Hat tip: LGF, which has a few choice items not mentioned in the article.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government Wednesday for preventing a Muslim scholar from entering the country, arguing that the government was using anti-terrorism laws as "instruments of censorship." The lawsuit asks the court to find a provision of the Patriot Act unconstitutional and seeks clearance for Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss intellectual and Muslim scholar, to accept invitations to speak in the United States.
Ramadan was blocked from accepting a tenured teaching position at the University of Notre Dame when his visa was revoked in August 2004 because of a provision of the Patriot Act, said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney.
Jaffer said it was part of an effort by the federal government to bar foreign scholars whose political views might be contrary to those of the U.S. government. The provision blocks entry to the country for prominent aliens who used their status to endorse or espouse terrorism or to persuade others to terrorist activity, he said. "We don't think there's any evidence at all that he has endorsed terrorism," Jaffer said. "In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that he has condemned terrorism."
The government had no immediate comment, said Megan Gaffney, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan.
The ACLU noted that Ramadan, a visiting fellow at St. Anthony's College at the University of Oxford, had accepted British Prime Minister Tony Blair's invitation to join a government task force to examine the roots of extremism in Britain. "The government should not be using the immigration laws as instruments of censorship," Jaffer said. "Our concern is that the government is using this provision to manipulate and censor political and academic debate within the United States."
The lawsuit seeks a declaration that the Patriot Act provision is unconstitutional and a court order barring the government from relying on the provision to exclude Ramadan or any other foreign national.
Besides Ramadan, plaintiffs include the American Academy of Religion, the American Association of University Professors and PEN American Center, organizations which had invited Ramadan to speak in the United States.
#1
He is the grandson of Hasan al-Banna, one of the most important Islamist figures of the 20th century. In 1928, al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood, which opposed the ascendancy of secular and Western ideas in the Middle East.
Were Israel to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, Iran would respond so strongly that it would put the Jewish state into "an eternal coma" like Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's, the Iranian defense minister said Wednesday. "Zionists should know that if they do anything evil against Iran, the response of Iran's armed forces will be so firm that it will send them into eternal coma, like Sharon," Gen. Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said.
Najjar said the United States and Israel have been trying to frighten Iran, but neither country would dare attack to Iran.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran's president blamed Britain and the United States for two bombings that killed at least nine people in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on Tuesday. "Traces of the occupiers of Iraq is evident in the Ahvaz events. They should take responsibility in this regard," state television quoted President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying.
The station reported that Ahmadinejad had issued a decree ordering his foreign minister and intelligence minister to investigate the possibility that "foreign hands" might have been responsible for the explosions.
At least nine people were killed in Tuesday's two blasts in Ahvaz, the capital of the oil-rich Khuzestan province which borders Iraq, police spokesman Mohammed Ali Pour said Wednesday. According to the official Islamic Republic News Agency, 46 people were wounded in the explosions, which took place inside a bank and outside a state environmental agency building.
Ahvaz has a history of violence involving members of Iran's Arab minority. Last year, bombings in June and October killed a total of 14 people in the city. In April, residents rioted for two days over claims, denied by the government, that the state was planning to reduce the number of Arabs in the area.
Iran has repeatedly accused Britain of provoking unrest in the region, which borders Iraq near where 8,500 British soldiers are based. Britain has denied any connection to the Khuzestan unrest.
#5
Transliterations: In English, "Qom" sounds a LOT like "Boom". Just like "Bam" sounded like "send me an earthquake" and "Tehran" sounds like "bomb us too, sincerely, the Parliament"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 22:32
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#6
"Anything more specific in your crystal ball?"
Nope. Just a general feeling it might be a good time to stock up on canned goods, ammo, and TP.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 22:35
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#7
and top up that strategic reserve while you start drilling in ANWR
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 22:40
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#8
Iran's anti-Israeli comments are in wilful and direct violation of the UNO Charter, and is sufficient to invoke a multi-state UNSC "police action" vv KOREAN WAR 1. Iran's actions are a direct challenge to both the USA-Israel and the effectiveness/credibility of the UNO in general as a world organz. 9-11 > THE USA MUST ACCEPT SOCIALISM AND OWG, OR BE DESTROYED; IRAN > THE USA MUST ACCEPT A NUCLEARIZED IRAN = RADICAL STATE = ANTI-US CENTER OF [FUTURE] GLOBAL POWER, OR NOT. By linkning the USA-Britain to local terror bombing Iran is "justifying" both an indigenous nuke/WMD "retaliatory strike" + Russo-Chinese intervention vv "brinkmanship". PRAVDA > by the new OSAMA tape any and all ISLAM/MUSLIM-ORIENTED PRE-CONDITIONS FOR A NEW ATTACK(S) DIRECTLY AGS THE USA HAVE BEEN SATISFIED - SSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, according only to Osama.
HAIL, HAIL, POTUS/CO-POTUS HILLARY, CAN MOTHER HILLARY SAVE AMERICA = AMERIKA FROM THE EVILS THAT MEN DO???
What next from these guys?
Iran has accused the UK of co-operating with bombers who killed eight people in attacks in the restive south-western city of Ahwaz on Tuesday.
"Britain must respond to the doubts of Iranians concerning the events," said Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.
Mr Mottaki said the masterminds of the bombing "or people of their mind" had been photographed with UK officials.
A UK Foreign Office spokesman in London has denied the accusation, saying Britain condemned terrorism.
"Any linkage between HMG (Her Majesty's Government) and these terrorist attacks is completely without foundation," said the official.
A little-known ethnic Arab separatist group has said it was behind the blasts inside a private bank and state environmental agency on Tuesday.
"Our heroes... in the military wing of The Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz attacked and destroyed the dens of the occupying enemy," a statement posted on a website said.
Speaking at a press conference in Tehran, Mr Mottaki claimed Britain supported such groups.
"It is clear for our officials and intelligence centres that the United Kingdom co-operated and had a hand in these bombings either in London or Basra," Mr Mottaki told a news conference in Tehran.
"We hope that British officials would have a clear response in that regard."
Mr Mottaki said the attackers had been helped by British army commanders in southern Iraq.
"We hope British officials take this seriously, put it on their agenda and act accountably," he added.
The oil-rich province of Khuzestan, which borders Iraq and is home to about two million ethnic Arabs, was rocked by a wave of unrest last year, including bomb blasts in June and October.
The government blamed the attacks on the UK, whose forces are just across the border, but British officials again denied involvement.
In November, protests erupted in Ahwaz after ethnic Arabs accused authorities of discrimination.
#1
I find the MM fascination with tweaking the UK very interesting. Not at all sure why they're doing it, unless it's some old grievance, such as the little dustup that occurred at their London embassy - or maybe that the UK was the first of the EU3 to break off and call the sham "A sham."
The world's most notorious sponsor of international terrorism whingeing about some other country potentially abetting local festivities. This is like the Teamsters decrying government corruption. Rich.
At this point, all I am waiting for is Ahmadinejad to come up with some new outrageous proclamation that is simultaneously so incredibly offensive, patently untrue and universally repugnant that all civilized countries agree to begin hunting him down like the diseased animal that he is. Their putative "Holocaust Conference" is a hair's breadth from doing this, but I'm confident he'll come up with a real spanker that would even piss off Mother Teresa.
#7
find the MM fascination with tweaking the UK very interesting. Not at all sure why they're doing it.
They recently said it was because England is the mother of all of their problems. From England spawned the US, Australia, Canada (and they dislike New Zealand too). But England's greatest sin is that the UK is responsible for the creation Israel.
