Afghanistan on Tuesday welcomed the operation by Pakistani forces against militants in a tribal district, but urged Islamabad to expand the offensive against militants. Afghanistans government welcomes in principle the military operation by Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzais spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters in Kabul. But we know this is not enough, he said, calling for an expanded, serious and broad action against terrorist hideouts inside Pakistani soil.
The spokesman reiterated accusations that militants based in Pakistans Tribal Areas were crossing the border to launch attacks on Afghan and international forces.
Pakistan said it had launched the operation in Khyber on Saturday to tackle militants who were threatening the city of Peshawar and attacking supply convoys to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The Government has summoned the deputy ambassador of Pakistan to explain how Taliban militants were allowed to behead two Afghans on Pakistani soil.
Counsellor Asif Durrani was called the other day in front of the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which strongly condemned last weeks beheadings. The ministry is expected to demand Pakistani authorities do everything in their power to punish the men behind the beheading.
In Pakistans Bajaur Agency on Saturday, Pakistani Taliban, thought to be the militant Jaish-e-Mohammad group, publicly executed two Afghans for spying. The group warned at the time that whoever spied for foreign forces in Afghanistan, or supported Pakistans army, would meet the same fate. A spokesman for Jaish-e-Mohammad, Wali Mohammad, said the two beheaded Afghans were residents of Kunar.
This article starring:
Jaish-e-Mohammad
Wali Mohammad
Jaish-e-Mohammad
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Criminal charges brought against Al Jazeera's Rabat Bureau Chief Hassan Rachidi and human rights activist Brahim Sab'alil should be dropped, Washington-based human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The two are accused of disseminating "false information."
Rachidi and Sab'alil head to trial on July 1 before the Rabat Court of First Instance on the charges, which HRW has said violate freedom of speech agreements. Sab'alil also is expected to be in court the following day on similar charges in a separate incident. Sab'alil was arrested on June 27, a day after he took part in a press conference in the Moroccan capital where he revealed evidence of human rights violations by security forces in their attempt to quell protests in the southern city of Sidi Ifni that began on June 7. Security forces broke the protestors' blockade on the city's port in violent clashes.
"Authorities should want to find out the truth about the extent of police abuse in Sidi Ifni," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "They should allow an open discussion about the incident instead of using repressive laws to 'shoot the messenger.'"
Sab'alil is president of the Sidi Ifni section of the Moroccan Center for Human Rights (Centre Marocain des droits humains, CMDH), an independent organization that has provided ongoing information about human rights conditions in Sidi Ifni, where protests erupted largely over economic grievances. Sab'alil is also a member of the CMDH's executive committee.
Is Russia trying to provoke a war on Georgia's border? Last week saw the latest in a series of flare-ups as Georgian troops moved into the remote Kodori valley in the breakaway region of Abkhazia. The Georgians were chasing local tribal leader Emzar Kvitsiani, who had declared that he'd form a private army to resist Tbilisi's authority. Georgia accuses Russia of encouraging Kvitsiani's mini-rebellion; worse, claim the Georgians, Russia's also helping separatists in another restive province, South Ossetia.
Why would Moscow want to set fire to the Caucasus, especially at a time when conflicts are intensifying from Afghanistan to Lebanon? According to Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania, Georgia's been "enemy number one" to the Kremlin since its pro-Western Rose Revolution in 2003. This year, though, tensions have come to a head. Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili recently accused Moscow of being behind a mysterious explosion on a gas line. In May, Russia banned imports of Georgian wine, severely hurting its economy. Now skirmishes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia have come close to rekindling wars against Georgia's breakaway republics.
The Kremlin denies undermining its southern neighbor, claiming it wants only to be the guarantor of various ceasefire deals with Georgia's rebel provinces. The danger is that future clashes could easily involve Russian troops, who are permanently stationed in both Abkhazia and Ossetia as peacekeepers. Any fire fights between Georgian and Russian troops could quickly escalate into something much more serious than a tribal revolt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Not getting easier for the RUSSIANS, is it?
* FORMER SSRS
* FUTURE NUCLEAR IRAN + OTHER LARGE MUSLIM STATES
* ISLAMIST PAN-MILITANT MILNUC THREAT - Local destabilization + Nuclearization.
* FUTURE STRONG CHINA > WAFF.com > Think Tank -When and iff CHINA becomes modernized and desirous of expansion, TT believes it will likely expand agz RUSSIA first.
ANKARA: Turkish authorities detained more than 21 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals yesterday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government. Police swooped shortly before the Constitutional Court began hearing a legal case in which the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) is charged with trying to establish an Islamic state and could be closed, a move that might lead to an early parliamentary election.
Turkish stocks fell six per cent and the lira currency almost 2pc on concerns of prolonged political uncertainty which political analysts say could damage Ankara's hopes of joining the EU.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the detentions were linked to a long-running probe into Ergenekon, a shadowy, ultra-nationalist and hardline secularist group suspected of planning bombings and assassinations calculated to trigger an army takeover.
Anatolian said among those detained were prominent retired generals Hursit Tolon and Sener Eruygur, the former chief of gendarmerie forces and head of an association. Ankara Chamber of Commerce chairman Sinan Aygun and Mustafa Balbay, Ankara representative of Cumhuriyet newspaper were also detained. All four are known as vocal government critics.
More than 40 people, including a retired general, lawyers and politicians have been arrested over the past year for suspected links to Ergenekon. The military, which has repeatedly criticised the government, has denied any links to the group.
Half of those detained were members of the powerful Kemalist Thought Association (ADD). ADD helped push millions of Turks onto the streets to protest against the election of former foreign minister Abdullah Gul as president last year, sparking an early parliamentary election.
Shortly after the detentions, chief prosecutor outlined his case in the Constitutional Court to close the the governing Islamist-rooted AKP, which was re-elected only last year. The prosecutor also wants to ban 71 political figures, including Erdogan, from party politics for five years for seeking to turn officially secular, but predominantly Muslim, Turkey into an Islamic state.
Among those arrested in the police operation that also spread to Istanbul, the northern city of Trabzon and Antalya in the south were Ufuk Buyukcelebi, the editor-in-chief of the daily Tercuman and a retired colonel, television reports said.
#1
It's sad when the best Islam can do towards a democracy (in Pakistan and Turkey) require constant coups to keep from devolving into a 6th century theocracy.
Sad but the most pro-American folks are those that went through hell first and realized that systems don't work (Eastern Europe for example). Maybe it's best in the long, long, run if Turkey falls. We'll get quick border wars with Greece over Cypress and a few other islands. Possible battle for Constantinpole then Turkey will fade into third world poverty and dispair.
Here's a happy thought: Turkey could become the new Egypt. Or Algeria.
Turkey's tottering political system edged further towards breakdown yesterday as police arrested 24 people suspected of plotting to overthrow the government hours before a prosecutor went before the country's highest court demanding the dissolution of the ruling party. Two retired generals and a newspaper columnist were among those detained as investigators widened an investigation into an alleged coup attempt against the Justice and Development party (AKP) government by a secular-nationalist cabal.
The timing of the arrests drew attention away from the official opening of a case brought by the chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, to close the AKP and ban its senior figures from politics for allegedly trying to turn Turkey into an Islamic state.
The bewildering chain of events prompted a crisis of confidence in the financial markets, with shares on the Istanbul stock market plunging 6% and the local currency, the lira, falling by 2%.
In a 90-minute oral submission, Yalcinkaya told the constitutional court that the AKP was systematically trying to undermine the 85-year-old political system bequeathed to Turkey by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Besides the AKP's closure, he is seeking to have its senior figures, including the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, banned from politics for five years. The AKP, which has roots in political Islam but denies the charges against it, will submit its counter-arguments tomorrow.
