[Al Arabiya Latest] The Taliban denied Saturday that leaders of the group fighting to overthrow the Afghan government had met with U.N. representatives to discuss bringing peace to Afghanistan.
The Taliban issued a statement branding reports of a meeting with the UN's outgoing special representative to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, in Dubai this month as "rumors" and "propaganda".
Referring to itself as "the leading council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan" -- as it did during its 1996-2001 rule of the war-torn nation -- the group said the reports were "propaganda by the invading forces against the jihad and mujahideen".
"The leading council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan strongly denies the rumors reported by some international media about talks between Kai Eide and representatives of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," the Taliban said in a statement posted on their website.
"To defuse this (propaganda) we insist on continuing our holy Islamic jihad against the enemy," it said in a statement, referring to the U.S. and NATO forces fighting the Taliban insurgency.
The statement said the Taliban's refusal to negotiate peace had ensured that an international conference in London on Thursday, attended by around 70 countries, was a failure.
"Now in an effort to recover their military and political prestige, the enemies are resorting to a propaganda conspiracy," it said.
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[Quqnoos] The Taliban Supreme Leader, Mohammad Omar, is ready to break with his Al Qaeda allies, the suckers atThe Guardian reports. The Taliban Chief will end his ties with Al Qaida to make peace in Afghanistan, the British newspaper quotes a former Pakistani intelligence officer who trained Mullah Omar.
Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar, a retired officer with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, said: "The moment he gets control the first target will be the al-Qaida people. He wants peace in the country, he doesn't want adventure. He has enough of that."
Or perhaps it's Brigadier Tarar (ret'd) who is tired of adventure and excitement. And one can see his point: he trained those men to be a weapon aimed at India and Afghanistan, and the weapon has turned in his hand to aim at his heart. I can't imagine anything more exhausting at a time when a man should be allowed to cultivate his roses in peace.
Few know the Taliban as well as Tarar, who is sometimes called the "godfather of the Taliban" owing to his pivotal role in fostering the group's emergence during Afghanistan's 1990s civil war.
That was long ago and far away. Times have changed, and even old retired brigadiers must, perforce, run to keep up. Especially when it is their own efforts that caused the times to change.
Tarar, 65, downplayed the significance of reports that the head of the UN mission to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, met senior Taliban commanders in Dubai earlier this month for "talks about talks".
"The people who went over there didn't have any value. There were no hardcore people from Mullah Omar's shura," Tarar told the Guardian, citing refugees and "people coming from Afghanistan" as his sources.
Tarar said Taliban talks could succeed only through direct engagement with Omar, the one-eyed leader whom he trained in guerrilla warfare during the 1980s.
The Taliban have not shown any interest in talks to Afghan government, pre-conditioning the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan to any peace deal.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been in off-on secret negotiations for months with two Darfuri rebels wanted for questioning in connection with the attack on an African Union peacekeeping mission base in Haskanita in Sep. 2007, well-placed U.N. sources told Al Arabiya Saturday on condition of anonymity.
The negotiations were aimed at facilitating the two rebels' voluntary appearance before the ICC judges in The Hague, according to the sources. The rebels were summoned under seal by the judges to appear before them and answer questions concerning their alleged responsibility for the Haskanita massacre that killed 12 African Union (AU) soldiers and more than a hundred civilians, and wounded hundreds.
Identities of the two rebels, accused along with Bahr Idriss Abu Gharda by the ICC General Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo of responsibility for the massacre and displacement of more than 15,000 civilians, has been kept secret by the ICC.
But Al Arabiya revealed Saturday for the first time the identities of the two rebel leaders as General Abdallah Banda and Commander Jerbo Jamus.
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Nine candidates have been approved to run against President Omar al-Bashir in Sudan's April 11 polls, the electoral commission said on Saturday after rejecting three hopefuls.
The presidential vote is to be held in conjunction with parliamentary and regional elections as part of the troubled African country's first multi-party ballot since 1986.
"We announce today the primary list of candidates for the presidency. We received 13 requests (and) 10 of them were accepted," Al-Hadi Mohammed Ahmed of the electoral commission told reporters.
The candidates include former premier and Islamist Umma party leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, who was ousted in 1989 in a military coup led by Bashir, and Yasser Arman of the southern ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement.
The remaining candidates belong to smaller parties, and two are independents.
The nominees who were turned down--including Fatima Ahmed Abdelmahmud, the first woman to attempt to run for the presidency -- have a week to contest the commission's decision.