Cindy (in answer to a question):... And about Bill Clinton . . . . You know, I really think he should have been impeached, but not for a blow job. His policies are responsible for killing more Iraqis that George Bush. I don't understand why to rise to the level of being president of my country one has to be a monster. I used to say that George Bush was defiling the Oval Office, but it's been held by a long line of monsters....
#5
Trying to type
Must get image out of head .
Error error
Sterilize sterilize
Whew, ok better now. Is anyone surprised that she is trashing this country? She already trashed her son recently in a speech. Is there anybody in the world this nutball hasnt trashed? I loved it when Hillary met with her. I bet she thought they were kindred spirits that was until Hillary realized that Cindy is a raving lunatic. Its sad for the press to cover her like this anymore its like reporting the same car accident over and over again.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 17:21
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#10
Forget the blow job, she had me creeped me out by talking about her boy's virginity.
I wonder what she would think of that Blackwater video, which was filmed five days after Casey Sheehan was KIA.
Does anyone know of a link where his buddies or other family members talk about him? I am curious what they say, since his whacko mother seems to be able to stay in the blogosphere.
#11
I wonder if David Letterman will offer Bill O'Reilly an apology for making the Fox sage appear callous and cruel towards Mama Sheehan;
Letterman: "I mean honest to Christ ... attacking a mother who lost her son ... honest to Christ Bill."
#14
As much as I dislike BJ Clinton, Cindy is once again living in the alternate universe. The whole fraud about sanction related deaths has already been exposed. When some numbnuts fires that first shot of the next civil war, human waste like Cindy will indeed be living in some backwoods south american kleptocracy. Sort like a good number of former southern slave owners who ended up in Brazil after the first civil war.
#15
Sort like a good number of former southern slave owners who ended up in Brazil after the first civil war.
One of the many things I love about Rantburg is the interesting bits of information casually tossed off by posters. No wonder Brazil's slavery problem lasted until well into the 20th century de jure, and probably still goes on in the farther corners of the country even yet, de facto.
#16
History records that the migration of a few thousand southerners to Central and South America following the great unpleasantness had more to do with honour and a desire not to live under an oppressive occupying force than a love of slavery.
Richard "no snatch" Hatch, the first winner of US reality TV sensation Survivor, did not pay taxes on his $1m prize because he was greedy and a common garden variety thief, prosecutors have alleged.
Mr Hatch's lawyer claimed he was just a bumbling bookkeeper who was too busy whacking his carrot, and could not handle so much money, in closing arguments in his tax evasion trial. He was one of 16 contestants marooned on the Malaysian island of Pulau Tiga Feely Feely for the CBS show, which aired in 2000.
The jury has now begun deliberations in Providence, Rhode Island. Earlier in the trial Mr Hatch has told the court he thought the show's producers would be paying tax on his $1m winnings from the programme...I got it in writing, but my dog ate the contract.
Mr Hatch is accused of failing to pay tax on the money he won was given on Survivor in 2000, and is charged with using money earmarked for a charity on himself and his boyfriends. He shot spurted to fame as one of 16 contestants marooned on the Malaysian island of Pulau Tiga Feely Feely for the CBS show.
Accused of year 2000 tax evasion? Sorry Dickie old boy, there's only one box to ck.
#2
Don't get too excited--she IS a moonbat. From all the stuff I've read, if the Hajjis wern't out to get her, she'd be out there attacking us with Mikey Moore and company. She's just been housebroken, domesticated and mugged by reality.
Very useful things, the domesticated moonbat. Everyone should have one. They give the Hajjis even more problems than we do, and they (usualy) don't attack children.
Posted by: N guard ||
01/25/2006 20:40
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The Khomeinist regime in Iran is finally baring its teeth to the world, in the public appearances of the little fanatic, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Irans nuclear build-up has been going on for two decades, and the regime is now openly laughing at diplomatic efforts by the Europeans to make it stand down its nuclear development. In addition to a dozen smuggled Ukrainian cruise missiles, the regime is now in possession of some 25 North Korean missiles with a 2,500 km range. Paris is well within range of Tehrans WMDs, as Jacques Chirac acknowledged last week when he told Iran that terror attacks in France could lead to a nuclear response.
The paradox is that the regime is most vigorously hated by its own people, who have suffered the most. The most attractive outcome, therefore, would be a Iranian Glastnost - a quiet overthrow of the mullocracy by its own figurative children, the people of Iran, especially the educated urban dwellers. The USSR crumbled when the children of the elite stopped believing. The children of the mullahs, most of them, have long ago stopped believing. Yet they are now being governed by a creature of the Basij and the Revolutionary Guard, who proclaims himself as a true believer in a Shiite Armageddon.
Ahmadinejad is not Gorbachev, but rather Stalin or Hitler. A peaceful revolt will not work by itself, but it can be a crucial ingredient.
Iranian Glastnost will therefore not happen without external military actions to render the regime visibly impotent before its people. When the US and UK invaded Saddams Iraq, his army crumbled in the face of a brilliant ground and air assault. The Kurds had in fact already rebelled after the Gulf War a decade before, and created their own autonomous region. A decade of US air attacks, combined with famously leaky sanctions, rendered Saddams military demoralized and unable to resist coherently.
Unbeknownst to us, Saddam was bluffing, putting up a creaky but intimidating front, terrorizing his own people, and hyping his goal of getting WMDs and missiles enough to fool the CIA and every other western intelligence agency.
Saddams real plan was to fall back on the insurgency we see today. But today the insurgency is on its last legs, led by Sunni Baathists who can hope for no mercy from the new Iraq, and by al Qaeda terrorists rejected by even the Baathist terror-brothers, and prepared for martyrdom. Zarqawi, it was just reported, sleeps with a bomb belt, so as to blow himself up if he is caught. He may get his chance very soon.
The conventional story peddled by the antique media is that US action in Iraq is a failure. On the contrary, by historical standards it is an extraordinary success, as successful as the liberation of Europe in World War Two. The Iraq action therefore provides many useful lessons for a policy to isolate, contain, and undermine the Tehran regime.
Lesson One: It is essential to encourage revolution and division in Iran, with military strikes against the regimes most dangerous assets.
One way to do that is to bomb only nuclear and missile facilities, most obviously the enrichment facilities now being built up in Natanz and Isfahan. If the civilian population is untouched, the Iranian people, who have many sources of news through the internet and satellite television (including Farsi-language broadcasts from a Los Angeles-based station run by Iranian refugees), will learn to understand who is their real enemy. The domestic opponents of the regime will rejoice.
No doubt the Ahmadinejad regime will continue to disperse its WMD capabilities, but as it does so, it also must lose some control. When Saddam told one of his nuclear scientists to bury centrifuge parts in his garden, that equipment was rendered useless for the time being. Saddams WMD capacity could have been reconstituted any time the pressure came off his regime, so that the threat was only slowed, not stopped. But an aggressive US policy against Saddam actually worked much better than was generally thought at the time.
The foremost aim of military strikes against nuclear and missile facilities would be to buy time. That is what US air strikes did against Saddam, over a decade after the Gulf War. They wore down his power, often in subtle ways, but very effectively. And they gave hope to his sworn enemies the Shiites, Marsh Arabs, Kurds, expatriate Iraqis and reform-minded elements among the Sunnis.
Lesson Two: The Tehran regime should be put on notice that proxy terror attacks will evoke a direct response aimed at its centers of power and ideology.
Jacques Chirac did so effectively last week, by warning that state-sponsored terror attacks could evoke a nuclear response from France. That was the right thing to say. The political aim of nuclear weapons is not necessarily to wipe out Israel, which Ahmadinejad must know would unleash the end of his regime by massive counterstrikes. Rather, the immediate aim is to shield Tehran from retaliation when it stirs up terrorist proxies to attack Israel.