The case is the latest stage in a bitter power struggle between the secular establishment - represented by the judiciary and the powerful military - and religious conservatives. Many analysts believe the court will rule in favour of the AKP's closure, leaving a vacuum at the heart of Turkish politics.
The AKP, which has governed since 2002 and was re-elected last year with 47% of the vote, accuses its adversaries of trying to mount a judicial coup. But that allegation was overshadowed by the more sinister accusations that prompted yesterday's arrests. They were the latest development in an investigation into Ergenekon, a group of secularists said to have been planning bombings and assassinations allegedly designed to prompt a military takeover.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#2
Congress passed a special law, just so soldiers can be prosecuted by US civilian courts. This is the first test of that law, and if it fails terribly, it will probably die as a statute.
Since deserting his unit in Iraq and fleeing to Canada two years ago, Corey Glass has become the poster boy of the war resistors movement. Thursday in Toronto, supporters are planning to protest his scheduled
deportation back to the United States.
But it turns out Glass has had little reason to be on the lam, ABCNews has learned. Unknown to him and his legion of supporters, Glass, 25, was actually discharged from the U.S. Army shortly after he went AWOL in 2006.
Glass and about 40 other American deserters who, like him, sought refugee status have prompted a national debate in Canada that last month reached the floor of parliament on where to draw the line between cowardice and conscience.
'I had absolutely no idea that I had been discharged,' said Glass when ABC News informed him of his status. 'This is insane. This is so weird. There are no warrants? No one is looking for me?'
According to U.S. Army documents and officials, Glass was discharged from the California National Guard Dec. 1, 2006, four months after he arrived in Canada and six months after he failed to show up to a required muster. 'He is not considered absent without leave. He is not considered a deserter,' said Maj. Nathan Banks, an Army spokesman. 'He is running for no reason. He is fully welcome in the United States. I cannot believe this is a big deal in Canada.'
But it is a big deal in Canada, where lawmakers last month overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution, 137 to 110, to freeze the deportation of American deserters, starting with Glass.
Despite the resolution, the Immigration Ministry has decided to stick by its decision and plans to deport Glass July 10. 'The resolution was nonbiding,' said Karen Shadd, a ministry spokeswoman. 'Canada has one of the most generous refugee systems in the world, and each case is assessed on its individual merits.'
Unlike the 30,000 to 50,000 American deserters who were given legal refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War, this latest crop of runaways is viewed by Canadian immigration authorities not as conscientious objectors avoiding a draft but as volunteers unwilling to fulfill their promise to the military and undeserving of refugee status.
#1
"I had absolutely no idea that I had been discharged," said Glass when ABC News informed him of his status. "This is insane. This is so weird. There are no warrants? No one is looking for me?"
#3
Unknown to him and his legion of supporters, Glass, 25, was actually discharged from the U.S. Army shortly after he went AWOL in 2006.
OTH - BCD or DD? Not that a reporter would be smart enough to know to ask.
"I had absolutely no idea that I had been discharged," said Glass when ABC News informed him of his status. "This is insane. This is so weird. There are no warrants? No one is looking for me?"
You ain't worth the time of real men and women. They have real work to do and have been doing it.
#11
Will you PLEASE take him back? PLEASE? We might want to send you a bunch of federal politicians too. And some journalists. FREE!! Take them for FREE!! BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT THEM!!
#13
Unlike the 30,000 to 50,000 American deserters who were given legal refuge in Canada during the Vietnam War, this latest crop of runaways is viewed by Canadian immigration authorities not as conscientious objectors avoiding a draft but as volunteers unwilling to fulfill their promise to the military and undeserving of refugee status.
For the strange reason that they are not conscientious objectors avoiding a draft but are volunteers unwilling to fulfill their promise to serve.
#18
DOD handled this well. DOD could have tried him amd sent him to jail, thus pouring fuel on the left's fire. Now its a non issue and this guy will get nothing for his being a coward.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/02/2008 16:18 Comments ||
Top||
#19
BCD is the "other than honorable":
Punitive Discharges.
Punitive discharges are authorized punishments of courts-martial and can only be awarded as an approved court-martial sentence pursuant to a conviction for a violation of the UCMJ. There are two types of punitive discharges: Dishonorable Discharge (DD) -- which can only be adjudged by a general court-martial and is a separation under dishonorable conditions; and Bad-Conduct Discharge (BCD) -- which can be adjudged by either a general court-martial or a special court-martial and is a separation under conditions other than honorable.
http://usmilitary.about.com/od/justicelawlegislation/l/aadischarge1.htm
#22
O2K, yeah - I can just see this guy showing up at the VA office and demanding his benefits. He'll probably whine and pout and claim he is being oppressed because he is denied.
Of course, if the waiting room is full of REAL veterans, he could get a talking to.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/02/2008 19:51 Comments ||
Top||
#23
A bit of wall to wall counseling in a room full of vets that kept their word and did their duty.
#24
He's gonna have a big hole in his resume. Sooner or later, some one will check it out and his life will become toast. 2048 is a long time from now. And after this war is over, lotsa folks won't like folks like him.
#28
I must say that JosephMendiola's Tourrette's is become more amusing.
Posted by: Scott R ||
07/02/2008 21:59 Comments ||
Top||
#29
He doesn't have to be present. My reserve unit processed a lot of administrative separations for failure to attend drills. Cleaned out the deadwood. Non-vet reservists got a General Discharge (Other Than Honorable conditions). Basically a 'you're fired' discharge.
Somebody in the CA NG was smart and a bit vicious. Heh.
President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani army are allowing Taliban militants a safe haven in the country's tribal belt in an effort to undermine the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key Pakistani provincial official said yesterday.
Comes as a surprise, huh? I mean, they're so subtle about it, I'da never guessed.
In an interview, Afrasiab Khattak, the 'peace envoy' of the government of the insurgency-racked North West Frontier Province, charged that Mr. Musharraf and the army are still dictating policy for the region, and that 'they want the Afghan government to fail. A hangover of the 'strategic-depth' policy is still running.' The Pakistan army's doctrine of 'strategic depth' requires a client regime in Kabul, so that Afghanistan will not side with India in the event of another India-Pakistan war. Islamabad backed the Taliban government of the 1990s in Kabul, but Mr. Karzai is hostile to Pakistan. Echoing Washington's concerns, Mr. Khattak said: 'Unfortunately, the [Taliban] sanctuaries have not been dismantled. They are still functioning.'
Be careful starting your car, Mr. Khattak. And hire a food taster.
Islamabad has repeatedly denied that it allows its soil to be used against foreign governments, but Washington and Kabul believe that the Taliban and al-Qaeda enjoy refuge in Pakistan's tribal zone, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Denials in the face of all the evidence are stoopid, but apparently they've been working.
After February elections that restored democracy in Pakistan, Mr. Musharraf, who was army chief until the end of last year, was supposed to have retreated to a ceremonial role, while the military said it would be subservient to civilian rule. However, Mr. Khattak, who is a leader of the Awami National Party and heads the NWFP government's negotiations with militants, insisted that the army was still dominant. 'In the past, the Afghan policy has been led by the army. ... I have no reason for saying it has been reversed. Actions speak louder than words.'
The current military operation in FATA is limited in scope, raising questions about whether it is the start of a concerted move against the bands of extremists established across the tribal zone or just a stunt designed to give the appearance of a crackdown. The new Pakistani government has advocated peace negotiations, not military action, against the extremists in FATA and NWFP, alarming the United States and Afghanistan. Pakistan's homegrown Taliban movement has, so far, not been touched by the present offensive, which has targeted local fundamentalist groups in FATA's Khyber area. Pakistan's Taliban and their Afghan brethren are not in Khyber but are holed up in other parts of FATA.