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Two Cabinet Ministers are facing questions over their judgment after appearing at the same event as a Muslim activist who once suggested that the killing of British troops in Iraq was justified. Azad Ali spoke at yesterday's Progressive London conference, which was also attended by Equalities Minister Harriet Harman and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Mr Ali, a Treasury civil servant, was suspended from his job last year after The Mail on Sunday revealed a series of controversial comments on his personal website, including one in which he praised Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden's mentor.
He described the late Azzam as one of the ‘few Muslims who promote the understanding of the term Jihad in its comprehensive glory'. He then quoted Azzam's son as saying: ‘If I saw an American or British man wearing a soldier's uniform inside Iraq I would kill him because that is my obligation. If I saw the same soldier in Jordan I wouldn't touch him. In Iraq he is a fighter and an occupier – here he is not. I respect this as the main instruction in my religion for Jihad.'
Last week, Mr Ali lost an attempt to sue The Mail on Sunday over its article, which was published in January last year. Mr Justice Eady said Mr Ali ‘was indeed . . . taking the position that the killing of American and British troops in Iraq would be justified'. The judge added that Mr Ali's case was bound to fail and had about it ‘an absence of reality'. But at yesterday's conference, organised by former London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Mr Ali defended Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been condemned by some Western countries as terrorist organisations.
Mr Ali took part in an event called There Is No Progressive Imperialism, during which the panel was asked by a Lebanese man to comment on Hezbollah, which he accused of ‘actively stopping the progress of [Lebanon]'. Mr Ali responded: ‘If you ask the people of Lebanon, Hamas are known as people who build. Hamas provide an unbelievable amount of social services, as do Hezbollah, medical services and everything. These are the things that people are fighting – this is the imperial mindset, the colonial mindset.' Later, Mrs Harman spoke about a ‘progressive agenda to stop the Right in 2010'. Meanwhile, Mr Miliband spoke about tackling climate change on the platform vacated by Mr Ali.
Last night Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘The Labour Party relies on Muslim votes and it is pretty obvious that these Ministers are trying to ingratiate themselves with Labour Party members before a General Election. If you are a member of the Cabinet you should be more careful about who you deal with and put the interests of the country before narrow political interests.' Haras Rafiq, a moderate Muslim and director of counter-terrorism think-tank Centri, said: ‘It is crazy that we have Secretaries of State at the same event as someone who is praising Hamas. It gives people who support terrorist organisations credibility and legitimacy.'
A spokeswoman for Ed Miliband said: ‘Ed Miliband is invited to speak on climate change at a number of different events and is happy to do so.' She added that Azad Ali spoke at a ‘completely separate event'. A spokesperson for Mrs Harman said: ‘Harriet did not share a platform with Mr Ali. You should speak to the organisers of the event about who they have invited.'
[Al Arabiya Latest] French Prime Minister Francois Fillon on Friday asked France's top court to help the government draft a law banning the full Islamic veil, his office said.
The government's move comes three days after a French parliament report called for a ban on the burqa and niqab, saying Muslim women who fully cover their heads and faces pose an "unacceptable" challenge to French values.
Fillon wrote to the State Council, the country's highest administrative court, asking it to "study the legal solutions enabling us to reach a ban on wearing the full veil, which I want to be as wide and effective as possible."
He asked the court to "help the government find a legal answer to the concerns expressed by parliament's representatives and to rapidly submit a bill on the subject to parliament."
The State Council is to submit its findings by the end of March.
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Bush administration lawyers who paved the way for sleep deprivation and waterboarding of terrorism suspects exercised poor judgment but will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions, according to a forthcoming ethics report, a legal source confirmed.
The work of John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, officials in the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, provided the basis for controversial interrogation strategies that critics likened to torture in the years after al-Qaeda's 2001 terrorist strikes on American soil. The men and their OLC colleague, Steven G. Bradbury, became focal points of anger from Senate Democrats and civil liberties groups because their memos essentially insulated CIA interrogators and contractors from legal consequences for their roles in harsh questioning.
The reasoning, set out in a series of secret memos only months after Sept. 11, 2001, prompted a multi-year investigation by the department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews the ethics of Justice lawyers. The legal source was not authorized to discuss the report's conclusions and described them on the condition of anonymity.
A draft report prepared at the end of the Bush years recommended that Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, and Bybee, now a federal appeals court judge in Nevada, be referred to state disciplinary authorities for sanctions that could have included the revocation of their licenses to practice.
But then-Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip blasted the analysis in the draft and sent it back to the ethics office for more work. Meanwhile, the five-year statute of limitations on Yoo's alleged conduct expired, raising doubts about whether a disciplinary referral would have had any bite. The draft report did not recommend Bradbury face sanctions, three sources told The Washington Post last year.