The most successful Israeli strategy has always been to find the right return address, and make the sponsors of violence pay a stiff personal price. A major aim of Tehrans nuclear policy is to make the regime invulnerable to any large-scale attack, allowing it to stir up terrorist proxy assaults at will. A major strategic aim of US policy should therefore be to prevent nuclear capability in Tehrans hands, so that it must play the proxy strategy with constant concern for its own survival.
Ahmadinejads ideological roots are among the most radical mullahs in Qom, who cannot therefore be left off a target list. Iran is dangerous not just because it will soon have nukes, but because it has the ideological will to use them. That ideology, which may be a minority view among the mullahs themselves, could be attacked directly, if necessary without leaving American fingerprints. The recent plane crash that killed the top commander of the Iranian military may be a case in point.
Lesson Three: In addition to striking military facilities, the US should encourage widespread resistance among anti-regime factions and tribal groups, and consider special ops attacks on command and control centers of the regime.
Liberal commentators say that any military action against Iran would unify the people in support of the regime. But one lesson of war is that the event is less important than the public interpretation of the event. If local military strikes on the Natanz enrichment facilities are interpreted to mean that Ahmadinejad is helpless, he will begin to lose control. If they are interpreted as a blow against Irans national pride, he may gain adherents.
It is therefore essential to spread the message that the goal of any strikes is to empower the people of Iran, even as the Iraqis have been empowered by the overthrow of Saddam.
Since a foolish and politicized US Democratic Party and its sympathizers in the media and government will leak any propaganda effort at CIA or State, the agency best qualified to do this would be the Pentagon Special Ops Command.
Lesson Four: Allied assets should be used to encourage dissent, no matter what the source.
During the Iraq invasion the German government under Herr Schroeder helped the US with intelligence, while screaming at us in public. Under Socialist President Mitterand, French intelligence helped the US against the USSR. The French gave Israel vital information needed to bomb Saddams Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981, though they had helped build it themselves.
As fear of the Tehran regime spreads, more hidden allies will appear. The threat is serious enough for us to consider the enemy of our enemy our friend, just as we did in supporting Stalin against Hitler.
Iranian expatriates are by far our best resource in persuading the people of the true aims of US and allied policy: Iranian democracy. But even countries like Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia will find it in their interest to promote revolt among Sunni tribes in Iran. None of these allies will trust others with their most vital secrets. But they might agree on weakening this fanatical and deadly regime, whether by splitting the mullahs themselves, or by encouraging tribal rebellions.
As Reuel Marc Gerecht wrote in the Weekly Standard,
The regime in Tehran constantly tells us what it fears most: clerical dissent. Why cant American officials give speeches defending religious freedom in Iran? Ali Khameneis Achilles heel is that he is a politicized, pathetic religious scholar ruling over a theocratic state where accomplished clerics, who dont believe at all in the political rule of religious jurisconsults, are silenced. This is the issue between Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq, and the school of Najaf behind him, and the clerical regime in Iran.
Perhaps Sistani owes us a favor or two for bringing his Shiite followers to power in Iraq. Perhaps he would like to control the Iranian clerics, rather than vice versa. This game can be played both ways.
There is a widespread belief that the upper grades of the CIA are useless, devoting more of their efforts to undermining the war on terror than on supporting it. The same may be true in the State Department and even the Pentagon. The administration has apparently responded by isolating useless segments of the bureaucracy, carrying out its real policies by means of smaller groups within those agencies, like the new Special Ops Command. An aggressive policy against the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons will have to rely on trustworthy US government assets.
The key therefore is to isolate the regime, showing it to by helpless against pinpoint military assaults on its most dangerous assets, while at the same time signalling the Iranian people that the West stands for their freedom.
A democratic Iran is a much safer Iran. But as Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is a sad necessity, never to be chosen lightly. But we can get Jeffersons message out to the Iranian people, because they already know it from their own experience.
#1
I foresee a different future for Iran. For unlike in Iraq, where disparate peoples are held together by being "Iraqis"; Iran is a different story altogether.
Iran is so utterly dominated by the Shiites that it is doubtful if true democracy could overcome the equivalent sickness that the Sunnis suffered from in Iraq. For on top of their feelings of religious-ethnic primarcy, the Shiites also have a popular desire and belief that they should dominate the region.
In other words, even in a true democracy, the Iranian Shiites still want nuclear weapons, regional or even world power, and "their place in the sun", as did the Japanese in WWII.
The Japanese had to be slaughtered unmercifully before this lust was broken. And if Iran were to be successful, as Japan was at the beginning, they too would have to die in their millions.
But if Iran is defeated quickly, a different solution is forthcoming: the partitioning of Iran. That its Kurdish territories become part of greater Kurdistan, still part of Iraq; its Arabic territories, almost evenly divided between Shiite and Sunni, become part of southern Iraq, or become a separate Gulf democratic-Emirate; and that Baluchistan become part of a greater Baluchistan, either as a new nation, or as an adjunct to Pakistan.
Iran, reduced in size, would still not be wholly Shiite, and it would no longer dominate the Middle East, instead be more of a partner to it. And while it might be resentful of losing much of its oil reserves, it would be far less restentful, over time, of losing huge blocs of hated and restless minorities.
#2
Other than through word of mouth, which is unreliable and could lead us into a deadly mistake, what reason do we have to believe that the majority of Iranians want to overthrow the regime? This is the popular "buzz", but how true is it? We have lived enough to know that building a policy based on gossip, no matter how widespread, is a fool's mission.
Talk to an average Iranian-see how different his view of Jews is from that of Iran's president (not very). How many millions of people live in Iran and yet they are powerless to overthrow the radical mullahs? Perhaps they don't do it because the sacrifice is viewed as something someone else should take for them (like the US) and so they will remain impassive until that happens, or perhaps in their hearts they agree with the theocracy more than we may realize?
I honestly don't know; my point is that it is difficult to guage just how much energy and commitment Iranians have for changing the status quo.
#3
The question is not the willingness of the average Iranian to overthrow the government but the willingness of the elites to continue to do what is necessary to stay in power. The Soviet Union was not overthrown from the bottom as that the hollowness of its elites was exposed by it. The MMs are still willing to do whatever is required to stay in power to do Allan's will. Fry 'em up.
This may be a double posting, my computer is really acting up lately, found this at Bros. Judd, article linked but OJ posted this below his link:
Headline:The GOP appears eager to portray the challenge to presidential authority as weakness on security. (Ronald Brownstein, January 25, 2006, LA Times)
SNIP
Here's all you really need to know about hos the terrorist surveillance program cuts politically, First Read notes that today:
[President] Bush visits the National Security Agency. Per White House spokesperson Scott McClellan, he will tour the agency and address NSA employees (including those off-site, via satellite) at 12:50 pm, then is expected to make some remarks to the press pool.
...and the White House leaked to the Washington Times that they're preparing for impeachment hearings on the issue. The President is eager to be seen defending the aggressive prosecution of the WoT and to have Democrats be seen as opposing it.
#3
There is no challenge hence no impeachment becuz the Dems can't allow Great Bill's own utility of the same rights and powers vv domestic and anti-impeachment investigation cases but NOT Dubya as per a terror attack on America which resulted in 000's of casualties, plus of course Wilson, FDR, and Truman's precedents. Both Kennedy and LBJ, etal. bugged the WH. IMHO, the WH may be promoting the Dem's and the MSM's criticisms of Dubya in order to get the Burqua Boyz to tip their hand, thus obtructing Radical Islam and saving the Demo Part, i.e. the historical value to Americans of Jefferson, Jackson, and Madison, the ones that aren't = Marx and Stalin, for the Dems. Dubya pragmatically still needs the votes as Dems, as a organz Party, are still part of the NPE and will likely stay so even for 2008.