Yesterday, Pakistan's fitful military operation against Islamist extremists pushed into its third day, consisting primarily of isolated assaults on buildings used by warlords in Khyber agency. The army met almost no resistance. The main targets were the compounds of Khyber militant leader Mangal Bagh, whose religious warriors had for months been menacing the outskirts of the provincial capital, Peshawar. The lightly armed Frontier Corps paramilitary was used, rather than the regular Pakistan army. Mr. Bagh himself was across the other side of Khyber agency, close to the Afghan border in the remote Tirah Valley, when troops blew up his home in Bara town, which is just outside Peshawar. Whether the military now presses on to the Tirah Valley will be a key test of its resolve, experts said. 'If he [Bagh] is not pursued, then this is a PR exercise, which is very dangerous,' said Talat Masood, a retired general turned military analyst. 'It would be a grave mistake if they did not follow through and pursue this group to the Tirah Valley and also stop them escaping to Afghanistan. That would just embolden them.'
The tribal lashkar joke flopped, so it can't be used again for awhile. Let's see how well the Frontier Corps joke works.
This article starring:
Mangal Bagh
Lashkar-e-Islami
Talat Masood
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The ongoing Pakistani offensive in the NWFP is just an example of what lies in store for extremists who challenge the nation's new government militarily, Pakistani Ambassador to United States Husain Haqqani said in an interview published here on Tuesday.
He told the Washington Times that several more such actions are planned for the Afghan border area in the coming days to demonstrate to the world the new government's commitment to fighting the Taliban and other extremist groups.
Legitimate:
He said the new plan to deal with extremists and radicals would have far greater legitimacy and effectiveness because it had been drafted and approved by a democratically elected government. He said the first operation, launched in the Khyber Agency on Saturday, had achieved its "basic objective" by destroying bases and safe houses belonging to Lashkar-e-Islam chief Mangal Bagh in Bara, though the militant leader was not caught. "The Pakistani military has been given the job and task of ensuring that there will be no flow of Taliban fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan," Haqqani added. He said the new government might take longer to reach a decision than when President Pervez Musharraf dominated the political landscape, but that its policies were more likely to stick. "There's a difference between a drift and a transition," he explained. "Making decisions is a slightly lengthier process than it was when one person could make it. But the upside to it is that once the decision is made, it has national support and consensus."
Failure:
Haqqani also faulted aspects of US policy towards the region in the days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, saying there has been a "complete failure" of American public diplomacy in Pakistan and the Muslim world to explain and defend US objectives and interests in the global war on terrorism. He said the obsession with security after September 11 had damaged the country's image abroad, sometimes in ways Americans do not appreciate.
"You would not believe how small things help [Al Qaeda chief Osama] Bin Laden," Haqqani said. "Every time a significant, respectable Pakistani is humiliated at an American airport, despite having a valid visa, the story doesn't even make it into your papers, but it's the biggest story of the day in Pakistan." The Pakistani envoy was critical of the fact that US diplomats are not permitted to live with their families in Pakistan. He observed that there were security problems during the Cold War, but American diplomats showed greater courage, adding that even during the Vietnam War, diplomats stayed until the fall of Saigon. He said US diplomats in Pakistan " don't go out very much. They stay in the capital. There is a very quick rotation. Haqqani said he suspected that US travel warnings about visiting Pakistan are frequently the result of a fear of lawsuits from unsuspecting Americans who might encounter trouble on their trips. "The State Department has to issue these sweeping warnings so that nobody sues them," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Terrorism is a serious threat to the world economy and Pakistan will not allow terrorists to use its soil for their designs, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer said on Tuesday. Talking to a United States delegation headed by US Assistant Secretary for Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Richard A Boucher at the Governor House, Taseer said Pakistan had helped the world in countering terrorism. The Pakistani nation wants to lead its life according to its religious values, but on the other hand it is aware that terrorism is entirely against Islam, he said, adding that Pakistans participation in the war on terror was for its own sake.
Few people with negative approach could not take the country and its people hostage, he said, adding that those challenging the governments writ would be dealt with sternly. The governor said the government would simultaneously continue using force and dialogue to resolve the issue of terrorism. The Pakistan Peoples Party has always discouraged extremism and adopted policies that helped strengthening the countrys image abroad, he said. The provision of quality education, health facilities and the eradication of poverty are the Punjab governments priorities, he added. Boucher said friendship between the US and Pakistan was far broader than their partnership in the war on terror. He appreciated Pakistans role in the war on terror, and said America would extend all possible support to Pakistan in this regard.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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An Islamic group calling itself "The Battalion of Just Punishment, Jihad Base in Mesopotamia" has sent a letter to churches in Mosul. The letter [shown and translated at link] threatens the Assyrians and asks them to refrain from cooperating with Americans, and not to pursue the establishment of a local (i.e., Assyrian/Christian) police force. The letter refers to Assyrians as "Dhimmi", the Koranic term used to refer to Christians and Jews, and which signifies lesser legal and social status for Christians and Jews.
According to an Assyrian community leader in Mosul, the letter's reference to the establishment of a local Assyrian police force is odd. "I suspect this letter may have actually come from Ansar Al-Islam," he said "because the Kurds don't want us to have our own police force." Ansar Al-Islam is the Kurdish Islamic group affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The issue of an Assyrian police force has come to the forefront in recent months as Assyrian churches have been bombed and priests and bishops have been kidnapped and murdered
Posted by: ryuge ||
07/02/2008 05:59 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
AP: Iraq's foreign minister told lawmakers Tuesday the U.S. made major concessions in talks on a new security agreement, urging them to approve the deal to keep U.S. troops here after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year.
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari briefed lawmakers following his visit last month to Washington, where he met with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. His meetings in Washington focused on the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and Iraq on the security agreement and a separate set of rules governing the actions of American soldiers.
Many Iraqi lawmakers have complained that the U.S. demands would infringe on Iraqi sovereignty, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said last month that the talks had reached an impasse.
But Zebari told the legislators that the Americans had made 'great concessions to us,' including an end to immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law enjoyed by American and other foreign security contractors. He also said the U.S. was prepared to give up control of Iraqi air space if the Iraqis guarantee that they could protect the country's skies with their limited air force. Said it with a straight face, too!
Zebari, a Kurd, said the rules governing U.S. troops would last for only one or two years while the separate security agreement would be long-term. Just long enough to wipe Iran off the map.
That appeared aimed as satisfying demands of key Shiite and Sunni legislators who had insisted that any agreement contain language that pointed to an eventual U.S. withdrawal.
U.S. officials have declined to discuss details of the negotiations but have expressed hope that they can wrap them up by the end of this month. The Iraqi parliament must sign off on the deal. Zebari said that if the negotiations fail, the only option would be to ask the U.N. Security Council to extend the mandate, and he encouraged legislators to sign off on the final version.
It was unclear how many lawmakers were convinced by Zebari's comments. But the parliament speaker, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, joked that the Kurds 'are obviously for the agreement' and that the Sunnis and the Shiites secretly support it.
That would leave only Shiite followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as opponents 'even if the agreement is for the benefit of Iraq,' said al-Mashhadani, a Sunni.
If the negotiations finish this month, it is unlikely parliament would begin debate until it reconvenes in August from a one-month summer recess.
Parliament must also approve a new law providing for provincial elections, which are expected by October. But the U.N, envoy to Iraq, Staffan di Mistura, told parliament leaders Tuesday that there is no time to organize an election by October. He said that if the enabling legislation is not approved by the end of the month, it is unlikely an election could even be held this year.
