Ma'an -- Sakher Habash, a co-founder of the Fatah movement and former member of its Central Committee, died in Ramallah on Sunday. He was 70.
"Welcome, Mr. Habash, thrice welcome! We've been waiting for you. Take a seat next to Messrs Himmler and Arafat. Krobzzztkcht -- bring up the hot coals and intestine puller for Mr. Habash!"
Born in 1939 in Bait Dajan, near Jaffa, Habash became a refugee during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, ending up first in Ramallah, then Balata refugee camp near Nablus.
He studied geology and water resources at Cairo's Ain Shams University beginning in 1958.
Habash became active in the Palestinian national movement during the early 1960s, and co-founded Fatah in 1962, becoming responsible for recruitment. He was appointed regional commander in Lebanon in October 1972. He was selected as a member of Fatah's Central Committee in 1989.
A prolific writer and poet, Habash served as the movement's general deputy of intellectual affairs.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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The expansion of Islamic extremist groups across the Afghanistan-Pakistan region is “the worst I’ve seen it,” with Afghan insurgents receiving help from Iranian operatives and “very possibly” freelancing Pakistani intelligence agents, as well as a small but growing number of “deadly” foreign fighters, said Maj. Gen. Mike Flynn, director of intelligence for Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s headquarters here.
“I wouldn’t say it’s out of control right now, but this is a California wildfire and we’re having to bring in firemen from New York,” said Flynn, who has been tracking Islamic extremism for at least eight years in postings as director of intelligence for Joint Task Force 180 (in Afghanistan), Joint Special Operations Command, Central Command and the Joint Staff.
The U.S. intelligence community estimates that 19,000 to 27,000 insurgents are operating in Afghanistan, a roughly tenfold increase from 2004Â’s estimate of 1,700 to 3,200, said Flynn, who was brought in by McChrystal to head up intelligence operations for NATOÂ’s International Security Assistance Force and is considered one of the four-star generalÂ’s closest confidantes here.
Providing what Flynn described as “a deadly fuel to the fire” in Afghanistan are foreign fighters whose numbers have increased over the past 12 months. He stressed that by “foreign” he was not referring to Pashtun fighters in Afghanistan, who were Pakistani citizens, but rather insurgents from places like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Germany and Chechnya.
Flynn compared the latest numbers with an intelligence community report in October 2001 — the month after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the Taliban still ruled Afghanistan — that estimated the Taliban army’s strength at 33,000 to 35,000, “with potentially up to 20,000 reserve fighters.”
‘WE … MISSED THE SIGNS’
“I’m not a big one to match numbers, but what I look at is their capacity,” Flynn said. “So the Taliban existed as a government — they had an army, it was defeated … and then we basically screwed this thing up. And what we did was we allowed it to come back, and when we really, really missed it. …
“When it started to really show again, I believe, was probably somewhere between 2006 and 2007. And we just flat missed the signs. … [W]e were in the middle of that period of time when we were losing in Iraq, and I just think people weren’t paying attention enough, and certainly not listening to the leadership out here at that time.”
Analysts generally divide the Afghan insurgency into three main groups: the Taliban run by Mullah Omar through the “Quetta Shura,” named after the Pakistani city where the Taliban’s leaders are believed to reside; the Haqqani network, led by former mujahedeen commander and Taliban minister Jalaluddin Haqqani and, increasingly, his sons Sirajuddin and Badruddin; and the Hezb-i-Islami group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, often referred to by coalition forces as Hezb-i-Islami Gulbuddin, or HiG.
There is a “loose but … subordinated” level of coordination between the three groups, according to Flynn.
“The Haqqanis, they subordinate themselves for a variety of reasons to the Quetta Shura,” with the Taliban senior leadership in Quetta issuing orders to the Haqqanis, he said. Meanwhile, Hekmatyar’s group does not necessarily subordinate itself to the Taliban but it does cooperate with them, so that when HiG conducts an attack, “like an operation against a governor in the east, they will say that it was a Taliban-initiated event,” Flynn said. “They use the Taliban as sort of their umbrella, to act as one, or certainly to be perceived as one.”
However, Flynn added, Hekmatyar’s organization does not represent the same level of threat as the other two insurgent groups. “He’s more independent, but he’s not all that effective, really,” he said. “He’s not effective like the Haqqani network is right now, nor is he as effective as the Taliban.”
Flynn distinguished between “the Afghan Taliban,” including those crossing into Afghanistan from bases in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and “the Pakistani Taliban,” who also operate from the FATA, but aim most of their attacks at Pakistani targets. Pakistani security forces “generally don’t mess with” the Afghan Taliban, “because they’re not the ones killing a hundred people and wounding 150 in Peshawar,” he said.
“The TTP [Tarik-e-Taliban Pakistan], led by Hekmatullah Mehsud, is doing that. That’s the Pakistani Taliban. Now, does Hekmatullah Mehsud’s group provide fighters that fight in Afghanistan? The answer’s probably yes. In fact it is yes. It’s ‘go up there and get your battle stripes, get your combat patch, but come back, because we have a job to do here in Pakistan.’ ”
That sort of coordination between armed Islamist groups has Flynn worried.