EFL: WASHINGTON - One of the American government's most wanted terrorists visited Syria late last week with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, according to a former Reagan administration national security official and Iran watchers on Capitol Hill.
The former official, Michael Ledeen, now an author and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made the claim in an article published yesterday afternoon on the Web site of the conservative magazine National Review. Several American government officials refused to confirm that the Lebanese Hezbollah figure, Imad Mugniyah, was sighted at the meeting in Damascus last Thursday with Mr. Ahmadinejad and the Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad.
Major Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the Central Command, the military division responsible for the Middle East, said, "Central Command keeps its eyes on various terrorists and terrorist groups within the region, but would not offer any comment on the whereabouts of a particular terrorist because the information is classified."
Congressional staffers familiar with America's Iran policy, however, said yesterday that while they had not received confirmation of Mr. Mugniyah's participation in the Ahmadinejad-Assad summit from American officials, they had heard from foreign "diplomatic sources" that the terrorist was at the meeting.
Mr. Mugniyah appears on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list along with Al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the government has offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to his capture. Mr. Mugniyah, of Lebanese origin but said to be living now in Iran, is described by the FBI as the "alleged head of the security apparatus" for Lebanese Hezbollah. He was indicted by America for his role in hijacking TWA Flight 847 in June 1985, a terrorist act in which an American citizen and Navy diver, Robert Stethem, was beaten and tortured, shot in the head, and his body dumped out on the Beirut International Airport runway. Mr. Mugniyah is also linked to other attacks on Americans and reportedly has met with Mr. bin Laden.
A Washington-based Iranian exile leader and a former Iranian minister of education, Manoucher Ganji, told The New York Sun yesterday that while he had not heard of Mr. Mugniyah's purported appearance in Damascus, the purpose of the Assad-Ahmadinejad meeting was to plot against America and Israel. Mr. Ganji said it would therefore make sense for a representative of Hezbollah to be present for the discussions.
News of the alleged connections among Messrs. Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Mugniyah came amid intensifying pressure on the governments of both Syria and Iran. The Assad dictatorship finds itself embroiled in increasing calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah and intensifying scrutiny of its alleged role in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, whose death is under investigation by the United Nations.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
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#1
Imad Fayez Mugniyah
Date of birth: 1962
Place of birth: Lebanon
Height: 5'7"
Build: Unknown
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Unknown
Sex: Male
Aliases: Hajj
Characteristics: None.
Citizen: Lebanese
Status: Fugitive
Good Gawd. I hope she's not related to Dan!... Matter of fact, reading through this, I'm sure she's not...
If the U.S. government and its people want to honor Martin Luther King, Jr., they should act on his dream of a Poor Peoples March and Movement on Washington, DC for jobs, economic equality, and the redistribution of Pentagon wealth and resources that should be given to the oppressed and unfortunate.
Any particular reason for that, other than that Beverly would like to be able to hand out somebody else's property as her own largesse?
Since militarism is built into the fabric of the American society, five Amendments should, without delay, be ratified to the U.S. Constitution.
Amendments require the agreement of two thirds of the states. Merely saying that they "should, without delay" be ratified, even before being drafted, is mere vapor. What if the people of the several states don't feel like it? What if they're presented but turned down? What will Beverly do then? Rush out into the street waving a pitchfork? Or will she shut her pie hole and acknowledge that her demands are stoopid?
Amendment 28 would consist of full-employment for those wanting to work and a minimum wage of $10.50 and hour-adjusted each year in accordance with inflation.
That makes no economic sense at all, despite the fact that government periodically resets the minimum wage, and always higher. It hurts workers because to remain viable each employee must produce $10.50 an hour of value to the company, plus profit, or the employer will have to let him/her/it go. That results in earnings per hour of $0.00 for the terminated employee. Every time the minimum wage is raised, minimally productive jobs that is, starter jobs and part-time jobs disappear. Ask any shoeshine boy. Furthermore, the jobs that barely make expenses, typical of a startup small business, find themselves not quite making expenses, which causes them to go under. People like Beverly like to exhibit their generosity, rather than their good sense.
Universal and quality health care coverage-similar to what government officials have-should belong to every citizen and would be the 29th Amendment.
This, of course, comes absolutely free of charge. There's no requirement for extensive changes in the infrastructure of the health care industry and no need to dramatically raise taxes.
Affordable housing for each family, without the bondage of debt, would be the 30th Amendment.
Yeah. This also comes free. Pay no attention to anybody who tells you that housing has a per-square-foot cost that's been going up steadily and that there's only so much usable land now constrained by people live Beverly, who invented "smart growth." It'd be just wonderful if the gummint gave everybody a house. I want mine to be nicer than Beverly's, though. And nicer than yours, too.
Amendment 31 would consist of a true democratic process before the U.S. commits itself to war. The nation, as a whole, must vote with a yearly plebiscite to renew or discontinue the war effort thus keeping the military-corporate elite accountable.
What if they gave a war and nobody voted against it? Wars are usually conducted for rational reasons of national policy. The fact that you don't like war in general really doesn't govern what the rest of the body politick thinks. We have a republic, in which representatives are elected to consider the national interest and to set its program of action. The president uses the military, the State Department, the CIA, and whatever other tools might be available, to pursue that policy. If people are going to vote on the policy, they should have to take a quiz on what the policy actually is and what steps have been taken to achieve it.
The 32nd Amendment would place a moratorium on government spending for war and the initiating of any new conflicts, while recognizing every Americans right to follow their conscience-without punishment-including military duty during wartime...
(In Part II, I will discuss the numerous ways that the American Society can be reordered.)
I can hardly wait. Wonder which junior college has her as a sophomore?
#2
She forgot the most important amendment: Amendment 33, which ensures that all Americans will receive, in the color of their choosing, a flying pony.
#5
I prefer to think of it as "post-natal abortion prior to age 23."
Probably exceptions can be made on the upper limit if the life or the mental health of people coming into contact with the little darling are endangered.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006 16:32
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#6
I love the way these idiots always have a plan that should be implemented just because they say so. None of that "see what people actually want" crap for them! Democracy is a political market and the reason their plans aren't in place is that people consistently vote against them. But, of course, these twits know better, being *sniff* pure-hearted socialists *sniff*.
#10
Where do parasitic scum like Beverly get the idea that they're somehow "entitled" to goods and services at someone else's expense? Who the hell told them it's OK to leech off other people, that they have a "right" to have others provide for them?
ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 17:58
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#11
Yes Dave D. they do. I would bet she comes for a family that has instilled in her a feeling of entitlement to both wealth and being catered too. I also be she has never done a bit of real labor in her entire life.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 18:17
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#14
I think Beverly should empty bedpans at Walter Reed
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 18:57
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#15
Mebbe we can use Douglas Adams' Golgafrincham Gambit (my occasional references to the "B" Ark) and avoid CW2 - sans the virulent plague due to an unsanitized phone, of course, lol. A brilliant (per American usage) bloodless solution, though rather expensive.
#16
Ah-- a use for that Space Elevator thingie! Give a whole new meaning to the term "upward mobility"...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 19:24
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#17
And we could tell the "special" ones, such as Bev, that it's actually a really spiffy "ride" - only available to her ruling class... the best part is the "slide" back down the monomolecular support filament sans the elevator...
And I like Frank's idea, too, heh. It might be a little above her station, but I'm sure she's minimally trainable.
#18
"... the best part is the "slide" back down the monomolecular support filament sans the elevator..."
