on Tuesday, said Qin Gang, spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Speaking at a regular news briefing, he appealed to all sides to be âflexible and practicalâ in trying to reach a settlement to the long-running dispute.
Yeah, that's likely to work.
The talks were meant to resume in Beijing last week, but North Korea postponed that, citing US-South Korean military exercises that were under way and Washingtonâs appointment of a special envoy on North Koreaâs human rights. âThe path to the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is torturous and complicated,â Qin said. âWe canât resolve all the questions in just a few rounds of talks, but we should not be pessimistic about the process.â
Hours before Chinaâs announcement, North Korea demanded that the United States withdraw its troops from South Korea. The Rodong Sinmun, the Northâs main newspaper, claimed the United States is driving a âfire cloud of warâ over the Korean Peninsula by positioning state-of-the-art military hardware in the South and preparing for a pre-emptive nuclear attack against the North.
Yes, a 'fire cloud of war' as we discuss nukes. Think about that as you sip your grass soup, boys.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
If you have a Fire Cloud of War, and it rains, does that make a Sea of Fire?
The U.S. "war on terror" is saving fewer lives than just spending the money on disease prevention and research, and has probably caused deaths by taking money away from basic services, an expert said on Thursday.
The accusation is not new, but Dr. Erica Frank of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta said she has calculated the cost, in terms of lives, of the Bush administration's terror policies.
"The most recent effects of these diversions of funding have been seen in the unfolding tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area," Frank wrote in a commentary published in the British Medical Journal.
"Governments must protect their citizens, and anticipating these possible future threats is appropriate and could prove essential to Americans' health."
Frank warned there is a threat that because of the U.S. government's policy, enormous numbers of Americans will die unnecessarily.
On September 11, 2001, 3,400 people died because of the four intentional plane crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. But 5,200 other Americans died that same day from common diseases, according to Frank.
To estimate how many Americans died of routine causes on September 11, Frank used national estimates of mortality from various causes.
"Predictable tragedies happen every day. We know strategies to reduce deaths from tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, unintentional injuries, and other predictable causes. And we know that millions of people will die unless we protect the population against these routine causes of death," she wrote.
Yet more money is spent to protect against deaths that are not likely to happen.
"For example, in September 2002, New York was awarded $1.3 million to reduce heart disease, the leading killer of New Yorkers, while $34 million was awarded for bioterrorism preparedness in the state," Frank added.
Proponents have argued that bioterror preparedness would build up the public health structure in general.
"If this is an improvement it sure is frightening to think what this might have looked like before," Frank said in a telephone interview.
She cited numerous reports showing the federal government cut spending to reinforce the levees built to protect New Orleans from the flood that has devastated the city.
"Since the point of investing in counterterror is to protect American lives, the question is a dollar better spent in
Iraq or is it better spent here?" she asked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:41 ||
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#1
After all, Osama built clinics and day care centers; why can't we?
/sarcasam
Posted by: Mike ||
09/09/2005 1:01 Comments ||
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She must be aspiring to replace Helen Caldicott as the world's screwiest peacenik doctor.
#3
Governments make irrational choices, because electors make irrational choices. The reality is that people place a higher value on being safe from some kinds of threats than others. I could use the same argument to not fund climate change initiatives, or to spend the money currently spent on AIDS on developing a bird flu vaccine. In fact, I could raise money and improve public health by taxing the things known to contribute to heart disease, diabetes, obesity, etc.
#4
On September 11, 2001, 3,400 people died because of the four intentional plane crashes in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. But 5,200 other Americans died that same day from common diseases, according to Frank.
Here's the difference, Dr. Frank: 3,400 people didn't just coincidentally "die" in "intentional plane crashes". They were *MURDERED*.
If you cannot tell the moral difference between dying from a disease and being murdered, then you should be spending the rest of your days in a mental institution -- as a patient -- rather than teaching. You're clearly a danger to your students and the patients they will eventually treat.
"The most recent effects of these diversions of funding have been seen in the unfolding tragedy of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the surrounding area," Frank wrote in a commentary published in the British Medical Journal.
Note that the coward didn't have the guts to publish her bile in the US, and that she' yet another maggot using the NO dead to push her political agenda.
We know strategies to reduce deaths from tobacco, alcohol, poor diet, unintentional injuries, and other predictable causes.
Anyone notice a common thread in what she wants the government to focus on? They're largely *personal choices*. I can choose to smoke, drink, or eat poorly; I cannot choose when someone will attempt to murder me. Yet she prefers government dictate to us how to live over it trying to prevent our murder by those who have declared their intention to do just that.
Again, this woman is a dangerous lunatic. I'm sick of having her type held up as experts on anything but their own depravity.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 8:52 Comments ||
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Unfortunately all of us will pass away from one cause or another. Most of us all ready know that certain behaviors are unhealthy. Excessive amounts of fatty foods, alcohol plus cigarettes will cause health problems that will kill you. As always being stupid is still subject to capital punishment. But no matter how much money you pump into educational programs geared towards health people will still do stupid things.
Exactly right - Dems love to complain about spending when it's being done by the military; bonus points for military spending by a Republican. They should just forward this to Howard Zinn and have him 'reissue' it in a few weeks.
#9
"And we know that millions of people will die unless we protect the population against these routine causes of death,"
Everyday terrorists preach "Death to all Infidels"...No Problem. But I have to drive 30 miles to find a bar where I can light up a cigarette.
What's alarming to me is how many people believe this nonsense.
Via DhimmiWatch
For months, a Muslim woman living in Toronto tried to wring a divorce out of her local imam. Under sharia law, her husband had to consent to the divorce-- even though he had abandoned the family four years earlier and married another woman in a South Asian country where polygamy is legal.
The imam told her that her spouse wanted $100,000 and all her gold jewellery, she said, asking that her identity not be disclosed because she fears retribution from her ex-husband, the imam and her community. She managed to bargain him down to $5,000, money she had to borrow. She also agreed to give up all child-support payments and alimony, and not to take legal action against him in the future.
Without his consent, she could not remarry within her religion. "The imam told me, 'there are some sharia conditions you must follow, we must come to a settlement within sharia.' I agreed because I was desperate," said the woman, 29, who uses the pseudonym Shinaz. "If the mullah, our religious leader, didn't grant the divorce, then under sharia I would have lost custody of my son when he turned eight. Also, I could not remarry."
The issue of faith-based arbitration and whether to formally regulate sharia religious arbitration in Ontario has sparked an international debate. The province's 1991 Arbitration Act provides for voluntary faith-based arbitration to resolve civil and family-law disputes.
The Ontario government is currently considering whether to accept the recommendations of a recent report that found that the existing system does not discriminate against women. Critics say otherwise, and today, demonstrations against the act are planned in 12 cities in Canada and Europe including Amsterdam, London, Paris and Dusseldorf, in what activists say is part of a global battle between secular societies and "political Islam."
Shinaz is an observant Muslim, but she also describes herself as a modern woman who chooses not to wear hijab, works in the service sector and had the courage at least to try fighting for her rights -- even as she saw her family ostracized and shunned by her community. She believes that her experience with faith-based arbitration reveals the difficulty many Muslim women face: Culturally and legally, under most interpretations of sharia, men have far more rights than women when it comes to inheritance, divorce, child-support payments and child-custody issues.
Canadian legal safeguards and training for imams cannot change this, she says, pointing out that her imam doesn't speak fluent English and has little knowledge of Canadian Charter rights. "Women in Ontario should definitely not have to rely on sharia and mullahs and imams to resolve family disputes. People have to know what is going on," she said.
When the imam finally signed the talaq, divorce, in their community mosque, she felt nothing but anger and betrayal. "I was so angry at the way I was treated, that this happens in a country like Canada. We come here to get better treatment," she said. "A lot of women in the community are in my situation. My friend agreed to give up her boy to her ex-husband when he turns eight just so she could get a religious divorce."
At stake is the right for women to be treated justly and equitably, says Homa Arjomand, an Iranian immigrant who is co-ordinating the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Ontario. Ms. Arjomand works as a counsellor for a Toronto agency and says more than 120 Muslim women have come to her so far this year, many of whom are fleeing abusive marriages and physical assault. "Canadians think, this is your culture, you deal with it. But it is the government's duty to protect the vulnerable, including women and children," she said. Many of the women who seek Ms. Arjomand's help are immigrants with little education or ability to navigate Canada's legal system. This was not the case with Shinaz.
Born overseas in a Muslim country, Shinaz immigrated with her family to Canada and studied in a community college in Toronto. At 22, she agreed to an arranged marriage, the norm in her culture. She flew from Toronto to the man's homeland in South Asia, hoping that the match would work: They were the same age, with similar backgrounds and levels of education. "I did notice in his country that women were treated as second-class citizens. He went out a lot but didn't say where he was going. But I thought, when we get to Canada, he will change," she says. "This was the first man I had ever been with."
She flew back to Canada after the ceremony, and began the process of sponsoring her husband to come here. When he arrived two years later, she had already given birth to their first and only child. From the beginning, they argued over everything, from whether to buy a house or rent, to when to start potty-training their son. "He tried to isolate me from my own family who all live here. We argued," she said. One day they had a physical altercation that resulted in the police coming. No charges were laid, but police gave her ex-husband a warning after Shinaz said he tried to strangle her.
In 2001, less than a year after arriving in Toronto, he left the family. Shinaz went to a Canadian lawyer to work out a separation agreement. According to the agreement, Shinaz got the condo they had bought together and her ex-husband all the assets he had brought to the marriage, including his overseas business. He agreed to pay her a few hundred dollars a month in child support. She had custody of their son, while he had the right to see him every other weekend.
After a year of separation, Shinaz hired a lawyer and for $800, obtained a no-fault divorce. However, she still needed a religious divorce in order to be free to remarry within Islam. She also worried that without a religious divorce, her husband could end up taking the child out of Canada and end up with automatic custody of their son.