“They’re coordinating enough today that I believe this expansion of the Islamic extremist movement, particularly in this region, is to the point where it’s the worst I’ve seen it, [and] the coordination amongst those groups is the best I’ve seen it,” he said, adding that the groups share common strategic goals. “The common goals are to create an Islamic state and to rid the region of the un-Islamic enemies, and particularly in Afghanistan it’s the international community that’s here, certainly the Americans,” he said.
NOT JUST PASHTUN FIGHTERS
While Arabs are “certainly” part of that mix, the number of Arab fighters arriving in Afghanistan are not close to the number of non-Iraqi Arabs who fought coalition and Iraqi security forces during the deadliest period of the Iraq war, Flynn said.
“We haven’t captured the Arabs — the foreign Arabs — that we captured in Iraq,” he said. “There at the height it was probably somewhere between 150 and 200 a month that were just driving down from al Qaim to Baghdad, or coming through Mosul. Here it’s not like that.” One reason why not is that “it’s just harder to get here,” he said.
The number of foreign fighters in Afghanistan who could be described as “al-Qaida” forces is less than 100, according to the intelligence community’s latest estimates, but they have a disproportionate impact on the war, Flynn said.
“The numbers have gone back and forth — is there 50? 70? 100?” he said. “It doesn’t make any difference. If there’s a couple out there that are the hard-core, ideologically-driven individuals and they have the imprimatur of Mullah Omar to get out there and help train, then they become a very deadly fuel in a fire.”
In addition to the al-Qaida troops there are “more than a hundred” other foreigners fighting alongside home-grown insurgents across a wide swath of Afghanistan, Flynn said. Just across the border, in the Pakistani tribal areas, are another 400 to 1,500 foreign fighters, he said, a number that is growing as those fighters’ families expand.
“We now have children [of foreign fighters] who were 11 on 9/11 and who are now like 20, so if they’re following in their father’s footsteps — Christ, if they’re 16, they’re dangerous,” Flynn said.
IRANÂ’S INFLUENCE
The two-star general chose his words carefully when asked whether PakistanÂ’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which was an early sponsor of the Taliban and retains links to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani from their days as mujahedeen commanders, still supports those groups.
“There is no known state affiliation,” said Flynn, who had just returned from a meeting with Pakistani military leaders in Islamabad. He acknowledged that the implication of his statement was that if ISI personnel were helping the insurgents, it was on a freelance basis, outside the purview of the ISI leadership, and said that scenario was “very possible.”
Flynn was more direct when asked about the activities in Afghanistan of IranÂ’s Quds Force, an elite element in the Revolutionary Guard that combines intelligence and special operations functions.
“They are conducting intelligence operations,” he said, adding that the Quds Force was “playing games on both sides [of the Afghan-Pakistan border] that are very dangerous.”
The Quds Force was “probably” doing things in Afghanistan that were getting coalition troops killed, including providing weapons to insurgents and training the Taliban, he said.
U.S. forces in Afghanistan have not captured any Quds Force operatives, but “the Afghans have captured Iranians,” Flynn said, referring to four Iranians caught smuggling small arms in Nimruz in July. Asked if his people were “beating down the door” to interrogate the Iranians, Flynn answered “Yes,” before adding, “We have had great cooperation with the Afghans.”
When questioned as to whether it was his working assumption that the four were Quds Force members, Flynn replied: “They were bringing in weapons. Now, do they have the badge that says ‘QF’ on the logo? No.”
Flynn’s assessment is that the Iranians were probably planning to sell the weapons in Helmand and return to Iran, “maybe with some narcotics to take back out.”
He noted that, on this occasion at least, the Iranians were not smuggling explosively formed projectiles, which are used to make a particularly lethal form of roadside bomb, and which the Iranians supplied to Iraqi insurgents in large numbers. “There’s been only a couple of EFP discoveries here,” he said. “They have not taken that strategic step, and I would recommend that they don’t. That would be a huge strategic line to cross, especially given what they’ve done in Iraq.”
Nonetheless, the Quds Force was still a malevolent force in Afghanistan, Flynn stressed. “The IRGC Quds Force is an organization that needs to be checked at the door,” he said. “And if the country of Iran wants to act responsibly on the world stage they need to take that organization, dismantle it and get it to quit acting like a nation-state-backed terrorist organization.”
Instead, he said, “They’re playing the game. When I talk about the California wildfire, they’re not standing there with a big fire hose putting the fire, let’s just say that. If there’s anything coming out of that hose, it’s grease.”
#3
Compare wid PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > [6-7 TTp-linked? Iranian Nationals] IRANIANS CAUGHT IN SOUTH WAZIRISTAN: GENERAL ATHAR ABBAS IN PRESS CONFERENCE;
versus
SAME > IRAN ARRESTS EIGHT PAKISTANIS FROM JIWANI [coastal area]. Were arrested by the IRAN MARINE SECURITY AGENCY, ostens in retaliation for PAK's arrest of Iranian "IRGC/Border POlice" "chasing smugglers" across boders into Pakistan???
