A religious edict by a prominent Saudi cleric suggesting liberals are not real Muslims has enflamed debate over reforms in the conservative Islamic state, with self-professed liberals fearing they will be attacked. Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that rules by strict application of Islamic law, giving clerics a powerful position in society, but Islamists fear that liberal reformers are gaining ground under the rule of King Abdullah.
Responding to an online request for a religious edict, or fatwa, Sheikh Saleh al-Fozan said last month: "Calling oneself a liberal Muslim is a contradiction in terms ... one should repent before God for such ideas in order to be a real Muslim."
The fatwa said that liberal in this context meant "freedom which is not subject to the bounds of sharia (Islamic law) and which rejects sharia laws, especially concerning womenÂ… He who wants freedom with only the controls of man-made law has rebelled against the law of God."
Fozan was recently forced to issue a clarification in Saudi newspaper al-Riyadh after Islamists hailed the fatwa as a declaration that liberals are infidels. He said pronouncing someone an infidel was a separate issue in Islamic law. Such declarations, called takfir in Arabic, are sensitive because al Qaeda militants fighting U.S.-allied governments in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and elsewhere in the region use the idea to justify their campaign of jihad, or holy war. "Radicals say 'Sheikh Fozan has issued the fatwa and we should act accordingly', which is a little alarming," said Hamza Mozainy, a well-known critic of the Saudi system, referring to Islamist Web sites that welcomed the fatwa.
Novelist Turki al-Hamad, a long-time target of Saudi Islamists, also said the fatwa could lead to violence. "Even if his (Fozan) intention is not calling for violence, the implication is violence," Hamad said.
Saudi Arabia's religious establishment has for long focussed its attention on the word "secular", which most Saudi reformers now avoid, but "liberal" has gained currency in its place. Liberal and Islamist reformers both call for parliamentary elections limiting the desert country's absolute monarchy. But many liberals also want to see clerical influence rolled back, with, for example, Saudi Arabia's religious police force disbanded and an end to strict gender segregation. "When they hear 'liberalism' they perceive it as a form of moral corruption. They don't know it's a whole philosophy concerning freedom of the individual," Hamad said. "These fatwas are a kind of defence mechanism against this spreading idea."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 14:05 ||
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#1
"Saudi fatwa against liberals raises fears of violence"
Works for me.
Oh, wait - he means "liberals" in Arabia? For a minute there I hoped thought he was talking about San Francisco. Bummer.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/08/2007 19:15 Comments ||
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#3
I think a Saudi liberal would replace battery acid with mace. An improvement, but still not somebody I would want to call neighbor - unless I owned a moat, several bales of concertina wire, a gross of claymores ...
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2007 19:24 Comments ||
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#4
The fatwa said that liberal in this context meant "freedom which is not subject to the bounds of sharia (Islamic law) and which rejects sharia laws, especially concerning womenÂ… He who wants freedom with only the controls of man-made law has rebelled against the law of God."
In other words, any departure from Islam's historically prescribed course of routine and brutal barbarity is verboten.
The government has accelerated plans to let spies share information with immigration officials, a week after a foreign doctor was arrested in connection with the failed British terror attacks, the prime minister said Sunday.
Prime Minister John Howard said that new software linking the computer systems of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organization and the Immigration Department will allow deeper background checks on anyone applying to enter Australia.
Howard called it a "major upgrade of Australia's control system."
"These new resources ... give us extraordinary additional capacity to drill down into the backgrounds of people who seek to come to Australia," he told reporters.
ASIO is Australia's overseas spying agency and the new system could sharpen links between international security agencies, including those in the United States and Europe, with the country's immigration watchdog.
The plans, which have been on the table since last year, are being brought forward after a possible Australian link was revealed in the British plot - in which two unexploded car bombs were found in central London on June 29 and two men drove a burning, gas cylinder-laden vehicle into an airport in Glasgow, Scotland a day later.
AUSTRALIAN links to the doctors terror plot in Britain have prompted the Howard Government to fast-track new border-control technology ahead of September's meeting of APEC leaders in Sydney - the biggest security challenge in the nation's history.
The new software will link ASIO, Immigration and Customs, strengthening background checks on foreigners wanting to come to Australia.
The system, which will provide closer scrutiny of personal details of all travellers to Australia, was already planned.
But its introduction is being accelerated to ensure it is in place in time for the meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum leaders including US President George W.Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Counter-terrorism concerns, including the recent failed London and Glasgow bombings, together with the huge security focus on APEC, were the key factors in the decision to fast-track the new system.
The boost to border security also came as the Government warned Australians to stay away from Indonesia, including Bali, amid intelligence that terrorists were planning attacks there.
"We have seen in the past two weeks - without making any judgments as to the guilt or innocence of any particular individuals - the global reach and potential of terrorism," John Howard said yesterday.
"The notion that one can pick and choose as to where you fight and deal with terrorism is an outdated 20th-century notion which ignores the phenomenon and reality of a globalised world and the sophisticated communication techniques which are available to those who would seek to do harm to us."