Under sharia law, when a couple divorces, a father automatically gets custody of sons when they turn eight, and daughters at the age of 13, or when they first menstruate. "I was so worried he would take our son out of Canada to an Islamic country where he would have custody and I would never see him again," Shinaz said.
She contacted her local imam, expecting he would agree to issue a divorce --especially as her husband had travelled overseas and remarried. "But the imam refused to issue a divorce until my husband would consent," Shinaz said. It bothered her that she did not speak directly with the imam, but had to negotiate through her male relatives, another paternalistic aspect of faith-based arbitration, she complained.
She realized that her husband wanted to bribe her. "So I said, 'I won't give you access to our son until you give me a religious divorce," she said. "The imam said, 'you must give a little to get something.' " In the end, her ex agreed to give up custody rights, and she will no longer receive spousal payment. A loss for them both -- but she says she is relieved to have him out of her life at last.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 09:34 ||
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#1
Hello? Liberalhawk?
Am I mistaken in remembering you're one of the people who had no problem with Canada legalizing the use of sharia to settle disputes?
Do you still have that opinion? Does the addition (or revelation) of it being used in family matters change your opinion?
Does this story change your opinion?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 10:59 Comments ||
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#2
I am of mixed minds about this. Of course, Islam treats women like dogs. But everybody knows this. Including, especially, the women in Islam.
Honey, instead of trying to rig "the system", why don't you tell "the system" to take a flying leap? No matter *what* you do, Islam will always treat you like a dog, so why stay Moslem?
"But I will be ostracized by my family and community", is the usual complaint. And this will be worse than being treated like a dog exactly how? You want to live in "the 'hood", but you don't want to live with the hoodlums. You want to practice *some* of your loathsome cultural traditions, but just the ones you like. You want to be in a mysoginistic, violent and hateful religion, but you only want the "good" parts.
Sorry, even if Canada gives you a pass, this time, you are still a loser as long as you want to sit at the table of Islam. You will *never* be anything more than an animal in that religion.
You want kids, a good life, a responsible husband, respect, consideration, employment, education, and all that other neat stuff? Then march out the door, and don't look back.
#5
There is a group over here in Australia that is trying to enforce Sharia law...
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
09/09/2005 12:05 Comments ||
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#6
"Without his consent, she could not remarry within her religion."
HELLO-O-O-O!! So she wants to marry again within this re-lesion?! I guess some people just can't get enough abuse.
"If the mullah, our religious leader, didn't grant the divorce, then under sharia I would have lost custody of my son when he turned eight. Also, I could not remarry."
Well, Waddaya know - slavery is still legal in Canada...
Robert Richer, the second-ranking official in the CIA's clandestine service, has announced his retirement, telling colleagues that he lacked confidence in the agency's leadership, according to current and former intelligence officials.
Richer, who was one of CIA Director Porter J. Goss's key personnel choices, made his announcement last Friday at a meeting of the Directorate of Operations leaders, according to some of the officials.
Some of them said Richer's decision revolved around an ongoing debate over how to improve human intelligence and the direction of the CIA. The agency's role and influence have waned with the appointment of John D. Negroponte as the overall director of national intelligence.
Other government officials disagreed with that assertion and said Richer's departure involved disputes over "operational issues" that they would not specify, and a clash of personalities between Richer, a former Marine, and Goss and his top aides.
Last year, Richer's predecessor and his boss resigned after clashing with Goss's aides. During Friday's meeting, Richer said he and his boss, the deputy director of operations -- who cannot be named because he remains undercover -- had been frustrated by Goss and his staff in their efforts to implement certain measures, sources said. Richer subsequently met with national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley to explain his decision.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the matter. Other intelligence sources would speak only anonymously because of agency rules and traditions against speaking to the media.
Yesterday, Goss sent an unusual worldwide message to all CIA employees praising Richer for his nearly 35 years of service. That only fueled the belief among some former intelligence officials that Richer's resignation reflects ongoing problems at the agency.
Richer has served for less than a year as the number two in the spy service, having been promoted from being chief of the Near East division.
The CIA has been under pressure to make changes after a presidential commission and the Sept. 11 commission found last year that human intelligence collection had failed regarding both the al Qaeda terrorist network and whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
The presidential commission recommended creation of a Human Intelligence Directorate within the CIA, which would rank above the agency's Directorate of Operations and coordinate foreign human-intelligence collection across the intelligence community, including the Pentagon and the FBI.
Some top administration officials favor a plan to make the clandestine service, as the Directorate of Operations is known, the central focus of the CIA, with all other functions -- such as analysis and technology -- subordinate to the human intelligence role.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:16 ||
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..some day over the rainbow, way up in the wilderness of mirrors.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/09/2005 3:04 Comments ||
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The WaPo doesn't like Goss and has many "unnamed sources" it frequently cites heading for the involuntary retirement villa.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2005 5:19 Comments ||
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The presidential commission recommended creation of a Human Intelligence Directorate within the CIA, which would rank above the agency's Directorate of Operations and coordinate foreign human-intelligence collection across the intelligence community, including the Pentagon and the FBI.
Some top administration officials favor a plan to make the clandestine service, as the Directorate of Operations is known, the central focus of the CIA, with all other functions -- such as analysis and technology -- subordinate to the human intelligence role.
Mmm, discuss? I think the first step would be to kick out all of the diplomatic cocktail party types...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
09/09/2005 14:15 Comments ||
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Hereâs a collection of some of the best information on 9/11 available online today. Feel free to add to the list in the comments section.
Eyewitness accounts & actualities
I saw the airliner at the instant it hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. A little later I saw the flames burst out of the south tower when the second airliner hit it. I saw people fall from the top of the World Trade Center. I saw the south tower fall down. A little later, I saw the north tower fall down. I have, in the past several hours, looked into lower Manhattan, and each time, where the World Trade Center stood, there is absolutely nothing.
I think that in the next few days I am going to wish that I had not seen any of this. . . .
Around the 35th floor we started meeting a steady stream of firefighters walking up and had to press into single file again. None of them said a word as they went up and past us carrying unbelievable loads of equipment. They were already exhausted by the time we started seeing them. I can't stop thinking about the look in their eyes and how heroic they were. I pray some of them made it out. . . .
This is not an easy enemy to confront. This will not be a matter of great troop movements, of trenches and bombs and massed charges. This will be small teams of inconceivably brave men and women, working in strange places, unknown and unacknowledged. But is the same enemy, the same truth, of which Kipling spoke: evil, naked and proud: "a crazed and driven foe." This is what humanity has faced before, since our story began to be written down. This is civilization versus barbarism.
John Derbyshire, "Steel and Fire and Stone"National Review Online -- written within two hours of the first attack.
So when I heard a plane overhead tonight, it was wrong. Turns out they were military jets circling around, securing the airspace. Just heard an unusually loud one, and I flinched; what had been an ordinary sound, an ordinary annoyance, was now a dire portent. Is this the future? Fearing the sound of every jet?
HELL no. I am not going to live in fear. They want my freedom, my peace of mind? Come and get it.
I won't do your work for you.
. . . on a local TV show last night the reporter Dick Oliver was asked how it was that so many firemen died, couldn't they have escaped, and he said, with a rough voice that had love in it, "Firemen don't run out of buildings. Firemen run into buildings"
Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz and Ford Fessenden. "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died"New York Times (LRR) -- a detailed reconstruction of the 102 minutes between the first attack and the final collapse.
. . . in the midst of tragedy we do well to recognize that these firefighters did not lose their lives. They gave them.
Three hundred firemen. This is the part that reorders your mind when you think of it. For most of the 5,000 dead were there--they just happened to be there, in the buildings, at their desks or selling coffee or returning e-mail. But the 300 didn't happen to be there, they went there. In the now-famous phrase, they ran into the burning building and not out of the burning building. They ran up the stairs, not down, they went into it and not out of it. They didn't flee, they charged.
"Mysterious âRed Bandannaâ Man Is 9/11 Hero" WNBC-TV -- The story of Wells Crowther, an equities trader and volunteer firefighter who worked in 2 WTC, and was as much a hero as anyone that day.
Vincent Druding, "Ground Zero: a Journal"First Things -- account of an early volunteer in the recovery effort
Every morning when I open the door to go to work, there is a hole in the sky where the World Trade Center used to be, a memento mori, a reminder of death. Not just the death of the 2,800, but of death itself, and the impermanence of all things human. That hole is the first thing I see in the morning when I leave my house, and the last thing I see at night before I come inside for my supper.
The men on the plane decided to attack the hijackers. They learned what had happened in New York with the other hijacked planes; they figured their lives were lost already. They fought back. What itâs like to swallow your terror and act is beyond the imagination of most ordinary folks - but the point is, they were ordinary folks. Weâre all on that plane now.
In America we remember. We remember people who made choices. We remember an unforgivable attack. We remember people who refused to submit, and chose to die well, defiant to the end. We remember two words: Let's roll.
That's the choice: Stop, or keep going; keep our promises, or forget we made them; be responsible, or irresponsible; face facts, or ignore them. It's easier to stop, you know. Beating these folks will take a very long time. Decades, probably, and that's if we do everything right.
Remember, too, our just vengeance. Our president told us, 'I hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.' And they do hear us, in Iraq and in Afghanistan. They hear us, not because we used our weapons to murder their civilians, but to bring down their tyrants. From our loss, we gave them hope. The loss felt in Baghdad and Kabul is that of Sisyphus without his stone. The sound they hear is the ring of freedom. And they hear us, even if only a whisper, in Syria, in Iran, and - yes - they hear us in Saudi Arabia, too.
It will require an economist, politician, historian, philosopher, and artist to make sense of the world turned upside down after September 11, which unlike Y2K really did prove to be the abyss between the millennia.
The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/09/2005 01:23 ||
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The NYT account is chilling. I won't ever compliment them again.
The part of me that isn't still pissed is disgusted with the America hating left.