Upon taking office in 2009, Obama's Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. assigned the hot-potato project to his new leader of the professional responsibility office, veteran D.C. prosecutor Mary Patrice Brown. Brown took months to carefully review and revise the lengthy report, and her conclusions eventually went to a senior career lawyer in the department, according to a source with knowledge of the process.
The source said the decision to stop short of disciplinary recommendations for Yoo and Bybee fell to David Margolis, who has spent more than three decades at the center of some of the most sensitive issues at the Justice Department. Margolis's decision was first reported by Newsweek's Web site.
Representatives for Bybee and Bradbury declined to comment Saturday, as did a Justice Department spokeswoman. Miguel Estrada, an attorney for Yoo, said he had not seen the findings and thus could not remark on them.
The conclusion is likely to unsettle interest groups that have sought a reckoning for lawyers who made possible brutal interrogation, warrantless wiretapping and other Bush counterterrorism strategies. It could have the strongest effect on Bybee, a sitting judge whose allies had established a legal defense fund in the event that he had to fend off a lengthy state discipline and impeachment fight.
#1
Holder et al doesn't want to set a precedent that will come to haunt them when the next regime change occurs. The John N. Mitchell wing of FedPen still awaits those who obstruct justice.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Pakistani citizen Aafia Siddiqui, who is charged with attempted murder of FBI agents and US military personnel, has told a New York court that the charges against her are "ridiculous."
On Friday, the prosecution at the New York court brought in a gun instructor from Boston. Gary Woodworth of the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club in Massachusetts testified that Siddiqui took a 12-hour basic pistol course in early 1990s, the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.
The move was made in response to a statement by Siddiqui in which she said that she did not know anything about firearms and had not taken a target-shooting course. She also denied taking pistol lessons at the rifle course in Braintree while she was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She went on to say that she saw an M-4 for the first time when it was produced in the court a couple of days ago as the weapon she allegedly used. She told the jury it was absurd to think a US soldier would carelessly leave his weapon in a place where a suspect like her could grab it.
"It's too crazy. It's just ridiculous," Siddiqui said. "I didn't do that."
On Thursday, Siddiqui told jurors in Manhattan Federal Court that charges she grabbed a rifle and shot at US interrogators in Afghanistan are a joke.
"This is the biggest joke. Sometimes I've been forced to smile under my scarf."
Siddiqui denied the FBI's accusations that her purse contained chemicals, a list of terror targets in New York City, instructions on how to make a dirty bomb, and drawings of weapons.
"To answer your question, I do not know how to make a dirty bomb," Ms. Siddiqui said, adding later, "I did not draw those pictures. I'm definitely not that good an artist, I can tell you that."
Sidddqui also insisted that she was imprisoned in Afghanistan over the past few years.
It was "pure psychological, emotional torture," she said, describing her situation. "I thought it was a continuation of what had been done to me in my secret prison history."
According to some reports, she had been detained at the US military's Bagram prison, which is located north of Kabul, since 2003.
At one point, when her head scarf began to slip over her face, her attorney, Elaine Sharp, asked her to explain her attire to the jury.
"If you've been in a secret prison, abused, you get more modest. And it's part of the religion," Siddiqui said.
She also repeated claims that FBI agents had threaded to hurt her children in order to scare her.
She said she was shot two or three times by one person in the room of the police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan where she was detained in 2008, and then shot by someone else.
Siddiqui vanished in Karachi, Pakistan with her three children on March 30, 2003. The next day it was reported in local newspapers that she had been taken into custody on terrorism charges.
US officials allege Aafia Siddiqui was seized on July 17, 2008 by Afghan security forces in Ghazni province and claim that documents, including formulas for explosives and chemical weapons, were found in her handbag.
They say that while she was being interrogated, she grabbed a US warrant officer's M-4 rifle and fired two shots at FBI agents and military personnel but missed and that the warrant officer then fired back, hitting her in the torso.
She was then brought to the United States to face charges of attempted murder and assault. Siddiqui faces 20 years in prison if convicted.
However, human rights organizations have cast doubt on the accuracy of the US account of the event. Many political activists believe she was Prisoner 650 of the US detention facility in Bagram, Afghanistan, where they say she was tortured for five years until one day US authorities announced that they had found her in Afghanistan.
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United States currency will soon become difficult to find in Iraq as efforts are underway to protect U.S. Soldiers and increase the value of the Iraqi dinar.
