[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations said early Wednesday that a Security Council committee removed five former senior Taliban officials from its sanctions list, something Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been pushing for.
The United Nations said in a statement that the decision was made on Monday on the basis of a review of the original listings and the five would no longer be subject to international travel bans and asset freezes.
The decision came days before a 60-nation conference in London to set a framework for handing security over to Afghan forces. NATO powers are expected to back Karzai's plan to reach out to Taliban insurgents. Removal from the U.N. Taliban and al-Qaeda sanctions list is among the incentives under discussion.
All five were high-ranking members of the former Taliban government. Four were listed as former foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, former deputy minister of commerce Fazal Mohammad, former Taliban press officer Shams-us-Safa Aminzai and former deputy minister of planning Mohammad Musa Hottak.
It said the fifth, former deputy minister of frontier affairs Abdul Hakim, had renounced the Taliban three years ago and was now a governor of Uruzgan province.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
(Picture)
Oooooh that smell
Cantcha smell that smell
OOoooh that smell
The smell of death surrounds you
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/28/2010 12:43 Comments ||
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[Quqnoos] A suicide bomber blew himself up near a convoy of US military vehicles in Kabul on Tuesday, wounding six Afghan civilians.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan said there had been an explosion outside the main gate of Camp Phoenix, a US base, and that initial reports suggested it had been caused by a car bomb.
The bombing comes a week after a seven suicide bombers stormed key government buildings in Kabul, killing at least five and wounding nearly 70 others.
Tuesday attack took place two days ahead of an international conference on Afghanistan in London, where Afghan President Karzai is expected to unveil a reintegration plan with the Taliban.
Insurgents have staged repeated suicide bombings in the Afghan capital in recent months, sometimes targeting Nato convoys.
Six Italian soldiers were killed in September when a suicide car bomber rammed their convoy in Kabul.
Stanley McChrystal, the commander of the Nato-led force, told the Financial Times the Taliban would seek to step up suicide bombings and other attacks to undermine support for the US surge strategy.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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Pakistan has reportedly sent an army combat unit to Yemen to join the war against the Shia fighters in the country's north.
An informed source with the Pakistani daily Jang has said that a 300-strong unit of Special Forces has been deployed in Yemen.
US media reports say the US military and intelligence agencies are involved in joint operations with Yemeni troops.
Yemen launched a military offensive against the Houthi fighters in the northern Sa'ada Province last August. Saudi Arabia joined forces with the Yemeni government in November.
Sana'a accuses the Shia fighters of violating terms of a ceasefire in 2009 by taking foreign visitors hostage.
The Houthis accuse the Yemeni government of violating their civil rights and marginalizing them politically, economically, and religiously.
The Shia fighters say the offensives launched against the northern regions mostly target residential areas and result in civilian casualties.
Islamabad's controversial decision is expected to cause public outrage in a country, which is similarly targeted by indiscriminate missile attacks.
The Pakistani public holds regular demonstrations to condemn Washington's drone attacks on remote tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
The US claims that the attacks are aimed at eliminating militant positions. However, they usually result in civilian casualties.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
To make matters worse, cheerleaders for the Pakistani soccer team, calling themselves "The Beheadeds," are now refusing to perform until the drone attacks stop.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Saudi Arabia declared victory over Yemeni Shiite rebels on Wednesday following a truce offer from the insurgents, who said they had withdrawn from all Saudi territory.
"We achieved a clear victory," Saudi Assistant Minister of Defense Prince Khaled bin Sultan told journalists, adding that the rebels had been forced from Saudi land. "We cleansed the area."
"They did not withdraw. They have been forced out," he added
Rebel leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, whose fighters have been battling both Saudi and Yemeni government forces, made the ceasefire offer on Monday, saying he wanted to avoid more bloodshed and protect civilians.
Yemen's government has been fighting the rebels on and off since 2004. The conflict intensified last summer when Sanaa launched Operation Scorched Earth to quash the latest upsurge in violence.
Saudi Arabia stepped into the fray in November when rebels seized some Saudi territory, prompting Riyadh to wage an offensive against them.
A senior Saudi military official said Saudi Arabia was no longer exchanging heavy fire with the rebels, who no longer remained on Saudi territory. Prince Khaled said some rebel snipers were still active.
"Last night, since they announced a ceasefire, they did not fire and we did not have any engagement," Major General Said al-Ghamdi, commanding general of first paratrooper brigade, told journalists in the border area. "They are not in our lands."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Five detained killers of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were executed at Dhaka Central Jail shortly after Wednesday midnight. And good riddance to the lot of them.