People like me jumping out of windows in Manhatten for crying out loud. No amount of kumbaya solves that problem, only dead Islamist's do.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You don't know what you just started.
Several Border Patrol agents were involved in a shooting near the Hidalgo port of entry Saturday. The Mexican consulate in McAllen was notified when the incident occurred, said vice consul Sandra Mendoza, but they have yet to receive a written report.
Border Patrol spokesman Roy Cervantes confirmed a shooting took place but would not comment on Mexican media reports that two agents were hospitalized for injuries received when they confronted three Mexican nationals attempting to cross the Rio Grande. The immigrants reportedly threw rocks at the agents, who responded with gunfire and orders for the three to stop.
âThe FBI is still investigating the incident,â said Federal Bureau of Investigation media coordinator in McAllen, Jorge Cisneros.
Abner Burnett is a lawyer with the South Texas Civil Rights Project in San Juan and characterized the incident as an âunfortunate confrontationâ that did not cast any parties involved in a favorable light. Burnett said the exact circumstances surrounding the incident would have to be examined.
âIt sounds like excessive use of force, but if I were bleeding, I guess I would think of it differently,â he said, âCommonly, the use of deadly force is only justified if the life of the officer or a fellow officer or another citizen is eminently threatened.â Border Patrol officials declined to provide a copy of their deadly force policy at press time Tuesday.
#2
Sounds like Abner's doing the early spin. Shoot to kill if they throw rocks and bottles. Those kill too. Time to stiffen the spine and play straight: let the illegals know it's over and stop the flow. Those who fight are killed
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 0:50 Comments ||
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Shoot to kill if they throw rocks and bottles.
If that's unpalatable, then rubber bullets will do.
#4
Perhaps they should adopt the California approach to endangered species found on private property: shoot 'em quick and bury them deep. It eliminates many future problems.
Posted by: Random thoughts ||
09/09/2005 1:17 Comments ||
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what was that a few days back about building cement forts every 30 meters on Iraq's border. Maybe it's time to start that here and have the death star fully operational. With all sensors intact as well :)
and the obvious force being with them of course.
Posted by: Jan ||
09/09/2005 1:35 Comments ||
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Time to deploy the sonic cannons and active denial systems
#15
Discouragement of illegal aliens should be added to the ROE as a justification for the use of deadly force.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/09/2005 13:10 Comments ||
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Well, I wanna know if we're gonna hold a press conference to ask them when they'll respond to accusations of their official military shooting at our agents. Or the very least, the human traffikers who are firing real bullets at our agents. Then and only then should we respond to this accusation.
Posted by: BA ||
09/09/2005 13:27 Comments ||
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Why is it such a bad thing for Mexicans to cross the border? Just asking. And don't say "because it's against federal law." What's the reasoning behind it? (Remember, I'm ex-LIB -- not up to speed on everything conservative just yet, or . . . am I just bettering your apologetic? Hmmm . . . we'll never know).
#18
Other than by violating US borders and living a semi-underground existence and bankrupting border counties unpaid medical and legal bills, criminal illegal aliens are 1/3 of Federal inmates. But more importantly, they displace the least educated and skilled citizens as well as entry jobs for the young. For instance illegals have taken much of the construction and janitorial jobs by driving down wages.
For example, 30 years in Los Angeles janitorial jobs paid about $18 (today's dollars) and was enough to support underclass families. Now janitorial jobs pay $6-8 and there is no way to live independently in LA on that wage. So you have a whole undereducated class that used to do that job now on welfare with unwed mothers and fathers unemployed and sneaking into the mother's apartment when the welfare case worker is not watching. You also have the idle men making money by dealing drugs, petty crime, etc. There is a huge monetary and social cost that is transferred from the illegal alien's employer to the rest of society.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 18:14 Comments ||
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Touche' ed! Very good points. And besides breaking Federal Law, many have become more criminal once they got here. Murder, rape, theft, etc. And, another argument all good liberals can buy off on, is that it's just "NOT FAIR" to all of those who want to come here legally and can't. Just because Mexico shares a border with us, that doesn't mean the Amigos should take priority over Africans, Europeans, Aussies and even Asians because they have no "Rio Grande" to just walk across. Heck, even Mexicans who came here legally (filled out appropriate papers and waited to come across) don't like the amigos sneaking in, because they had to wait/fill out papers/pay $ to get here legally.
Posted by: BA ||
09/09/2005 18:49 Comments ||
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Karen Hughes, the Bush administration's top public diplomacy official, yesterday rolled out a "strategic framework" to improve the U.S. image abroad, urging American ambassadors to step up their engagement with foreign audiences.
Mrs. Hughes' plan focuses on promoting communication and better understanding between ordinary Americans and their peers overseas, as well as enhancing Washington's ability to respond immediately to "wrong information" in the foreign press.
As the United States is being depicted abroad in the most negative light in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Mrs. Hughes and other State Department officials said U.S. missions abroad have been asked to provide local news outlets with facts about the relief effort on a daily basis.
Mrs. Hughes has been on the job for about a month but will be officially sworn in as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy by President Bush today.
"We'll create a rapid response unit here at the State Department -- it's already in the works -- to monitor media and help us more aggressively respond to rumors, inaccuracies and hate speech," she said.
I don't think PR is the problem, but knock yourself out Karen.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2005 05:40 ||
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If the unending, bottomless sacks of cash we throw around the world don't help nothing will
#2
Start by ending foreign aid to those who wish us ill. Continue by ending alliances with those who are hostile, envious, or ankle biting. Trade preferentially with friendly nations, not enemies or those who are duplicitous. Broadcast to Americans the lies, prejudices, and blood libel that is a staple of worldwide "news". Achieve energy self sufficiency. No sense funding those who wish us destruction. If the those who are hostile don't love Americans, then let them pound sand.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 8:29 Comments ||
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#3
When the unwashed masses quit coming to the shores, I'll be concerned. Till then...
#4
"We'll create a rapid response unit here at the State Department -- it's already in the works -- to monitor media and help us more aggressively respond to rumors, inaccuracies and hate speech," she said.
The hell with our image abroad. How about starting by responding quickly to leftist rumors, inaccuracies, and hate speech??
NEW YORK -- Disputes over nuclear weapons, terrorism, development aid and human rights have diplomats questioning whether they will be able to agree on a joint declaration for the world's leaders to proclaim at a massive U.N. summit beginning Wednesday.
Negotiations, quietly under way for months, assumed a frantic tone three weeks ago when John R. Bolton, in one of his first acts after arriving at the United Nations as U.S. ambassador, asked for about 400 changes in the draft document.
A group of 32 countries has taken the lead in trying to resolve the differences, which also involve issues ranging from environmental policy to reform of the world body.
A failure to agree could reduce the largest world summit held to date to little more than a social gathering, causing acute embarrassment to the more than 175 heads of state and government officials expected to attend, negotiators said.
Reduce summit to little more than a social gathering? Sandwich anyone?
"We must have a declaration. We will not even discuss the possibility of failure," said one European diplomat who has been trying to bridge the gaps. "There is no 'Plan B.' If there is no document, it will show we cannot agree."
The diplomat said, however, that it may be possible to delete some portions of the document on which agreement is unlikely.
A month ago, many nations appeared reluctantly willing to sign on to an agreement that had been crafted by U.N.-appointed mediators -- known as facilitators -- and frequently fell short of individual governments' preferences and priorities.
At the time, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan exhorted governments to sign on to the whole package in good faith, rather than tear it apart to emphasize their own issues.
Right, Kofi, just sign the whole package in good faith rather than tear it apart. Oil for food anyone?
But the United States demanded in mid-August that the member nations take back the negotiating process from the 10 regional facilitators. Later in the month, Mr. Bolton circulated a detailed draft with hundreds of amendments and deletions, transforming the negotiations into a rigorous line-by-line analysis.
Some delegations were dismayed at the change in the drafting procedure, while others welcomed a reopening of negotiations that would allow them, too, to change language they disliked.
But with time running out, diplomats say they are far from agreeing on many important issues, including:
⢠Terrorism: A proposed definition that would condemn all politically motivated attacks on civilians is stalled by Arab states that insist on a reference to the legitimacy of opposing foreign occupation.
⢠Creation of a Human Rights Council: Many democratic nations want to replace the U.N. Human Rights Commission with a smaller body that would keep notorious rights abusers from holding key positions. But rogue nations are opposing some of the reforms.
⢠Nuclear weapons: The United States and some other nuclear-weapons states reject language stressing disarmament, preferring to focus on nonproliferation.
A compromise has been reached on Washington's attempt to delete all references to the five-year-old Millennium Development Goals, an ambitious program to reduce extreme poverty in developing nations. Language referring to specific goals has been watered down, but some details are under negotiation.
Another prime area of dispute -- how to expand the U.N. Security Council -- has been shelved until after the annual debate.
U.N. staff and foreign diplomats say it is normal for talks on such documents to go down to the final hours, but add that they need a complete declaration by Sunday or Monday if it is to be translated into six official languages and circulated to the world leaders en route to New York.
Mr. Bolton has been a powerful presence at many of the meetings, diplomats say, but U.S. officials also have traveled from Washington to help work on segments of the draft.
Some foreign diplomats, worried by what they had heard about Mr. Bolton before his arrival, said they have been pleasantly surprised.
"All lies; he is easy to work with," said one ambassador whose nation frequently opposes Washington on development issues. "He knows what he thinks, and he will tell you."
But others are angry that the United States waited so long to demand a major renegotiation of the declaration.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2005 04:56 ||
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We will not even discuss the possibility of failure
Then you have already failed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 9:17 Comments ||
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But others are angry that the United States waited so long to demand a major renegotiation of the declaration.
Tell the Senate Minority Democrats.
"Minority Democrats." That has a nice sound, doesn't it?
