The Somali government is trying to create a Baghdad-style safe "Green Zone" in Mogadishu to protect senior officials and foreign visitors from insurgent attacks, Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said on Tuesday. Insurgents have been fighting Gedi's government, and its Ethiopian military allies, since Islamists were toppled from Mogadishu at the end of 2006 after a brief, six-month rule. To counter the threat of attacks, a security zone was being set up in the bullet-scarred coastal capital, Gedi said. "At the moment, the government security agencies are trying to create a Green Zone where international community workers, and those vulnerable, can stay for their security purposes," he said, without giving more details.
"I can say no more hope that we will achieve positive results very soon."
Gedi said government forces were winning the battle against insurgents and were now involved in "cleaning up" some 200 to 300 hardcore fighters left in Mogadishu and its surroundings.
In an interview with Reuters, the Somali premier also accused U.S.-based Human Rights Watch of "abusing" his government and siding with radical Islamists in a report alleging war crimes against Mogadishu's population. Gedi was angry at a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on Monday, saying his troops and their Ethiopian allies were responsible -- together with insurgents -- for widespread crimes against Mogadishu residents during this year's fighting.
"I completely reject what they've said," he said. "Themselves, they abuse governments," Gedi added, arguing that HRW had wilfully ignored any positive aspects of his government's record like an ongoing peace conference, the set-up of local administrations, and aid to refugees.
They had also ignored crimes by the Islamic Courts during their rule of Mogadishu, including killing and displacing people, destroying property, denying women's rights, using child soldiers, and banning cinema and sports-viewing, he said.
"It seems that the Human Rights Watch or groups are in line with opportunistic people who ... want to keep Somalia in a vacuum, to be a safe haven for terrorist activities."
A Saudi official has condemned a radical US Republican presidential candidate's recent comment that the best way to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the Islamic holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Abdul-Mohsen Al-Sheik, head of Mecca's municipal council, said he was disappointed that the Republican Party did not issue an apology for Representative Tom Tancredo's remarks. "Neither ... Tancredo nor anyone else can strike the Kaaba in Mecca," Al-Sheik said in a statement released late Monday. The Kaaba is a cube-shaped stone structure draped in black cloth that Muslims around the world face during daily prayers. Muslims believe Abraham built it.
'Can' is when you're able. We're able.
'May' is when ... you can. Not advocating we do it, just sayin'.
"If this candidate had a minimum knowledge of history, then this site would be holy for him before it being holy for Muslims because no adherent to heavenly religions doesn't know Abraham and (his son) Ishmael," he added.
Earlier this month, Tancredo told about 30 people at a town hall meeting in the state of Iowa that he believes a nuclear terrorist attack on the US could be imminent and that the US needs to hurry up and think of a way to stop it. "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina. Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do," said the Colorado Republican, whose bid for the White House is considered unlikely to succeed.
Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia, are Islam's holiest cities. All able-bodied Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage there at least once in their lives. Islam is the only religion that may can be practiced in the kingdom.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#3
Expecting those goat rapers to understand any piece of equipment more advanced than a can opener is a lost cause. The fact that the US could easily launch a cruise missile from the Med, have it fly into Mecca on its own, and then use GPS and millimeter radar to slam square into their little black meteor is completely beyond their understanding.
The only reason the Saudis have an Air Force is : 1) Western-trained and college-educated princes as pilots; and 2) Western expats maintaining the aircraft. Leaving any of the fighter aircraft in the Kingdom to Saudi maintenance guarantees a non-flyable plane in just a couple of weeks.
#5
According to my version of Ibn Ishaq's early bio of freak-one of islam, the self-annointed "prophet" destroyed Christian, polytheist and other non-muslims icons, that were arrayed in the Kaba. As for the stone: it is less than a foot long, and has a crack in it after it was stolen and kept out of the "holy lands" for decades. I would say that "allah" isn't doing much of a job in protecting his "sacred" kaba. Maybe the "prophet" is a phony, and "allah" is nothing but a concoction, devised by Muhammed to get the power needed to slay his enemies and sow his oats with underage girls.
Shieldwolf: Expecting those goat rapers to understand any piece of equipment more advanced than a can opener is a lost cause.
Give the islamists more credit than that. They may not understand all the mechanics, but they do understand perfectly well how to use a club to open a can. :-)
#9
"If this candidate had a minimum knowledge of history, then this site would be holy for him before it being holy for Muslims because no adherent to heavenly religions doesn't know Abraham and (his son) Ishmael," he added.
Yes, and we of the Judeo-Christian faiths also know Abraham's son Isaac, who was the "chosen lineage" of Abraham. Thus, God (not Allan) is on our side, and I'd be willing to bet He'd help our teeny-tiny missiles "find their way" to the kaaba, if needed. I pray that we do NOT have to go there, but if we do, we CAN strike the kaaba.
Posted by: BA ||
08/15/2007 8:01 Comments ||
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#15
Nice pics anonymous5089. :) Tancredo really got their attention. Too bad the administration doesn't follow the same line. Maybe these goat herders would cease their terrorist ways because it is very unhealthy and puts their religious shrines in the guidance system of a cruise missile. Screw em if they can't take a joke and don't appreciate Tancredo's humor. On the other hand he probably is not joking.
#16
The only shame is that Trancredo's "bid for the White House is considered unlikely to succeed." We could sure use a president who tells it like it is unlike the namby-pamby, mealy-mouthed likes of Giuliani and Romney. And it would certainly put the terrorists on notice if the American people elected such a plain spoken man.
#18
A dummy bomb filled with human waste droppd right onto of the Kaaba would send a nice smelly message. Put false flag markings on the thing, perhaps French or even Iranian markings to confuse and befuddle.
#20
If this candidate had a minimum knowledge of history, then this site would be holy for him
Expecting Infidels to give a rat's ass about their stinking precious shrines is just one more example of Islam's overly exaggerated sense of self-importance. This bloated sack of crap masquerading as a religion is in dire need of deflating.
'Nobody can strike the Kaaba in Mecca'
As someone here mentioned in another thread, this almost needs to be done just to show them that we can. Somethinganything at allneeds to happen that will forever shatter the Muslim perception of Islam's infallibility. High context Islamic cultures feed heavily upon this sense of empowerment, regardless of whether it is justified or not. In an equal fashion, a single smackdown of major proportions would reverberate throughout the entire Muslim world andto whatever extent it is at all possibleforce some sort of re-evaluation regarding Islam's attempts to establish a global caliphate.
Anyone who questions how pivotal this trait of self-delusion is amongst Muslims need only refer to Nasrallah's continuing insistence that Israel's near-total destruction of Hezbollah's Lebanese network was a huge victory for the terrorists.
Seems pretty implausible since Abraham was a herdsman living in what is now Iraq, and never stepped foot in what is now Saudi Arabia. Not to mention no masonry or stone cutting tools, manpower, skills, raw materials, etc.
But I guess muzzies would never let a little thing like archeological or historical facts stand in their way. Hell, they still believe in the myth of "palestine" despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, so I shouldn't be surprised.
As to whether the Kaaba can be destroyed, I'm for testing the theory with a Bunker Buster. You know, just to verify the Saudi claims.