Mohiuddin Ahmed (artillery) was first to be executed at 12:05am and then four others walked to the gallows one after another. Four others are Maj (retd) Bazlul Huda, Lt Col (retd) Sultan Shahriar Rashid Khan, Syed Farooq Rahman and Maj (retd) AKM Mohiuddin (lancer). Sources of the news however could not be confirmed. Tight security measures have been taken in and around Dhaka Central Jail over the executions. A large number of law enforcement agency members including RAB and police were deployed. Mujib was a heroic figure. I hope his killers are having a fine time hanging out with Himmler and Heydrich.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Bangladesh's Supreme Court Wednesday upheld the death sentence for five convicted killers of the nation's founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, setting the stage for their execution.
The court dismissed the men's final attempt to challenge their sentences for assassinating Mujib, as he was widely known, in 1975.
"The Supreme Court, headed by the country's chief justice, has dismissed their final appeals," Syed Anisul Haque, chief counsel for the state, told AFP.
The five former army officers could be hanged "at any moment", he added.
Mujib led Bangladesh to independence in 1971 during a bloody war against Pakistan.
He was gunned down at his home, along with his wife and three sons, in a coup on August 15, 1975. His daughter, the current Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, was abroad at the time.
A total of 20 people, including domestic staff, were killed when army officers stormed his house, but the murder charges that were brought only related to Mujib's death.
"It is a landmark verdict and we think this will go a long way towards establishing the rule of law in the country," Haque said.
The case was first heard in 1996 when Hasina became premier for the first time and removed a legal barrier enacted by the post-Mujib government to protect the accused officers.
At that time, 15 men were found guilty and sentenced to death.
Three were acquitted in 2001. Of the remaining 12, five appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court, six are in hiding and one is believed to have died in Zimbabwe.
"We will decide on the date for the execution as soon as we receive a copy of the Supreme Court order," said additional inspector general of prisons Syed Iftekher Uddin.
The appeal argued that Mujib's death was part of a mutiny and the defendants should therefore have been tried under martial law instead of through the civilian court system.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] North Korea is continuing to fire more artillery shells near its disputed sea border with South Korea, hours after the two militaries exchanged fire in the region.
The North's military said in a statement on Wednesday that it staged an annual artillery live firing drill close to their disputed maritime border. "Such firing drill by the units of the KPA (North Korean People's Army) will go on in the same waters in the future," the North Korean military said in a statement.
This comes after an earlier artillery drill in the area led to an exchange of fire between the two Koreas. Seoul has condemned the North's actions as "gravely provocative."
The South has warned that it will not hesitate to respond to any future incidents that breaches the truce on the Korean Peninsula.
Seoul also says Pyongyang will be held responsible for "anything that happens from this point on."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] At least ten suspected militants have been arrested during a search and clearance operation in Bajaur Agency.
Meanwhile the local Taliban have accepted the responsibility for killing of Khwezai peace committee member Malik Sher Afzal who was shot dead in Bakshi Pull area of Peshawar.
Taliban spokesman in Mohmand Agency Irkamullan Mohmand says the tribal elder has been shot dead for siding with the government and forming legions against the Taliban in Mohmand Agency.
Official sources say that security forces destroyed and set ablaze houses of four suspected militants in Nawagai after an IED blast in the area.
Earlier in the day the security forces targeted militants hideouts in Mamond Tehsil of the agency killing at least two militants.
In the adjoining troubled Mohmand Agency a five-year-old child was killed as security forces opened fire on a passenger van in Spinki Tangi in Khwezai Tehsil.
The mother of the child and his minor brother were also injured in the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Over a dozen people, most of them police and civil defence personnel, were injured when an explosive device presumed to have been defused went off near Rawalakot on Wednesday morning.
A local man spotted the device shaped like a tiffin-carrier near a bus stop on a road leading to an army brigade office in Kharick on the outskirts of Rawalakot and informed police at about 11pm on Tuesday. A school owned by a retired general is also in the vicinity.
According to Poonch SP Sajjad Ahmed, police cordoned off the spot where the metal box with some sensors, wires and switches had been placed.
After working for about half an hour bomb disposal squads announced at about 4am that the device had been defused.
As parts of the device were being taken to a police vehicle, the explosives went off, injuring six civil defence personnel, three policemen and four other people, including the man who had spotted the device.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Taliban fighters killed a pro-government militia leader in northwest Pakistan's Bajaur district, where helicopters have been shelling insurgent hideouts, officials said Wednesday.
The body of Malik Manaris Khan, 47, was found riddled with bullets early Wednesday in Salarzai town, about 20 kilometres northeast of Khar, the main city in Bajaur, which is in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.
"He was kidnapped on Monday along with two other tribesmen. Today (Wednesday), we found his dead body," said Naseeb Shah, a local administrative official, blaming the Taliban movement for the abductions.
"He was leading an anti-Taliban lashkar (militia) in his village."
It was the latest in a string of such killings in Bajaur, where anti-Taliban militias are particularly strong, angering the insurgents.