#4
It's also rarely noted that especially China stands next to the US in wanting to totally re-order the document. And not entirely in a bad way. Even they realize that this paper is the biggest hunk-o'-crap since Kyoto.
#5
Bolton's earning his pay already. Senate Democrats should have to live under the one-world gov't they would try to impose on us
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 10:45 Comments ||
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Bolton probably wanted them to refer to our country as the "United States of America" in the document, versus: the "Fascist Imperialist United States of Oppression and Evil"
Bolton just REFUSES to play nice with the other kids! Paging Jimmy Carter...
#8
I've actually read the draft. Well sort of scanned most of it. Vacuous blather of the everyone gets a pink pony sort. What most don't grasp, is that Bolton is trying to get the UN to commit to concrete and achievable things. And BTW, I frankly ambivalent on whether I want him to succeed or not.
Ex-Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has accused the UK of "state-initiated terror" in a speech.
His remarks on the Iraq war prompted the British high commissioner and several other diplomats to walk out.
Dr Mahathir said US and UK pilots in Iraq were "murderers" and compared the war to rocket attacks on Palestinians.
Dr Mahathir, often criticised for his poor human rights record in office, was making the speech at a conference on the subject in Kuala Lumpur...
Dr Mahathir used his speech to turn the tables on critics of his record during 22 years in power.
He said the UK and the US invaded Iraq on a lie and compared what they had done to Israeli attacks on Palestinians.
The former prime minister accused British and American pilots of returning to base to celebrate after bombing civilians.
"The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy in their state of the art aircraft, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim.
"And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate 'mission accomplished'.
"Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?"
Dr Mahathir also turned on Western human rights campaigners, who he said had ignored the plight of the Iraqi people during a decade of sanctions that followed the first Gulf war.
Half a dozen European diplomats joined the British High Commissioner, Bruce Cleghorn, in walking out.
Mr Cleghorn said: "I found myself listening to abuse and misrepresentation about my country. I therefore left."
A Foreign Office spokesman told BBC News: "We don't believe his [Dr Mahathir's] views represent those of the Malaysian government and we therefore do not think that they will affect our good relations with the Malaysian government." Dr Mahathir is looking forward to his new job as head of the Moveon.org organization.
BANGKOK, Sept 8 (Bernama) -- Army assistant commander, Gen Sonthi Boonyaratkalin has been promoted as the new commander-in-chief of the Royal Thai Army, the first Muslim to be appointed to the post. The Thai government said in a statement Thursday that the appointment and other military reshuffle was endorsed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Sonthi replaced outgoing army commander Gen Pravit Wongsuwan and will assume the post on Oct 1, this year.
The appointment of the former chief of the special warfare command was regarded by many as timely as he had the experience on the battle ground and the credentials to help solve the unrest in the three southernmost Muslim dominated provinces. More than 80 per cent of the population in southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat are Muslims but more than 90 per cent of Thais are Buddhists. Since January last year, more than 800 people had died in the violence in the south as Muslim militants fought for an independent Muslim nation.
Sonthi's appointment came in the midst of a diplomatic row between Thailand and Malaysia over the departure of 131 village[r]s from Narathiwat to Kelantan last week. The government has also come under attack from various quarters over an executive decree on emergency powers that gives wide power to security agencies to deal with the south problem...
Meanwhile, local radio stations reported that Thailand may consider closing its southern border with Malaysia if the situation warranted. Interior Minister Kongsak Wanthana told reporters that the authorities are watching closely the situation at its border crossing following the departure of the 131 people who has sought refugee status in Malaysia. Local newspapers had carried reports by Bernama that many Muslims are now in Betong waiting to cross into Pengkalan Hulu in Perak to escape from the violence-hit provinces.
JAKARTA, Sept 8 (Bernama) --The "Eye in the Sky" (EiS) combined maritime air patrol to enhance the safety and security of the Malacca Straits will be launched on Sept 13 with the first flight coming out of the Subang Airbase in Kuala Lumpur. Assistant Chief of Operations, Western Fleet Command of the Indonesian Navy, Col Suryo Wiranto said Defence Ministers of the three littoral states-- Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore -- plus Thailand would jointly launch the EiS, the first ever coordinated multilateral initiative to guard shipping in the straits. [T]he aircraft involved would report to the various Ops Centres of the participating countries which would then coordinate among themselves any follow-up action required.
Under the EiS initiative, each state will conduct up to two air patrols per week along the Malacca and Singapore Straits, with each flight carrying a combined mission patrol team that would consist of personnel from the participating states... subject to the consent of the existing participants, other countries too were welcome to participate in the EiS air patrols on a voluntary basis.
Answering questions from the press later, Suryo said even though Thailand was not one of the littoral states of the Malacca Straits, that country had been given the opportunity to contribute jointly in the air surveillance. He said the EiS would be jointly coordinated in such a way that no days over the 805-kilometre Malacca Straits would be free from air surveillance by one or two aircrafts from participating countries...
Thailand has emerged as one of the criminal world's main sources for fake and altered passports for frauds, fugitives and terrorists, including at least one al-Qaida-linked operative, Thai and foreign police say. Thai police previously viewed forgery as a petty crime. But under pressure from Western governments after the Sept. 11 attacks, they say they are now cracking down on the black market that aided Hambali, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and alleged leader of al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah. Hambali had a forged Spanish passport that portrayed him as a well-groomed businessman when he was arrested in the central Thai city of Ayuthaya in August 2003. Police arrested Bangladeshi Mohammed Ali Hossain, the man who allegedly supplied Hambali with the passport, last September.
"The people who use these fake documents and passports are terrorists, fugitives and people illegally transferring or laundering money or opening bank accounts," said Col. Chote Kuldiloke, who oversees such investigations at the Immigration Police Bureau. The most commonly seized fakes are Belgian, French, Portuguese and Spanish passports, which Thai police say are easily copied. Thai police seized 353 such passports from a Greek courier en route to London in March 2004 and 100 from a Spaniard and Dutchman trying to sell them in February to an undercover policeman in Bangkok. Another 452 were taken from Algerian-born Briton Mahieddine Daikh, who was going to deliver them to London in early August.
A Thai policeman who works closely with the Australian police said up to 90 percent of fake passports leaving Thailand are bound for London. These fakes are passable likenesses of the originals and cost the buyer from $25 to $50. They are often used to open bank accounts or rent apartments. More rare and expensive are the lost or stolen passports â some of which have been sold by tourists to black market buyers. They are used by criminals to cross borders, where immigration officials' eyes are better trained to spot fakes.
Many of these passports are sold by or stolen from the more than 10 million tourists who visit Thailand each year.
One 24-year-old French tourist said he was offered $240 by a clean-cut Iranian man in his 30s staying at the same guesthouse he was at on Bangkok's Khao San Road â the popular backpacker district that police say is a major source of black market passports.
"Some Westerners will sell their passports for $500 to get quick cash, and then they'll say it was stolen, so it's hard to crack down," immigration policeman Chote said.
The passport is then sold to an alterer, who will change either the photo, the page with biographical data or the entire cover of the book. What counts is the visas inside.
Thai police teamed up with a Pakistani man who acted as a buyer to catch alterer Sabananthan Kanagasabai, who carried his real Sri Lankan passport as well as at least four fakes â three from India and one from Canada.
His work was impeccable, but crafted with simple items such as a laminator, blow dryer, hole puncher, paper cutter and a desktop computer, all in his modest studio apartment workspace. Police found 73 fake visa and immigration stamps from around the world, including Thai and Indonesian consular stamps from Munich, Madras, Paris and Vientiane.
They seized from him 255 passports from 33 different countries, mostly European and Asian. He would deliver the altered passports by FedEx in a hidden compartment cut inside a children's book, Beatrix Potter's Nursery Rhyme Book.
A passport with visas to the United States or the United Kingdom, which are hard to fake because of stricter security measures, can sell for $2,400. A U.S. passport with a changed photo can fetch $2,900.
Australian Federal Police and their Thai counterparts have set up an intelligence center to tackle transnational crime and forgery, and police from eight countries â Canada, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia and the United States â convene with Thai police at a monthly meeting in Bangkok to fight identity fraud.
One European police officer said he has been stationed in Bangkok for 18 months specifically because of forged passports, which he called "a bridge to all sorts of criminality." He said forged passports sourced from Thailand emerged as a problem in his country two to three years ago. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want his identity and presence here to be known by criminals.
"Thailand is a country where you can buy knockoff DVDs, handbags. Passports are just another part of that industry to a degree. The mindset of the passport producer is the same as the person producing Rolex watches: It's a business venture," he said.
The maximum punishment is relatively light â five years jail time and a $240 fine for faking Thai government documents or possession of stolen property, such as a foreign passport. Chote said police are trying to exact a harsher penalty by multiplying it by the number of fake documents seized.
Kesrouan MP General Michel Aoun criticized President Emile Lahoud's decision to attend a UN summit in New York later this month, and voiced concerns that he would be blamed for failures of Lahoud's security regime should he be the next president. Aoun's comments followed a meeting with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir late yesterday evening. Aoun said that if he was in Lahoud's place, he "wouldn't leave the country, but rather stay and follow-up on the internal issues."
The difference between Lahoud going to the UN and Assad going is that likely there won't be a coup in Leb while the president's out of town.
When asked about the destiny of the presidency, Aoun said: "We have to agree on people who are able to hold on their responsibilities. We've said it previously as we are saying it now and in the future, there will not be a play thing or a civil servant, but a president who enjoys the qualities of a president such as leadership and morals. The president has to be in the position where he can push the country forward toward reform and change. That is because the country can't bear anymore the current situation of corruption, bankruptcy and other difficulties the Lebanese people are suffering from especially when the media only concentrates on the investigations into former Premier Rafik Hariri's murder."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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A wave of response came yesterday in response to the annual statement issued Wednesday by the Maronite Bishops League on developments in the country over the past year. While calling for holding internal dialogue regarding the complete implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, the league noted the "confusing impact" 1559 has had on the country and indirectly called for the disarmament of Islamic resistance group Hizbullah. "The participation of a category of the Lebanese in the official authority through MPs and ministers and the carrying of arms outside official armed forces are two contradictory things. Therefore, this issue should be solved through a sincere internal dialogue," the statement said.