Once the little leech passes the midpoint, though, that slide becomes up, not down. Loosen the setscrews holding the anchor weight to the monofilament, and when she gets to the top she'll get a REAL thrill.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 19:44
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#19
DD - you're a madman!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 20:36
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#20
Just think of it, Frank: the "Liberals In Space" program...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 20:42
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#21
I was picturing what would happen if she tried to grab onto a monomolecular filament...
Someone give her a sash and a sparkling crown. Be sure to have kleenex ready as she wipes away her tears (don't smear the mascara) and hugs her nearest competitor.
..."The Europeans and the Americans are telling Hamas to choose between arms and parliament. We say we will go for arms and parliament and there is no contradiction between the two of them," said Ismail Haniyah, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza.
but then there is this
Carter stated that Palestinians must stop terror groups, "even including a direct military confrontation."...
and
"I hope and believe that after this election there will be an extremely strong commitment by Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] and the entire Palestinian Authority... to stamp out the last vestiges of terrorism," he said.
#3
The question arises: is the PA and Fatah so utterly corrupt that even dealing with Hamas is better?
The argument is that we can't, because Hamas hasn't renounced violence, but Fatah has. Come again?
The only faction worth dealing with is the one that can enforce its side of the deal. Fatah has proven it can't, so what is the use in even talking to them again?
#4
Carter stated that Palestinians must stop terror groups,..
Felt a need to state the glaringly obvious, did he?
"I hope and believe that after this election there will be an extremely strong commitment by Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas] and the entire Palestinian Authority... to stamp out the last vestiges of terrorism," he said.
If Mazen couldn't/wouldn't do what needed to be done before, how would he even think of disarming terrorists faced with a Hamas majority in his Parliament (a distinct possibility)?
#6
The problem is, all of the paleos organizations, including government are terrorists. The fact JC is clinging to the false belief that the government has any sort of say or sway in the matter show just how fucking stupid and delusional he is. The only military confrontation will be Israel, the US or the average guy on the Paleo street taking up arms to kill every terrorist ther is. The fact JC said "Military confrontation" isn't good. It is fucking pathetic.
#9
"It says here on Rantburg that Jimmy's tellin the Palestinians to stop doin' terrorist stuff to Israel."
"Landsakes, Miss Roslyn! Your Jimmy? He said that?"
"That's what it says."
"Well, crack mah shell an' fry me fer an egg! It's like he got replaced by an alien or somethin'. Y'all need go t' the basement an' check for pods, an' right quick about it!"
Posted by: Mike ||
01/25/2006 14:53
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#12
So, am I the only one who sees this as Carter's lame attempt to validify his own pathetic role in certifying the Palestinian elections? As in, whatever threatens his own worldview must be bad regardless of any intrinsic malignance carried forward by said entity. One can only wonder what would have been the case if he didn't have a vested interest in this.
His unwonted observations regarding terrorism are tardy by a scant few decades.
#13
this will justify him making another 28 pro-paleo slurs on Israel and Joooos - he'll claim he's "balanced"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 18:45
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#14
Or what? He'll crash another helicopter in their desert and curl up and hide in is office for, say, 444 days?
Zenster. Validate?
Posted by: Scott R ||
01/25/2006 19:58
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Zenster. Validate?
Just saying how Carter's dog in this fight is to prove that his pathetic participation in the Palestinian elections is what has finally brought him to such a moral crisis as actually condemning Hamas terrorism. Hamas threatens to topple Fatah's Habitat for Humanity house of cards and this is what has Carter's dander up.
If the 1979 embassy seizure didn't adequately arouse his moral indignation, showing it now over two-bit thugs like Hamas means sh!t to a tree.
THE South African clothing and textile industry has responded favourably to an announcement that China is to voluntarily reduce its clothing and textile exports to SA. A reduction in Chinese imports would help revive the domestic industry, said Aaron Searll, CEO of SAs biggest clothing and textile manufacturer, Seardell Investment Holdings, on Friday.
He said that clothing imports from China had risen 40% in the past nine months. It cannot be allowed to continue like this, it is overwhelming, Searll said. Chinas ambassador to SA, Liu Guijin, said on Thursday his country would limit export of garments and some textile items to SA. Searll said more clarification was required on the form the limitations would take, and whether they would mean a percentage cap on the volume of imports, as promoted by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
The industry also needs to know how long is it to be enforced for and who will enforce it, he said. The import of high-quality textiles and clothing to the South African market by China has put increasing strain on the domestic manufacturing industry, leading to the demise of a number of companies, including KwaZulu-Natals largest textile manufacturer, Whiteheads.
The company, which closed its doors at the end of 2004, blamed cheap imports from India, China, Pakistan and Indonesia for a R200m loss in turnover in the last two years that it operated.
Clothing company Rex Trueform said in its annual report last year that highly competitive trading conditions in the industry resulted in larger-than-expected losses in manufacturing, which in turn resulted in retrenchments at all levels. Despite the massive job losses, which Searll put at 60000 in the past four years, he said the curb in imports would benefit the sector. Executive director of the Textile Federation of SA, Brian Brink, said he was not aware of the exact terms of the Chinese offer.
I do not know what has been negotiated, although every little bit would help, he said.
Brink said that the WTO agreement in which members are allowed to limit Chinese textiles and clothing imports to 7,5% a year of the current level of imports until 2008 was one possibility. Brink said he doubted the Chinese would stick to the particular limit as it was not a binding figure.
I feel that it was a bit of a pre-emptive move by the Chinese as the announcement was made by them instead of SA. The trade and industry department set up a task team in April 2004 to investigate the industrys need for protection against Chinese imports. The share prices of Rex Trueform, Seardell Holdings and Adonis Knitwear were unchanged at the close of the JSE on Friday.
"It had originally been your plan to put a bomb in the 34th Street subway station?" Brooklyn Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Harrison asked Pakistani-born defendant Shahawar Matin Siraj in federal court.
"Yes, that's correct," Siraj, 23, sniffed nonchalantly. The suspect then gave similar responses to a string of questions about his alleged mastermind role in the potentially devastating terror scheme.
Siraj was busted in August 2004, just days before the Republican National Convention at Madison Square Garden, above the hub for the transit system around Herald Square. Siraj also allegedly devised an elaborate scheme to launch bloody attacks on two other Manhattan subway stations, the Verrazano Bridge, Staten Island police station houses and a jail "to teach these bastards a good lesson," according to court papers.
Siraj and an alleged accomplice were reportedly incensed over the U.S. prisoner-abuse scandal at the now-infamous Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq. Thank you, media.
The suspect who had been living as an illegal alien in Jackson Heights, Queens, at the time proclaimed he was "ready for jihad," the papers said. The alleged fiend was foiled after a confidential informant identified by Siraj's lawyer as an Egyptian man named Osama Doaudi caught Siraj and his accomplice, James El Shafay, on video and audiotape discussing the meticulous plot. Finally, an Osama we can like.
Doaudi, working for the feds, first approached Siraj at his uncle's Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, sometime in 2004, authorities said. Bay Ridge? Used to be heavily Scandanavian. My folks were born there. My grandparents are now spinning in their graves.
A video even catches the trio driving by Penn Station on a reconnaissance mission and talking about what type of backpacks they should use to carry bombs, according to Siraj's lawyer, Martin Stolar.
Stolar argued that the case was clearly based on entrapment. Siraj claimed that after his bust, a federal agent told him he would be meeting with a "prosecutor" and "said they would help you if you told the truth. "I never used this word 'prosecutor' before," Siraj insisted. "I thought he was my lawyer. That's why I speak to him. I was shocked, stressed, confusion." Well, it's not the government's fault if you don't know what "prosecutor" means. Ignorance of the law, etc. Interesting, though. What he's pretty much saying is, "I spilled everything about the plot because I thought the guy was my public defender, and they'd never be able to use it against me." Ooops!