Sgt. Brittany A. Raimer, a dispersing manager with the 368th Finance Management Company, out of Wichita, Kan., 36th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), said eliminating the use of U.S. currency on the battlefield will help to stimulate the economy of Iraq.
"One of the main focuses of finance is to ultimately eliminate U.S. currency from the battlefield," said Raimer, a Lake Charles, La., native. "Our government is implementing the use of the Iraqi dinar, to both undermine the dependency the Iraqi nationals have on American currency and to back the Dinar, greatly increasing its weight on the market."
The use of electronic fund transfers to pay vendors and contractors, and urging service members to rely on the Eagle Cash Card, rather than cash, are two major changes that have been implemented in Iraq to eliminate the use of cash, said Raimer.
"The Eagle Cash Card enables personnel to have a direct link to the bank account without the hassle of hard cash," said Raimer. "The stored value card has been instrumental in effectively moving toward a cashless battlefield."
Sgt. Toni M. Guillery, a dispersing agent with the 368th FM Company and a Lake Charles, La., native, said the Eagle Cash Card is designed to help prevent service members from losing money or being robbed while in country.
"Carrying a single card is better than carrying a wad of money in your pocket, but one concern that I do have is ... on the kiosks, you have to use a pin number in order to access the money, but when you go to vendors, you do not," said Guillery. "If you [fill the card] up to the max, and you lose that card, and somebody picks it up and finds it and they are a dishonest person, they can go and spend that money."
Guillery said the unit only disburses U.S. cash to service members who are about to go on mid-tour leave or re-deploy.
Raimer said the transition away from the U.S. dollar has aided the progression of the banking industry in Iraq.
"The progression [away from U.S. currency] has greatly supported the modernization of the banking system, thus improving and instilling trust in the local economy," she said.
#2
Don't know if I like this idea; mandatory payday in the scrip of the host nation....
i can understand the motives, however,
most civilized countries have some banks with curreny exchange facilities at whatever the going rate is; to me it makes more sense to mandate using that vehicle or providing for split pay for the troops.
whats next, Yen for the Japanese based forces?
nope, not liking this at all.
#3
Military pay is direct-deposit into the member's bank account.
This is more in line what's done in other nations that US troops are stationed in, albeit with EFT and cash-cards instead of hard currency (probably also will keep any potential black markets down as well).
[Iran Press TV Latest] The governor of the central Gaza Strip has told the leaders of Fatah that they can visit Gaza whenever they like.
On Saturday, Abdullah Abu Samhadana, who had chastised Fatah leaders seeking to enter Gaza on January 20, said that they can enter Gaza without hesitation whenever they intend to. "Gaza isn't owned by anybody. It is a part of Palestine and it is the homeland of all the Palestinians, including Fatah leaders," he said.
"Gaza is not a hotel you can just check in and out of at will," he had said on January 20.
"There is nothing that can prevent any Palestinian from traveling to Gaza unless there is a court decision behind it. This is part of the right of return to one's homeland, a right that is guaranteed and that no law can violate," Abu Samhadana said on Saturday.
He asked, what if the same regulations were adopted by the Palestinian Authority for Hamas leaders, "how would Hamas respond to that?"
Just as the PA allows Hamas members to conduct political activities in the West Bank, Hamas also takes measures to reach reconciliation and end the rivalry, he noted.
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Soldiers in restive southern Thailand are still using the British-made GT200 bomb detector while investigation into its effectiveness continues, Deputy Interior Minister Thaworn Senneam said on Saturday, asserting that the government is unworried if the opposition parties want to grill it in Parliament.
As the probe is continuing and further purchases of the detector has been temporarily suspended pending the outcome of the investigation, Mr Thaworn said soldiers in the area are still using the device. The local population in the restive region are understood not to be worried as they understand that the military must use it nonetheless. Mr Thaworn said the current government has not placed new orders for the detector. There will not be a problem if opposition parties want to raise the issue in a non-confidence motion.
Criticisms by may parties on the effectiveness of the GT200 bomb detector surface after Britain banned exports of the ADE651 bomb detector to Iraq and Afghanistan. The ADE651 bomb detector is manufactured by the British-based company Global Technical, and is similar to the GT200 bomb detector, widely used in security operations in Thailand's Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces in which insurgency attacks have killed more than 4,000 lives since violence erupted 2004.
Touching on the current bloody violence in the restive South, Mr Thaworn said “certain success has been achieved by the present government' as larger numbers of people in the region are cooperating with government officials. Some 6,000-7000 insurgents and their sympathisers operate in the troubled region and the government will have to work hard in changing their ideology and to make them understand that all persons are equal under Thai law so that peace could be restored there, Mr Thaworn added.