Sources from Hizbullah refused to comment on the bishops' statement. However, the bishops' position regarding the resistance was met with strong criticism during a news conference in Sidon yesterday held by Sheikh Afif Naboulsi, the president of Jabal Amel Scholars Committee, who said the statement was based on "dangerous sectarian stands, which hurts the resistance and its role in defending the country."
Y'see, if you suggest that Hezbollah not be allowed to maintain its own private armed force, then you're a dangerous sectarian.
"We reply to the bishops' invitation to disarm the resistance by inviting them to carry weapons and have the honor to join us in defending our country," he said. "The resistance's arms cannot be subject to sectarian categorization; they transcend sects and communities to reach national, Islamic and humanitarian levels."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Syrian President Bashar Assad will not receive an invitation for a meeting of European and Middle Eastern leaders hosted by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice next week in New York. The meeting coincides with the special session of the UN General Assembly, which attracts scores of world leaders. President George W. Bush plans to speak to the assembly next Wednesday and Rice will spend a week or more in New York, taking advantage of the leaders' presence to conduct some diplomacy.
One of the top items on her list is stepping up pressure on Syria to steer clear of Lebanon in its drive for political independence and to crack down on Palestinian militants with headquarters in Damascus. Rice will try to rally support when she hosts a meeting of European and Middle Eastern leaders. But the target of her campaign will not be there. Facing international pressure over the investigation into Lebanon's former Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, Assad has decided not to attend the General Assembly session. No official reason was given by Damascus for the president's pull-out, which contradicted last month's statement by Syria's UN Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad who said that Assad would attend.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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Assad's not the only party pooper in NY. Chirac's doc wants him to take a week off, Ahmadinejad declined his invitation, and Abbas as other engagements to attend to. Do they know something we don't?
Christians in the Holy Land have handed a dossier detailing incidents of violence and intimidation by Muslim extremists to Church leaders in Jerusalem, one of whom said it was time for Christians to "raise our voices" against the sectarian violence. The dossier includes 93 alleged incidents of abuse by an "Islamic fundamentalist mafia" against Palestinian Christians, who accused the Palestinian Authority of doing nothing to stop the attacks. The dossier also includes a list of 140 cases of apparent land theft, in which Christians in the West Bank were allegedly forced off their land by gangs backed by corrupt judicial officials.
From the birthplace of Christ at Bethlehem to the site of his Crucifixion in Jerusalem, Christian Church leaders have long been desperate not to upset the delicate ethnic and sectarian balance in the region by blaming either Jews or Muslims for the decline of their once robust religious community. That self-imposed silence now appears to be crumbling. "The problem exists," said Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Jerusalem's senior Franciscan, known as the Custos of the Holy Land. "The Christian community has always suffered in the last few years because we are a minority. Many have the temptation to leave, so the community is shrinking." While he stressed that "we are not talking about a confrontation with all Muslims", he added that "we don't want to see violations of the law - sometimes we have to raise our voices".
The alleged attacks on Christians have come despite repeated appeals to the Palestinian Authority to rein in Muslim gangs. A spokesman for the Apostolic Delegate, the Pope's envoy to Jerusalem, said nothing had been done to tackle the problem. "The Apostolic Delegate presented a list of all the problems to Mr [Yasser] Arafat before he died," he said. "He promised a lot but he did very little." In the offices of his tiny Christian television station in Bethlehem, Samir Qumsieh said this week that Christian appeals to Mr Arafat's successor as Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, had also gone unheeded. "At least Arafat responded," he said, "Abbas does not answer our letters."
Mr Qumsieh said he was trying to repair relations between Palestinian Christian and Muslim communities, convening a meeting attended by members of both faiths in Bethlehem last week. But he said that the Christian community was faced with "very brutal" adversaries. "A criminal mafia and Islamic fundamentalists work together," he said. "Their interests met to take our land away." He said that one man had lost his finger in one land dispute which turned violent and that a group had attacked and injured a Greek orthodox monk at a 5th century monastery outside Bethlehem. The dossier currently in Church hands details far worse allegations of violence, notably the torture and murder of two Christian girls in 2003 after they were deemed prostitutes. A post mortem examination reportedly proved they were virgins.
Some Christians note that land grabs are common in the growing lawlessness of the West Bank and are not necessarily motivated by sectarian rivalry. They add that increasingly entrenched Islamic extremism has driven a wedge between the communities, especially over women's dress and freedom of expression. Several Christians tell the story of a moderate Muslim imam in Bethlehem's biggest mosque, who was repeatedly threatened after giving a sermon calling for an end to the anti-Christian discrimination and land grabs. Last weekend, the Christian village of Taybeh was ransacked and burned by a Muslim mob, incensed that a boy there had been seeing a girl from their neighbouring village of Deir Jarir.
"I am pessimistic about our future as Christians here," said Mr Qumsieh, adding that Christians now form about two per cent of the population of the Holy Land, down from almost 20 per cent 60 years ago.
"We have a low birth rate, and now with intimidation and emigration, our future is very dark," he said.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/09/2005 10:10 ||
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"The Apostolic Delegate presented a list of all the problems to Mr [Yasser] Arafat before he died," he said. "He promised a lot but he did very little."
To be fair, he was pretty evenhanded. That was Yasir's record on almost everything that didn't involve blowing up innocent people.
#2
"A criminal mafia and Islamic fundamentalists work together . . ."
Pretty much explains the basics of the WOT, in general.
" . . . the torture and murder of two Christian girls in 2003 after they were deemed prostitutes. A post mortem examination reportedly proved they were virgins"
That really fries me. I mean, it's okay for a moslem "martyr" to have 72 private prostitutes for his own horny, disgusting, fantasies for all eternity, so what are they griping about, even if it were true?
Those poor girls.
See--this kind of thing is why these guys need to die. They will never be interested in "peace." All they want is to dominate and destroy.
September 9, 2005: Despite the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Army is going through a major reorganization, and moving a number of units around. The new organization makes the brigades, not the divisions, the primary combat unit. The new brigades have more support units, and can be sent off to fight by themselves. In the past, doing this involved quickly adding a lot of support units to the brigade. But the new organization makes small support units part of the brigades, and, more importantly, the brigades train using these support units and learns to work well with them. The divisions still exist, but operate more like the corps has for the last two centuries (coordinating the actions of a few divisions and only having a few support units under its command.) Divisions now have four of the new brigades, but can control more (or less) in action. Each of the new brigades (or BCTs, for Brigade Combat Teams) has 3,500-4,000 troops (depending on type). There are three types of BCTs; light (infantry, including paratroopers), heavy (mechanized, including tanks) and Stryker (mechanized using wheeled armored vehicles.) During this reorganization, which will be completed next year, the army will end up with 43 combat brigades, instead of the current 33. This is done by reorganizing the combat units of each division into four brigades, instead of the current three. There are several independent brigades as well. New weapons and equipment (especially satellite based communications and battlefield Internet software) enable the army to get the same amount of combat power brigade, using fewer combat troops. The army is also transferring over 40,000 people from combat-support jobs to the combat brigades. The actual number of infantrymen and tanks wonât change, but the number of communications, maintenance and intelligence support will. For example, increased use of robots, sensors and computerized vidcam surveillance systems makes it possible to do the same amount of work in combat, with fewer troops. A lot of these new ideas, and equipment, is being tested in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most of these items work well in combat.
The new BCTs will be stationed in these bases:
Fort Benning, Ga.â1 BCT
Fort Bliss, Texasâ4 BCTs
Fort Bragg, N.C.â4 BCTs
Fort Campbell, Ky.â4 BCTs
Fort Carson, Colo.â4 BCTs
Fort Drum, N.Y.â3 BCTs
Fort Hood, Texasâ5 BCTs
Fort Knox, Ky.â1 BCT
Fort Lewis, Wash.â3 Stryker BCTs
Fort Polk, La.â1 BCT
Fort Richardson, Alaskaâ1 BCT
Fort Riley, Kan.â3 BCTs
Fort Stewart, Ga.â3 BCTs
Fort Wainwright, Alaskaâ1 Stryker BCT
Schofield Barracks, Hawaiiâ1 BCT, 1 Stryker BCT
Fort Irwin (National Training Center), Calif.â1 BCT (minus some units)
Koreaâ1 BCT
Germanyâ1 Stryker BCT
Italyâ1 BCT
As part of the reorganization, some 60,000 troops will be brought home from overseas bases (mainly in Europe, but also in South Korea,) The new brigades are designed, and trained, to quickly move overseas to a new hotspot. For that purpose, equipment for one or more BCTs is stored in potential hotspots (Kuwait, the Pacific, on ships). With these prepositioned equipment sets, all you have to do is fly in the troops, and then you have a BCT ready to go, all in a few days.
Posted by: Steve ||
09/09/2005 09:56 ||
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I've always wondered if it would be possible for an enemy to destroy the pre-positioned equipment in a theatre, thus diminishing the combat power of the US forces that were supposed to use the equipment on arrival in-theatre. Wouldn't the troops have to hold out with what they brought along until a new equipment set arrived? Imagine, for example, North Korean special forces destroying the equipment set for a BCT that is designated to arrive in South Korea just after an invasion.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
09/09/2005 10:25 Comments ||
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The pre-positioned supplies could be destroyed, sure. Then the US would be forced to divert the troops coming in to another location until replacements could be found.
I can't imagine anyone would send the troops into a fight if the equipment wasn't there.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 11:01 Comments ||
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Destruction isn't as easy as all that. The US is quite good, as these things go, in storing materiel so as to minimize destruction by fire or explosion. (Even a properly arranged company motor pool has five or six different safety points for storing apart things like compressed gasses, paints, oils and greases, etc.)