The Prime Minister said the new investment, expected to cost more than $50 million, would enable ASIO and the Immigration Department to integrate separate databases on visa applicants and extend routine screening to include analysis of visitors' behavioural patterns, travel movements and financial details.
ASIO carried out more than 53,000 visa security assessments last year, denying 12 people entry to the country.
Concerns were raised last week about the level of scrutiny faced by professional visa applicants, following the detention for questioning over the foiled terror plots in Britain of a foreign doctor working in Queensland on a temporary work visa.
Indian-trained Mohamed Haneef, who was detained last Monday night at Brisbane International Airport trying to leave Australia on a one-way ticket, will be questioned by the Australian Federal Police again tonight.
Mr Howard said yesterday that development of the new border-protection system had been under way since late last year but that he had "accelerated" its introduction - bringing it forward from October to September - following the revelations of the Australian links to the foiled British terror plot.
#1
Several times now, the five women and seven men have shown up in color-coordinated outfits. One day, the men dressed in blue and the women in pink. On July 3, the first row wore red, the second white and the third blue, leading bloggers to wonder whether they were worrisomely frivolous or unified — or so patriotic as to condemn all accused terrorists.
We will see what they do for Halloween.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2007 19:55 Comments ||
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The government on Saturday claimed it was fully competent to complete the operation against Jamia Hafsa within few hours, but was exercising restraint, as a little haste could jeopardize the life of innocent women and children made hostage by the militants. It also warned that Lal Masjid deputy cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi would be responsible for any harm done to these innocent people.
Speaking at a press briefing after a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said the government wanted to solve the Jamia Hafsa issue promptly and with minimum loss of life. He said the government would have completed this operation within few hours had there been no innocent women and children inside the seminary.
He said that of the 595 male students who had surrendered the minors were being released, while others would be set free after debriefing. He said only three girl students present in Haji Camp were waiting for their parents to take them back home, while all other girls had been handed over to their families.
Sherpao said the government had decided to shrink the area under curfew and increase the duration of curfew relaxation to facilitate the G-6 residents. He said the government would ensure more public transport in the area during relaxation of curfew.
He said the government had also established temporary residential facilities for those parents whose children were still trapped inside the seminary.
Earlier, addressing the meeting, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the government was very concerned about the plight of the students trapped inside the mosque and their parents.
He said the government was also upset at reports that women and children had been made hostage by the extremists inside Jamia Hafsa.
“The safety of these women and children is our top priority and we are pursuing a strategy to achieve the objectives without compromising on their safety,” Aziz added.
He said the government would take every possible step to facilitate the release and return of hostages and to help out their parents. The PM said the people holed up inside the mosque had brought a bad name to country and the religion. He said the government was trying to restore peace and normalcy within the shortest possible time and had encouraged every move by various sections of the society to resolve the issue peacefully.
He said the government had encouraged interventions by ulema, parliamentarians, social workers and others for the release of hostages, but no headway could be made in this regard because of the stubbornness of the Jamia Hafsa administration.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I keep reading that as "Jimmy Hoffa Crisis".
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/08/2007 11:46 Comments ||
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Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi has demanded a judicial inquiry against him and said that he would surrender if the judge proved him guilty, Geo News reported on Saturday. According to the channel, Ghazi contacted PML President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and demanded a three-week ceasefire from the government to verify the identification of militants whom he claimed were madrassa students. Shujaat pressed Ghazi to release the female students but Ghazi refused. He said he would remain inside the mosque during the ceasefire. He also demanded that the judicial inquiry against him be completed during the ceasefire.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
BANG! You have the right to remain dead guilty.
A 13-member delegation of clerics led by Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq called on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday and asked him to let Lal Masjid deputy cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his men go free. A delegation member told Daily Times that Aziz told them that he would inform them about his decision today (Sunday). The delegation also protested against the police takeover of Jamia Faridia on which the prime minister directed the religious affairs minister to remove the police from the seminary. Earlier, clerics held a meeting at Jamia Muhammadia.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
religious leaders are the crux of the problems in the MME.we should be targeting a few Radical mullahs and Clerics!!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
07/08/2007 18:27 Comments ||
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A 13-year-old boy managed to escape from hardcore militants holding women and children hostage in Lal Masjid on Saturday. Jawad Ahmed told reporters after his escape that armed male and female students were guarding other students in Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid at gunpoint and preventing them from leaving.
Daily Times Monitor adds: Jawad told Geo television that he had hid all night waiting for the chance to escape and finally managed to flee through a broken outer wall. He said the armed militants inside the mosque were threatening to shoot those who tried to flee. He said there were 40 female and 80 male students inside the mosque complex who wanted to leave. Security forces found a piece of paper in Junaid’s pocket with an oath written on it. The oath said: “I will not surrender at any cost and I will prefer martyrdom to surrender.” Junaid said there were six dead bodies inside the mosque while many were injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
Like Beslan, except this time its their own young they are eating.
Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said on Saturday no deadline had been fixed for an operation against the Lal Masjid administration.