Provincial elections are considered an important step toward bringing Sunni Arabs into the political process. Many Sunnis boycotted the last provincial election in January 2005, a move that enabled Shiites and Kurds to win a disproportionate share of power. U.S. officials have been pressing the Iraqis to take advantage of the reduction in violence to enact power-sharing agreements that would cement the security gains since early last year.
Despite improvements, deadly attacks continue. Almost forgot this was the AP, didn't you!
Police said a truck bomb exploded Tuesday near the home of a Sunni sheik in Qayarra, about 45 miles south of Mosul, killing one person and wounding 25, including the sheik. The blast destroyed three houses and damaged seven others, police said. Police Brig. Gen. Brig. Gen. Khalid Abdul-Sattar said the sheik, Abdul-Razaq al-Waqaa, was among local community leaders who had turned against al-Qaida in Iraq.
Extremists also killed seven people in a series of attacks Tuesday in Iraq's eastern Diyala province. Local officials fear al-Qaida militants are returning to the province to escape pressure from U.S. and Iraqi forces in the Mosul area.
In a Mahdi Army stronghold, where no one has seen the militia, troops struggle to find renegade fighters
BAGHDAD Staff Sgt. Robert Smith, a buff 31-year-old from North Carolina, strides down a narrow alley in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Shula. He has just spent 10 minutes sequestered in a room with an interpreter and an Iraqi homeowner, trying to convince the man to give up what he knows about the militias.
Which, the man insisted, was nothing. No one in the neighborhood followed Muqtada al-Sadr, he volunteered as the questions started to get tense.
Smith had laughed lightly at this, nodding. In an area decorated with billboards honoring the "martyrs" of al-Sadrs Mahdi Army, it was a familiar refrain: A militia stronghold where no one has seen the militia, Smith jokes as he moves his patrol back out into the dust-heavy heat of a late afternoon earlier this month.
But his sense of humor, half sarcasm and half swagger, holds up. Approaching a group of men gathered on a corner, he extends a hand.
"Its OK," he announces. "You can shake my hand. Jaish al-Mahdi is gone," using the Arabic name for al-Sadrs Mahdi Army.
No one laughs.
In the wake of the fighting that erupted here and in other Shiite areas of Baghdad in late March, both the U.S. and Iraqi militaries have stepped up their presence in places like Shula, an impoverished neighborhood of about 80,000 that some U.S. troops call "little Sadr City." (Iraqi troops posted in the neighborhood jokingly refer to it as "Kandahar.")
As a result, U.S. officers say, many of the militia leaders who used the neighborhood as a base have either fled or gone into hiding. Violence across Iraq, which spiked in April as a result of the fighting in Sadr City and other Shiite areas, fell to the lowest levels of the war in May and remained at relatively low levels last month.
But exactly who those militiamen were a question that leads to a few significant follow-ups, like why they were fighting and whether they will fight again depends in no small part on whos describing them. Under the official view, the military has essentially defined al-Sadrs Mahdi Army out of existence. Because al-Sadr has not lifted a cease-fire he announced last year, any groups fighting since then are de-facto renegades or "Special Groups."
But ordinary Iraqis and most U.S. ground troops continue to refer to the militias as Jaish al-Mahdi, or "JAM."
Some ground commanders involved in recent fighting have described their foes as "mainline" Sadrists who have neither broken with nor been rejected by the influential anti-American cleric. Other commanders say its virtually impossible to know whether some groups are acting with al-Sadrs blessing or not.
In mid-June, al-Sadr announced plans to forgo direct participation in this falls local elections and form a new, smaller militia dedicated to attacking to U.S. troops.
"Were not declaring defeat of the Special Groups criminals," Lt. Gen. Lloyd Austin, the second-ranking U.S. commander in Iraq, said during a press briefing late last month. "But every day theyre not fighting us, were growing stronger."
The rise of Special Groups
The distinction between Sadrists and "Special Groups" is not a matter of semantics. Though he has struggled to control his militia in recent years, al-Sadr remains a potent force in Iraqi politics whose family has deep roots among Iraqs poorer Shiites. He has proved capable of "dialing up" violence at will, as retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Richardo Sanchez put it this spring.
By contrast, as defined by the U.S. military, the "Special Groups" have little in the way of ideology or political philosophy. Commanders have become increasingly resistant even to describing the groups as "militias."
"I dont like to call them that," said Lt. Col. Gregory Baine, commander of the 2nd Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment in eastern Baghdad. "Theyre criminals, thugs, terrorists. Militia could have a positive connotation."
The term "Special Groups" describes Shiite fighters who the military believes were trained and armed by Iran or by Hezbollah. The military blames Iran for supplying the groups with the deadly roadside bombs known as "explosively formed penetrators."
Since the beginning of this year, the Pentagon has put out 106 separate news releases including references to "Special Groups" and just seven referring to the Mahdi Army.
"Theyre extremist organizations that use criminal activity to meet their ends," said Col. Bill Hickman, commander of 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, which patrols much of northwestern Baghdad. "Were not at war with JAM. We target individuals who break the rule of law."
Commanders on the ground largely echo that sentiment, saying they define their enemies based on specific intelligence, not affiliation.
"If we see somebody wearing a JAM T-shirt and theyre not attacking anybody or doing anything against the law, were going to leave them alone," said Capt. Jeremy Ussery, commander of Company B, 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, which patrols Shula. "Well work with anyone who is pursuing peace."
That includes Sadrists, Ussery said. Referring to the "Sons of Iraq" security program that has employed tens of thousands of mostly Sunni Iraqis, some of whom are believed to be former insurgents, Ussery said, "were not about holding grudges."
Still, many observers see the clashes this spring, which began with an Iraqi Army offensive in Basra, as an effort by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to marginalize al-Sadr ahead of the fall elections. And it goes without saying that few American commanders see al-Sadr as an ideal Iraqi leader.
"Every Iraqi Ive spoken to has blamed it all on Sadr," Baine said of the recent fighting. During his weekly addresses on Iraqi radio, Baine has begun directly challenging the clerics prestige.
"Im asking the people, Where is Muqtada? " Baine said. " What has he done for you. And more importantly, what has he done to you?"
The way ahead
When it comes to preventing renewed fighting, officers say their strategy keyed on establishing security and bolstering essential services will work no matter who the militias are. Whatever they are called, they can only thrive in a vacuum where the government has failed, officials say.
The second part of the equation, however, remains a challenge. As part of his recently-announced reorganization, al-Sadr has said he will turn the bulk of his militia toward public works projects.
That fact confronts Smith, the staff sergeant, during his patrol in Shula. After a round of handshakes, the men on the street begin asking questions of their own. One asks who is in charge of electricity.
#4
democrats won't let us build here (tried many times out here in western Kansas but failed after multiple appeals, couldn't get past the governor and east Kansas state reps). If the d's would have had their way, there would not be any Power Plant building in Iraq either.
Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shiite lawmakers and a top army officer. The three Iraqis claim the Lebanese Shiites were also involved in planning some of the most brazen attacks against U.S.-led forces, including the January 2007 raid on a provincial government compound in Karbala in which five Americans died.
The allegations, made in separate interviews with The Associated Press, point not only to an Iranian hand in the Iraq war, but also to Hezbollah's willingness to expand beyond its Lebanese base and assume a broader role in the struggle against U.S. influence in the Middle East.
All this suggests that Shiite-dominated Iran is waging a proxy war against the United States to secure a dominant role in majority-Shiite Iraq, which has supplanted Lebanon as Tehran's top priority in the Middle East. 'The stakes are much higher in Iraq, where there is a Shiite majority, oil, the shrine cities and borders with Saudi Arabia,' said analyst Farid al-Khazen, a Christian Lebanese lawmaker whose party is allied with Hezbollah. 'The big story is Iraq, and the Americans unwittingly opened it up for the Iranians' by their invasion in 2003, al-Khazen said.