[Quqnoos] US Secretary of State says a boycott of the Afghan runoff election by Abdullah Abdullah won't de-legitimise the poll, the Daily Telegraph reports. Answering the question on whether the outcome of a runoff with only one candidate would result in a legitimate government, Hillary Clinton said such situations are "not unprecedented" and occur in many countries.
"We see that happen in our own country where, for whatever combination of reasons, one of the candidates decides not to go forward. I don't think it has anything to do with the legitimacy of the election," she said.
Before Clinton's statement, the CNN reported that the talks between President Karzai and his challenger in the run-off election, Abdullah Abdullah, have broken down and Abdullah was likely to pull out of next week's poll.
"I'm not going to comment on what any of the candidates might decide to do," Secretary Clinton said, adding, "it's a personal choice which may or may not be made".
Abdullah Abdullah, the former foreign minister put forward several conditions earlier this week for the Nov. 7 runoff to be credible, including calls for sacking the election chief as he described him as having "no credibility".
He also called for the suspension of four cabinet ministers, including Afghan Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, accusing them of bias toward Karzai.
Meanwhile, Afghan Election Commission Secretariat, Dawod Ali Najafi, on hearing reports of Abdullah's boycott in the runoff, said that no candidates can pull out.
The Afghan election went to a runoff after the Electoral Complaints Commission tossed out enough votes for President Karzai to require the runoff. The second round is scheduled to be held on Nov. 7. The second round of Afghan election had been termed as the way to give more credibility to the disputed process.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Did anybody ever believe that Karzai was the least bit legit? Wouldn't it be more honest of the U.S. government to just declare Gen. McCrystal the governor of Afghanistan? Then tell Karzai and all the rest of them that if they don't like it there's a firing squad waiting for them out back? C'mon, Hillary, this ain't Germany, Japan or even Iraq. Stop wasting resources trying to perpetuate this fraud.
A woman who was caught with a computer memory stick containing documents on how to make explosives has pleaded guilty to terror charges. Houria Chahed Chentouf, 41, admitted two counts of possessing documents likely to be useful for a terrorist purpose at Manchester Crown Court.
The stick fell out of her sleeve when she was being interviewed at Liverpool John Lennon Airport, the court heard.
The Moroccan national was arrested at her home in Manchester the next day.
Next day? Arresting her right then and there at the airport wasn't an option? Even the TSA is better than this ...
The stick contained about 7,000 documents, some of them containing details on making explosives and setting up a terrorist cell.
Chentouf was charged under the Terrorism Act 2000 following her arrest on the evening of 17 October by Greater Manchester Police. She appeared at Manchester Crown Court on Monday morning and will be sentenced later.
The mother-of-six lived in The Hague for more than 20 years and the Dutch authorities were also involved in the inquiry.
#1
Shouldn't she have claimed they were her religious texts?
Posted by: ed ||
11/02/2009 8:46 Comments ||
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She had :Information"?
By that criteria I have a "Terror manual, it's a US Government publication "Improvised Munitions" printed by the US Army. same info, How to make and use Explosives, Pipe guns, Bombs and Grenades, so what, it's the will to use, not the knowledge thereof.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
11/02/2009 13:39 Comments ||
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#3
Redneck Jim, if both the Brits and the Dutch have been watching Ms Chentouf, either she is not an innocent or those who gave her the memory stick were not. This is not the kind of thing one normally carries across national borders.
A different view on the succession process in Nork-land. Might be right or might be NYT wishful thinking.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korean efforts to install one of ailing leader Kim Jong-il's sons as a hereditary successor are likely to fail, a senior defector from the communist country said on Tuesday.
That certainly would make things interesting in that part of the world.
Kim Kwang-jin, a former state insurance executive who helped unveil widespread damage claims fraud by Pyongyang, said Kim's relative recovery from an apparent 2008 stroke does not alter the fact that the era of Kim rule is fading.
"Fragile, worsening health, long drawn-out economic collapse and growing political instability in North Korea indicate that the Kim Jong-il regime is drawing to an end," Kim told a panel at a Washington thinktank. "Right now we are seeing another try in North Korea at hereditary succession. I don't think it will work well," said the former manager at the state-owned Korea National Insurance Corp, who defected to South Korea in 2003.
Kim Jong-il inherited control of North Korea when his father Kim Il-sung died in 1994. He is believed to have suffered a stroke in August 2008 and dropped out of public view for nearly a year as speculation mounted that Kim's third son Kim Jung-un was being groomed as the next leader. Visitors to Pyongyang this year who met Kim Jong-il, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, said the 67-year-old leader appeared alert and in command.
Kim Kwang-jin told an audience at the Brookings Institution that although speculation about succession had subsided, the question remained "not when it will happen but how it will occur."
A likely scenario for the next leadership was a "regent or transitional collective management" centered on Chang Song-taek, Kim Jong-il's only brother-in-law and a technocrat trusted by the military, he said.