#1
"Bay Ridge? Used to be heavily Scandanavian. My folks were born there. My grandparents are now spinning in their graves."
hasnt been mainly Scandinavian in years, though theres still Lutheran old folks home, I think. When i grew up nearby, it was mainly Irish and Italian. I havent been to Bay Ridge lately, but have been to Sunset Park, which is mainly Chinese, Dominican, and muslim - recall Atlantic Avenue has been muslim for some time (theres also a big Bangladeshi concentration over at Church avenue) So I guess BR has become heavily Chinese and Muslim.
#2
The suspect who had been living as an illegal alien in Jackson Heights, Queens, at the time proclaimed he was "ready for jihad," the papers said.
Thank-you immigration enforcement.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/25/2006 13:34
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#3
"I never used this word 'prosecutor' before," Siraj insisted.
Here's a hint: If you can't understand the basic elements of a country's language, and don't understand their legal system, don't go there and break the law.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/25/2006 13:35
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#4
"I never used this word 'prosecutor' before," Siraj insisted.
Yes, ideed, ignorance of the common language can make understanding a bit difficult. That's why I always carried a pocket dictionary or two with me when I lived abroad. Such an idiot deserves to be caught.
Senator Clinton's emergence as the early and perhaps prohibitive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 is fueling anxiety among Democratic strategists and operatives who are worried she would lose to a Republican in the general election. Recent polling underscores some of those worries. In a CNN/USA Today/ Gallup poll made public yesterday, 51% of voters said they would definitely not vote for Mrs. Clinton if she chooses to run for president in 2008. In a separate nationwide poll conducted this month for a spirits company, Diageo, and a political newsletter, the Hotline, 44% of all voters and 19% of self-described Democrats said they viewed the New York senator unfavorably.
According to Democratic Party insiders, such numbers are adding to skittishness about Mrs. Clinton's potential candidacy. "There are a lot of people who are conventional Democrats ideologically who think she can't win, and we're caught in this bind where she's unstoppable and therefore our goose is essentially cooked," a Democratic consultant and former aide to Senator Lieberman, Dan Gerstein, said.
A former chairman of the South Carolina Democratic Party, Richard Harpootlian, is among those who will own up to such misgivings. "Mrs. Clinton, because of some positions she has taken over the years, gets a visceral reaction to her here, both negative and positive. I'm afraid around the South and Midwest the visceral reaction is not good," he told The New York Sun.
Hillary brings out the "crawl naked over broken glass to vote against her" in people.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
10:17 ||
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#1
After the Dems' behavior over the last 5 years, it shouldn't even come down to whether or not people like Clinton. I want the "Democrat" Party to go the way of the Whigs.
#3
Harpootlian and the dems "skittish" have misgivings? Homophobia strikes again! Slick was the first "Black" president, Hillary can easily become the first... well, er uh...
#4
The Kos/Atrios/DU/Soros Angry Left is slowly but surely taking control of the Democratic Party. In 2004, they could control the buzz enough to make Howard Dean the apparent frontrunner, but didn't have the infrastructure to turn buzz into votes. Since the Dems are a more hierarchical organization than the Republicans--they give far more power to party bosses, even to the point of making them automatic convention delegates--and the Clintonistas controlled the infrastructure, and they wanted Kerry instead of Dean or Weasel Clark, so, amazingly enough, Kerry won the nomination.
Since then, the Angry Left has taken control of the party infrastructure (Chairman Dean, etc.). In 2008, they'll be the ones running the show, in ways that they couldn't dream of four years previously. They remember what Hillary! did to them last time around, and they can't forgive her for her hawkish stance on the war.
Me, I'm gonna make popcorn and watch the red-on-red fratricide from a safe distance.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/25/2006 10:57
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#5
I love the hillderbeast!
She's a GOP dream come true!
#6
How will she get the Cindy Sheehan vote when Gore runs? Especially after she's has staked ground to the right of Bush on Iran. Nice Triangulation, LOL!
Clinton, Kerry, Gore.....
Better Mickey Moore and Belafonte get seats of honor at the convention.
#7
Hillary brings out the "crawl naked over broken glass to vote against her" in people.
You got that right Steve! I have always sent campaign money to my state and local pols at election time but I never sent money (other than for President) to a candidate outside of California. That is, until Hillary ran for Senate in 2000. I sent money to Rick Lazio. I couldn't wait to write the check. I got a bunch of other people to send money too. Hillary's negatives are so high I think it would be suicide for the Dems to nominate her. The only way she can win is if the Repubs put up a "non-candidate" like they did with Bob Dole in 96.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 14:41
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#12
A question to fellow Ranters:
Aren't the KOS Kids, Moveon.org folks etc. breaking the law when they take over the Democratic Party? I thought the whole point of a "527" was they couldn't participate in party politics. Otherwise it was an tax violation. Shouldn't these guys be liable for millions of $ in taxes?
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
01/25/2006 16:37
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#13
"The Kos/Atrios/DU/Soros Angry Left is slowly but surely taking control of the Democratic Party."
I dunno, Mike; seems to me more like, "...have taken control of the Democratic Party with lightning speed".
I really don't think most rank-and-file Democrats understand yet how thoroughly the extreme Left has taken over the Party; many don't even have a clue it's happened at all.
I myself began to wake up in the late 90's, and switched parties-- after three decades as a Donk-- a couple of years ago. And after what I've seen since 9/11, I will NEVER vote for another Democrat, ever again, for any public office high or low-- no matter what.
And now I'm beginning to wonder whether America can afford to even let these evil bastards run around free.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 18:16
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#14
The Hildabeast is much too 'moderate' for the Democratic 'mainstream' to get the nomination. I'm expecting them to pick Cindy Sheehan or maybe Cynthia McKinney.
#15
I tell ya' Dave D. as a lifetime Republican I lament the loss of real Liberal Democrats that would offer credible opposition. I'm glad to see you come on over; however, I still miss credible opposition.
#16
TomAnon: google up John F. Kennedy's inaugural address and read it. Then try to imagine any of today's Democrats-- ANY of them-- uttering those words.
I couldn't. So I left.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/25/2006 20:47
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#17
Cindy/Cindy 2008!
Now there's an image ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006 21:15
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#18
Like many on the Net I believe Y2006 vv the Rogues/WOT will decide what Der Waffen SS Marx/StalinMaterfrau does for 2008. Save MSM-verif Bush/GOP-blamed nuke mushroom clouds over US cities and or US Milfors oversea vv "brinkmanship", Hillary's got nuthin - her "MEN BAD, WOMEN GOOD", Absolute Political Neutralism = Absolute Truth/Reality, hyper-correct MSM strategems are not getting her anywhere. Other than new casualty-intesive 9-11's events by the Spetzlamists, only Dubya himself admitting to being complicit or ordering 9-11 or Y2000 elex fraud can save her POTUS ambitions for 2008. The DemoLefties know it - anti-US War(s) and Cold War-style nuke "brinkmanship" are all they hsve left.
WHITE HALL, Ark. (AP) -- The Army stepped up security at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, where chemical weapons are stored, after three people entered a restricted zone, officials said Wednesday. The measures were a precaution after the intrusion at what is known as the Bond Road Exclusion area, part of a forested federal preserve 30 miles south of Little Rock.
Officials didn't know what the three people were doing there, spokeswoman Cheryl Avery said. "We are still assessing the situation," Avery said. She didn't say when the people entered the property or if they had left.
Thanks, Cheryl. That makes me feel so much better
Other than the enhanced security, operations were continuing as normal, officials said.