The allegations come as the United States and Iran are engaged in a showdown over Tehran's nuclear program and each country's role in Iraq. Iran, Hezbollah's mentor, denies giving any support to Shiite extremists in Iraq. But the three Iraqis who spoke to the AP said the Iranians prefer to use Hezbollah instructors because as Arabs, they can communicate better with the Iraqi Shiites and maintain a lower profile than Farsi-speakers from Iran.
For Hezbollah, a high-risk role in Iraq could give the Lebanese movement leverage with the United States and broaden its appeal within the Arab world where anti-American sentiment remains strong. Iraqi officials have said little about a Hezbollah role in this country. However, President Jalal Talabani told U.S.-funded Alhurra television this week that 'there have been several occasions' when Hezbollah members or those who 'claim to belong to Hezbollah' have been detained in Iraq. He gave no further details.
But the two Iraqi lawmakers and the military officer said Hezbollah instructors work only with members of the Iraqi Shiite 'special groups,' the U.S. military's name for splinter factions of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. believes that Iran's elite Quds Force, a branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, supports the special groups. The lawmakers belong to al-Sadr's movement and were involved in the creation of the Mahdi Army in 2003. The military officer's job gives him access to highly classified intelligence information. They said Hezbollah began training Shiite militiamen in the second half of 2006 at two camps Deir and Kutaiban east of Basra near the Iranian border. They fled across the border in late March or early April this year after U.S.-backed Iraqi forces launched a crackdown against militias in Basra, Iraq's second-largest city. In Iran, training resumed in camps once used by Iraqi exiles who fought with Iranian forces during the 1980s war between the two countries, the lawmakers said. Instruction includes explosives, ambushes and use of rockets and mortars. Citing testimony from special groups members in custody, the officer said the Hezbollah instructors never numbered more than 10 at any one time, kept a low profile and moved back and forth over the Iranian border.
Indications that Hezbollah was playing a role in Iraq first surfaced last July when the U.S. military announced the arrest of Ali Musa Daqduq, a Lebanese-born Hezbollah operative allegedly training Iraqi Shiite militiamen. At least one other Hezbollah operative, identified only as Faris, was detained in Basra during fighting there in April and was handed over to the Americans, the Iraqi military officer said. The U.S. military has said little publicly about Hezbollah's involvement here since announcing Daqduq's arrest, though it has frequently alleged an Iranian role in arming, equipping and training Shiite extremists. 'At this point in time, we do not have any new, releasable information regarding Hezbollah's involvement with special groups in Iran and Iraq,' a military spokesman, Capt. Charles Calio, said in an e-mail to the AP.
A Hezbollah spokesman in Beirut, Lebanon, refused to comment on any role for his organization. However, Ibrahim al-Ameen, a Lebanese newspaper editor close to Hezbollah, said in a recent interview in Beirut that Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, spends several hours daily dealing with 'the situation in Iraq.' Nasrallah, who studied Shiite theology in Iraq, spoke at length about Iraqi 'resistance' during a speech last May that analysts believed was aimed at bolstering his image as a godfather of Arab opposition to the United States and Israel throughout the Middle East. Beside its alleged role in Iraq, Hezbollah is known to have ties to the Palestinian militant Hamas group. The charismatic Nasrallah has become a sort of folk hero in the mostly Sunni Arab world after his guerrillas fought Israeli forces to a standstill in a 34-day war in 2006.
A senior Western diplomat based in the Middle East said his government has information suggesting a growing Hezbollah interest in events in Iraq. However, the diplomat would say no more and insisted on anonymity because the subject is so sensitive. Hezbollah's possible role in direct attacks against U.S.-led forces is murkier and more explosive. The two Iraqi lawmakers said Hezbollah operatives planned and supervised both the Karbala attack and the brazen daylight kidnapping of five British nationals from a Finance Ministry compound in Baghdad in May 2007. The Britons are still being held. In the Karbala attack, English-speaking militants wearing American uniforms and carrying American weapons stormed the compound, killing one U.S. soldier and abducting four. The four were later found dead.
A senior Mahdi Army commander in Baghdad, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said Hezbollah's operations in Iraq had been supervised by Imad Mughniyeh, a top commander of the guerrilla group killed in a car bomb in Syria last February. The shadowy figure was suspected of a role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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WASHINGTON (AP) - No matter who is elected president in November, his foreign policy team will have to deal with one of the most frustrating realities in Iraq: the slow pace with which the government in Baghdad operates.
As opposed to the lightning efficiency of the U.S. Congress and the Washington bureaucracy ...
Iraq's political and military success is considered vital to U.S. interests, whether troops stay or go. And while the Iraqi government has made measurable progress in recent months, the pace at which it's done so has been achingly slow.
The White House sees the progress in a particularly positive light, declaring in a new assessment to Congress that Iraq's efforts on 15 of 18 benchmarks are "satisfactory"almost twice of what it determined to be the case a year ago. The May 2008 report card, obtained by the Associated Press, determines that only two of the benchmarksenacting and implementing laws to disarm militias and distribute oil revenuesare unsatisfactory.
The oil revenue bill is on the table in the Iraqi parliament, and disarming the militias will take time. This is pretty good.
In the past 12 months, since the White House released its first formal assessment of Iraq's military and political progress, Baghdad politicians have reached several new agreements seen as critical to easing sectarian tensions. They have passed, for example, legislation that grants amnesty for some prisoners and allows former members of Saddam Hussein's political party to recover lost jobs or pensions. They also determined that provincial elections would be held by Oct. 1.
But for every substantial small step forward, Iraq has several more giant steps to take before victory can be declared on any one issue.
Amnesty requests are backlogged, and in question is whether the new law will speed the release of those in U.S. custody. It also remains unclear just how many former Baath members will be able to return to their jobs. And while Oct. 1 had been identified as an election day, Baghdad hasn't been able to agree on the rules, possibly delaying the event by several weeks.
Likewise, militias and sectarian interests among Iraq's leaders still play a central role in the conflict. And U.S. military officials say they are unsure violence levels will stay down as troop levels return to 142,000 after a major buildup last year.
In the May progress report, one benchmark was deemed to have brought mixed results. The Iraqi army has made satisfactory progress on the goal of fairly enforcing the law, while the nation's police force remains plagued by sectarianism, according to the administration assessment. Overall, militia control has declined and Baghdad's security forces have "demonstrated its willingness and effectiveness to use these authorities to pursue extremists in all provinces, regardless of population or extremist demographics," as illustrated by recent operations, the White House concludes.
Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., who requested the administration's updated assessment, scoffed at the May report, which he says uses the false standard of determining whether progress on a goal is "satisfactory" versus whether the benchmark has been met. He estimates that only a few of the 18 benchmarks have been fully achieved.
Mike has unrealistically high standards for the Iraqis and appropriately low standards for the Speaker of his House ...
Democrats also say more solid progress could have been made had the administration starting pulling troops out sooner. "We've tried repeatedly to get the administration to shift responsibility to the Iraqi leaders for their own future, since there is broad consensus that there is no military solution and only a political settlement among the Iraqis can end the conflict," said Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. "The administration, however, has repeatedly missed opportunities to shift this burden to the Iraqis and appears willing to do so again," Levin said.
Never mind that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that the first need has been sustained security, which only has come about in the last year.
But whether the next president will be much more successful in forcing the Iraqi government to reach a lasting political settlement remains to be seen.