The Ministry of Defence was facing severe criticism last night for refusing to award a special honour to soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The loss of troops in Afghanistan is some of the heaviest British forces have experienced since the Second World War
War veterans, MPs and families of those who have lost loved ones in the fighting - the heaviest British forces have experienced since the Second World War - have urged the MoD to make a special award for the thousands of soldiers and marines who have put their lives at risk on a daily basis fighting insurgents.
Their calls came as Britain faced up to another grim milestone in the fight against the Taliban - the death of its 70th soldier since the operation began in November 2001, and the seventh fatality since July 7.
Despite the ferocity of the campaign, those who have fought in Helmand still receive exactly the same medal as those who undertook relatively safe peace-keeping duties in the Afghan capital, Kabul, immediately after the Taliban were deposed. Critics say the situation is now "completely different" and believe the MoD is missing out on an easy way to boost morale at a critical time.
Yesterday, a spokesman for the ministry insisted that the medal which has been awarded to troops who have served in the country for the last six years - and those given for specific acts of bravery - are sufficient to recognise their efforts.
Argentina rejected on Tuesday an Iranian court summons for five Argentines, the latest twist in a dispute between the two countries linked to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. In the attack, a truck laden with explosives leveled the seven-floor Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building, a symbol of the country's Jewish community -- Latin America's largest. Late last year, the South American nation ordered an international warrant for the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight other Iranians on charges of masterminding the attack that killed 85 people.
Iran, which has repeatedly denied any link to the bombing, challenged the request, and Interpol said in March it would issue wanted notices for six Iranians, leaving out Rafsanjani.
Argentina's Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday Iran had sent it a summons last week in which it accused former judge Juan Jose Galeano, ex-Interior Minister Carlos Corach and three civil leaders of "actions against the security of the Islamic Republic."
"Argentina rejects the Iranian appeal on the grounds that it does not meet the necessary requirements," the ministry said in a statement. "It's difficult not to see the request as a political reprisal for the arrest warrant for the Iranian citizens over the (Jewish center bombing) case."
The government in Buenos Aires has repeatedly accused Iran of failing to cooperate in its investigation of the truck bombing of the AMIA center. Iran blames its foes, the United States and Israel, for trying to implicate the Islamic Republic in the AMIA bombing. It had threatened to take retaliatory legal measures against Argentine officials over the arrest orders.
Representatives of the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus will partake in an antiterrorism exercise of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia at the Baikonur launch site, BelTA learnt from Nikolai Ivinsky, commander of a special unit of Belarus KGBs special operations team Alpha.
In his words, the exercise involving several phases is scheduled for autumn. In some of the phases Belarus representatives will act as observers.
Nikolai Ivinsky also mentioned the high level of cooperation between special units of the two countries. In particular, fine contacts have been established with the Special Operations Centre of the FSB of Russia and Russian special operations team Alpha, which belongs to the abovementioned centre. Joint exercises are held, with the best practices shared.
The source underscored, Russian special operations units have a record of successful counterterrorism operations and use bleeding-edge ?? solutions in the field. Yup, kgb has a great working knowledge of terror and international terrorism, alright.
They share these with Belarus special services. The Belarusian side is grateful to the Russian colleagues for cooperation, said Nikolai Ivinsky.
Russian investigators searched for more evidence Tuesday and drew up composite sketches of two suspects in the bombing that sent an express passenger train hurtling off the tracks, injuring 60 people and raising fears of terrorist attacks before crucial elections. The head of Russia's main security agency, meanwhile, suggested that terrorist threats were still acute and that police agencies were prepared to bolster security and surveillance nationwide before parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in December and next March.
"The threat of terrorism and extremism has not yet been eliminated," Federal Security Service director Nikolai Patrushev told a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee - a grouping of top-ranking law enforcement officers, ministers and agency heads. "These events again are evidence that the (committee) made the timely decision to examine the question of taking anti-terrorist security measures" before the elections, Patrushev said in televised comments.
Prosecutors opened a terrorism investigation into the blast that hit the Neva Express train late Monday, as it was traveling at 191 kph from Moscow to St. Petersburg. The locomotive and a dozen passenger cars derailed near the city of Novgorod, about 500 kilometers north of the capital. In all, 25 people were hospitalized after the derailment, and 35 others sought treatment at the scene, Russian Railways said in a statement.
The bomb was placed about 30 meters ahead of where the tracks cross a bridge over a roadway. But the train crossed the bridge before going off the tracks; the casualty toll likely would have been significantly higher if the train had gone off the approximately 20-meter-high bridge.
There were no reported claims of responsibility, but the incident comes as violence has grown markedly in recent months in the restive North Caucasus region where Chechnya is located. The Interfax news agency, citing unnamed sources, said cables and other evidence found at the blast site strongly resembled the equipment used to detonate a bomb under a train heading from the Chechen capital, Grozny, to Moscow in 2005. That blast injured 42 people.
Monday's incident also recalled the bombings of two other trains in southern Russia in recent years. A bomb placed in a baggage car in a train heading from Kislovodsk to Mineralny Vody killed 47 people on Dec. 5, 2003. Less than three weeks later, a bomb was detonated under a locomotive of a freight train in Chechnya. Insurgents from Chechnya and North Caucasus or their sympathizers were suspected of involvement in those blasts.
The Prosecutor General's office said the blast apparently was caused by a homemade bomb with the power of about two kilograms of TNT. Transportation police officials told Russian news agencies that composite sketches of two men compiled from witness accounts of people seen hanging around in the area had been sent out to law enforcement agencies. The Moscow-St. Petersburg route is one of the busiest for the Russian Railways network, and is popular particularly among foreign tourists. There were no reports of foreigners being among the injured. The blast and derailment tore up about 800 meters of track and limited train service was restored by Tuesday evening.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The Bridges of Minneapolis, aka when Minnesota attacks???
Far-right Australian politician Pauline Hanson, who sparked outrage with her 1990s campaign against Asian immigration, said Wednesday she would now target Muslims.
The former member of parliament and leader of the One Nation party is running for a senate seat in elections this year and has applied to register a new party -- Pauline's United Australia Party.
Hanson, 52, made it clear in an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that her policies have not changed, but that the target has. "We need to have a look at our immigration levels and I'd like to have a look at putting a moratorium on any more Muslims coming into Australia," she said.
...
Posted by: ed ||
08/15/2007 19:43 ||
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#1
It worked for Pym Fortuyn, at least for a while. Didn't have a happy ending, though.
(from the Irna) German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung has rejected a NATO request for sending military transport helicopters to war-stricken Afghanistan, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper reported Wednesday.
Jung said Germany's six CH-53 military helicopters were needed in northern Afghanistan to airlift some 3,000 German troops who are deployed as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The German army has a total of 20 CH-53 helicopters outside Afghanistan, of which eight of them have been grounded because of maintenance service and repair work. Half of Germany's operational CH-53 helicopter fleet is also needed for training purposes and mission preparations.
NATO's commander-in-chief made a written request for the transport helicopters on June 30 to Germany, Turkey, France, Spain and Greece.
Berlin has faced intense pressure in recent months from its NATO allies, notably the US, Britain and Canada, to extend its military presence into southern Afghanistan where NATO troops are trying to crush a Taliban insurgency. Some 35,000 ISAF troops are currently based in Afghanistan.