The Pine Bluff Arsenal stores 12 percent of the military's chemical weapons, which include nerve gas and mustard gas. It is the nation's second largest stockpile. The materials are being incinerated, and officials have said that will take about five years to complete.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
10:09 ||
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#1
Cheryl is on flex-time and had to leave before all of the reporting came in, and she is off today and tomorrow as well by the way... (compensatory time of course).
#2
and she is off today and tomorrow as well by the way
And Friday the office will be closed for training...
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006 10:31
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#3
When thinking of impossibly hard targets, attacking Pine Bluff Arsenal rates right up there with busting Fort Knox. I don't even know where to begin listing how stupid and impossible that would be.
Getting through several high-security fences, past an s-load of killer "Ken" androids, blowing open an underground storage facility door, just so you can steal a few leaky storage containers; which you then have to get out without getting contaminated, shot, shot some more, and through those fences again before every armed soldier and policeman in 200 miles bears down on your ass.
#4
Looks like Cheryl should be taken off phone duty. These sites are hardened and Mouse is right, getting in would be one thing, Getting out alive is an all together different story.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 10:43
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#5
"Well Glenn, I ain't lost damit! Says here we're still in Area 19, but that deer you shot ain't followin a map. It's gittin late, what you say we have a snort of that Jack and just hold up here in this ole bunker till morning.....?"
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran on Wednesday accused Britain of cooperating with bombers who killed eight people in the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Tuesday. In my dreams
"Their (British) co-operation, either in London or Basra, is clear and we will seriously express this to British officials," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference. Seething to be delivered in person
"Yesterday's murders in Ahvaz were committed by those who proudly have their photographs taken with British officials. They enjoy the cooperation of British army commanders and use their facilities in Basra," he added.
"We hope British officials take this seriously, put it on their agenda and act accountably."
Britain has in the past denied any involvement with similar attacks in the region, which has seen intermittent rioting by the Islamic Republic's Arab minority who complain of discrimination by Tehran.
Pop star Michael Jackson took a shopping trip to a Bahrain mall Wednesday, covering himself in a black abaya robe traditionally worn by Bahraini women and a veil hiding his face, along with three children _ apparently his _ with their faces covered with dark scarves.
An abaya? Who's surprised?
Jackson, who seems to be settling in the Persian Gulf, was seen leaving Marina Mall in the Bahrain capital, holding a child by the hand. On the way out through a back door, he shook hands with security guards.
He was wearing an abaya, a robe with long sleeves, under which his pants, white shirt and men's shoes could be seen, and his head and face were wrapped in a black veil. He had black gloves on his hands. The veil, abaya and gloves were of a style typically worn by conservative Bahraini women, though Jackson appeared to be wearing them to hide his identity.
Or because it makes him feel pretty.
With him was woman _ also in an abaya and jeans and a scarf over her head that partially covered her face _ who had the two other children. All three children's faces were wrapped in black scarves, and they wore yellow shirts and sweatpants or khakis without robes. The woman's identity was not known. The woman asked photographers to respect their privacy saying they are scaring the children, as the five left in a White Lexus Infinity with darkened glass.
Since his June acquittal on child molestation charges, Jackson has made several trips to Bahrain as a guest of Sheik Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the son of Bahrain's king. It has been reported that he was negotiating a position as a consultant with a Bahrain-based company that plans to set up theme parks and music academies in the Middle East, according to a press release, earlier this month. AAJ Holdings Ltd., owned by Ahmed Abu Bakr Janahi, said it wants to hire 47-year-old Jackson to give advice on setting up entertainment businesses. He is reportedly building a home in Bahrain, an island nation in the Persian Gulf linked to Saudi Arabia by a bridge.
In November, Jackson stirred a small controversy in the United Arab Emirates by entering the ladies room in a shopping mall. His publicist said Jackson, who arrived in Dubai as the guest of a champion rally driver, did not understand the Arabic sign on the door and left the bathroom as soon as he realized his mistake. But local newspapers reported that the 47-year-old performer was spotted applying make-up in the woman's toilets in a Dubai mall. Jackson's host, Mohammed bin Sulayem, dismissed the story as rumor.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
10:01 ||
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I hope his latest, "Moon-Walking in Manama" is a very, very loooooooong playing album.
#2
Two dozen men arrested in Sharjah after a gay wedding were given symbolic lashings meant to humiliate, not inflict pain and then released from jail, said prominent Emirati lawyer.
#5
Vocal training to sound like a woman, plastic surgery to look like a woman, female clothing to dress like a woman ...
All that remains is removing that atrophied set of genitals and no one will be able to tell anymore. This f&%kwit is so twisted he uses a corkscrew for a ruler.
SIERRA BLANCA, Texas: Texas law enforcement officers faced off with men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers and apparent drug suspects near the U.S.-Mexican border Tuesday, after three SUVs attempted to flee state authorities, officials said. Andrea Simmons, an agency spokeswoman in El Paso, told The Associated Press that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers chased three SUVs, believing they were carrying drugs, to the banks of the Rio Grande during Monday's incident. Men dressed in Mexican military uniforms or camouflage were on the U.S. side of the border in Texas, she said. Simmons said the FBI was not involved and referred requests for further details to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., reported Tuesday that the incident included an armed standoff involving the Mexican military and suspected drug smugglers. The incident follows a story in the Bulletin on Jan. 15 that said the Mexican military had crossed into the United States more than 200 times since 1996. In a news conference, Rick Glancey of the Texas Border Sheriff's Coalition, said three Hudspeth County deputies and at least two Texas Department of Public Safety troopers squared off against at least 10 heavily armed men from the Mexican side of the Rio Grande.
U.S. officials who pursued three fleeing SUVs to the Mexican border saw what appeared to be a Mexican military Humvee help one of the SUVs when it got stuck in the river, he said. When that didn't work, a group of men dressed in civilian clothes started unloading what appeared to be bundles of marijuana from the SUV, and the stuck vehicle was then torched, he said. A second SUV had a flat tire and was left behind in the United States and its occupant ran across the border, he said. Glancey said he could not confirm whether the armed men seen at the site were Mexican Army, police officers, or drug dealers, and would not detail what markings deputies may have seen on the men's uniforms or the Humvee.
Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department said that Mexican army personnel had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border, the Daily Bulletin newspaper reported earlier. "It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Doyal said. "When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us." Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West, whose officers were involved in a similar incident last year, said he is certain that Mexican authorities know who was involved.
After the newspaper reported on Mexican military crossings earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the report was overblown and most of the incursions were just mistakes. In eastern California, Arizona and New Mexico, the U.S.-Mexico border is largely unmarked. But in Texas, the Rio Grande separates the two countries and even when dry, is a riverbed about 200 feet wide.
In November, Doyal said Border Patrol agents in the border town of Fort Hancock called for help after confronting more than six men dressed in Mexican military uniforms. The men allegedly were trying to bring more than three tons of marijuana across the Rio Grande, Doyal told the newspaper.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
09:53 ||
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FBI was not involved and referred requests for further details to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Classic "not my job" syndrone from the Federal Bureau of Idiots. Maybe someone will do something about it when the bastards finally bivuac in Crawford Texas.
#3
Sorry, sherrif, but it don't count without pictures and air time for the pix. The only way that will happen is if when the LegacyMedia figures out that it can use this to beat Bush over the head, and distract the peasants from the sucesses in the GWOT.
BTW, I heard this story mentioned on NPR this morning, so there is hope that it may get air time. I hope the Sherrif gets some dramatic video and leaks it to the press.
While I don't want anyone to get hurt, It will probly take a dramatic shooting on tape to get a serious response.