That's what we've been anticipating. Question is whether the regent will keep himself to that job description alone. And whether the generals will let him.
The international community should prepare for the transition and broaden its dealings with North Korea beyond the current focus on ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms program, Kim Kwang-jin recommended.
"The next regime, regardless of who succeeds, will be unable to maintain the same policy that the current regime is pursuing," he said.
Why?
Kim Kwang-jin predicted a government more focused on meeting the economic needs of its people and less inclined toward hostility to the outside world and provocative military behavior.
That's what makes me think the NYT has it wrong. The best way for the new guy to keep power is to keep the screws turned tightly. Any lessening of the repression allows the country to blow up.
I think it was Louis XVI of the House of Bourbon who discovered something similar. And more recently Shah Reza Pahlevi.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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South Korea and the U.S. have completed an operational plan that envisages military responses to six types of emergencies in North Korea including regime collapse, a government source said Sunday. The source said the two sides will continue to complement and develop the plan.
In 1999, during the Kim Dae-jung administration, the South Korean and U.S. militaries gave shape to the contingency plan, but it was then billed as a "concept plan" and envisaged five scenarios -- a civil war caused by a transition of power or a coup after North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's death; theft and sale abroad of WMD including nuclear, missile and biochemical weapons, by an insurgent army; a mass exodus; massive natural disaster; and the kidnapping of South Korean citizens.
The plan included no details on troop mobilization and deployment. During the Roh Moo-hyun administration, the two militaries discussed ways to turn it into an "operational plan," but Cheong Wa Dae slammed the brakes on the idea since it feared the plan infringed on South Korea's sovereignty.
But reports that Kim Jong-il suffered a stroke in August last year brought fresh impetus to the plan, and "Operational Plan (OPLAN) 5029" was completed after about a year of consultations.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff on Sunday denied the plan has been completed. "Media reports that OPLAN 5029 has been completed are unfounded. We deeply regret that a secret military operations plan has been reported," it said in a statement.
The U.S. military is apparently most concerned about the threat of North Korean nuclear weapons and technology falling into the hands of an insurgent army and being sold to terrorists abroad.
In a speech at an international conference hosted by the Council on Korea-U.S. Security Studies last Friday, U.S. Forces Korea Commander Gen. Walter Sharp said Seoul and Washington agreed that the USFK would take the initiative to remove WMD from the North and launch Marine assault operations in case of an all-out war, even after the transfer of full operational control of Korean troops to Seoul in April 2012.
The South Korean military will reportedly be in charge in the remaining five scenarios.
The South Korean and U.S. militaries are set to destroy or retrieve WMD in the North by sending elite forces into the North via U.S. nuclear-powered submarines and special warfare transport aircraft and helicopters if there is a possibility of weapons or technology being stolen by insurgents and smuggled overseas, a source said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Desired SSSSSSSHHHHHHHH OWG-NWO = GLOBAL GUBBERMINT REQUIRES GLOBE-SIZED "BEST" SPACE DEFENSE FROM GLOBE-SIZED SPACE ROCKS???
The Dutch are marking the fifth anniversary of the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a Muslim fanatic, a brutal killing that continues to shape politics in the Netherlands.
Van Gogh, a distant relative of the famous painter, was shot and stabbed on an Amsterdam street Nov. 2, 2004, setting off a spate of mosque burnings in a country once renowned for its tolerance. His killer, a Dutch-born man of Moroccan descent, said he did it because Van Gogh insulted Islam in his films. He is serving a life sentence.
Politicians were to speak Monday at a monument to Van Gogh near where he was killed. Many Dutch say the Van Gogh murder helped the rise of Geert Wilders, an anti-immigrant politician whose party leads in recent polls.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The man on trial for murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in a frenzied anti-Islamic attack in Germany is suicidal, his mother said in a press interview on Sunday.
"He no longer wants to live," Larissa Wiens told the mass-circulation Bild am Sonntag newspaper. "He says: 'In a computer game you can press reset and start all over again. But not in real life.'"
The paper cites a policeman as saying that Russian-born Alex Wiens, 28, said when he was arrested after the murder of Marwa al-Sherbini on July 1: "Please shoot me."
"Alex must have got his image of Islam, his hate, from television," Larissa Wiens, 55, told Bild. "I am so sorry for this woman, for her unborn child, for her son who had to watch it all happen."
Wiens, who went on trial on Oct. 26 facing life in prison for murder, is accused of stabbing the veiled Sherbini, 31, repeatedly with an 18-centimeter (seven-inch) kitchen knife in a courtroom in Dresden.
She bled to death at the scene watched by her son Mustafa, then three and a half, and her husband in what prosecutors say was a killing motivated by "a pronounced hatred of non-Europeans and Muslims."
Egyptian media quickly dubbed her "the veil martyr". The attack, as well as a slow reaction by Germany's media and political class, triggered anti-German feeling in Egypt and in the wider Muslim world.
The accused is also charged with attempting in the same incident to kill her husband, Elwy Okaz, who was shot in the leg by a confused police officer who apparently mistook him to be the assailant.