#2
OK CIA-brainiacs, time to put together some magnificently crafted companies (open to foreign investors only) that would appeal to Muzzie $. I'm thinking along the lines of Billy Sol Estes, ZZZZ-Best, etc... Heck, I'll even be your front man!
A German court on Tuesday upheld a ban on female teachers wearing headscarves in schools in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is home to almost a third of the country's 3.5 million Muslims. Seven of Germany's 16 states have banned teachers from wearing Islamic headscarves ? a policy Muslim groups say discriminates against them. A court in the northwestern city of Duesseldorf ruled that a 52-year-old teacher, who was effectively trying to get the ban lifted, was not allowed to wear her headscarf in school. Wearing the garment was a religious statement and therefore against state rules, the court said in a statement. Maryam Brigitte Weiss, a state schoolteacher since 1980, converted to Islam at the start of the 1990s and decided to start wearing a headscarf in 2006. To show willingness for compromise, she wears her scarf in a so-called "Grace Kelly" style, tied in a loose knot at the base of the neck. She argued it was not the traditional Islamic style and said the state's laws contravened her right to religious freedom. She plans to launch an appeal. "This is a witch hunt," Weiss, a member of the board of the Central Council of Muslims, told Reuters by telephone.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
She argued it was not the traditional Islamic style and said the state's laws contravened her right to religious freedom.
If the first half of the sentence is true the second half of the sentence is irrelevant.
#3
"This is a witch hunt," - sounds like they found the witch. Too bad they don't drown, hang or burn 'em anymore...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
08/15/2007 16:02 Comments ||
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#4
Maryam Brigitte Weiss, a state schoolteacher since 1980, converted to Islam at the start of the 1990s and decided to start wearing a headscarf in 2006.
Fifteen years and she finally decides to do pull this hijab shit?
Nah, I don't smell setup...
Security agencies revealed that Hakan A., the driver of the truck captured last week that contained technological equipment bound for the terrorist PKK's mountainhold received his load from a Turk employed at a NATO base in Giessen, Germany.
The equipment, which was seized in a joint operation by the police and National Intelligence organization (MÝT), does not belong to NATO.
According to information received by the daily Milliyet, security units were tracing Hakan A.'s connections when they obtained an important clue. They discovered that Hakan A. was working as a truck driver for a multinational firm that carried logistical NATO equipment to northern Iraq, and that he was delivering equipment he received from a Turk he met during his visits to the NATO base in Giessen to the PKK's mountain cadre.
MIT officers followed the truck from Germany to the Turkish border checkpoint in Kapýkule. Security General Directorate's (EGM) Intelligence Department took over the operation following the truck's passage through the border. On his way to Mersin, Hakan A. contacted a PKK courier and arranged a rendezvous. When the agent failed to appear, Hakan A. decided to head back. He was arrested while preparing for his return.
Six wireless radio handsets, six mobile wireless devices, 60 body-heaters, and large quantities of medical equipment were found when the truck was searched. The investigation seeks to discover how the equipment was acquired. EGM will report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and request aid from German authorities for the investigation.
Lawyers for Muslim charity leaders accused of aiding Middle East terrorists scored a rare win in court Tuesday when a federal judge blocked some evidence seized by Israeli soldiers during raids of Palestinian organizations. Defense lawyers had objected that some of the documents were not signed or dated, and they cast doubt on Israel's handling of the evidence.
Five former leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development are charged with funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the US government designated a terrorist organization in 1995. The trial is in its fourth week of testimony. Federal District Judge A. Joe Fish has ruled in the prosecution's favor on a wide range of issues, from allowing the government to call Israeli secret agents as witnesses to denying defense requests for a mistrial.
On Tuesday, however, Fish ruled against prosecutors and blocked the jury from seeing 12 documents seized from Palestinian charities allegedly linked to Hamas and funded partly by the Holy Land Foundation. The precise significance of the judge's ruling was difficult to gauge. The judge did not explain his ruling, and lawyers have been barred from talking to reporters about the case.
Also, the judge allowed some evidence from the Israeli raids, including pro-Hamas posters that could bolster in jurors' minds the prosecution's charge that the groups financed by Holy Land Foundation were controlled by Hamas. Holy Land was the largest US Muslim charity when government agents shut it down in December 2001. Leaders of the group said they provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian children, victims of the Oklahoma City bombing and others.
But prosecutors have portrayed the charity as part of a broader campaign to support suicide bombings and other attacks by Hamas in Israel. The five defendants have mostly presented a united front against the charges, although that wall began to crack Tuesday. A lawyer for one of the men got an FBI agent to admit that the man's name did not appear on a list of Muslim Brotherhood activists or a Hamas official's phone book. Some of the other defendants' names did appear.
The defendants are charged with aiding a terrorist group, conspiracy and money laundering. The men could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty and if deaths resulted from their actions.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Yet another reason not to give captured foreign terrorists access to the US court system.
The prosecution of a Texas businessman accused of orchestrating an Iraqi oil scandal took a strange twist Tuesday when allegations surfaced that he told the Iraqi government crucial details of the impending 2003 American invasion of the country.
Lawyers for Oscar S. Wyatt Jr. said in court papers filed Monday and made public Tuesday that the allegations, contained in an Iraqi official's diary, are highly prejudicial and irrelevant and should be kept out of his upcoming trial. "This document essentially alleges that Wyatt has committed the deplorable crime of treason and aided an enemy of the United States," the lawyers wrote.
Why yes it does, doesn't it. And I think we'd like to know more.
Wyatt is charged with conspiring to pay millions of dollars in kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime to win contracts under the United Nations' oil-for-food program in Iraq.
The statements about Wyatt were contained in a diary kept by an employee of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization,
The statements about him were contained in a diary kept by an employee of Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, and some of the entries seem more at home in a spy thriller than in a court of law.
The diary suggests Wyatt notified the Iraqi government that the United States would bomb Iraq, when it would invade Iraq and how many soldiers would be sent
The diary suggests Wyatt notified the Iraqi government that the United States would bomb Iraq, when it would invade Iraq and how many soldiers would be sent, the papers said. "Such a document is undeniably prejudicial, as a jury sitting during the pendency of the ongoing Iraq war would potentially be prejudiced against Wyatt upon learning that he allegedly gave information about the United States invasion to Iraqi officials," the papers said.
Ya think?
The document also claims Wyatt persuaded Sen. Edward Kennedy to deliver a speech against the war with Iraq
The document also claims Wyatt, of Houston, persuaded Sen. Edward Kennedy to deliver a speech against the war with Iraq, the lawyers wrote. A spokeswoman for Kennedy, D-Mass., did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday.
Teddy needed persuading?
It was unclear how Wyatt might have known intimate details of the American invasion of Iraq.
The lawyers also asked that the government be blocked from showing the jury evidence that links payments made by Wyatt directly to Saddam.
The lawyers also asked that the government be blocked from showing the jury evidence that links payments made by Wyatt to the State Oil Marketing Organization directly to Saddam. "Hussein has remained one of the most hated individuals in the world," the lawyers said, calling the evidence extremely prejudicial.
Any reason why that might be?
Wyatt's lawyers asked the judge to exclude evidence of recorded conversations in which "Wyatt unfortunately made several prejudicial comments."