Whether the new administration starts pulling troops out of Iraq right away, as Democratic presidential hopeful Barak Obama has promised, or refuses to set a timetable, per Republican John McCain's suggestion, most agree that a functional democracy in Iraq could still be years away because of the complexities of the issues involved and the deeply rooted distrust among the nation's sectarian groups. "Iraq has the potential to develop into a stable, secure multiethnic, multi-sectarian democracy under the rule of law," Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Iraq said in April when he last testified before Congress. "Whether it realizes that potential is ultimately up to the Iraqi people."
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
This is very good news for America. For that reason don't expect to see it on any of your major media.
Not that it will amount to much, regarding olmert clinging to power.
Israeli detectives claim to have further evidence to support allegations of fraud against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert has been accused of accepting donations from a New York businessman, Morris Talansky, who is the main witness in what has been dubbed 'the envelopes case.'
In his preliminary deposition in Jerusalem on 27 May, Talansky testified that he gave Olmert 150,000 dollars, mostly in cash, for political campaigns and travel expenses. According to the Israeli daily, Haaretz, a key official said 'the case against Olmert has grown stronger,' since detectives made inquiries in the US. Another senior official said that 'the case is progressing, and progressing nicely.'
Inquiries are expected to continue for the next two weeks, before Talansky's cross-examination on 17 July.
The team conducting the inquiries consists of attorney Uri Korev of the Jerusalem District Prosecutor's Office, and superintendents Lior Weiss and Tzahi Havkin of the National Fraud Unit. They travelled to New York, Washington, and Las Vegas to collect documents from banks and other sources, and to interview witnesses. The latest reports on the inquiries have strengthened the assessment among law enforcement officials that police will indeed recommend indicting the prime minister.
Despite calls for his resignation, Olmert has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
Gaza - Ma'an- Egyptians announced Wednesday the closure of Rafah crossing after thousands of angry Palestinians stormed the gates.
Seven thousand Palestinians stormed the Rafah crossing Wednesday, and were pushed back by Egyptian security. According to Ma'an sources, none of those waiting managed to cross.
The storming came after an Egyptian promise to open the crossing, in response to an appeal from Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas on his recent visit to the country. The crossing was to be opened to let approximately two hundred Palestinians stranded in Egypt back into Gaza. On Tuesday approximately 100 Palestinians were allowed to pass into Egypt from Gaza, according to Ma'an sources.
Thousands of Palestinians from Gaza lined up at the border after hearing the news that the crossing would be opened on Wednesday. Sources say that the almost seven thousand Gazans waited in line all day under the hot sun. They became angry when it became clear that Egyptian officials were only going to let a few people across the border, and without any clear protocol.
Border security forces lost control over the angry group which threw stones at Egyptian security members. The forces responded by hosing the group down with water and throwing a few stones.
(Xinhua) -- The Islamic Hamas movement slammed Israel on Tuesday for closing all Gaza border crossings until a further notice, saying it is a violation of an Egyptian-brokered truce agreement. 'The closure of the crossing points is a violation of the truce and it is in fact obstruct the implementation the truce agreement,' Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas spokesman told reporters in Gaza. Israel on Tuesday closed down all Gaza crossing points after unknown militants fired one homemade rocket at the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Monday. No damages or injuries were reported.
The truce between Israel and Gaza militant groups came into effect on June 19, under which Israel promises to stop attacks on Gaza and ease the blockade in exchange for stopping homemade rockets attacks on southern Israel. Barhoum said Hamas and other Palestinian factions would study the current development and Israeli violations of the truce and then would evaluate the truce agreement. The closure of the crossings 'is an interpretation of earlier statements made by Israeli foreign ministry spokeswoman saying that opening the crossings is linked to releasing captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, Palestinian medics said that a Palestinian woman was shot and moderately wounded by Israeli troops gunfire east of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza Strip. Israeli media reported that the Jewish state has informed Hamas that Israeli soldiers would open fire at any Palestinian approaching the border area between Gaza Strip and Israel. Palestinian witnesses said the woman, a farmer, was going to work at her farm near the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- A senior official of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) on Tuesday called for forming an interim Palestinian government right after launching a comprehensive national dialogue among the Palestinian factions.
Ghazi Hamad told a conference held in Gaza to encourage the dialogue that a ministry for national dialogue should be part of the interim government that has to be formed after launching the dialogue among all political factions.
In early June, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had called for launching a comprehensive dialogue and ending the status of split among the West Bank controlled by Fatah movement and Gaza controlled by Hamas.
Hamas leaders welcomed Abbas' call for resuming the dialogue and said they are ready for dialogue wherever and whenever. 'I want to drag your attention that the crisis into the Palestinian society is really deep and the Palestinian people are clearly suffering from the disputes and disagreements between the Palestinian factions,' said Hamad.
Hamad called for forming a committee to immediately start a comprehensive dialogue, adding that the committee has to be compressed of the five major political factions including Fatah and Hamas to end all current disputes.
What's this 'dialogue' they keep referring to? I don't think it means what they think it means.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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oldiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were forced by local Lebanese residents to delete photos of suspicious-looking underground cables, according a report submitted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon.
The incident constitutes the second time in recent months that the work of the peacekeeping force has been restricted because of pressures from local residents - this in strict violation of UN Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War that brought the UNIFIL forces to south Lebanon.
According to the UN secretary general's report, on May 28, UNIFIL peacekeepers located cables that were buried in southeast Lebanon. They proceeded to take photographs of the cables, and were subsequently surrounded by local residents who hurled stones at them and in turn took pictures of the soldiers themselves. The incident was brought to an end only after UNIFIL agreed to delete the photos, despite the fact that UN policy permits the use of cameras by the peacekeeping forces.
Good dhimmis!
The report, the seventh released on the implementation of Resolution 1701, also said that UNIFIL increased the number of its observation posts in the Shaba Farms area, and called on Israel to accept one of the solutions that has been offered to end its presence in the northern section of the border village of Rajar. The report also emphasized the fact that Israel and Lebanon need to visually delineate the border through clear border markings. There are currently nine markings on the border - in the form of blue barrels - that have been approved by both Israel and Lebanon.
Regarding the presence of the Israel Air Force in Lebanese skies, the report states that in the last several months, Israel has increased its flyovers, which constitute a violation of UN Resolution 1701.
#3
So what are the locals all a-twitter about with the cables? Are they Hizb'Allah comm/det cables, or maybe for stealing phone or cable service? Inquiring minds wanna know.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/02/2008 20:25 Comments ||
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#4
they're the long-rumored Intertubes that the Internet runs through
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2008 20:33 Comments ||
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#5
AP, Don't you know Covert Cables drive the typical Muslim male crazy with desire. So the cables must be 'covered up' to avoid being raped.
ABU DHABI (Rooters) - The United States will not allow Iran to block the Gulf, the waterway that carries crude from the world's largest oil exporting region, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday.
"Iran will not attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz and we will not allow them to close the Strait of Hormuz. I can't say it anymore clearly than that," Vice-Admiral Kevin Cosgriff, the commander of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet, told a conference on Gulf naval security in Abu Dhabi.
The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said in remarks published last week that Tehran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf and the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway if it was attacked.
Washington says its warships were threatened by Iranian craft in the Strait of Hormuz in January. Tehran dismissed it as a routine contact and accused the United States of exaggerating for propaganda purposes.
Asked whether he was worried incidents between U.S. naval ships and Iranian guard boats could escalate, Cosgriff said he was concerned because he did not know whether the Iranian vessels were controlled directly by the government in Tehran or by local commanders.
The Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain.
Iran is embroiled in a standoff over its nuclear ambitions with the West, which says Tehran wants to make atomic bombs. Iran says it has only peaceful plans to produce electricity.
#1
Iran is pretty smart. They know they can say things like they will block the strait of Hormuz and that is good for raising the price of oil another 5 bucks a barrel no matter what the US says in reply.