Sherbini had just testified against Wiens at a defamation trial for calling her a "terrorist," an "Islamist" and a "whore" in an earlier dispute in a playground near where they both lived.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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A Canadian engineer cannot sue the United States after being mistaken for a terrorist when he was changing planes in New York a year after the 2001 terrorist attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 7-4 to uphold a decision by a lower court judge dismissing a lawsuit brought by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born man who was detained as he tried to switch planes in 2002.
Arar sued the U.S. government and top Justice Department officials, saying the United States purposely sent him to Syria to be tortured days after he was picked up at at John F. Kennedy International Airport based on a false tip from Canada that Arar had ties to Islamic extremists. It said he was only allowed to see a lawyer once despite his repeated efforts to receive representation.
Syria has denied he was tortured. The Canadian government agreed to pay him almost $10 million after acknowledging it had passed bad information to U.S. authorities.
The appeals court said in a majority opinion that it cannot let Arar use the courts to press his claims against the U.S. government without Congress enacting legislation that spells out exactly how a case as unusual as Arar's claims can be brought and what potential remedy exists.
Otherwise, the court said, allowing the lawsuit to proceed would "offend the separation of powers and inhibit this country's foreign policy."
At stake in the lawsuit was the court's role in reviewing the practice of "extraordinary rendition" in which someone suspected of supporting terrorism is transferred to a foreign nation for imprisonment and interrogation without formal charges, trial or court approval.
The appeals court said it was hesistant to create "a new damages remedy that Congress has not seen fit to authorize."
It added: "Even the probing of these matters entails the risk that other countries will become less willing to cooperate with the United States in sharing intelligence resources to counter terrorism."
The Center for Constitutional Rights, which represented the Ottawa resident, said its lawyers had not seen the ruling and could not immediately comment.
The appeals court ruling came almost a year after the full 2nd Circuit heard nearly three hours of arguments in front of several hundred spectators in the building's largest courtroom.
A three-judge appeals panel earlier last year upheld a Brooklyn judge's finding in 2006 that the government did not violate the Torture Victim Protection Act. The law allows U.S. courts to assess damages against perpetrators of human rights abuses committed abroad.
After a prayer's leader was killed during an alleged shootout with federal agents in the US, another mosque leader in the city of Detroit says his killing was pre-arranged.
Over one thousand American Muslims gathered in the city of Detroit on Sunday to mourn the prayers leader.
The service was held for Luqman Ameen Abdullah, Imam of the Masjid Al-Haqq after FBI agents shot him dead while trying to arrest him.
The FBI charged Abdullah of being "the radical leader of a Sunni Islam group in Detroit who expressed hatred for government and endorsed violence."
This is while his family, friends, and followers reject the charges with his mosque saying that the claim is "utterly preposterous".
Abdullah's son says his murder was barbaric as police shot him several times.
The FBI has said Imam Luqman resisted arrest and shot the police dog before being shot and killed.
Speaking to Press TV on Sunday, Friday prayer leader of Masjid al-Islam Imam Abdul-Ali Musa said he had access to documents, which could prove that the killing was a pre-arranged scenario.
Suppose for a moment it was. It wasn't, but suppose it was.
Why then, sir, are you spouting off? Shouldn't you be in hiding? If the FBI could wax Abdullah it can surely get you. Might take them a little while to set it up but you and they will eventually have an 'encounter'.
If you really have the courage of your convictions, you should be in hiding. Or preparing yourself to be a martyr. But running to the TV cameras isn't part of either plan.
Imam Musa said the government had prepared a 50-page indictment to justify the raid during which Abdullah was killed by the FBI last Wednesday.
"Source number one [an informant] testifies that on many occasions he heard luqman Abdullah preaching that Islam should be spread through violent jihad and advocated violence against the government and against law enforcement," Imam Musa read from the indictment.
"Abdullah told his followers that if the police was to take his weapon or tried to apprehend him, he will respond with violence and they will have to shoot him before they can arrest him," he added.
Imam Musa described his killing as "an assassination by the federal government" adding that "this is to intimidate the Muslim community."
"Muslims in America are under a lot of pressure...the Muslim centers, the community centers are full of government infiltrators, spies and saboteurs who try to break the back of this wonderful Islamic movement in North America," he explained.
Meanwhile, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT), a coalition of major national Islamic organizations, has called for an independent investigation into the incident. The coalition has also called on the FBI to refrain from linking the raid or the allegations against the suspects to the Muslim faith.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Abdul-Ali Musa said he had access to documents, which could prove that the killing was a pre-arranged scenario.
#4
What I do not understnad is the lack of coverage on MSM, although I am not surprised. Imagine a fundy Christian leader was killed in a gun battle with police and the police found a lot of weapons. It would still lead the news.