“The main hurdle to the operation is the precious lives of children and female students who have been taken hostage inside the mosque,” Durrani told reporters after inspecting a surrender point and a media camp set up near the mosque. “Conducting an operation against the militants is not a problem, but we have been taking all measures to save the lives of the innocent,” he said.
He said the government was not politicising the Lal Masjid issue, adding that it wanted to safely take out the besieged children and female students from Lal Masjid. It is not lawful to hold the besieged people hostage, the minister said, adding that the students were escaping from the mosque through breaches in the outer walls made by the shelling of security forces. He said the militants inside Jamia Hafsa were equipped with the latest weapons, including Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades and mines etc. “According to the students who fled the mosque, the militants have put the children and female students under siege in several rooms and a basement. This is deplorable,” the minister said.
Durrani said parliamentarians of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal were not allowed to enter the mosque for security reasons. The government will not use force relentlessly, he added. The minister also took note of the difficulties being faced by the media personnel while covering the mosque standoff. He also specified a proper place for the journalists near the mosque to cover the events.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Abdul Rashid Ghazi said on Saturday he had received a call from an unidentified man who said he tried to shoot down President Pervez Musharraf’s plane in revenge for the crackdown, AFP reported. “I received a telephone call from a man I did not know,” Ghazi told AFP by telephone. “He said, ‘I fired at Musharraf’s plane just a while ago’. He said that Musharraf survived,” said Ghazi. Ghazi said the man asked him to tell the media about the incident, and that he replied, “I am inside, it’s better if you tell them yourself.”
Azaz Syed adds: Punjab policeÂ’s Elite Force on Saturday morning picked up two persons from G-11/2 for their alleged link with unidentified militants who fired at the presidentÂ’s plane in Rawalpindi on Friday.
Sources told Daily Times that the two men – Abdul Waseh, 16, and Nadeem, 30 – were captured from a house in G-11/2. Some phone calls were made there from a telephone at the Asghar Mall house from where the president’s plane was targeted by a sub machinegun. The sources said that the investigators had not found any significant clue about the identity of the attackers, adding that intelligence agencies were looking for a “mole” who may have leaked the take-off plan of the president’s aircraft to the attackers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
"I have no idea how he got my number"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/08/2007 9:16 Comments ||
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My title, of course. The WaPo version on the front page is - Administration Shaving Yardstick for Iraq Gains
Goals Unmet; Smaller Strides to Be Promoted. It's all here, so you don't have to register to get their commercials.
The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.
In a preview of the assessment it must deliver to Congress in September, the administration will report that Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar province are turning against the group al-Qaeda in Iraq in growing numbers; that sectarian killings were down in June; and that Iraqi political leaders managed last month to agree on a unified response to the bombing of a major religious shrine, officials said. Those achievements are markedly different from the benchmarks Bush set when he announced his decision to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq. More troops, Bush said, would enable the Iraqis to proceed with provincial elections this year and pass a raft of power-sharing legislation. In addition, he said, the government of President Nouri al-Maliki planned to "take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November."
Congress expanded on Bush's benchmarks, writing 18 goals into law as part of the war-funding measure it passed in the spring. In addition to the elections, legislation and security measures Bush outlined in January, Congress added demands that the Iraqi government complete a revision of its constitution and pass a law on de-Baathification and additional laws on militia disarmament, regional boundaries and other issues.
Lawmakers asked for an interim report in July and set a Sept. 15 deadline for a comprehensive assessment by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ryan C. Crocker, the U.S. ambassador. Now, as U.S. combat deaths have escalated, violence has spread far beyond Baghdad, and sectarian political divides have deepened, the administration must persuade lawmakers to use more flexible, less ambitious standards. But anything short of progress on the original benchmarks is unlikely to appease the growing ranks of disaffected Republican lawmakers who are urging Bush to develop a new strategy.
Although Republicans held the line this year against Democratic efforts to set a timeline for withdrawing troops, several influential GOP senators have broken with Bush in recent days, charging that his plan is failing and calling for troop redeployments starting as early as the spring. According to several senior officials who agreed to discuss the situation in Iraq only on the condition of anonymity, the political goals that seemed achievable earlier this year remain hostage to the security situation. If the extreme violence were to decline, Iraq's political paralysis might eventually subside. "If they are arguing, accusing, gridlocking," one official said, "none of that would mean the country is falling apart if it was against the backdrop of a stabilizing security situation."
From a military perspective, however, the political stalemate is hampering security. "The security progress we're making is real," said a senior military intelligence official in Baghdad. "But it's only in part of the country, and there's not enough political progress to get us over the line in September."
In their September report, sources said, Petraeus and Crocker intend to emphasize how security and politics are intertwined, and how progress in either will be incremental. In that context, the administration will offer new measures of progress to justify continuing the war effort. "There are things going on that we never could have foreseen," said one official, who noted that the original benchmarks set by Bush six months ago -- and endorsed by the Maliki government -- are not only unachievable in the short term but also irrelevant to changing the conditions in Iraq.
As they work to put together the reports due to Congress next week and in September, these officials and others close to Iraq policy recognize that the administration is boxed in by measurements that were enshrined in U.S. law in May. Gee, ya think that weas the Dems plan?