They understand that even idle threats will jack up the price of their main export.
#2
IIRC, RUSSIA + IRAN were in negotiations since 2006 for contrux of a few artificial islands in the Caspian Sea, as base/foundation per proposed transregional Pipeline Route-Node for Oil + Natur Gas to CENASIA + espec SIBERIA-RUSS FAR EAST.
PAN-ISLAMIST FOCII > NUCLEARIZATION WHILE EXPANDING ISLAMIST INFLUENCE-CONTROL IN CENTRAL ASIA + PERIPHERIES AMAP. IRAN per se will prefer an MSM/Diplom-correct low-profile for now, which basically leaves the burden 2008-2010 or 2012 up to the decentarlized Islamist Militants-Terrs to cause anarchy and mayhem vv US-Allies.
#3
As a counter to their threat, we should say that if Iran so much as scratches the paint on a US warship, Qom will disappear. If two scratches, Bandar Abbas and the heights around the city will also glow at night for a thousand years. Iran thinks they can bluff the US. We have too many Texas Hold-Em players in this country, including a sitting president.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/02/2008 19:02 Comments ||
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Israel seems content to keep Iran and the rest of the world guessing uneasily about whether and when it might attack the Islamic Republic's nuclear facilities. It has done little to douse speculation stoked by a big Israeli air force exercise last month, an Israeli cabinet minister's remark that military action was "inevitable" and a prediction by former U.S. official John Bolton that this might occur in the final weeks of President George W. Bush's term.
Iran derides the chatter as "psychological warfare" and threatens dire retaliation if any assault materialised.
Gulf Arab states whose oil exports could be among Iranian reprisal targets shuffle nervously, as crude prices push higher.
"Should Israel be stupid enough to attempt an attack on Iran, as has been repeatedly threatened, then of course Tehran has the perfect right to retaliate in kind," wrote the Dubai-based Gulf News daily in its editorial on Monday. "But it does not quell the existing nervousness of people in the region by Iran stating that as part of its retaliation it would block ... Gulf oil routes," the newspaper added.
The Israelis may believe that mere talk of military action can spur Iran to alter its behavior, or at least prompt tougher international action to induce Tehran to curb its nuclear quest -- which the Iranians say is only to produce energy, not bombs.
Ephraim Kam, deputy director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, said Israel preferred for now to let diplomatic pressure run its course. "The talk (of military options) is designed to project deterrence, pressuring the Europeans to increase their pressure in hope this will curb Iran," he told Reuters in Jerusalem.
Yet the Israeli military is presumably honing contingency plans, given Israel's deeply rooted fears that a nuclear-armed Iran would threaten its existence -- even though the Jewish state has its own powerful, if undeclared, nuclear deterrent.
The problem is that just a couple of nuclear explosions would all but wreck Israel, whereas Short Round may figure he could lose Teheran and Qom and still survive.
"The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) should be ready for all options," former army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon told reporters last week. "A military strike in Iran is not an easy ride. It should be a last resort, but we shouldn't exclude it."
He described Bolton's idea that an Israeli attack could take place between the U.S. election in November and the presidential inauguration in January as "very interesting speculation."
Leaked reports of a major Israeli military exercise over the Mediterranean on June 2 amplified debate over Israel's posture. U.S. officials, who asked not to be named, said the drill involved 100 aircraft, but would not confirm or deny a New York Times report that it was a dry run for bombing Iran.
Some defence analysts argue that even a full-scale U.S. air campaign would only delay Iran's nuclear plans by a few years -- Israeli forces operating far from home could not hope to destroy all of its many dispersed and fortified atomic installations.
Correct. But delaying them a few years would be very helpful to Israel, as a lot could happen in those few years.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned last month an attack on Iran would turn the Middle East into a "fireball" and prompt Tehran to try to build nuclear bombs as fast as possible.
Assuming they could after having some portion of their nuclear facilities wrecked.
But Israel might decide to go ahead anyway after weighing all the risks of retaliation, regional instability and damage to the world economy against what it sees as an existential threat. "Anyone who knows the Israelis knows they are not going to sit back and hope for the best. They take big risks for their security," said a senior European diplomat in the region. "They will be very resolute. They won't be afraid to drag others in."
That moment has not yet come.
When Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz said last month that strikes on Iran looked unavoidable in view of that country's nuclear progress, critics at home accused him of exploiting strategic security issues for political gain.
The Jaffee Centre's Kam said Israel could expect criticism for any assault on Iran, even from its allies in the West. "But I think in the end there would be understanding abroad, perhaps even a sense in the West that the Israelis did its dirty work. Iran doesn't have that many friends out there," he added.
Sorta like Osiriak. The Israelis were denounced in public and thanked in private.
The United States has repeatedly shielded its Israeli ally from censure by the U.N. Security Council for military action against its Palestinian and other Arab foes. A strike on Iran, however dire the consequences, might be no different. "It is very difficult to see the U.S. chastising Israel," said Trita Parsi, a Washington-based expert on relations between the two countries and Iran. "The U.S. may adopt a quiet attitude, while celebrating the attack behind the scenes."
Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer now at the Brookings Institution, said senior Israeli military planners believed a mission to dent Iran's nuclear program was feasible. "History shows Israel will use force to maintain its monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Middle East," he told Reuters by email, citing past Israeli attacks on Iraq and Syria. "Israeli political leaders may see the last months of a friendly Bush administration as a window of opportunity."
Noting that U.S. forces in the Gulf and Iraq were likely targets for Iranian retaliation, which could also spark another war in Lebanon and send oil prices soaring, Riedel said: "Washington has vital strategic interests at stake here and needs to enunciate clearly its view on the wisdom or dangers of an Israeli operation."
To the contrary, that's the one thing we shouldn't do. We benefit by leaving the matter vague and leaving the Iranians to wonder if they'll be hit, and by whom, and when. Leaving your opponent in doubt is a useful diplomatic strategy.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The problem is that just a couple of nuclear explosions would all but wreck Israel, whereas Short Round may figure he could lose Teheran and Qom and still survive.
But could HE survive if he lost Qom, Tehran, Abadan, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Persepolis, Isfahan, Natanz, and twenty other cities? The Israelis are rumored to have 200+ nukes. Using half of them on Iran would leave plenty to keep Egypt, Syria, and any other arab nation from attacking.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/02/2008 19:05 Comments ||
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U.S. Offical Sees Two 'Red Lines' That Could Prompt Strike
Senior Pentagon officials are concerned that Israel could carry out an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year, an action that would have enormous security and economic repercussions for the United States and the rest of the world.
A senior defense official told ABC News there is an "increasing likelihood" that Israel will carry out such an attack, a move that likely would prompt Iranian retaliation against, not just Israel, but against the United States as well. The official identified two "red lines" that could trigger an Israeli offensive. The first is tied to when Iran's Natanz nuclear facility produces enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. According to the latest U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments, that is likely to happen sometime in 2009, and could happen by the end of this year.
"The red line is not when they get to that point, but before they get to that point," the official said. "We are in the window of vulnerability."
The second red line is connected to when Iran acquires the SA-20 air defense system it is buying from Russia. The Israelis may want to strike before that system -- which would make an attack much more difficult -- is put in place.
Unless the Israelis have a counter for that like they did the Syrian M-TOR system ...
Some Pentagon officials also worry that Israel may be determined to attack before a new U.S. president, who may be less supportive, is sworn in next January.