Salarzai and surrounding areas also came under fire from Pakistani military helicopters, with shelling targeting suspected Taliban hideouts beginning Tuesday and continuing on Wednesday morning, security officials said.
"Helicopter gunships have been shelling Taliban hideouts in Salarzai and the adjacent town of Mamoond since Tuesday," Shah said.
Another government official said that the shelling had killed at least six militants and wounded another four in the last 24 hours.
"We have reports that at least six militants were killed and four wounded. Helicopter gunships also destroyed several hideouts and some trenches," Firamosh Khan, an administrative official, told AFP by telephone.
Bajaur was the scene of a major anti-militant operation in August 2008 and in February last year the military said the area had been secured.
But unrest has rumbled on, and the military have again been staging ground and air assaults on Bajaur, part of an ambitious new push against Taliban strongholds across the northwest launched last year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A bomb planted near a house in northwestern Pakistan exploded Wednesday after children playing nearby tried to open it, killing three of them, said police.
Three boys - two brothers and their cousin aged between eight and twelve - were killed as they grazed their families' goats in Dir district, where the military last year embarked on an offensive to drive out Taliban fighters.
The blast partly destroyed the house in Nanger Khani village in Upper Dir, an area near Pakistan's volatile Afghan border, said police official Gul Zameen Khan.
"It was a timed device. Three children were killed on the spot. Apparently it is an act of terrorism. The militants want to create fear and terrify the residents," district police chief Raoof Khan told AFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
More brave lions of islam acting as bullies when destroying lives.
At this point, Islam is the criminal. Driven, quoted, and murdered in that order.
No one on this planet right here can tell me islam is not to blame.
It is not of concept, religion, logic, or oppression that this happens.
It is devious justification for Islam to claim this as Godly.
It is abhorrent to kill children in the NAME OF GOD.
These are the orifices of mankind and must be destroyed.
Just like the moslems putting bombs in teddy bears in Bosnia and Kosovo.
Iraqi and US forces dealt al Qaeda in Iraq a major blow last week during a raid in Mosul that killed the terror group's top facilitator, who was based out of Syria.
The joint US and Iraqi special operations team killed Abu Khalaf, al Qaeda in Iraq's seniormost foreign fighter facilitator, during an operation on Jan. 22. Khalaf was killed after he "attacked a security-team member participating in a warranted operation," a US Forces- Iraq press release stated.
The US military said Khalaf's identity was confirmed using "multiple sources, including lipsnoseleft ear fingerprint matches."
Khalaf, whose real name is Sa'ad Uwayyid 'Ubayd Mu'jil al Shammari, was placed on the US Treasury Department's terrorist sanctions list in May 2009 and was identified as al Qaeda in Iraq's top facilitator, who operated from Syria.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/28/2010 14:53 ||
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#1
I'm glad they killed the bastard, rather than capture and read him his miranda rights.
Posted by: Tom- Pa ||
01/28/2010 16:56 Comments ||
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#2
These people are killing Iraqi citizens. The Iraqis need to start killing these guys in Syria. They should be strongly encouraged to do so by us.
A string of checkpoints has appeared on the roads that spoke out from this volatile city, guarded by hundreds of American soldiers working with Arab and Kurdish troops.
The joint operation along one of Iraq's ethnic trouble spots began with a deliberate lack of fanfare, but it constitutes the most significant military mission by American forces since they largely retreated to bases outside Iraq's cities in June.
More than two dozen checkpoints now punctuate a snaking line that traces from Syria to Iran the unofficial and disputed boundary between Iraq's federal forces and those of the Kurdish regional government. At times these forces have operated virtually as opposing armies rather than as compatriots, but at the checkpoints they now live and operate together for the first time since the war began.
The operation began this month after labored negotiations with Iraq's Arab and Kurdish leaders. The immediate goal is to bolster security ahead of bitterly contested elections in March along an ethnic patchwork of lands devastated by attacks.
The ultimate strategy is to defuse political tensions along a fault line that could easily rupture, sundering the country once American forces leave, or even before. The operation underscores the extent to which the American military remains an arbiter of Iraq's most intractable conflicts.
What we're doing is forcing the wound to close,' Lt. Col. Christopher L. Connelly, a battalion commander with the First Armored Division, said at a checkpoint being erected on the highway that links Mosul to Erbil, the Kurdish region's capital.
With time running out before President Obama's deadline for withdrawing combat troops in August, the mission has become the most urgent in Iraq.
The American commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, proposed the checkpoints, along with joint patrols involving the three sides, after a series of incidents last year threatened open conflict between Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Its inception stalled for months amid deeply rooted suspicions between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and the Kurdish president, Massoud Barzani.