Wyatt's lawyers asked the judge to exclude evidence of recorded conversations in which "Wyatt unfortunately made several prejudicial comments." In one, the lawyers said, Wyatt described a black female attorney by using a racially offensive term and pointed out that an attorney he intended to hire was Jewish.
Wyatt, the founder and former chairman of Coastal Corp., has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go to trial in early September.
Prosecutors, in their own submission, outlined key parts of their case, saying they will prove Wyatt provided millions of dollars of secret financial assistance to the Saddam regime in the 1990s, even before the oil-for-food scheme. The government said Wyatt was granted the very first oil allocation under the oil-for-food program in 1996 and continued to receive allocations through 2002, long after Saddam's regime stopped awarding allocations to other U.S. citizens and companies.
Prosecutors said Wyatt's co-defendant, David Chalmers, enjoyed a cozy relationship with Iraq in the 1980s and used that to secure oil allocations. They made no reference in their letter to Judge Denny Chin to the diary entry that Wyatt's lawyers sought to exclude, but they did say that for both defendants "the uncharged conduct is certainly no more sensational or emotionally jarring than the charged crimes, and any potential prejudice could be addressed with a proper curative instruction."
In separate papers, lawyers for Chalmers, who also has pleaded not guilty, asked that evidence against Wyatt _ including a picture of Wyatt with Saddam, evidence that Wyatt supplied satellite equipment to Iraq, evidence that Wyatt acted as a foreign agent for Iraq and evidence that Wyatt notified Iraqi oil officials about planned troop movements _ be excluded from the trial.
"We want all evidence excluded that might prove to the jury that our clients are guilty, yer Honor!"
"When the evidence that Wyatt disclosed American military plans to Iraq in early 2003 is added to the previously produced evidence that Wyatt visited Saddam Hussein in 1990 in an apparent effort to undermine the first Gulf War and that Wyatt provided satellite equipment to the Hussein regime, it is clear that the government will depict Wyatt as a traitor who repeatedly endangered the lives of American soldiers," the Chalmers lawyers wrote. "Because of the prejudicial spillover effects, the court should exclude the evidence from trial."
Chalmers and Wyatt, who's in his early 80s, each could face more than 60 years in prison if convicted.
#1
"This document essentially alleges that Wyatt has committed the deplorable crime of treason and aided an enemy of the United States," the lawyers wrote.
Hmmmmmmmm...I could see where they might not want that in there.
WASHINGTON: Close on the heels of a US intelligence report of a resurgence of Taliban in Pakistan's border areas, newly declassified documents reveal that Islamabad was directly involved in funding, arming and advising the militant group.
The National Security Archives of the George Washington University has published details of American concerns over Pakistan's relationship with the Taliban during the seven-year period leading up to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.
The revelation comes just days after Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf acknowledged that there is "no doubt" Afghan militants are supported from Pakistani soil.
"While Musharraf admitted the Taliban were being sheltered in the lawless frontier border regions, the declassified US documents released on Tuesday clearly illustrate that the Taliban was directly funded, armed and advised by Islamabad itself," the National Security Archives said in a statement.
The government documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, also detailed US concerns about Pakistani troops training and fighting alongside the Taliban inside Afghanistan.
"The records released today represent the most complete and comprehensive collection of declassified documentation to date on Pakistan's aid programmes to the Taliban, illustrating Islamabad's firm commitment to a Taliban victory in Afghanistan," the Archives said.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/15/2007 09:02 ||
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#1
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you...
Posted by: john frum ||
08/15/2007 9:07 Comments ||
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#3
The National Security Archives is a left-wing nutjob department of GWU. The information it provides is frequently misleading or outright false, which is why I generally ignore its pronouncements.
Eleven suspected militants who reached the Wagah checkpost here after their release from Indian jails along with 11 other civilian prisoners and 48 fishermen will be handed over to Military Intelligence (MI) after their initial interrogation, a Rangers official, asking not to be named, told Daily Times on Tuesday. One of the suspected militants Daily Times spoke to at the border checkpost said he was still willing to cross over the Line of Control for jihad against Indian forces. "I belong to Azad Kashmir and am affiliated with jihadi group Jihad-e-Islam. The Indian forces arrested me during a mission to target an army ammunition store in Jammu and Kashmir 15 years ago," said Muhammad Umar. Umar said the Pakistani embassy had made efforts for his release, but he was willing to cross over the LoC again for jihad if offered a chance.
Alamgir, 37, of Karachi said he had spent 19 years in Indian prisons. With tears in his eyes, Alamgir said that he had gone to India for tourism when he was 18, but was arrested in a false murder case and imprisoned in Jaipur's central jail and the Tihar Jail in New Delhi. He said that Pakistani prisoners were tortured and maltreated by the Indian jail authorities. Jawaad, 19, from Bahawalnagar said that he was roaming near the border in a drunken state when Indian military personnel coaxed him to cross the border. He added that the Indian authorities took him to Jaipur Jail where he remained for two years.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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The Interior Ministry has directed police to tighten security around English medium schools in the country after intelligence reports showed extremists planning hostage taking at private English medium schools, the BBC reported. According to a report seen by the BBC, insurgents got this idea from the Beslan School siege in North Ossetia, Russia in which 335 people were killed - most of them children.
The report said the objective behind such an attempt was to stop the government from conducting operations like the one against Lal Mashjid and Jamia Hafsa. Insurgents believe that moderate and secular elements in society would be undermined if children from well-offs families faced harm, the report said.
The Interior Ministry has directed the home secretaries, the Islamabad chief commissioner and police chiefs of all four provinces, Azad Kashmir and the Northern Areas to tighten security around private schools after summer vacations. It also directed them to coordinate with the administrations of private schools to avoid any untoward incident. In the wake of the Lal Masjid-Jamia Hafsa operation, the Interior Ministry Crises Management Cell has warned the provinces of terrorism. The country has witnessed a surge in the number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts targeting armed forces and police.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
The English-speaking elite will just send their children to boarding schools abroad, which will make make them even more modern and secular. That's what I'd do, anyway, then consider moving myself abroad as well.
#4
I doubt that anythingshort of a terrorist nuclear attackcould be more polarizing than a Beslan-style siege in Britain. It goes beyond comprehension how Islam continually sows the seeds of its own destruction. Such a resolute death cult should notnay, must notbe denied its one fervent wish.
President Musharraf's proposal to the Kabul jirga to separate diehard Taliban from others may not be acceptable to the United States, according to an editorial in the Boston Globe.
I could separate them but I'd need a bandsaw ...
My dad has a nice rusty one you could borrow...
The newspaper writes, "A deal of this kind will require compromises that the jirga participants may be ready to make but that the Bush administration ? with its propensity to frame complex issues as stark conflicts of good and evil ? may not be prepared to accept. Musharraf highlighted a key compromise when he spoke of isolating the diehard militants among the Taliban and trying to o 'win the hearts and minds' of the Pashtun ethnic group from whom the Taliban draw their recruits. Indeed, the jirga's closing statement said that 50 tribal leaders from both sides of the border would meet regularly to 'expedite the ongoing process of dialogue for peace and reconciliation with the opposition'. This was a tactful way of describing a strategy to co-opt those Taliban elements who can be won over."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) yesterday warned Iraq and Turkey against launching any crackdown on the separatist movement after both countries agreed to end its safe haven on the frontier.