"That is a problem," the official said. "These are congressionally mandated benchmarks now." They require Bush to certify movement in areas ranging from the passage of specific legislation by the Iraqi parliament to the numbers of Iraqi military units able to operate independently. If he cannot make a convincing case, the legislation requires the president to explain how he will change his strategy.
Top administration officials are aware that the strategy's stated goal -- using U.S. forces to create breathing space for Iraqi political reconciliation -- will not be met by September, said one person fresh from a White House meeting. But though some, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, have indicated flexibility toward other options, including early troop redeployments, Bush has made no decisions on a possible new course. "The heart of darkness is the president," the person said. "Nobody knows what he thinks, even the people who work for him."
Mixed Security Results
Military commanders say that their offensive is improving security in Baghdad. "Everything takes time, and everything takes longer than you think it's going to take," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which is fighting south of Baghdad, said Friday. He added: "There is indeed room for optimism. I see progress, but there needs to be more."
Yet the month of May, which came before the Phantom Thunder offensive began, and is therefore irrelevant to the previous statement was the most violent in Iraq since November 2004, when U.S. and Iraqi forces fought a fierce battle to retake Fallujah. That intensity promises by those who make their living selling bad news to continue through the summer. "I see these aggressive offensive operations . . . taking us through July, August and into September," Lynch said. Not even the most optimistic commanders contend that the offensive is allowing for political reconciliation. At best, Petraeus is likely to report in September, security will have improved in the capital, perhaps returning to the level of 2005, when the city was violent but not racked by low-level civil war. So it might be an improvement, but not yet up to the standards of LA, or Detroit.
More significant is whether that slight improvement in security can be built upon. Regardless of what decisions are made in Washington and Baghdad, the U.S. military cannot sustain the current force levels beyond March 2008 because of force rotations. Long-term holding of cleared areas will fall to Iraqi soldiers and police officers.
Because of corruption and mixed loyalties, a Pentagon official said about the Iraqi police, "half of them are part of the problem, not the solution." The portrait officials paint of the Iraqi military is somewhat brighter. "These guys have now been through some pretty hard combat," said a senior administration official. "They're in the fight, not running from it. "But can they do it without us there? Almost certainly not," the official said. So progress there, too, but not yet up to the level of police in, say, Chicago?
Even if U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies are able to hold Baghdad and the surrounding provinces, noted the unnamed, unidentified, and allegedly life-like intelligence official, there is a good chance that security will deteriorate elsewhere because there are not enough U.S. troops to spread around. As U.S. troop numbers decrease, he said, it is possible that by sometime next year "we control the middle, the Kurds control the north, and the Iranians control the south."
A Hurdle to Progress
Last month, Iraq's largest Sunni political grouping announced that its four cabinet ministers were boycotting the government and that it was withdrawing its 44 members from parliament. The immediate cause was the arrest of a Sunni minister on murder charges and a vote by the Shiite-dominated legislature to fire the Sunni Arab speaker.
The withdrawal poses a serious problem for short-term U.S. goals. A new law to distribute oil revenue among Iraq's sectarian groups -- seen by U.S. officials as the best hope for a legislative achievement before September -- reached parliament last week after months of delay. Although the Shiite and Kurdish blocs could pass it, the absence of the Sunnis would make any victory meaningless. Right. Even if it gives them what they want - a fair share of the revenue.
U.S. officials despair of any timely progress on the oil law. "I suppose they'll pass it when they damn well want to," one official said.
Plans to hold provincial elections, envisioned to provide more power to Sunnis who boycotted a 2005 vote, have grown more complicated. As Anbar tribal chieftains have emerged to help fight al-Qaeda, they have also demanded more political power from traditional Sunni leaders. In southern Shiite areas, Maliki's Dawa organization continues to vie with the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, the largest bloc in the Shiite alliance that dominates Iraq's parliament, while both fear the rising power of forces controlled by radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
"In mixed areas such as Baghdad," a U.S. official said, "the Sunnis are worried that the Shiites will just clean up again even if [Sunnis] participate this time, because so many Sunnis" have fled sectarian violence in the capital.
Late last year, amid strong doubts about Maliki's leadership capabilities, senior White House officials considered trying to engineer the Iraqi president's replacement. But most have now concluded that there are no viable alternatives and that any attempt to force a change would only worsen matters. We DID promise them a soverign nation, did we not?
Instead, U.S. officials in Baghdad are engaged in a complicated hand-holding exercise with Iraqi leaders, and are striving for small gains rather than major advancement. The main example of success they cite is agreement reached by the top Shiite, Sunni and Kurd officials in the government to appeal for calm after last month's bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra. Why can't they get their stuff together? Like we did, in 1776? Or was it 1789? Who's their Washington? Jefferson? Benedict Arnold? That one's easy - Mookie!
Officials are encouraged by the growing numbers of local Sunni officials and tribal leaders in Anbar striving to wrest political and security control from al Qaeda in Iraq. Bush has also highlighted the importance of such local efforts. "This is where political reconciliation matters most," he said in a speech last month, "because it is where ordinary Iraqis are deciding whether to support new Iraq."