#5
As I posted yesterday, most of these punks are prison converts to I-slam, just using it as an excuse to wage jihad against their perceived enemy, authority.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Williams (lol) can change his name to Mohammad or Abdullah or whatever he wants, but he's still just a punk and so are those that defend them.
if it was a fundie christian it would lead the news because it would be an exceptional and unexpected event. with Islam, however, it is another run of the mill , ho-hum, dog bites man story that nobody is the least surprised
Posted by: abu do you love ||
11/02/2009 19:58 Comments ||
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#11
"there was also a vast conspiracy to turn Detroit into a large toilet with plumbing problems"
It worked, John....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
11/02/2009 21:12 Comments ||
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Pakistani forces are zeroing in on two major Taliban bases in South Waziristan region as their offensive pushes deeper into militant bastion on the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday.
The army launched a major assault in South Waziristan on Sept. 17 to seize control of the lawless land after a string of attacks by militants, including a stunning assault on the army headquarters that killed more than 150 people.
The offensive is a major test for the Pakistani government and the military to stem the rising tide of Islamist militancy and is being closely followed by the United States and other Western nations embroiled in Afghanistan's growing conflict.
The military says an "important phase" of its three-pronged offensive has begun as troops had reached the outskirts of Sararogha and Makeen, two main bases of the militants in treacherous mountainous terrain. Makeen is described as "the nerve centre" of the militants while Sararogha, about 20 km (13 miles) southeast of Makeen, houses a strategic fort manned by a paramilitary force until it was captured by the Taliban last year after killing several soldiers and taking dozens hostage.
"Security forces have surrounded Makeen from three directions," the military said in a statement.
Security officials said military jets and helicopter gunships pounded militant positions in and around Makeen during the battle.
The military says government forces have laid siege to Sararogha, captured all the important features and ridges overlooking the town and cleared half of Kaniguram, a hub of Uzbek militants.
Nine militants and two soldiers were killed during Sunday's fighting, the military said, taking the militants' death toll to 331 in 16 days of fighting.
Thirty-eight soldiers have been killed, according to army estimates, although there was no independent verification of casualty figures as journalists have been barred from visiting the war zone.
Security officials expect heavy fighting in the coming days. "The command and control structure of the Taliban exists in Sararogha, Makeen and Ladha, a security official said, referring to another Taliban base. "It's going to be a tough fight for these places."
The offensive in South Waziristan has triggered a new wave of attacks by the militants across the country. More than 100 people were killed in a car bombing in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday, the deadliest attack in two years. It came hours after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton landed in Islamabad on a three-day visit.
The rough and rugged tribal territory separating Pakistan and Afghanistan is a stronghold for Taliban insurgents from both countries, as well as a haven for al Qaeda operatives.
The United States has hailed Pakistani anti-Taliban operations but Clinton said on Thursday she found it "hard to believe" that no one in authority in Pakistan knew where al Qaeda leaders were hiding out.
Clinton's pointed remark was the first public gripe on a trip aimed at turning around a U.S.-Pakistan relationship under serious strain, but bound in the struggle against religious extremism.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Marrakesh, Morocco_ After facing a barrage of press coverage that the U.S. has effectively sided with Israel in downplaying the issue of Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank in an effort to get Israel-Palestinian peace talks relaunched, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today walked back comments she made in Jerusalem at a late night news conference Saturday in which Hil bragged about the 95% settlement pause she had negotiated with Netanyahu
next to a beaming and self-confident Israeli Prime Minister.
Speaking at a luncheon meeting with Morocco's foreign minister in Marrakesh today, where Clinton is attending a conference of Arab foreign ministers, Clinton tried to clarify her previous remarks on the Obama administration's position on Israeli settlments.
"Israel has done a few things but needs to do much more," Clinton said, adding that the Obama administration's position is that it does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlment activity. But she also said Israel has put some limitations on itself, which if acted upon would be "unprecedented."
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/02/2009 09:21 ||
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#1
Just another demonstration that the Hildebeast actually can't DO anything. She can talk, she can blabber, she can 'triangulate', she can scheme -- all qualities that should have kept her in the Senate.
She's no executive. She can't make decisions, let alone good decisions, and she can't think problems through.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/02/2009 9:38 Comments ||
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#2
Nothing she could have offered the Arabs - save ENDLOSUNG - would have please the their beastial nature. They want Jews dead...period.
#3
Agreed, borgboy. The only reflection on Secretary Clinton is that she was so open about what she was attempting. But then, so has her boss been. Either she agrees with him or she is giving him more rope with which to hang himself. Bottom line, this administration is incompetent when it comes to international relations at any level beyond the embassy cocktail party.
[Ma'an] Ending two years of debilitating Palestinian disunity is still possible and efforts are ongoing to encourage a unity deal, according to Dr Yasser Al-Wadiyeh, an independent Legislative Council member, on Friday.
"There has not yet been an announcement that reconciliation failed - despite some setbacks," the lawmaker said in an interview.
Independents are studying the latest setback, in which Hamas refused to sign a reconciliation document sponsored by Egypt, Al-Wadiyeh insisted, noting that talks were being conducted outside the media.
He also called the right to vote sacracant, and condemned efforts from any one side to prevent Palestinians from casting their ballot should elections be held on 24 January 2010 as announced by President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this month.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel savored a victory on Sunday after U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hailed his "unprecedented" position on settlements and back tracked from a previous call for a complete freeze to settlement construction before possible peace talks with the Palestinians.