"The Iraqi government should not interfere in the conflict between us and Turkey," spokesman Abdelrahman Chadarchi told AFP by telephone from the Qandil mountains on the Iraq-Iran border. "If they plan to strike at the PKK politically or militarily, Iraq and Turkey will pay the price and the crises in Iraq and Turkey will deepen," he added without elaborating.
Chadarchi denied that his party received military aid from either Iraqi Kurds or the United States.
On August 7 Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan signed a document of cooperation to end the safe haven that separatist PKK terrorists enjoy in Kurdish-run northern Iraq. "We said (in the memorandum of understanding) that we will cooperate against terrorist organizations, notably the PKK," Maliki said in Ankara.
Turkey has threatened cross-border strikes at PKK bases in neighboring northern Iraq if Baghdad and Washington fail to curb the rebels. The PKK has stepped up its attacks inside Turkey this year.
Ankara says the PKK, which has been fighting for separation in Turkey's southeast since 1984, enjoys free movement in northern Iraq, where it obtains weapons and explosives. Turkey has accused the forces of Massoud Barzani, who heads the autonomous Kurdish administration there, of providing the PKK with weapons, possibly including ammunition received from the United States.
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) - Gazans are finding an antidote to their growing isolation: digging tunnels under their border with Egypt to smuggle everything from weapons to cigarettes to people. A group of smugglers recently gave an Associated Press photographer rare permission to accompany them as they dug one tunnel. In underground darkness with stifling heat and limited air supply, the diggers painstakingly removed sand and rubble as they crawled through cramped spaces carrying portable lamps and homemade tools.
The southern Gaza town of Rafah has long been a key conduit for underground weapons-smuggling - mostly controlled by a handful of local clans. With Israel imposing a strict closure of Gaza's borders in the wake of Hamas militants' violent seizure of the coastal territory in June, more and more smugglers are taking a piece of the action.
The stakes are higher than ever. Smugglers find themselves pursued by Israel, which fears militants' growing arsenal; by Egypt, which is under growing pressure to crack down on tunnel diggers; and by Hamas, which does not oppose tunnels but wants to control them. You want to dig, you have to pay.
The diggers, who refused to give their names and wore masks to shield their identities, said today's tunnels must be deeper and longer than ever before to avoid detection. The tunnels often take weeks or months to dig, and the tunnelers sleep where they work to avoid getting caught.
Tunnelers smuggle machine guns, rifles, ammunition, explosive devices, grenade launchers and other munitions. Cigarettes, drugs, gold, automobile parts and people also move through the shafts. Geez, that'll make it much easier for Hamas to crackdown on it, ummmmmmm...won't it? maybe the can send their new "navy" down there?
The AP was not allowed to see what goods were moving through the tunnel. Teddy bears, cotton candy, bubble machines, rainbows, puppies...
Some are only wide enough to carry in contraband no larger than a rifle, pulled through with a rope. Others, such as the one seen by AP, are big enough for a person. Still, once inside there's not enough room to turn around, so every 100 yards or so, a wider space is bored to enable a change of direction.
Israel estimates there are dozens of tunnels. They range in length from 100 yards to a half-mile. They begin and end in unlikely places: under the floor tiles of kitchens, inside bedroom closets or animal pens, in the nooks of abandoned buildings. People who allow their dwellings to be used for tunnels are paid.
What the D-9 was in the process of fixing when Saint Pancake stepped in the way.
Runners said it is now most profitable to smuggle in goods such as cigarettes rather than weapons because Hamas has prohibited ordinary citizens and rival militants from carrying arms.``After they (Hamas) took over and started controlling who can have weapons, nobody wants them any more. So why should we bring them in?'' said one smuggler. Yeah...right.
Other tunnels, however, are squarely in Hamas' hands - and Israeli officials say arms smuggling by the militant group is going strong. Your International Aid Tax Dollars At Work. Gaza Turnpike Authority. Now Under New Management.
Smuggling has a long history in the area. Egypt once used a camel corps to intercept aboveground Bedouin caravans, but for years now has relied on vehicle patrols. During Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, smugglers buried Mercedes and other vehicles in the desert sand so they could retrieve and sell them after Israel withdrew from the territory, without having to pay Egyptian taxes.
Gaza's tunnels are a major frustration for Israel, which has carried out dozens of raids to destroy them, often killing both militants and civilians. ``The Hamas terror organization continues to busy itself with the smuggling of huge quantities of weapons for use against Israel. These tunnels continue to be the main source of the weapons supplies to Palestinian terrorists,'' said Israeli government spokesman David Baker.
Tunnelers said Hamas has been trying to take over existing tunnels for its own smuggling - showing little tolerance for freelance runners. "Little tolerance"? I'll bet. We eliminate the middleman and pass the savings on to you!
In an interview, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum denied the existence of tunnels in Gaza.``Israel is claiming there are tunnels just to spoil the relationship between us and our brothers in Egypt,'' he said.
"Lies! All lies!"
Smuggling a person through a tunnel can cost up to $10,000, depending on their importance or whether they are wanted by Israel, the smugglers said. Runners say the process of bringing a person from Egypt involves intricate planning and coordination with the other side. ``He's handed to someone there. He stays over at that person's place, and then we bring him in at night at an agreed time,'' said a smuggler.
Depending on the length, width and sophistication of any given tunnel, they can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 to build. That cost is the biggest incentive for smugglers to move as much contraband as possible. Profits, too, can be high, with more than a few Gaza millionaires created by smuggling. One tunneler said the shaft he was digging would take four months to complete and that he expected to earn $12,000 for his efforts - a fortune in impoverished Gaza.
#2
Tunnelers smuggle machine guns, rifles, ammunition, explosive devices, grenade launchers and other munitions. Cigarettes, drugs, gold, automobile parts and people also move through the shafts . . .
Smuggling a person through a tunnel can cost up to $10,000 . . .
they can cost anywhere from $5,000 to $200,000 to build . . .
Profits, too, can be high, with more than a few Gaza millionaires created by smuggling . . .
The problem isn't that there's no money in Gaza, it's that they're too busy lining their own pockets or trying to kill jooos to worry about anything as trivial as improving the economy.
Frankly, I'm sure they believe it's the UN's job -- not their's -- to make sure people are fed, housed, cared for medically, educated, etc.
Farfour's little friend.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.
Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can't, the young star of Hamas television's best-known children's show said, she'd be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land. Rest at the link...
#2
Even if they get Hamas and Gaza turned around politically, they still have a generation of maniacs that are going to be around for a very long time.
#5
John QC...yes, they do! Don't forget the suicide bomber the IDF caught before the bomb went off who ended up being some 12 or 13 year old mentally disabled kid.
Or, the few female boomers, who come to find out were shamed into "martyrdom" because of infidelity or "honor violations."
Posted by: BA ||
08/15/2007 13:10 Comments ||
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#6
Islam devours its young. Be it through wide-spread sexual abuse, using them as human shields or knowingly sending them to their deaths, it is the psychological mutilation and killing of their own children that represents a fundamentally irredeemable aspect of Islam. No valid religion could ever place so little value upon its own progeny. Islam is a death cult and nothing more. It's time for the West to realize that in the long run, even the most violent dismantling of Islam will save more lives than it will take.