Pentagon officials believe the massive Israeli air force exercise in early June, first reported by the New York Times, was done to prepare for a possible attack. A senior official called it "not a rehearsal, but basic, fundamental training" required to launch an operation against Iran. "The Israeli air force has already conducted the basic exercise necessary to tell their senior leadership, 'We have the fundamentals down.' Might they need some more training and rehearsals? Yes. But have they done the fundamentals? I think that is what we saw," the official told ABC News, adding that if Israel moves closer to military action, he expects to see more exercises like the one conducted in early June.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was in Israel over the weekend for a series of meetings with senior Israeli military officials, including, Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Forces. According to a military spokesman, Iran's nuclear program was "a major topic" of discussion.
The widely held view among Pentagon officials is that an Israeli attack would do only temporary damage to Iran's nuclear program, and that it would cause major problems in the region and beyond, prompting a wave of attacks on U.S. interests in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and elsewhere.
As another senior defense official put it, "We'd be guilty by association."
How temporary? If it sets the Iranians back five years that would be pretty good -- a lot could happen in Iran in five years.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Well.........my take is that a major air strike against the Iranian Uranium production facilities might slow them down a bit more than temporary.
While it might not take more than a couple of years to rebuild the buildings...who is going to decontaminate the rubble and how long will it take to make more centrifuges and train the personnel. The decontamination part of the equation is the most intriguing to me. How long before they could send in crews to salvage equipment and try to find the records and research notes, blue prints, etc., necessary to rebuild their program.
My analogy is the Japanese naval air forces after Midway, they could build a butt load of Zeroes but they could not train the pilots fast enough to keep up with their losses.
I would think that bombing the Iranians would do the most damage to their nuclear weapons program by killing most of their brain trust and making the sites too "hot" to enter.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/02/2008 10:50 Comments ||
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#2
Are you serious, the Islamic Republic of Iran is way the hell better prepared for war than them damn fools in Japan ever were.
Hold on a sec, Ima have a cat pulling at muh sleeve.
#3
Some Pentagon officials also worry that Israel may be determined to attack before a new U.S. president, who may be less supportive, is sworn in next January.
The British government said on Wednesday it was adding the military wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah to its list of banned terrorist organizations.
"Hezbollah's military wing is providing active support to militants in Iraq who are responsible for attacks both on coalition forces and on Iraqi civilians, including providing training in the use of deadly roadside bombs," the Home Office said in a statement.
"Hezbollah's military wing also provides support to Palestinian terrorist groups in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad," said the statement.
"It is because of this support for terrorism in Iraq and the Occupied Palestinian Territories that the Government has taken this action," the statement said, adding that proscription of Hezbollah's military wing would not affect its "legitimate political, social and humanitarian role."
The British action "sends out a clear message that we condemn Hezbollah's violence and support for terrorism," it said.
The statement urged Hezbollah to "end terrorist activity and its support for terrorism in Iraq and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, abandon its status as an armed group and participate in the democratic process on the same terms as other Lebanese political parties."
Osama Bin Laden is said to be suffering from terminal kidney disease and may not have long to live, two unnamed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officials told Time magazine. According to a report produced by the agency, Bin Laden has long-term kidney disease, and may have only months to live. The agency ostensibly managed to get the names of some of the medications Bin Laden is taking, and one US official familiar with the report, which came out between six and nine months ago, quoted it as saying, Based on his current pharmaceutical intake (we) would expect that he has no more than 6-18 months to live and impending kidney failure.
The first person to claim that Bin Laden had kidney disease and was on dialysis was President Pervez Musharraf. Time, however, was sceptical, saying close watchers of the Al Qaeda terror network find such reports inherently unreliable. It's trying to make a diagnosis from thousands of miles away with only fragments of the medical chart, the magazine quoted Paul Pillar, former top analyst and deputy director of the CIA's counter-terrorism centre as saying. Frances Fragos Townsend, who was chief of the White House Homeland Security Council said, I've read all the same conflicting reports that people have talked to you about. I never found one set of reporting more persuasive than another.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/02/2008 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
He will die hiding not fighting!!!!
What a Lion of Islam!!!
Posted by: Paul ||
07/02/2008 6:05 Comments ||
Top||
#2
It's Bush's fault.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/02/2008 6:30 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Yeah, he's at death's door... but on which side???
#10
I have no problem if Mr. bin Laden has been suffering painfully since the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan, while watching his much-vaunted and terribly expensive personal terror organization roll over and show its belly to the hated Westerners, first in Iraq and now in Afghanistan... even as his personal popularity sank from 70% approval to 7% amongst his neighbors, because it turned out he wasn't the strong horse after all.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/02/2008 18:40 Comments ||
Top||
#12
OSAMA > the Victory of Islam/Islamism transcends him.
* "THERE CAN ONLY BE TWO" + "NO US-IRAN WAR" > PRAGMATICALLY, as an issue of REGIONAL-GLOBAL STRATEGY + MILPOL DIALECTICISM, Osama + Radical Islam are ENDURING = HOLDING ON. OSAMA + MOUD/IRAN + RADICAL ISLAM ARE DRIVING HARD TO NUCLEARIZE AND DESTABILIZE CENTRAL ASIA + PERIPHERIES [Third World] ASAP AMAP DESPITE POTENT US ENTRENCHMENT.
2020 + AFTER > THE US MAY NEED THAT MIL DRAFT IFF IT STILL DESIRES OWG-NWO.
But the anti-US Agendists, Globalists, Commies, etal. already knew that, didn't they!?
Osama fav MTV Babe WHITNEY HUSTON, MADONNA, + JOHN PAUL JONES > D *** NG IT, OSAMA HAS NOT YET BEGUN TO WAGE JIHAD = NUCLEAR JIHAD YET"!
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.
Afghanistan on Tuesday welcomed the operation by Pakistani forces against militants in a tribal district, but urged Islamabad to expand the offensive against militants. Afghanistans government welcomes in principle the military operation by Pakistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzais spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters in Kabul. But we know this is not enough, he said, calling for an expanded, serious and broad action against terrorist hideouts inside Pakistani soil.
The Government has summoned the deputy ambassador of Pakistan to explain how Taliban militants were allowed to behead two Afghans on Pakistani soil.
Criminal charges brought against Al Jazeera's Rabat Bureau Chief Hassan Rachidi and human rights activist Brahim Sab'alil should be dropped, Washington-based human Rights Watch (HRW) said. The two are accused of disseminating "false information."
ANKARA: Turkish authorities detained more than 21 ultra-nationalists, including two prominent retired generals yesterday in a widening police investigation into a suspected coup plot against the government. Police swooped shortly before the Constitutional Court began hearing a legal case in which the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) is charged with trying to establish an Islamic state and could be closed, a move that might lead to an early parliamentary election.
President Pervez Musharraf and the Pakistani army are allowing Taliban militants a safe haven in the country's tribal belt in an effort to undermine the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a key Pakistani provincial official said yesterday.
Yesterday, Pakistan's fitful military operation against Islamist extremists pushed into its third day, consisting primarily of isolated assaults on buildings used by warlords in Khyber agency. The army met almost no resistance. The main targets were the compounds of Khyber militant leader 
AP: Iraq's foreign minister told lawmakers Tuesday the U.S. made major concessions in talks on a new security agreement, urging them to approve the deal to keep U.S. troops here after the U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year. 
BAGHDAD Staff Sgt. Robert Smith, a buff 31-year-old from North Carolina, strides down a narrow alley in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Shula. He has just spent 10 minutes sequestered in a room with an interpreter and an Iraqi homeowner, trying to convince the man to give up what he knows about the militias.
oldiers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were forced by local Lebanese residents to delete photos of suspicious-looking underground cables, according a report submitted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. 
ABU DHABI (Rooters) - The United States will not allow Iran to block the Gulf, the waterway that carries crude from the world's largest oil exporting region, the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday.
The British government said on Wednesday it was adding the military wing of the Lebanese movement Hezbollah to its list of banned terrorist organizations. 