"There is no question that the United States are our staunchest friends and that Israel's firm stance on its positions pays off," Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told public radio on Sunday in a satisfied tone echoed by other officials.
The Israelis had reason to be satisfied. In a joint press conference held, unusually, before talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed for negotiations to be restarted as soon as possible, despite the Palestinian insistence -- which Washington backed only a few months ago -- that Israel must first put a stop to all settlement activity in the occupied West Bank.
"What the prime minister has offered in specifics of a restraint on the policy of settlements... is unprecedented," Clinton said at Saturday's press conference, adding that "there has never been a pre-condition, it's always been an issue within negotiations."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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A film about the Prophet Mohammad backed by the producer of "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Matrix" is under discussion, a Qatar media firm said on Sunday, aiming to create an English-language blockbuster for the world's 1.5 billion Muslims.
Filming of the $150 million movie budget: actors $5, production $10M, bribes to imans and mullahs $50M, security $85M
is set to start in 2011, with Barrie Osborne as its producer, Alnoor Holdings said.
Alnoor said the film - in which the Prophet would not be depicted, in accordance with Islamic strictures - was in development and talks were being held with studios, talent agencies and distributors in the United States and Britain.
No doubt the romantic stories of how he acquired his various wives will be lovingly dwelt upon: six year old Aisha, whom he didn't touch in a husbandly way until she had reached the ripe old age of nine; his first wife, the rich widow merchant for whom he worked as a camel driver; whatsername, the Jewish war captive, taken from one of his captains... Then there are the peace treaties so conveniently broken... By sticking strictly to Koran and Sunnah an absolutely fascinating epic could be constructed.
Cecile B. DeMille once said, "give me any two pages of the Bible and I'll give you a movie." Wonder if that's true for the Koran?
Posted by: lord garth ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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I wonder if the new Bible movies will consult religious leaders and strictly follow the scriptures.
Posted by: ed ||
11/02/2009 15:53 Comments ||
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#15
Brain death must be in season. Neither Sunnis nor Shiites permit theatrical portrayals of islam's phony "prophet." There were numerous murders when a film of that kind was made in the seventies. And the savages are even more restless these days.
#2
Announcing the decision to repatriate the Bangladeshis whose visas have expired, Toribiong said last week it has nothing to do with the Uighurs but is a reflection of his administration's commitment to the rule of law. "We follow the principles of justice and fairness," he said, adding that Bangladeshis with valid work permits have nothing to fear...The United States is paying Palau a little less than $100,000 for each Uighur to cover housing, educating and food costs, Toribiong said...Toribiong has stressed the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, saying it could last "a few months or a few years."
Though they won't get Palauan passports, Toribiong says, the Uighurs will be free to leave Palau—if they can find a country that will take them.
If only Obama's administration was as wise as Toribiong. This was brilliant negotiating on behalf of the Palauians. Can you imagine if the detainee's home country payed us to keep them in Gitmo?
Whatever LOCAL = INDIGENOUS/ETHINC RIGHTS ISSUES existed before, will slowly but surely oer time + politics take on a NEW FRONT VEE "MUSLIM/
ISLAMIST RIGHTS"
Muslim/Islamic versus Any Each and All Anti-, Non-Muslim/Islam, + EXLCUSIVE OF ANY CHINA-VS-USA, ETAL. REGIONAL GEOPOLITICS.
#7
WMF > CATO VP TED CARPENTER: CHINA'S MILITARY MODERNIZATION PROGRAMS APPEARS INTENT ON OBSTRUCTING OR DENY STRATEGIC ACCESS TO THE USA IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC AND TAIWAN.
OTOH SAME > GEOGRAPHIC AND STRATEGIC FRONTIERS: CHINA PRES HAS APROXIMATELY 3.6MILYUHN KILOMETERS OF RICH TERRITORIAL WATERS WHOSE SOVEREIGNTY IT CANNOT ABSOLUTELY OR MILITARILY CONTROL.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The United States has incorporated a bill into its annual military budget, which will allocate millions of dollars for Persian-language broadcasts.
US President Barack Obama signed the Victims of Iranian Censorship Act (VOICE) into law earlier this week.
The bill was introduced by Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, Ted Kaufman, Lindsey Graham, and Robert Casey as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.
According to the website of Senator Lieberman, the bill authorizes $50 million for the expansion of Persian-language broadcasting in Iran by Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's Radio Farda and the Voice of America's Persian News Network.
It will also allocate another $25 million in internet-based activities, the website said.
Analysts in Iran say the move comes in response to the arrest of members of a US-based terrorist group -- the Kingdom Assembly of Iran.
The detainees admitted to having masterminded and carried out terrorist acts inside Iran, including the deadly bombing of a mosque in the southern city of Shiraz in April 2008. The group runs a Persian TV channel in the US.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon has confirmed that Israel is running intelligence-gathering networks in Lebanon.
"When we are in conflict with an enemy, we gather information about them," Haaretz quoted Ya'alon as saying on Saturday.