If Western civilization has one single moral obligation to all Muslims, it is to free them of Islam and its philosophical tyranny. Call it cultural or religious imperialism if you will but Muslimseach and every single one of themare nothing more than cannon fodder for the caliphate's juggernaut. It would be far more humane to simply put an end to all Islam and thereby stop not only the immense human misery it perpetuates but save untold billions of livesboth Muslim and Western alikethat it will surely devour if left unchecked.
#9
BTW, thanks for posting, tu. I used this very article to enlighten some "enlightened" libs at work today and they were horrified. They had NO idea the cult of death that is Islam and how it reacts to the Joos everyone. It truly opened a few guys' eyes who have been preaching to me the moral equivalency thingy between other religions and Islam. I also informed him of the "glorious" use of wimmins and mentally disabled kids as potential boomers. They were honestly horrified at all of that, then about had their world view shattered when I told them the parents were farkin' happy when the kids "martyred" themselves (which, I added, is a complete misnomer, because a TRUE martyr is one killed for the belief system by OTHERS, not themselves in hopes of killing others).
And, for a final 1-2 punch, his head about exploded when I pointed out that many parents hope for it because of money (and made the link to Saddam and his $25k payouts to the "martyr's" families). I've just about turned his world-view upside down in the span of just a few articles, videos and hours. Amazing what a few facts will do for you in "enlightening" you about the true nature of the enemy we face.
Posted by: BA ||
08/15/2007 22:57 Comments ||
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#10
DOH! forgot to add the end DEL tag after "Joos".
Posted by: BA ||
08/15/2007 22:58 Comments ||
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#11
BA, was not a true librul. True librul would almost immeditely, after the first example, call you a racist and simply dismis anything you say afterwards.
#12
Good on ya, BA. We unelisted warriors must fight the battle here ONE MIND AT A TIME. We can only hope that each mind we change will go out and change yet another and another and so on. If America is to survive, this is how it will be done. If America is going to truly declare open war on Islamwithout having to suffer a terrorist nuclear attack firstthis is how it's going to be done. Felt gooddidn't itshedding the complacent worldview of someone who didn't have a frickin' clue?
Hamas militants in Gaza have formed a loose-knit navy, with machine guns and mortars but no boats, it was reported Saturday. About 150 Hamas fighters are to patrol the Gaza shore, fending off Israeli soldiers and drug dealers, said a statement from Saber Halifa, a Hamas spokesman. So, it's a navy on foot? Makes sense.
The Hamas naval brigade also will supervise fishermen, protecting their boats and property while preventing them from contacting Israeli ships, Ynetnews.com reported Saturday. "The force will safeguard the tourist sites and the well being and safety of their visitors," the Hamas announcement said.
#1
I've heard of Foot Cavalry but not Shank's Mare in that sense.
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
08/15/2007 5:51 Comments ||
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#2
Maybe they hope to steal / take over boats in any coming conflict. But more likely this is just another PR move to assert that they are a legitimate government.
#5
It would be unIslamic to have a real navy because they would have to study navigation which would ultimately lead to the discovery that the earth is not flat.
Iraqi and Jordanian security officials examined Tuesday ways to fight the spread of terrorism and sectarian strife in countries neighboring Iraq that host large communities of refugees fleeing the wartorn nation. "Both Jordan and Iraq have only one choice which is to stand in the same trench to fight terrorism," said Mouwaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, in remarks carried by the official Petra news agency after his meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Abdul-Ilah al-Khatib.
Al-Rubaie arrived in Amman late Monday with a seven-member delegation that included the Iraqi chiefs of intelligence and military intelligence to discuss security issues with their Jordanian counterparts.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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The Palestinian Authority government will recover Gaza sooner than people think, PA Information Minister Riyad al-Malki told a group of Israeli and Palestinian journalists in Ramallah on Tuesday. "We're working on the notion that what happened in Gaza is temporary, and we are working towards winning Gaza back," he said.
The media personnel were present under the auspices of The Mideast Press Club, a project of The Media Line dedicated to fostering cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian journalists. Malki, who was appointed two months ago as a member of the emergency government, was charged with the immediate task of finding proper responses to the emergency situation created by the Hamas coup in Gaza.
It was a situation that the Palestinians had never experienced, he said, and one that did not have precedents elsewhere, so there was nothing from which to learn. "We're not a state, but we have a political faction in power using a military coup against the government, and they control one part of the country separated from another part of the country by a third country," Malki explained in a nutshell.
As a result of the misinformation disseminated by Hamas, media and information have suddenly become the most important vehicle for the PA in confronting the situation in Gaza, he continued, noting that "80 percent of the battle is focused on media information."
Al Franken, Janine Garofolo, call your agents.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Hamas
Eighty percent of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip think their economic situation has deteriorated since the militant Hamas movement took over the area two months ago, according to a poll released Tuesday.
The survey of 400 people by the Near East Consulting firm also found that 70 percent of Gazans live in poverty, pollster Jamil Rabah said. The poverty level in Gaza is 2,000 shekels a month for a family of two adults and four children, he said. "All indicators show that there is a lack of investment and people are less likely to spend money," Rabah said. "Economic activity will deteriorate further."
There were no comparative figures predating the takeover because previous polls related to both Gaza and the West Bank. Rival governments emerged in the two Palestinian areas after Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Fatah security forces in mid-June.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Perhaps Israel could help by buying more sand from them at 10 shekels per pickup load.
Premier Romano Prodi telephoned Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Tuesday after his comments about having a dialogue with Hamas drew sharp criticism from Israel and praise from the Islamist group. Prodi appeared to go off message backtrack on his position during the call, stressing that Hamas must fulfill conditions set out by the Quartet of Mideast peace negotiators before its international isolation ends: recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence and accept existing agreements.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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By Noah Shachtman
U.S. military robots ran 30,000 missions in 2006 -- hunting for, and getting rid of, improvised explosives. Now, the military has launched a crash project to radically increase its unmanned ground forces. Call it the robotic equivalent of the "surge."
The first batch of 'bots is due September 24, Defense News' Kris Osborn reports. 1000 machines are supposed to be enlisted by the end of the year, with two thousand more in five years.
Word of the robot recruitment comes just weeks after the military revealed it had deployed armed robots to Iraq.
In contrast, these smallish robots, weighing fifty pounds or less, will be used mostly for reconnaissance duty -- looking out for insurgents, and their bombs. A government solicitation to robot-makers asks for a machine that can both "look into the window of a vehicle" and peek "under a vehicle undercarriage."
That July 17 solicitation kicked off a break-neck competition to award the bot-building contract. "The victor will be crowned Sept. 14 with a contract for 101 robots. The first must be delivered within 10 days," says Defense News.
Due to the urgent nature of the request from U.S. Multi-National Corps, Iraq, the procurement process is moving unusually fast, Army and industry officials said.
Case in point? The Redstone test [a series of trials being held this week at the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Alabama] is taking place in advance of formal bids. Instead of a complex process to become a competitor, contestants will be able to register when they arrive with their wares at Redstone. And the winner will be awarded the indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract virtually on the spot.