Vehicles are not fueled and are motor parked, so how do you destroy a bunch of big piles of steel? Munitions are stored in seperate bunkers and away from weapons. POL is the easiest to destroy, but it is expended so quickly that it is never taken for granted under any event. (Note: it is almost comic to ask for directions at a POL storage point during a high alert. They get downright testy.)
Within a storage area are lots of internal fences, which could slow down a saboteur a LOT. And these places also have armed security personnel who are quick with a radio to call for back-up.
#6
Ah, but that's a different style of conflict. If an enemy has such air superiority, or can willfully drop a missile on your pre-positioned equipment, then sending a combat brigade forward is moot anyway.
There will be combat brigades, no doubt, that *do* take their own equipment along, just for such an eventuality, such as airborne brigades.
Remember that pre-positioning should not be seen as vital, it should be seen as a convenience.
Al-Qaida leaders in hiding and foot-soldiers preparing for terrorist attacks are turning to outlawed Pakistani extremist groups for spiritual and military training, shelter and logistical support, say U.S. officials who see them as an emerging threat.
One group â Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, or Army of the Pure â is an example of how Osama bin Laden's followers take advantage of scattered Islamic militant allies to maintain momentum, four years after a U.S.-led military campaign destroyed al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan. Lashkar is among the organizations fighting for the disputed region of Kashmir. U.S. officials say the group stands out for a number of reasons, including its missionary work and other involvement outside the area.
Elements of Pakistan's intelligence services have supported Lashkar in the past. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, banned Lashkar in 2002 for its alleged links to an attack on India's parliament. Lashkar leaders insist the group's focus is freeing Muslims in Indian-controlled Kashmir â not attacks on the West. Pakistani officials say the group is local, not international.
Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., Jehangir Karamat, said in an Associated Press interview that he considers Lashkar incapable of international terrorism and particularly of working with al-Qaida because the groups have different languages and agendas. Al-Qaida has "no linkage with any organization in Pakistan," Karamat said. "They don't need it and they don't have it â never had it."
Still, the United States is closely watching Lashkar because of its apparent willingness to help those involved in the global jihad on a grass-roots level. The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity, said they do not believe Lashkar's leadership is coordinating international attacks with groups including the remnants of al-Qaida. Instead, they worry about connections among foot-soldiers â extremists who may point friends of friends to paramilitary camps. Last year, the State Department estimated the group had several thousand members.
The Lashkar organization represents a classic example of the diffusion of Islamic extremism â based in Afghanistan until the U.S. toppled the Taliban in 2001 â that CIA Director Porter Goss and other intelligence officials have warned of. Ken Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service, said groups including Lashkar have revived the training structure once found in Afghanistan, setting up "Afghanistan East" in northern Pakistan. Some in Pakistan deny the camps' existence. "I think this is emerging as the next theater to test whether Pakistan is serious about eliminating the al-Qaida presence," Katzman said.
Some examples of high-profile moments where Lashkar's fingerprints are suspected or spotted:
⢠International authorities are looking into whether an Islamic school run by Lashkar trained at least one of the bombers who attacked four London buses on July 7. Officials are also looking closely at the associations of the three other bombers. Pakistani authorities have yet to find direct links and say any tie may be a small piece of the investigation.
⢠In Virginia, a prominent Islamic scholar was sentenced to life in prison this summer for encouraging his followers to join the Taliban and fight the United States after Sept. 11, 2001. After one fiery speech, several attendees went to Pakistan and received military training from Lashkar. The young men were part of the "Virginia jihad network" that sometimes trained for holy war by playing paintball games in the woods.
⢠U.S. officials say Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a top al-Qaida operational leader picked up in Pakistan in May, ran from a site associated with Lashkar before Pakistani forces captured him in a graveyard shootout. He is in U.S. custody, accused of planning two assassination attempts on Musharraf. Some Pakistani officials have said al-Libbi was sheltered by another Muslim militant organization.
⢠In March 2002, a senior al-Qaida lieutenant and planner, Abu Zubaydah, was captured at a Lashkar safehouse in Faisalabad, Pakistan.
⢠The Australian Taliban, David Hicks, whom U.S. forces captured fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was trained by Lashkar in the late 1990s. He is being held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The Bush administration is cautious about pushing too hard on Pakistan, an ally in the fight against terrorism. The United States added Lashkar to its list of terrorist groups in 2001 and extended the designation in December 2003. "We hope this list will help to isolate these terrorist organizations ... and to prevent their members' movement across international borders," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said then.
U.S. officials acknowledge the differences between al-Qaida and Lashkar, including their respective roots in the Wahhabi and Deobandi sects of Islam. Yet they say that their histories have intersected since the 1990s, creating highly complex and dangerous relationships that authorities sometimes struggle to monitor.
The officials and counterterrorism experts note that camps affiliated with Lashkar may be particularly attractive to extremist recruits because they don't get the scrutiny of those run by al-Qaida, now largely underground. "What's crazy is that these groups, because they are a little bit more low key than al-Qaida, they have been able to operate, in Pakistan especially without hindrance," said Evan Kohlmann, an international terrorism consultant who has studied Lashkar.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 08:33 ||
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Agreed ping the Master or Suprise Meter please.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2005 14:40 Comments ||
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U.S. officials acknowledge the differences between al-Qaida and Lashkar, including their respective roots in the Wahhabi and Deobandi sects of Islam.
Huh? Lashkar-e-Taiba is an Ahle-Hadith organisation, which is the South Asian name for Wahabism. It's the other Pak Jihad groups that are Deobandis.
Yet they say that their histories have intersected since the 1990s
Well the Lashkar's parent organisation was co-founded by Adullah Azzam, Osamas forerunner, and their histories have done a lot more than 'intersect' since then.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/09/2005 18:45 Comments ||
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Members of Saddam Husseinâs deposed government âknow the whereaboutsâ of a Navy pilot shot down on the opening night of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a Navy review board asserts in a new report on the case.
But the three-member panel said it could find no evidence of Capt. Michael Scott Speicherâs fate. Navy Secretary Gordon R. England agreed Wednesday to the boardâs recommendation that Speicher continue to be listed as âMissing/Capturedâ in Navy records.
The review board, the second such team to review Speicherâs status, said American authorities should press the new Iraqi government to âincrease the level of attention inside Iraqâ to the case .
Speicher, who was based at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, was the first American lost in the 1991 war. The Pentagon initially listed him as killed in action but his remains were never located and there have been persistent, though unconfirmed, reports that he was seen alive after the crash.
In 1995, an American search team found the wreckage of Speicherâs plane and recovered a flight suit in the desert.
The Navy changed Speicherâs status to missing in January 2001 and said it continues to search actively for him or his remains. Investigators believe he survived the attack on his F/A-18 Hornet and ejected from the plane and that he either was captured alive or his remains were taken to Baghdad by Iraqi forces.
Saddamâs government always argued that Speicher was killed when his plane crashed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 02:01 ||
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If alive, imagine the hell this man has undergone. It would be wonderful if he is alive and in one piece-- prayers answered.
Posted by: Captain America ||
09/09/2005 5:14 Comments ||
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..."Know the whereabouts"?
Fine. Start shooting the sons of bitches one at a time until we find out. I had suspected that CAPT Speicher was Saddam's (or the Boyz') insurance policy - "I give you the pilot, you let me go." IMHO this confirms it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2005 7:03 Comments ||
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Start shooting the sons of bitches one at a time until we find out.
Too wasteful.
Just start burning their toes and fingers off, one by one, until they talk. That way you get twenty times as many chances for someone to break.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/09/2005 9:16 Comments ||
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IT had been more than two years since Pakistani intelligence last picked up the trail of the world's most wanted man, one of its top officers said in a hasty meeting at a secret rendezvous point.
"At one stage in early 2003 we thought we were quite close to him," murmurs the anti-terrorism official, whose high rank and sensitive work meant that he would only speak if his identity was not revealed.
"But a few hours before the operation could start in the border terrain near Afghanistan, he moved out."
Since then, nothing. Osama bin Laden's vanishing act continues to baffle the world's biggest military power and its allies, four years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Many officials believe he was trapped late in 2001 by the ferocious US bombing of the Tora Bora cave complex in eastern Afghanistan, but he managed to slip out of the region, possibly across the porous border into Pakistan.
Thousands of people have since been arrested around the world, many confined to Guantanamo Bay without charge, but none has been able to provide the crucial nugget of information.
The Saudi, who has acquired poster-boy status in parts of the Muslim world, is also credited with inspiring al-Qaeda offshoots to carry out new atrocities, including the March 2004 Madrid bombings and this year's July 7 suicide attacks in London.
Also wanted by the US is bin Laden's right-hand-man Ayman al-Zawahiri, who appeared on a new video aired 10 days before the anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The tape also showed one of the London bombers.
Even a $US25-million ($32.4-million) reward offered by the US has yielded no visible results, while Pakistan's military ruler, President General Pervez Musharraf, said late last year that the trail had "gone cold".
Inevitably, the focus remains on Pakistan, an enthusiastic ally in Mr Bush's "war on terror" and the site of almost all the key al-Qaeda captures since 9/11.
"We have been saying previously and we still maintain that we are not into manhunt," Pakistan's chief military spokesman, Major General Shaukat Sultan, told AFP at army headquarters in Rawalpindi, near Islamabad.
"If your sole objective was capture of OBL, yes we remain where we were but ... in Pakistan that is not our sole objective. Our objective is to root out terrorism and we have progressed quite a lot."
Two years ago, about the time of the bin Laden sighting reported by the intelligence official, Pakistan captured the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
Earlier this year it snared Mohammed's alleged successor as al-Qaeda's third in command, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, using intelligence agents disguised as women wearing burqas.
General Sultan has admitted the captures of these men, both of whom have been handed over to the US, had not provided the hoped for leads to bin Laden.