But officials caution that this transformation is no substitute for a national Iraqi identity, with unified leadership in Baghdad. Maliki's Shiite-dominated government must continue to reach out to Anbar "and give these emerging tribal forces status, adopting them," a U.S. official said. "Trying to do the local initiative stuff and having that be the whole story does not advance the process," he said. One part does not the whole make. Genius!
Warnings on Withdrawal
Facing increased public disapproval and eroding Republican support, Bush has stepped up his warnings that a sudden U.S. withdrawal would allow al-Qaeda or Iran -- or both -- to take over Iraq. What is more likely, several officials said, is a deeper split between competing Shiite groups supported in varying degrees by Iran, and greater involvement by neighboring Arab states in Sunni areas battling al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Kurdish region, officials said, would become further estranged from the rest of Iraq, and its tensions with Turkey would increase.
"I can't say that al-Qaeda is going to take over, or that Iran is going to take over," an official said. "I don't think either are true. But I do think that a lot of very, very bad things would happen." If the administration decided to have troops retreat to bases inside Iraq and not intervene in sectarian warfare, he said, the U.S. military could find itself in a position that "would make the Dutch at Srebrenica look like heroes."
For its part, the military has calculated that a veto-proof congressional majority is unlikely to demand a full, immediate withdrawal. But however long the troops remain, and in whatever number, the military intelligence official said, they see a clear mission ahead. "We're going to get it as stable as we can, with the troops we have, and in the time available. And then, we'll back out as carefully as we can," the official said. *I* think the WaPo is coming over to our side! I only hope they make the jump before all us Rantburgers expire.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/08/2007 07:29 ||
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#1
Reading The WaPo So We Don't Have To.
I was just thinking that that giant boom yesterday was made for the Dem Congress' benefit.
#2
Wherever Sunnis or Shiites are not encroaching on each other, they turn on the extremists. However, Congress will focus on Bagdhad. Even there, natural movement of persons into ethnic enclaves, will lead to semi peace. Sunnis need to be encouraged to leave the North Tigris, and Shiites the south. Conflict has abated in the capitol, during the Surge, but it will heat up unless enclaves are made semi permanent. Unfortunately, focus on the capitol has led to al-Qaeda in Iraq creating a stronghold in Mosul.
Sunni sheiks and community leaders met Saturday in this city west of Baghdad and pledged to fight terrorism and restore peace and security to Anbar province - for years the heart of the insurgency. They also called for the release of security detainees who had not been convicted of crimes and for a bigger role for their group in representing Sunni interests.
The meeting, attended by dozens of Sunnis including tribal leaders, clerics and professors, was held at the provincial council headquarters in this city, which used to be an insurgent stronghold until many tribesmen decided to fight al-Qaida. Among those present were members of the Anbar Awakening, which was formed in April by more than 200 Sunni sheiks who said the group would become a national party. Its platform includes opposition to al-Qaida and cooperation with the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Sunni leaders vow to defeat terrorism in Anbar
Yeah, just like Al Sharpton declares he's going to end crack dealing.
#3
I am inclined to believe this. AQI has been so savage, so brutal, so indiscriminate that is has finally worn out its welcome. A lot of the Sunni hostility was political and practical, for AQI it is ideological and absolute.
Also, they probably recognize that America is not a colonial power like the British were. In short, they know that we want to reduce our troop levels and since they want that to happen as well they are willing to work with us now.
Three Iranian diplomats in Iraq, including the ambassador, visited Saturday for the first time five Iranians held by US authorities since January, Iraq's Foreign Ministry said. The short foreign ministry statement did not say where the meeting took place.
The detention of the five Iranians by US troops on Jan. 11 in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil has raised tensions between Iran and the United States. US authorities have said the five detained Iranians included the operations chief and other members of Iran's elite Quds Force, which is accused of arming and training Iraqi militants, a claim that Iran denies. The visit "was organized and facilitated today by the Iraqi Foreign Ministry for three diplomats from the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, including Iran's ambassador to Iraq, to visit the five Iranian detainees," the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
A flurry of reports over the weekend had a government envoy speaking with security prisoners to pave the way for a prisoner exchange with Hizbullah and with Hamas.
An official in the Prime Minister's Office, however, denied reports late Saturday night that former Shin Bet (Israeli Security Agency) deputy chief Ofer Dekel, the prime minister's appointee for dealings regarding kidnapped soldiers and other captives, met 10 days ago with Lebanese prisoner Samir Kuntar. Kuntar, according to the report in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, said there was real progress on a deal to release kidnapped soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.
The official told The Jerusalem Post that, about a month ago, when Dekel was in the Hadarim Prison, Kuntar tried to engage Dekel in a conversation. Dekel refused to respond and no conversation took place, the official said.
A report in another Arab newspaper had Dekel holding talks in recent weeks with senior Hamas members in an Israeli jail, reporting progress on a prisoner swap that could free Cpl. Gilad Schalit, according to a lawyer close to the talks.