The military already has a number of smallish robots that could fit the bill -- everything from tricked-out radio-controlled trucks to iRobot's mega-popular Packbot machines. Those 'bots, often considered too flimsy for bomb-disposal use, seem like natural fits for the government's requirement for lightweight recon machines. iRobot has to be considered the favorite to win the quicksilver competition (especially since the company has the proven ability to crank the things out).
#6
After the robot surge, we have the cosmic porcine death ray that senses secret desires by islamic terrorists to blow things up or behead people. They in turn get blown up before they can act on their desires. They don't get the 72 virgins but go straight to hell. The new weapon is about to go into production.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps so designated! Bush getting tough?
The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.
The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."
#3
This might have taken a long time to announce, because the IRGC has lots of international resources and connections, and you want maximum effect by closing down as many as possible all at once, thus hitting them really hard. Suddenly the money and equipment supplies just dry up, hopefully leaving them in the lurch and in a panic to reopen their pipeline.
#4
Formed in 1979 and originally tasked with protecting the world's only modern theocracy, the Revolutionary Guard...
I believe the Vatican qualifies as a theocracy. Not making a point; just being pedantic. Though if the Pope had 125,000 Swiss Guards I would hope for a more robust response to the murder of nuns, blood-curdling islamic death threats, etc.
Lebanon's army commander General Michel Suleiman is willing to head a transitional government if parliament failed to elect a new head of state before President Emile Lahoud's term in office runs out in November, provided all sides accept his nomination. Former Defense Minister Albert Mansour, who proposed the idea of heading a transitional government personally to Suleiman, told The Daily Star that the army chief agreed to lead such a cabinet in the event a new president is not agreed upon. "Such a government would be in keeping with established practice, which is for a president to hand over power to a Maronite prime minister. It happened twice before," Mansour said.
He said being appointed prime minister of a transitional government would allow Suleiman to bypass constitutional requirements that prevent grade-one civil servants like Suleiman from being elected to the presidency while still in their post or within two years of their resignation.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Lebanese Army Commander Gen. Michel Suleiman on Monday denied charges that Fatah al-Islam terrorists are linked to Syria or to factions represented in the Lebanese government. Fatah al-Islam, Suleiman said, "is not sponsored by Syrian intelligence, nor it is backed by Lebanese government circles. It is a branch for al-Qaida which had been planning to use Lebanon and Palestinian camps as safe haven to launch its operations in Lebanon and abroad."
He said efforts exerted by the Lebanese Army "to avoid inflicting many civilian casualties slowed down the advance" in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. However, "much has been done and little remains to be achieved," Suleiman was quoted by the state-run National News Agency as saying.
He estimated that "about 70 (Fatah al-Islam) fighters remain in the camp along with about 100 women and children who refuse to leave despite repeated calls by the army." Suleiman rejected describing Fatah al-Islam as a gang. "Those fighting us at Nahr al-Bared are highly-trained fighters, equipped with sophisticated weapons ? and highly experienced in booby trapping and explosives."
Suleiman expressed regret over the failure to materialize promises to provide the army with badly needed equipment while fighting terrorists in the north. "We need a lot of weapons and ammunition, conventional and modern, but we have received only a lot of promises and some ammunition, but no equipment. As if they are telling us: Die first and back up would arrive later. That is why we are looking for sources to acquire weapons."
He stressed that "I will stay in my post as commander of the army until a new president is elected and a new government is formed." "Is it possible to leave command of this ship while it is facing such high waves?" Suleiman asked.
The majority of Fatah al-Islam militants came from the neighboring Islamic countries...from as far as Bangladesh in the east to Morocco in the west. A large number of them fought in Iraq . The foreign militants came to Lebanon illegally thru the Syrian borders with their sophisticated weapons. Many observers think that Suleiman in absolving Syria was wearing his political hat and his aim was to please the allies of the Syrian regime in Lebanon in the event he is nominated as a consensus candidate for the presidency to replace the outgoing pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Many Iranians are disgruntled over their government's decision to hand over 25 million dollars in aid to a Hezbollah-linked relief group in Lebanon, an Iranian newspaper has reported. The daily Aftab Yazd, known for its criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline government, in an editorial cited a reader's letter in which the amounts of money being sent to Lebanon were described as "inappropriate".
Aftab Yazd noted how "many areas destroyed during the eight year war with Iraq which ended in 1988 were still awaiting funds for reconstruction" with thousands of people still displaced because their homes have yet to be rebuilt. Last week an Iranian envoy in Beirut, Hossein Khoshnevis, handed over a 25 million dollar cheque to Nabil Al Jaser, who heads the Council for the Reconstruction of Lebanon, a body set up by Hezbollah in the aftermath of last year's six-week long war with Israel. Khoshnevis also announced that 43 of the 63 villages Iran has pledged to help rebuild have been completed. The envoy also said that some 149 schools, 150 mosques, and 25 medical aid centers damaged in the fighting have been refurbished.
Also over the last year Iranian funds helped remove explosive mines from some parts of southern Lebanon, Khoshnevis added as well as repair work to some roads and the reconstruction of 12 bridges bombed by Israeli war planes.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
Lebanon's Democratic gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt criticized Hezbollah's weapons, saying guns that protect tyrannical regimes like Syria and Iran "are not sacred and can never be." "As long as the ruling group remains in Damascus while the free are in Syrian jails ? and the Lebanon-Syria border is open to sabotage agents, we should expect more assassinations and bombings," Jumblatt told a dinner gathering in Beiteddine. His remarks were published in Lebanese dailies on Monday.
"Weapons that protect the tyrannical rule from Beirut to Iran through the Damascus regime, are not sacred and can never be," Jumblatt said. "Resistance is not just resisting Israel, but resisting regimes of hatred and rancor," he added. "Resistance respects freedom and diversity."
Jumblatt labeled "traitor" anyone within the majority March 14 coalition who considers reaching a compromise or a settlement with the Hezbollah-led opposition, saying he would be "condemned morally and politically." He also slammed pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud, calling him a "young and stupid criminal" when the "stupid and bigger criminal Bashar al-Assad summoned (late) Premier Rafik Hariri and told him to renew for Lahoud. 'He is ours'."
Lahoud denounced as "criminals" Jumblatt and those like him. "It's hard to believe that comments like that could come from a normal and wise person," said a statement issued by Lahoud's office.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said his organization was not interested in another bout of fighting with Israel, but, that if such a conflict were to break out, the Israelis would be faced with "larger surprises" than in last year's war. In a televised address to a mass rally in Beirut's southern suburbs, Nasrallah added that Hizbullah was in possession of rockets that could reach any point in Israel, but qualified the statement by saying it was not a threat of war but rather "the hope to forestall it."
Nasrallah said the US and Israel tried to split the Lebanese along sectarian lines and to describe the Shi'ite Muslim Hizbullah as a terrorist group in order to weaken it during the 34-day war. "They (America and Israel) wanted to tear us apart. They wanted to use war to isolate us one country after the other, one people after the other, one sect after the other and one party after the other," said Nasrallah. "When we are divided, they will win and we will be defeated," he said.
The rally was organized by the Shi'ite Muslim group to mark the first anniversary of the war with Israel, which Hizbullah says it won and calls "a divine victory." Nasrallah bravely did not personally attend the rally. His speech was relayed to the crowd on giant screens set up in a stadium and on top of buildings in the southern suburbs.