But he said that apart from a menacing video tape delivered to a satellite TV channel in Islamabad just before the 2004 US elections, bin Laden's silence showed the authorities there are having some success.
One key al-Qaeda suspect revealed under interrogation that bin Laden was using couriers travelling on foot or horseback instead of communicating by satellite telephone or the Internet, General Sultan said.
"It generally takes them about two months to get the message across and get its response," he said. "This is the time involved in that, so one can make rough guess about where would the man be."
US Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss in June said he had an "excellent idea" of where bin Laden was hiding - though he did not say where.
Meanwhile, officials and analysts say there are signs that Washington is again stepping up its efforts to track down bin Laden, after two years of concentrating on the bloody, al-Qaeda-linked insurgency in Iraq.
Elite US Delta Force and Navy SEAL units have just started to come back to Afghanistan after tours of duty in Iraq, a US counter-terrorism official based in Washington told AFP, and are spearheading the hunt.
"Several special forces teams are stationed right at the border and use special sensors along the roads to pick up sound and vibration from the movement of cars," an official said.
In a potentially controversial move, US agents have also been secretly pursuing what the US calls "Operation Enduring Freedom" beyond Afghanistan itself, he said.
"Some cross-border reconnaissance raids by intelligence agents are taking place from Afghanistan into South and North Waziristan, and all the way up to Bajaur and the Northern Areas," the official said, referring to three of Pakistan's wild tribal zones plus its most mountainous region.
But even if the opportunity that passed so fleetingly in 2003 came up again, it is a widely held view among security officials that neither bin Laden nor al Zawahiri would let themselves be captured alive.
Security sources say the pair are reported to wear explosive belts and their huge retinue of Arab bodyguards have orders to kill them if it is impossible to escape.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:43 ||
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Helloooooo Iran!
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 0:54 Comments ||
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Tell you the truth, I doubt "W" would be disappointed in receiving only dentures,dna, or ashes for that matter, on that silver platter he has waiting for his 'dead or alive' nemesis! Should this occur before he leaves office, would become a crowning achievement to his legacy!
Posted by: Red Dog ||
09/09/2005 4:10 Comments ||
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Security sources say the pair are reported to wear explosive belts and their huge retinue of Arab bodyguards have orders to kill them if it is impossible to escape.
Bullsh*t.
They are both classic bullies - if caught, the first thing they'll do is plead and bargain for their lives. They send others to their deaths; they do not have the courage to do so themselves.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2005 7:20 Comments ||
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'Porter Goss in June said he had an "excellent idea" of where bin Laden was hiding'
The official line is that the NWFP is so vast and rugged that it takes time to find even the worlds most wanted man. Many say the Pakistani ISI run interference making it near impossible to kill or capture him. But some have speculated that the reason we don't already have Binny's head on a pike is part of Rummy's "Drain the Swamp" strategy. Perhaps thatâs just wishful thinking but it seems like a plausible theory.
Four years after he was assassinated, portraits of anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Masood still hang on walls throughout the Afghan capital Kabul.
But many Afghans have turned away from the so-called âLion of the Panjshirâ, the once-revered national hero who now reminds many in this battered country of a violent time they would rather forget.
On September 9, 2001, two days before the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Masood was killed by two men posing as journalists in a suicide bomb attack blamed on Al Qaeda.
Masood, a hero of the anti-Soviet resistance and the fight against the hardline Taliban militia, led the Northern Alliance once based in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul.
He remains popular in northern Afghanistan among the ethnic Tajiks. Each month hundreds visit his tomb atop an arid hill near the village of Bozorak, overlooking the Panjshir valley which Masood bitterly defended â first against the Soviet army and then the Taliban.
âWe will never forget himâ said Abdul Mahmood Daqiq, Afghanistanâs attorney general who was once part of Masoodâs close circle.
On the anniversary of Masoodâs death Friday a ceremony is expected to be held at his small mausoleum â one of three to take place throughout the country.
But Masoodâs iconic status â largely created by the foreign media and influential Panjshiris â is in dispute elsewhere in Afghanistan. âHe is not the figure here that he is in France. He is regarded as a great combatant by the Tajiks but as an enemy by others,â said a Western diplomat in Kabul.
âHe was powerful and intelligent, with a vision of a democratic national union that was still very much Islamic, but others regarded him as dangerous.â
The painful memories of violence at the hands of his mujahedin (holy warriors) during the 1992-96 civil war still haunt many in the capital.
And many still link Masood to the power grab by his former comrades-in-arms from the Northern Alliance following the US-led ousting of the hardline Taliban in late 2001.
âMasood was nothing more than a chief of one of the factions that plundered as much as it could. He symbolises a time which destroyed the country and which Afghans want to forget,â said Ahmed Joyenda, director of the Foundation for Civil Society, a non-governmental organisation promoting education in Kabul.
Masoodâs skill as a military strategist has never been questioned. But as Afghanistan struggles against an increasingly deadly Islamic insurgency before the first post-Taliban polls later this month, many still see him as a key factor in the unrest that continues to trouble the country today.
âHe took part in the civil war and the destruction of Kabul, and he is hated by the Pashtuns and Hazaras,â said a former classmate at the Esteqlal French College of Kabul.
âMasood was a war hero for the Panjshir but not a hero for Afghanistan.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:18 ||
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Sounds like the Pakistani authors want to take him down a peg.
Posted by: ed ||
09/09/2005 11:32 Comments ||
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Afghans have very long memories. Mahsood will not be forgotten.
Britain remains on edge following the July 7 and 21 attacks, as the authorities continue to warn that more strikes are likely and that the public should brace itself for such eventualities. But a conventional terrorist strike may not be the worst in store. While British police and government officials have recently remained silent on the issue, many analysts around the world are concerned that Al-Qaeda or a like-minded group may try to step up its game by escalating to weapons of mass destruction - be they nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological. Prime Minister Tony Blair has in the past gone so far as to warn that "if we do not take a stand now against the growth of this chemical biological and nuclear weapons threat, then at some point a state or a terrorist group, pursuing extremism with no care for human life, will use such weapons."
Of course there are a number of reasons why we should remain skeptical of such warnings. First, these claims are being made by the same politicians and intelligence officials responsible for the limited and faulty intelligence about Iraq's WMDcapability prior to the 2003 invasion. Secondly, during the late 1990s there were numerous reports of Al-Qaeda purchasing nuclear suitcase bombs and the like from shadowy Kazakh middlemen, the Chechen mafia, disaffected or rogue elements within the intelligence agencies and scientific communities of East European and Central Asian states. Many of these reports continue to be unsubstantiated and now seem exaggerated and, to say the least, ludicrous. Some have been unequivocally disproved.
However, despite this fact there exists a growing body of evidence to indicate there may indeed be a real threat.
Testimony of apprehended Al-Qaeda operatives indicates that real efforts have been made by the organization to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Jamal al-Fadl, who gave himself up to the American authorities in 1996, admitted that Al-Qaeda had attempted to purchase uranium in Sudan. Ahmad Ressam, captured on his way to bombing the Los Angeles airport, has testified that he witnessed the testing of chemical substances on dogs at the Durante camp in Afghanistan as part of a training program to prepare Al-Qaeda recruits to employ chemical weapons against humans.
The interrogation of Abu Zubayada, Al-Qaeda's head of recruitment during the mid-1990s who was captured in April 2002 in Pakistan, also provided evidence that the organization was interested in manufacturing radiological weaponry. This information took on real significance after the arrest by the United States authorities of Joseph Padilla, an American citizen accused of planning to detonate a radiological device in a U.S. city.
Al-Qaeda operatives are not the only ones who have provided information. At the time of the invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistani authorities arrested two nuclear scientists, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmoud and Chaudahry Abdel-Majid, who were alleged to have been in contact with various Al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. Under interrogation they admitted that these discussions focused on radiological weaponry and also nuclear weapons. The later unraveling of the A. Q. Khan nuclear network did not reveal, at least publicly, any connections with terrorist groups, but it did remind us that such networks can be exploited by well-funded and sophisticated terrorist organizations.
The 2001 invasion of Afghanistan brought to light additional evidence, including plans found on computers in Kabul, that Al-Qaeda has attempted to acquire weapons of mass destruction to manufacture chemical and biological weapons. It also revealed laboratories in which chemical and biological weapons could have been produced and video footage of chemical experiments on dogs (which appeared to validate Ressam's claims).
In 2003 British police uncovered a terrorist plot which involved the manufacture of ricin, and indeed a batch of that substance was recovered. There was a similar find that year in France. Had the security authorities not been successful on those occasions we may already have seen the first terrorist WMD assault on European territory.
Certainly Al-Qaeda has not shied away from stating its desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Even if one accepts that talk of a WMD capability is part of Al-Qaeda's highly effective propaganda arsenal, such threats fit in with the organization's core ideology. For much of the last decade, Al-Qaeda and its disciples have been devotees of what has been termed the "rhetoric of mass destruction." The acquisition of WMD appeals to an ideology that legitimizes the mass killing of civilians for what are perceived to be their immense crimes against Islam and the Muslim world.
In 1998 and again in 1999 and 2000-2001, bin Laden emphasized that gaining a WMD capability was a "religious duty." As an Al-Qaeda message, broadcast by the Qatari television station Al-Jazeera in November 2002, put it: "Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability and happiness are your lot? This is unfair. It is time that we get even. You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb."
In these terms, and at a time when the world recently finished commemorating the 60th anniversary of the use of atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, it is worth noting that in 1996, 2001 and again in 2002, bin Laden raised the issue of the atomic bombings of these cities as evidence of American disregard for life and to highlight the hypocrisy of those condemning Islamist violence.
In late 2003 a United Nations panel of experts found that it was only the lack of technical know-how that had prevented Al-Qaeda and those across the globe inspired by its ideology from using chemical or biological weapons. This is a sobering thought that makes preventing such terrorists from acquiring and employing weapons of mass destruction the most important objective of the war on terror.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/09/2005 00:07 ||
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Well, we could do the mixing with AQ and/or the countries supporting it. We spent all that money on Minutemen and Tridents...