"The moment Hezbollah renewed their attacks, we began to collect intelligence. We will stop when Hezbollah disarms itself and the [Israel-Lebanon] border is a border of peace," he added.
"We've infiltrated Hezbollah's high command with multiple agents. Naturally I can't say who they are on TV," he added.
"Squirrels, goats, wives -- all are at risk of being seduced. Oh, and we designed the microchips in your MP3 player. Hey -- you've won a free Madonna download! Click here."
In October, two explosions over occurred in southern Lebanon after Lebanon's Hezbollah discovered cables used for spying in the al-Abbad area near an Israeli border post.
The UN peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) who were called out to investigate the cause of the blasts later confirmed that the explosions aimed at destroying Israeli espionage equipment.
"Preliminary indications are that these explosions were caused by explosive charges contained in unattended underground sensors which were placed in this area by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) apparently during the 2006 war," UNIFIL said in a statement.
Those sneaky juices somehow knew Hizb'allah would use those spaces to store war materiel after they left. How is an honest Muslim resistance movement to win against such people?!?
The UNIFIL had declared that the Israeli espionage operations in Lebaon, represent violations of Security Council resolution 1701 which halted the 33-day war.
Israel which has staged several wars in the region in its 60-year old history invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an operation dubbed as the Operation Peace for Galilee and occupied the southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah forces played as the key resistance movement and forced them to leave the country.
Gotta love the balanced viewpoint of Iran PressTV.
Once again in 2006, when Israel launched another offensive into Lebanon, it faced strong resistance from Hezbollah.
Israel sees Hezbollah's military might as the key hindrance to its expansionist policies in the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Gotta love the balanced viewpoint of Iran PressTV
#4
Addendum: After consulting the entrails of a goat, top Iranian scientists agreed with the Israeli assessment of Solar precedence, and cited it as further evidence of Allah's favor.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian police will confront any "illegal" gatherings on Nov. 4, when the Islamic Republic marks the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, a semi-official news agency reported on Sunday.
Mehr News Agency reported the warning by deputy police chief Ahmadreza Radan a day after opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi appeared to urge his supporters to take part in rallies on that day.
"The 13th of Aban is a... rendezvous so we would remember anew that among us it is the people who are the leaders," Mousavi said in a statement on his website Kaleme.com
Several reformist websites also urged opposition supporters to gather on Wednesday and protest "peacefully" and not to resort to "violence even if they are attacked."
Opposition supporters clashed with police and government backers on Sept. 18, at the annual demonstrations in support of the Palestinians.
"The duty of the police is to protect public order, and based on the law we are obliged to prevent any move disturbing the public order," Radan said.
Radan said the police has the "obligation to prevent any disturbance of order in society."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's government is planning to appoint a cleric in every school,
" As per this plan, clerics will take care of issues such as collective praying and answering religious questions and ambiguities in schools "
Education ministry official Ali Asghar
a reformist newspaper reported Sunday on a move that could radicalize education in the Islamic republic.
"We are now defining the details of a plan called 'permanent appointment of clerics in schools'," the daily Hayateno quoted education ministry official Ali Asghar Yazdani as saying.
Yazdan "As per this plan, clerics will take care of issues such as collective praying and answering religious questions and ambiguities in schools," Yazdani said.
Currently teachers themselves address such matters, although soon after the country's 1979 Islamic revolution, special teachers used to impart religious values in schools.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/02/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Hmm. Parents better watch what they say in front of the kids. Mission accomplished.
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.
Ma'an -- Sakher Habash, a co-founder of the Fatah movement and former member of its Central Committee, died in Ramallah on Sunday. He was 70. 
[Quqnoos] US Secretary of State says a boycott of the Afghan runoff election by Abdullah Abdullah won't de-legitimise the poll, the Daily Telegraph reports. Answering the question on whether the outcome of a runoff with only one candidate would result in a legitimate government, Hillary Clinton said such situations are "not unprecedented" and occur in many countries. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] The man on trial for murdering a pregnant Egyptian woman in a frenzied anti-Islamic attack in Germany is suicidal, his mother said in a press interview on Sunday.
After a prayer's leader was killed during an alleged shootout with federal agents in the US, another mosque leader in the city of Detroit says his killing was pre-arranged. 
[Asharq al-Aswat] Pakistani forces are zeroing in on two major Taliban bases in South Waziristan region as their offensive pushes deeper into militant bastion on the Afghan border, the military said on Sunday.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel savored a victory on Sunday after U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton hailed his "unprecedented" position on settlements and back tracked from a previous call for a complete freeze to settlement construction before possible peace talks with the Palestinians.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The United States has incorporated a bill into its annual military budget, which will allocate millions of dollars for Persian-language broadcasts. 
Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya'alon has confirmed that Israel is running intelligence-gathering networks in Lebanon. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian police will confront any "illegal" gatherings on Nov. 4, when the Islamic Republic marks the 30th anniversary of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, a semi-official news agency reported on Sunday.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran's government is planning to appoint a cleric in every school, 