Al-Ayyam claimed Dekel had met with Kuntar, a Lebanese serving a life sentence for killing the Haran family from Naharyia 30 years ago and whose return Hizbullah has been demanding.
Reportedly, Kuntar told Dekel there was real progress on the topic of releasing the two reservists kidnapped on Lebanon-Israel border. The July 2006 event was Israel's catalyst for the Second Lebanon War.
According to Al-Ayyam, Dekel told Kuntar the main obstacle for the materialization of a prisoner exchange deal was Hizbullah's demand that Palestinian prisoners also be released.
The reported meeting took place in Hadarim Prison in central Israel, where numerous Palestinian prisoners are held, former Fatah general-secretary Marwan Barghouti among them.
Reportedly, Dekel met several Palestinian prisoners but insisted on meeting Kuntar, considered one of the senior Lebanese prisoners held in Israel.
Al-Ayyam sources said the transfer last week of four Jordanian prisoners held for murdering Israelis to Jordan was tied to progress in the deal to release Regev and Goldwasser, and also Schalit, held for over a year by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The reason quoted was Jordan's approval to receive its four jailed nationals, as compared with the Hashemite kingdom's refusal to include them in a previous deal during which Elhanan Tannenbaum and the dead bodies of IDF soldiers Adi Avitan, Benny Avraham and Omar Sawayid.
Sources reported that a senior German intelligence official, known as "Mayer," was continuing his role as mediator and assisting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The contact between the sides reached the stage of names of prisoners and the number of prisoners to be released.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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The EU is scaling back its monitoring mission at the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been closed since the start of bloody factional fighting that led to Hamas's takeover of the coastal strip, a spokeswoman said Saturday.
The cutback in personnel signals that the European monitors don't expect the Rafah terminal on the border, Gaza's only gateway to the world, to reopen anytime soon. The monitors were deployed under a November 2005 agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, following Israel's pullout from Gaza. Under the deal, the border was controlled by Palestinian and Egyptian security forces, with European monitors deployed on the Palestinian side to prevent smuggling of weapons and terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Did the monitors "prevent smuggling of weapons and terrorists?" or did they monitor the smuggling or weapons and terrorists?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
07/08/2007 20:00 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Neither, SH - they helped.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/08/2007 20:42 Comments ||
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The cabinet is expected on Sunday to approve in principle the release of 250 Fatah security prisoners, but the actual list of names is being revised and will be brought to the ministers for approval at a later date, possibly in a week's time.
Olmert has rejected the list drawn up by a committee with representatives from the Justice Ministry, the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) that was to have been presented to ministers at Sunday's cabinet meeting.
The delay in submitting the list followed criticism from Fatah officials that many of the prisoners were scheduled to be released shortly anyway. This is the second time a vote on releasing the prisoners has been delayed.
The prisoner release is designed to shore up support among Palestinians for PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and the new government headed by Prime Minister Salaam Fayad.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Fatah
A gasoline-filled device in a car bomb fails to go off. Authorities investigating another bombing incident find that after a first bomb exploded, a second bomb was timed to go off when first responders arrived. A recent event in the United Kingdom? Yes, but also in California.
Last week, the Los Angeles Times reported that a bomb was discovered outside the Westside home of Dr. Arthur Rosenbaum, the chief of pediatric ophthalmology at UCLA's Jules Stein Eye Institute. The car bomb failed to explode, despite apparent attempts to detonate it.
In 2003, two bombs exploded at biotech firm Chiron's Emeryville office. Agents believed the second bomb was timed to go off when first responders arrived.
The terrorists behind the American firebombs were not Islamic fanatics, but animal-rights jihadists bent on harming and intimidating scientists who conduct medical research on animals. They also have targeted employees of businesses that might work with researchers, as well as harassed the spouses and young children of researchers.
Americans for Medical Progress President Jacquie Calnan warned that the latest incident "marks a disturbing escalation in the tactics of intimidation and harassment."
Last year, animal-rights activists went after another UCLA researcher by placing a firebomb at her doorstep -- except that they put the bomb at the wrong home. Fortunately, that bomb, too, failed to ignite.
While the bombs did not go off, FBI Special Agent Kenneth E. Smith observed, "the devices could have detonated, resulting in significant damage."
So far, animal rights activists have not killed anyone in the United States, but that does not mean Americans should not fear these extremists. In October 2005, Dr. Jerry Vlasak, a Southern California trauma surgeon who is a leader of the North American Animal Liberation Front, testified before the U.S. Senate and defended killing researchers in order to stop research using animals.
"I don't think you'd have to kill -- assassinate -- too many," Vlasak opined. "I think for 5 lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million or 10 million nonhuman lives."
And the threats of violence and intimidation work. Last year, UCLA researcher Dario Ringach sent an e-mail to Vlasak in which he proclaimed, "You win" -- he would stop research with animals. Vlasak sent out a triumphant press release.
Syrian students studying in Lebanese universities will be allowed to continue their courses in Syria next year due to the political instability in Lebanon, the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper reported Saturday.
Syrian Higher Education Minister Ghayyath Barakat told the state newspaper Al-Thawra that the nation's Higher Education Council had authorized the students' enrollment in Syria's public universities for the 2007-2008 academic year. However, the decision does not apply to medical students.