What we have sought to do is separate the politics from the security piece, and of course, that's very hard to do,' said Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the deputy commander in Iraq. But we keep bringing it back to focusing on: O.K., where and how do we provide the best security to the Iraqi people? And how does that create the environment that will someday allow for political process to take place?'
As Iraq's new security forces have grown more assertive in controlling territory on the southern side, the effect has been to square off two suspicious forces along a seam that has been exploited by Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other insurgents for attacks, and by politicians for political points.
Last May, the pesh merga prevented Nineveh's newly elected governor of Nineveh, a Sunni, from crossing the line to drive to Bashiqa, a town nominally under his authority. The facts of the incident were disputed, but all agreed that violence was only narrowly averted.
Since then, a series of hair-trigger confrontations has raised tensions. So have bombings in villages that were aimed at small ethnic communities along the line populated by Assyrian Christians, Turkmens and Shabaks. Insurgents struck with such precision between the two opposing authorities that American and Iraqi officials suspect the attacks were an effort to provoke an Arab-Kurd war.
Political leaders in Diyala, Kirkuk and Nineveh have condemned the new operation, seeing the checkpoints as de facto recognition of Kurdish territorial claims. While many Kurds serve in the Iraqi Army, the pesh merga operate under the command of the Kurdish government; their presence, and that of the Kurdish intelligence service, are viewed by many Iraqis as illegitimate.
What guarantees are there that the pesh merga will ever withdraw?' Qusay Abbas, a member of Nineveh's regional legislature, which has opposed the operation, said at his home near one of the new checkpoints. Last week, he said, Kurdish soldiers detained and threatened him when he tried to visit a mosque in a neighboring village.
American commanders have emphasized that the checkpoints are not meant to preclude negotiations between Arabs and Kurds over the final internal boundaries of the Kurdish region, though the hope is that cooperation on the ground will give momentum to a political and peaceful resolution of the underlying dispute.
The duration of the operations remains unclear. Ultimately the Americans hope to withdraw. For now, American platoons hunker down with their Iraqi and Kurdish counterparts in primitive camps beside the checkpoints. Joint patrols have begun to ensure security in the immediate area. More expansive patrols remain the subject of negotiations.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran arrested last month two German diplomats for allegedly having a hand in riots during the Ashura commemorations, state television said Wednesday quoting a top official.
"A deputy intelligence minister announced the involvement of German diplomats in the riots during Ashura," ISNA news agency said. The story was also reported by the semi-official Mehr News Agency.
" The riots on this day were pre-planned and the 'current of sedition', anti-revolutionaries and the network affiliated to Western intelligence services were involved "
Deputy minister
"Two German diplomats using fictitious names of Yogi and Ingo were arrested," during the Shiite commemoration of Ashura, the website of state television also said quoting an unnamed deputy intelligence minister. But the report did not specify whether the diplomats were still in detention.
A spokesman for the German embassy in Tehran when contacted told AFP that he "cannot comment" on the reports of arrests.
The official IRNA news agency had earlier Wednesday reported that the deputy minister spoke of the "involvement of German diplomats" in the riots on December 27, the day of Ashura.
"The riots on this day were pre-planned and the 'current of sedition', anti-revolutionaries and the network affiliated to Western intelligence services were involved," the deputy minister was quoted as saying by IRNA.
The authorities use the words "current of sedition" to describe the anti-government protest movement.
According to the report the deputy intelligence minister said that a close advisor of main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was identified and arrested and made "confessions."
"Available evidence and this person's confessions show that he was connected through a point man to the intelligence service of a European country and was releasing confidential information," IRNA quoted the deputy as telling reporters.
A few days after the Shiite commemoration, Iranian officials revealed they had detained a Swedish diplomat for 24 hours on the day of Ashura.
And earlier this month Tehran's chief prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said that a German citizen was detained and later freed, apparently in connection with the Ashura riots.
At least eight people were killed in Iran during the Ashura riots when crowds of demonstrators launched protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in what turned into the bloodiest showdown between them and security forces since the initial post-election unrest in June.
A police website reported earlier this month that more than 40 people had been arrested on the basis of tip-offs after police circulated photographs of demonstrators of Ashura rioters.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/28/2010 00:00 ||
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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.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The United Nations said early Wednesday that a Security Council committee removed five former senior Taliban officials from its sanctions list, something Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been pushing for.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Saudi Arabia declared victory over Yemeni Shiite rebels on Wednesday following a truce offer from the insurgents, who said they had withdrawn from all Saudi territory.
[Iran Press TV Latest] North Korea is continuing to fire more artillery shells near its disputed sea border with South Korea, hours after the two militaries exchanged fire in the region. 
Iraqi and US forces dealt al Qaeda in Iraq a major blow last week during a raid in Mosul that killed the terror group's top facilitator, who was based out of Syria.