US President Barack Obama's national security adviser on Friday cited a heightened risk that Iran will respond to growing pressure over its nuclear program by stoking violence against .
The adviser, retired Marine Gen. James Jones, said history shows that when regimes are feeling pressure they can lash out through surrogates.
He said that in Iran's case that would mean facilitating attacks on through Hizbullah in and Hamas in . helps arm both terrorist groups.
Jones also alluded to the prospect of additional international sanctions being applied to as one factor in making feel greater pressure.
He said another factor is internal pressure -- an apparent reference to street protests against the Iranian leadership over the disputed presidential election June 12.
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a Tehran conference Saturday that whoever controls the Middle East controls the world, the semi-official Fars News Agency reported.
In a speech during a conference marking 30 years to the Islamic Revolution, Ahamdinejad reportedly implied that Iran is the top power in the Middle East. "Now the question is who has the last say in the Middle East? Well, of course, the answer is clear to every one," Ahamdinejad said.
The Iranian president further emphasized that the Middle East is the most important region in the world. "Now, there are a number of developed countries which even own anti-satellite missiles, yet they are not effective and influential in the world because they do not have a role in the Middle-East," Fars News Agency quoted Ahamdinejad as saying.
Ahamdinejad lauded Iran's scientific and technological developments, such as the production of satellites and different types of missiles. He went on to say that Iran has been continuously progressing in these fields since the Islamic Revolution 30 years ago, according to Fars News Agency.
The statements made by the Iranian president come after he announced earlier this month that Iran is to come out with several new home-made satellites in February, which would be able to orbit the Earth at higher altitudes.
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[Iran Press TV Latest] An Iranian aviation expert who was mistreated by US agents for two years while detained in Thailand says his case is proof of human rights violations by the United States.
Jamshid Qassemi was arrested at Bangkok airport after the US administration made serious accusations against him and sought to imprison him for 45 years.
"The international community should also be held accountable for the human rights violations committed by the US and Britain during my detention," Qassemi told Islamic Republic News Agency in an exclusive interview on Saturday.
He said he was working in state projects as an Iranian government employee responsible for purchasing spare parts for Iranian passenger planes and overhauling the aircraft.
Qassemi said US agents broke his teeth, injured his knees, and chained him up when they took him to the court, which are violations of the Geneva Conventions.
US intelligence officials accused him of endangering US national security and being an arms smuggler.
"I was not a terrorist. The Iranian government supported me while the US authorities had no evidence against me," Qassemi said.
He explained that the Thai authorities refused to extradite him to the US after the local court cleared him of the charges.
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#1
His status is not defined in the article, so it is difficult to acertain under the Geneva Conventions or subsequent Protocols. Is Jamshid Qassemi an enemy combatant, civilian, or hors de combat ?
#2
One of the Principles of the GC was to differentiate between combatant and civilian. Since the 'other side' has received special journalistic dispensation from complying with the tenets of the GC, and thus in massive violation of the GC, to differentiate between the two, crap is going to happen. Since the 'other side' has no interest in complying with the GC, there's no compulsion for the other belligerent to comply with it other than cultural imperatives.
#4
He is right. US had the duty to shoot him and didn't comply. The GC were never intended for making the good guys fight with an arm tied behind he back but to make war a bit less inhuman. Thus a fundamental requirement was make the crime not to pay: if the enemy just thinks in shooting at you from a civilian area he must know that you will you shoot back _and_ that if taken alive you will make him regret it have done so. Thus he doesn't do that. But tilme and again US and other westen coyuntries (in part due to fear of a public opinion misinformed by leftist journalists and writers) have allowed their opponents to use the GC rules against them without taking advantage of the rules against cheaters. Thousans opf people habve dies unnecessarily in the battlefield and millions, like in Vietnam and Cambodia, after the victories handed on a silver platter to the bad guys
#5
An Iranian aviation expert who was mistreated by US agent
Given the number of Iranian planes loaded with high ranking officials who have gone down recently the "mistreatment" must have been beingh given $$$$$ along with a medal.
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.
Two Cabinet Ministers are facing questions over their judgment after appearing at the same event as a Muslim activist who once suggested that the killing of British troops in Iraq was justified. Azad Ali spoke at yesterday's Progressive London conference, which was also attended by Equalities Minister Harriet Harman and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband. Mr Ali, a Treasury civil servant, was suspended from his job last year after The Mail on Sunday revealed a series of controversial comments on his personal website, including one in which he praised Abdullah Azzam, Osama Bin Laden's mentor.