An administrator at the Beirut Arab University said that there was as yet "no reaction whatsoever" from the Syrian students to the council's new policy.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
The investigation into last year's assassination of a Christian Cabinet minister points to the involvement of al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants, a Lebanese security official familiar with the case said Saturday.
Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper also reported that police investigating the killing of former Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel turned up evidence that the Fatah Islam group battling the Lebanese army in northern Lebanon was behind the assassination.
Gemayel was shot dead by gunmen at an intersection north of Beirut on November 21 last year. His death was part of a string of other assassinations that are being investigated by a UN commission initially established to investigate the February 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon's ruling anti-Syrian coalition, including Gemayel's father, former President Amin Gemayel, have implied Syria was behind the assassinations - a charge Syria denies.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/08/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Fatah al-Islam
Yes, yes! What could possibly be why the Arab world commits terror? Let's see if the writers get it.
The continuing plague of terror attacks around the world seems to have reached another peak of moral indignation and political bewilderment with the arrest of eight doctors and medical workers suspected of being involved in last week's attempted attacks in the United Kingdom. This does not make it any easier to try to understand what motivates otherwise ordinary people to become terrorists; but it does make it more urgent to pursue such an enquiry fully and honestly, so that the world might better fight terrorism and reduce its menace .
The contradiction of highly educated professionals who are dedicated to saving human life being involved in attempts to kill and terrorize innocent civilians is difficult to grasp. Yet it seems to be happening, and it is happening mainly among people from the Middle East and South Asia, often during their residence in Western countries.
It is important to express deep anger and outrage at the criminal acts that terrorists undertake, to make it clear that no excuse could possibly rationalize their behavior. Attacking hotels, airports, and busy streets in Bali, Amman or London is a brutal crime committed by deeply flawed human beings. The criminals who do such deeds must be vigorously chased down and brought to justice. This is being done in a sophisticated manner by law enforcement agencies around the world - yet the networks of terrorists and criminals just keep expanding around the world.
There is a serious and growing gap between the world's commitment to fighting terrorism and the capacity of terror groups to proliferate. Bewilderment and outrage are understandable natural reactions to the terror that plagues us all, in the Middle East, Asia and the West; yet these are inadequate, slightly simplistic and emotional responses to a growing problem that demands a much more sophisticated approach in terms of both analysis and policy.
I have spent the past two weeks in various encounters throughout Europe with Middle East experts, public officials and scholars, including distinguished professors, lawyers and other professionals from the US, the Arab world. Everywhere I have been reminded again of a disturbing legacy that seems still to define much of the encounter between the Middle East and the West. This is the tendency to view the Arab and Islamic world as somehow operating according to different values and standards of morality, and thus deserving of different responses to its various national conditions and challenges.
This comes through most clearly on the issue of democratization in the Arab world, and how to deal with Islamist parties that seek to play the democratic game of elections. One increasingly hears analyses about how religion is dominating all politics and nationalism in the Arab world, how the Arab-Israeli conflict is turning into a religious war, or even how the terrorists who attack targets in the West wish to instigate a global religious conflagration.
I hazard generalization by saying that many in the West, especially in the United States and Israel, have allowed their understandable fears and confusion, and their inexplicable ignorance, to prevail over their rational capacities for analysis and problem-solving. At the same time, some very fine scholarship being done around the world - especially in the US and Europe - is identifying the many different factors that drive terrorists to commit their attacks, individually or in groups.
There are as many reasons for people to become terrorists as there are political, social, economic and personal tensions in the world, it seems. These include individual alienation, psychological problems, humiliation, resistance to occupation, political subjugation, religious sensitivities, national vulnerability, and seeking empowerment and self-assertion in the face of victimization and hopelessness, among others. Doctors and engineers are as likely to become terrorists as are poor farmers and unemployed bricklayers.
So why is it that much of the most despicable contemporary international terror emanates heavily from the Arab-Asian region? What is it about our part of the world that turns doctors into killers, students into mass murderers, and men and women ostensibly of faith into practitioners of homicide? We should not hesitate to come to terms with the particularities of Middle Eastern terror, precisely because such terror is so loathsome and morally disfiguring to our own societies and has also become the fountainhead of global terror.
There is a political and historical dimension to the analysis of terror that remains largely missing from the prevalent approaches used by otherwise fine scholars and analysts around the world. Anger, outrage and revenge, however logical and natural, will not stop terror. Analyses based on more integrity and honesty would be a good place to start.
What is it about, say, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan that is so different from Belgium and Switzerland, that terror, rather than fine chocolates, should be among their main exports?
#1
What is it about, say, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan that is so different from Belgium and Switzerland, that terror, rather than fine chocolates, should be among their main exports?
Inspector Khouri: (to camera) Hello. (he walks in followed by Superintendent Rukh and goes to desk) Mr Hafez? You are sole proprietor and owner of the Gaza Pipe Modification Company?
Hafez: I am.