"They told (the Lebanese) that Hizbullah is an Iranian and Syrian tool," Nasrallah said. "The most serious accusation was the sectarian issue. They told the Christians that the fighting was with a Muslim group and that it has nothing to do with you. They told Sunni Muslims that the fighting was with a Shi'ite group and was targeting the Shi'ite project (in the region)," Nasrallah said.
Nasrallah added the alleged US-Israeli scheme to drive a wedge among the Lebanese had failed because the Lebanese, both Muslims and Christians, rallied behind Hizbullah during the devastating war. He thanked Arab and Muslim leaders and governments for standing behind Lebanon during "the American-Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the Lebanese people."
Celebratory gunshots and fireworks erupted in Beirut's pro-Hizbullah suburbs for several minutes as Nasrallah talked.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
And considering that you are at the bottom of the stool, You have "suprises to see also.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/15/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Charlie Wilson would have taken care of them.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
08/15/2007 0:48 Comments ||
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#2
first thing I would do is lend them a battalion of seabees and start clearing that rubble from the ouside and work toward the middle. Start clearing out the damaged buildings and making open space the enemy can't hide in. Scrape it down to bare earth and start working relentlessly toward the remaining square kilometer.
Where are those guys getting their drinking water from? I would be looking at cutting that off too. People can't live for weeks on air, they have to be getting water from someplace.
I would be dumping CS down every storm drain and sewer in the place and just lobbing it generally into that area. Underground bunkers need to get air from someplace. Food can be stockpiled. Water and air are more difficult to stockpile.
In an urban siege like that, I can't see where more sophisticated weapons are going to do them a whole lot of good. They would just bounce the rubble a little higher. What they need is more sophisticated training and tactics.
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 Saudi official has condemned a radical US Republican presidential candidate's recent comment that the best way to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the Islamic holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Abdul-Mohsen Al-Sheik, head of Mecca's municipal council, said he was disappointed that the Republican Party did not issue an apology for Representative Tom Tancredo's remarks. "Neither ... Tancredo nor anyone else can strike the Kaaba in Mecca," Al-Sheik said in a statement released late Monday. The Kaaba is a cube-shaped stone structure draped in black cloth that Muslims around the world face during daily prayers. Muslims believe Abraham built it. 
The Ministry of Defence was facing severe criticism last night for refusing to award a special honour to soldiers fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. The loss of troops in Afghanistan is some of the heaviest British forces have experienced since the Second World War
Argentina rejected on Tuesday an Iranian court summons for five Argentines, the latest twist in a dispute between the two countries linked to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires. In the attack, a truck laden with explosives leveled the seven-floor Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building, a symbol of the country's Jewish community -- Latin America's largest. Late last year, the South American nation ordered an international warrant for the arrest of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and eight other Iranians on charges of masterminding the attack that killed 85 people.
Representatives of the State Security Committee (KGB) of Belarus will partake in an antiterrorism exercise of the Federal Security Service (FSB) of Russia at the Baikonur launch site, BelTA learnt from Nikolai Ivinsky, commander of a special unit of Belarus KGBs special operations team Alpha. 
Russian investigators searched for more evidence Tuesday and drew up composite sketches of two suspects in the bombing that sent an express passenger train hurtling off the tracks, injuring 60 people and raising fears of terrorist attacks before crucial elections. The head of Russia's main security agency, meanwhile, suggested that terrorist threats were still acute and that police agencies were prepared to bolster security and surveillance nationwide before parliamentary and presidential elections to be held in December and next March. 
A German court on Tuesday upheld a ban on female teachers wearing headscarves in schools in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which is home to almost a third of the country's 3.5 million Muslims. Seven of Germany's 16 states have banned teachers from wearing Islamic headscarves ? a policy Muslim groups say discriminates against them. A court in the northwestern city of Duesseldorf ruled that a 52-year-old teacher, who was effectively trying to get the ban lifted, was not allowed to wear her headscarf in school. Wearing the garment was a religious statement and therefore against state rules, the court said in a statement. Maryam Brigitte Weiss, a state schoolteacher since 1980, converted to Islam at the start of the 1990s and decided to start wearing a headscarf in 2006. To show willingness for compromise, she wears her scarf in a so-called "Grace Kelly" style, tied in a loose knot at the base of the neck. She argued it was not the traditional Islamic style and said the state's laws contravened her right to religious freedom. She plans to launch an appeal. "This is a witch hunt," Weiss, a member of the board of the Central Council of Muslims, told Reuters by telephone.
The prosecution of a Texas businessman accused of orchestrating an Iraqi oil scandal took a strange twist Tuesday when allegations surfaced that he told the Iraqi government crucial details of the impending 2003 American invasion of the country. 
Eleven suspected militants who reached the Wagah checkpost here after their release from Indian jails along with 11 other civilian prisoners and 48 fishermen will be handed over to Military Intelligence (MI) after their initial interrogation, a Rangers official, asking not to be named, told Daily Times on Tuesday. One of the suspected militants Daily Times spoke to at the border checkpost said he was still willing to cross over the Line of Control for jihad against Indian forces. "I belong to Azad Kashmir and am affiliated with jihadi group Jihad-e-Islam. The Indian forces arrested me during a mission to target an army ammunition store in Jammu and Kashmir 15 years ago," said Muhammad Umar. Umar said the Pakistani embassy had made efforts for his release, but he was willing to cross over the LoC again for jihad if offered a chance. 
The Interior Ministry has directed police to tighten security around English medium schools in the country after intelligence reports showed extremists planning hostage taking at private English medium schools, the BBC reported. According to a report seen by the BBC, insurgents got this idea from the Beslan School siege in North Ossetia, Russia in which 335 people were killed - most of them children.
The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) yesterday warned Iraq and Turkey against launching any crackdown on the separatist movement after both countries agreed to end its safe haven on the frontier. 
Hamas militants in Gaza have formed a loose-knit navy, with machine guns and mortars but no boats, it was reported Saturday. About 150 Hamas fighters are to patrol the Gaza shore, fending off Israeli soldiers and drug dealers, said a statement from Saber Halifa, a Hamas spokesman. 
Eighty percent of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip think their economic situation has deteriorated since the militant Hamas movement took over the area two months ago, according to a poll released Tuesday. 
By Noah Shachtman
Lebanon's Democratic gathering bloc leader MP Walid Jumblatt criticized Hezbollah's weapons, saying guns that protect tyrannical regimes like Syria and Iran "are not sacred and can never be." "As long as the ruling group remains in Damascus while the free are in Syrian jails ? and the Lebanon-Syria border is open to sabotage agents, we should expect more assassinations and bombings," Jumblatt told a dinner gathering in Beiteddine. His remarks were published in Lebanese dailies on Monday.
Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said his organization was not interested in another bout of fighting with Israel, but, that if such a conflict were to break out, the Israelis would be faced with "larger surprises" than in last year's war. In a televised address to a mass rally in Beirut's southern suburbs, Nasrallah added that Hizbullah was in possession of rockets that could reach any point in Israel, but qualified the statement by saying it was not a threat of war but rather "the hope to forestall it." 