One day after Egyptians voted in a multiparty presidential election for the first time, the event became mired in controversy yesterday and the ruling National Democratic Party was accused of rigging the vote in favor of its candidate, the incumbent President Hosni Mubarak.
Meanwhile the ballot count began yesterday and President Mubarak was reported heading for a landslide win. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said Egyptâs first contested presidential election silenced those who doubted its democratic intentions. âThe poll that took place in Egypt refutes the case made by those who claim Egypt is unstable and question its march toward the future,â he told reporters after meeting President Mubarak. Prince Saud handed Mubarak a letter from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
Presidential candidate Ayman Nour, head of Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party, announced that he would seek a re-run, claiming the election procedures were fraudulent, altogether undemocratic and lacking in transparency. In his official complaint to the Presidential Election Commission, he described the process as âunfortunately skewed, using illegitimate means in favor of the NDP candidate.â But a spokesman for the commission, whose decisions are final and immune from any court rulings, said it found all of Nourâs complaints baseless. âThe commission checked the request and ended up rejecting the request,â spokesman Osama Atawia told a news conference.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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AMMAN - Saddam Husseinâs chief attorney denied on Thursday that the ousted president had confessed to ordering executions and waging a campaign against Kurds in which thousands of people are said to have been killed. âThere was no confession by the president and all the investigations in this case do not implicate him at all,â Khalil Dulaimi said in a statement sent to Reuters.
"He ain't said nuttin. I speak for him! He ain't said nuttin'!"
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told state television on Tuesday that an investigator who questioned Saddam told him he had extracted important confessions from him and that the ousted leader had signed them. Talabani did not say whether Saddam had actually admitted to committing any crimes, or had merely acknowledged that he was head of state and commander in chief of the army at the time of various military operations. âSaddam deserves a death sentence 20 times a day because he tried to assassinate me 20 times,â Talabani said, recalling his days as a Kurdish rebel leader fighting the Baghdad authorities.
Talabaniâs comments appeared to be part of an orchestrated move by the government to prepare Iraqis for Saddamâs execution, expected to be carried out by hanging.
Wonder how much preparation the average Iraqi is going to need?
Dulaimi said the investigator who was leaking information about the course of the interrogation should resign because he was prejudicing the outcome of the trial. âIf itâs true that a certain judge had mentioned anything about the course of the investigation to Mr Talabani then this judge should resign immediately,â Dulaimi said.âAt any rate Mr Talabani should not give statements on any matter that relates to a judicial process that ought to be conducted in confidence to ensure justice,â he added.
He'll be tried fair and hung fair. Can't ask for more than that.
Saddamâs defence team say they are furious with a flurry of âpolitically motivated statementsâ by unnamed Iraqi officials who talk about a quick execution if Saddam was found guilty. âThere is no chance of holding a just and honest trial in such an atmosphere and these verdicts appear to have been issued beforehand,â Dulaimi said. âItâs futile to even have a defence,â Dulaimi added.
Dulaimi last saw Saddam on Monday, only days after the government said the former leaderâs trial on a single charge of mass killings in reprisal for a 1982 assassination attempt would begin on Oct. 19. Dulaimi said the Iraqi special court that will try Saddam had not notified the defence team of the timing of the trial or sent any paperwork on the charge of killing 143 Shiâite villagers after the failed assassination bid.
The Amman-based defence team led by Saddamâs eldest daughter Raghd believe Iraqi authorities want a quick trial without charging him with other crimes that could implicate other Iraqi politicians in power now. They also say Washingtonâs backing for the ousted leader in the past could come to light.
We'll take our chances. Wonder if Kofi and Jaques are willing to take theirs?
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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"It was other mass killin's, not these...."
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 0:09 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM - French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Thursday urged Israel to allow the Palestinian Authority to adequately equip its security forces in order to implement the rule of law.
Nightsticks?
âThe Palestinian Authority must be given the chance to equip credible security forces,â he told reporters ahead of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom.
Billy clubs?
âHow can we ask terrorist groups to disarm if people responsible for disarming them donât have the means?â Douste-Blazy added.
Door-knockers?
The Palestinian Authority has complained that it lacks adequate weapons and ammunition to clamp down on powerful armed groups, but Israel has so far refused to allow officials to import more arms.
Snub-nosed .38 police specials?
But the most powerful Palestinian militias -- Hamasâs Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades and Fatahâs Al-Aqsa Martyrsâ Brigade -- have threatened to fight anyone who tries to take away their weapons.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/09/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Just let them use their private weapons. No self respecting Palestinian is ever without his AK47. Perhaps they mean heavier weapons like anti tank rockets, surface to air missiles, and suitcase nukes.
#3
Notice that he didn't offer up two battalions of FFL to help with security. Guess there isn't enough money in the local banks to warrant a deployment.
#4
3dc Why does the French FM give a damn?
Because Paleos having managed to murder a single Israeli in almost a month --- a state of affars not to be bourne.
#6
Even in France he is deelmed an intllectual light-weight (but a heavy-weight slime): he has been named the "Mickey d'Orsay" who rhimes with Quai d'Orsay the nickname for the French Foreeign Ministry.
Maybe the PA should use a little ingenuity; go after the small fry clandestinely first, confiscate their arms and ammo to equip more of their personnel, and work their way up from there. Given past PA indifference to terror attacks, if not outright complicity, I can certainly understand the unwillingness of the Israelis to permit more arms and ammo to be shipped into that rathole.
#2
#1 Cool.
I have nothing to do with the airplane itself, but make the weapons that go into it.
damn...I'm a Civil Engineer - I build the targets, as they say
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 0:07 Comments ||
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The Engineer knows a great deal about very little, and spends the course of his education and career learning more and more about less and less.
The Architect knows very little about a great number of things, and spends the course of his education and career learning less and less about more and more.
The General Contractor is a person who starts his career knowing just about everything about anything, but winds up knowing absolutely nothing about anything due to his association with Engineers and Architects.
#4
Jackal-
I was USAF Ammo - everything fron nail-driver carts to Mk84s - what do you work on?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2005 7:11 Comments ||
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Mike:
SW Engineer for Raytheon. I (plus a few hundred other people) do integration with the platform. I am currently working on the AIM-120D AMRAAM, plus some AIM-9X, and a couple other things. I used to do Maverick and HARM.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/09/2005 10:52 Comments ||
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Right now, I hypothesize the eventual creation of a huge UAV air fleet, faster, more maneuverable, and more heavily armed than any comparable manned aircraft, and hopefully cheaper. Cheaper is very important, because unlike manned aircraft, UAVs should retain the essential character of being expendable.
But here is the irony. On top of that huge fleet of UAVs, wisdom demands that you also have a moderate number of very high performance *manned* aircraft. The UAVs play "the numbers game", and the manned aircraft pull off the "hat trick" missions, of which there are always plenty around.
The ultimate UAV is one that can be made on a rapid assembly line. One that could be made as fast, and in as great a number, as automobiles.
#10
Gregory Spembolov sounds an awful lot like Shipman to me. What catagory do I fit in? I'm a former Architect who now does Chemical Engineering. I also greatly admire your work, Jackal.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
09/09/2005 13:47 Comments ||
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The ultimate UAV is one that can be made on a rapid assembly line. One that could be made as fast, and in as great a number, as automobiles
It's being done, at an R&D level already.
Small, composite-based, flexible manufacturing w/ 3-d cad so very limited expensive machining and molds ... makes anything from small to very big production runs cost-effective.
#13
Jackal-
My compliments, Sir! I saw the gun camera footage of the end results of your handiwork over the Balkans a few years back..the Slammer is one sweet weapon! Didn't get to see -9X, but would give anything to get up close to one for a few. Worked on and maintained Mav and HARM, and again they were impressive and lethal weapons.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
09/09/2005 20:51 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.
BEIJING - Talks with North Korea on dismantling its nuclear program will resume next week, China said on Thursday, but Pyongyang raised a possible obstacle to progress by renewing its demands for the withdrawal of US troops from the Korean Peninsula as a sign of good faith.
Thailand has emerged as one of the criminal world's main sources for fake and altered passports for frauds, fugitives and terrorists, including at least one al-Qaida-linked operative, Thai and foreign police say. Thai police previously viewed forgery as a petty crime. But under pressure from Western governments after the Sept. 11 attacks, they say they are now cracking down on the black market that aided Hambali, the mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks and alleged leader of al-Qaida-linked Southeast Asian terror group, Jemaah Islamiyah. Hambali had a forged Spanish passport that portrayed him as a well-groomed businessman when he was arrested in the central Thai city of Ayuthaya in August 2003. Police arrested Bangladeshi Mohammed Ali Hossain, the man who allegedly supplied Hambali with the passport, last September.
A Thai policeman who works closely with the Australian police said up to 90 percent of fake passports leaving Thailand are bound for London. These fakes are passable likenesses of the originals and cost the buyer from $25 to $50. They are often used to open bank accounts or rent apartments. More rare and expensive are the lost or stolen passports â some of which have been sold by tourists to black market buyers. They are used by criminals to cross borders, where immigration officials' eyes are better trained to spot fakes.
Kesrouan MP General 
Syrian President 
Christians in the Holy Land have handed a dossier detailing incidents of violence and intimidation by Muslim extremists to Church leaders in Jerusalem, one of whom said it was time for Christians to "raise our voices" against the sectarian violence. The dossier includes 93 alleged incidents of abuse by an "Islamic fundamentalist mafia" against Palestinian Christians, who accused the Palestinian Authority of doing nothing to stop the attacks. The dossier also includes a list of 140 cases of apparent land theft, in which Christians in the West Bank were allegedly forced off their land by gangs backed by corrupt judicial officials.