Khouri: Superintendent Rukh and I are from the UXB squad. We want to have a word with you about your box of explosives entitled The Hafez Quality Assortment.
Hafez: Ah, yes.
Khouri: (producing box of explosives) If I may begin at the beginning. First there is the cherry bomb fondue. This is extremely nasty, but we can't prosecute you for that.
Hafez: Agreed.
Khouri: Next we have number four, 'shreddy frag'.
Hafez: Ah, yes.
Khouri: Am I right in thinking there's a real frag in here?
Hafez: Yes. A little one.
Khouri: What sort of frag?
Hafez: A deadly frag.
Khouri: Has it cooked off?
Hafez: No.
Khouri: What, a raw frag?
(Superintendent Rukh looks increasingly queasy.)
Hafez: We use only the finest military grade frags, hand picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality reagent grade ethanol, lightly fused, and then sealed in a percussive Swiss quintuple smooth treble jacketed depleted uranium envelope and lovingly coated with nails.
Khouri: That's as maybe, it's still a frag.
Hafez: What else?
Khouri: Well don't you even take the shrapnel out?
Hafez: If we took the shrapnel out it wouldn't be shreddy would it?
Khouri: Superintendent Rukh caught one of those.
Rukh: Excuse me a moment. (exits hurriedly)
Hafez: It says 'shreddy frag' quite clearly.
Khouri: Well, the superintendent thought it was a smoke flare. People won't expect there to be a frag in there. They're bound to think it's some form of mock frag.
Hafez: (insulted) Mock frag? We use no artificial detonators or accelerants of any kind!
Khouri: Nevertheless, I must warn you that in future you should delete the words 'shreddy frag', and replace them with the legend 'shreddy raw unsafe real deadly frag', if you want to avoid prosecution.
Hafez: What about our overseas sales?
Khouri: I'm not interested in your foreign arms sales, I have to protect our troops. Now how about this one. (superintendent enters) It was number five, wasn't it? (superintendent nods) Number five, AMRAM Warhead Tip. (exit superintendent) What kind of concoction is this?
Hafez: We use choicest chunks of freshly demobilized Hughs AMRAM Warheads, emptied, rearmed, shrouded with fragmentary lining, coated with radar absorbing paint and furnished with bomblets.
Khouri: Bomblets?
Hafez: Correct.
Khouri: Well it don't say nothing about that here.
Hafez: Oh yes it does, on the bottom of the box, after potassium chlorate.
Khouri: (looking) Well I hardly think this is good enough. I think it would be more appropriate if the box bore a large red label “Warning Bomblets”.
Hafez: Our sales would plummet.
Khouri: Well why don't you move into more conventional areas of incendiaries, like napalm or white phosphorus; a very popular ordnance I'm led to understand. (superintendent enters) I mean look at this one, 'bubonic cluster', (superintendent exits) 'anthrax ripple'. What's this one, 'spring surprise'?
Hafez: Ah - now, that's our speciality - covered with darkest camouflage. When you eject it from your launch tube steel bolts immediately spring out and plunge straight through all bystanders.
Khouri: Well where's the strategy in that? If people place a nice shell in their launcher, they don't want their backup crew pierced. In any case this is an inadequate description of the warhead. I shall have to ask you to accompany me to the station.
Hafez: (getting up from desk and being led away) It's a fair cop.
Khouri: Stop talking to the camera.
Hafez: I'm sorry.
(Superintendent Rukh enters the room as Inspector Khouri and Hafez leave, and addresses the camera.)
Rukh: If only the defense procurement agencies would take more care when buying its munitions, it would reduce the number of man-hours lost to the brigades and they would spend less time having their wounds stitched up and sitting around posting at Rantburg.
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.
A religious edict by a prominent Saudi cleric suggesting liberals are not real Muslims has enflamed debate over reforms in the conservative Islamic state, with self-professed liberals fearing they will be attacked. Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that rules by strict application of Islamic law, giving clerics a powerful position in society, but Islamists fear that liberal reformers are gaining ground under the rule of King Abdullah.
Abdul Rashid Ghazi said on Saturday he had received a call from an unidentified man who said he tried to shoot down President Pervez Musharraf’s plane in revenge for the crackdown, AFP reported. “I received a telephone call from a man I did not know,” Ghazi told AFP by telephone. “He said, ‘I fired at Musharraf’s plane just a while ago’. He said that Musharraf survived,” said Ghazi. Ghazi said the man asked him to tell the media about the incident, and that he replied, “I am inside, it’s better if you tell them yourself.” 
Sunni sheiks and community leaders met Saturday in this city west of Baghdad and pledged to fight terrorism and restore peace and security to Anbar province - for years the heart of the insurgency. They also called for the release of security detainees who had not been convicted of crimes and for a bigger role for their group in representing Sunni interests. 
The EU is scaling back its monitoring mission at the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been closed since the start of bloody factional fighting that led to Hamas's takeover of the coastal strip, a spokeswoman said Saturday. 
The investigation into last year's assassination of a Christian Cabinet minister points to the involvement of al-Qaida-inspired Islamic militants, a Lebanese security official familiar with the case said Saturday. 