Posted by: N guard ||
01/25/2006 10:10
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#4
Texas law enforcement officers faced off with men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers and apparent drug suspects near the U.S.-Mexican border Tuesday, after three SUVs attempted to flee state authorities, officials said. Andrea Simmons, an agency spokeswoman in El Paso, told The Associated Press that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers chased three SUVs, believing they were carrying drugs, to the banks of the Rio Grande during Monday's incident. Men dressed in Mexican military uniforms or camouflage were on the U.S. side of the border in Texas, she said.
Why is this seemingly being treated as a "law enforcement" problem? Members of another country's military forces may be involved here, and that means OUR armed forces need to be called in. IMMEDIATELY.
After the newspaper reported on Mexican military crossings earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the report was overblown and most of the incursions were just mistakes.
#8
Let's see 200 incursions by Mexican Soldiers into our country since 1996...really? Three mounted machine guns 200 yards within our border...hmmm. " The incident has been "overblown" and most of the incursions were "accidental". Perhaps a wall between checkpoints that is 20 feet high with razor wire on top with a "no-mans" zone laced with mines could fix this...yes? Have you ever heard of the Berlin Wall? If nothing else it was effective!
#9
It's like Bigfoot, no one's gonna believe you saw one till you produce a body.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006 10:32
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#10
Under Rummey's restationing plans the 1st Armored Division is headed to Ft. Bliss, EL Paso, Tx. The 1st Cav remains at Ft Hood, Tx. All with veterans from the Iraq theater of operations. Which bears remarkable resemblance to the terrain and culture of Northern Mexico, drug lords=clans and corrupt brutal local officials. Note well, that many of our folk do speak the local language. Hola.
#11
In other news, 1945 Berlin was totally surrounded by men dressed in Red Army uniforms shooting at men dressed in Wehrmacht uniforms....
_________________
"If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck....its probably a duck."
#12
The article failed to note the Mexicans had 50 caliber machine guns to use against 5 with rifles from the sheriff's department. If they won't use the necessary military, maybe we should take the White Fence gang member in the CNN interview up on the offer to "protect the 'hood'"?
#13
Governor Perry can solve this quickly. Activate a company of the Texas National Guard, and do some realistic training in counter-terrorism/insurgency ops along the border. Do a week of training, activate another company, lather, rinse, repeat. The NG units will get good training to complement what they've learned in Iraq, and you won't find a Mexican 'military' unit within five miles of their location on the border.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006 11:25
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#14
When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first?
One sniper with a 300 Winmag and the event is over. As with most ambushes he who shoots first wins. Lets get on with this, pop a Mex Army troop on US soil and show him to the world and it will end. We are being way to PC on this issue.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 11:31
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#10 has it right. The North American Command is quietly preparing for ground opns as well as air/space defense and marine detection of ships with iffy cargos.
MEXICO CITY - A Mexican government commission will distribute at least 70,000 maps showing highways, rescue beacons and water tanks in the Arizona desert to curb the death toll among illegal immigrants.
The National Human Rights Commission, a government-funded agency with independent powers, denied that the maps would encourage illegal immigration. Officials said they would help guide those in trouble to rescue beacons and areas with cell phone reception. The maps will also show the distance a person can walk in the desert in a single day.
"We are not trying in any way to encourage or promote migration," said Mauricio Farah, one of the commission's national inspectors. "The only thing we are trying to do is warn them of the risks they face and where to get water, so they don't die."
#20
A Mexican government commission will distribute at least 70,000 maps showing highways, rescue beacons and water tanks in the Arizona desert to curb the death toll among illegal immigrants.
"Included on the maps is a route labeled 'Jose Minh Trail'."
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/25/2006 13:32
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#21
Bush is normally a good man, but every now and then he pulls his ass over his head. No more Bush's in the White House for me. When this one's gone, then real conservatives only, please.
#22
"Mexican army personnel had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border"
What an outrage, and worse yet that our government is allowing this to occur. We need to stop this PC attitude, and take back our land.
Oh and Steve, while backpacking in the Pacific Northwest many years ago, I saw bigfoot's footprint embedded into an old dried up riverbed. If we see remnants of these activities on our side of the border, use it.
Posted by: Jan ||
01/25/2006 13:46
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#23
We're going to have to militarize our borders, or we're going to have some real problems in the not too distant future. The Border Patrol is worthless - it's a "police officer" approach to a military problem. We need something along the lines of the Swiss Army Border Guards units. We also need to plant 3" steel pipes 10 feet into the ground, with another six feet sticking up, painted red, white, and blue, three feet inside the US border. Put a big sign on it in six languages: "This sign is three feet inside the US boundary. Further intrusion into the US without proper clearance and approval may result in the immediate death of any wanderer." Build a road six feet beyond the poles. Build small garrisons every 100 miles along the border, each capable of supporting 60 Border Guards and their equipment. Equipment should include Strykers, Bradley APCs, armored Hummvees, trucks and other support vehicles. Patrol the border with Predator or similar aircraft, helicopter gunships, and mounted ground patrols. If you catch illegal immigrants, drive them back across the border. Make sure there are fewer of them going back across as came across the first time. Tie the bodies of those that don't make it to the border poles.
It will take seven or eight divisions of border guards: two for the Mexican border, two for the border between the US and Canada from Lake Superior to the Pacific, one for the border between the US and Canada from Lake Superior to the Atlantic, one for the US/Canadian border with Alaska, one in reserve that could be used as back-up in case of an emergency, or that could be deployed along either the east or west coast, and one training/support division.
This mess can be stopped, but only if we get serious about doing it. The American people, especially bloggers, websites, places like Rantburg and LGF, could make this an issue in the next elections, if we push hard enough. It's time to put an end to "business as usual" and blatant stupidity.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 15:13
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#24
I agree, where's the 'contract with America' ?
Item one, close the borders. Let's write the contract and present it to campaigners for their signature. We know who to vote for.
#25
There are several technologies that can/should be deployed that will minimize the need for large numbers of troops. They can include non-lethal as well as lethal force. Integrated systems that include these features are already designed with fully operational and tested components. This is not a tough nut to crack, it just takes the backbone and dollars to do it.
#26
I did see video of this incident on over-the-air network TV last night. It was on the local Univision network station -- all in Spanish. (I don't understand the language, but some of those Univision reporter babes are hot.) There was no live action video of the incident, but there was video of the burnt out SUV being hauled out of the Rio, the unloading of drug bales, a fairly long video interview with a Spanish-speaking member of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's department, all within a few hours of the incident.
#27
And where's my afternoon latte, and my pony, and that billionaire trainee job I demanded? Goddamnit, Bush, you fucking slacker. Don't you know MY agenda is the only agenda? When I say "Jump!" you say "How high, Master?" When I say "Snap to it!" you'd better, by God, get on the Lickety-Split Express! I'll show you - I'll never vote for you again!
Sheesh. Grab some perspective, puhfuckingleeze. There's this buncha crooks and cowards called the US Congress, and this inconvenient bit of fluff called the Constitution, and other similarly inconvenient shit. Reality's a bitch.
#28
Lessee...
a) The drug traffickers are disguised as Mexian Army.
b) The drug traffickers are using elements within the real Mexican Army to shield them.
c) The drug traffickers ARE the real Mexican Army.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 19:01
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#30
I am reminded of a Brother Dave Gardner routine. He was around during the Cuban Missile Crisis and pointed out that Cuba was a problem: we had all sorts of intercontinental clout we could call upon, but Cuba? We didn't have anything that would "go that short". But he posited that the Mississippi National Guard in a flatbed wagon could take Cuba down, if we'd just turn 'em loose. I think he mentioned we should tell them that there were lots of squirrels 'n such in Cuba, too, but it was a long time ago, so I could be mistaken.
If Gov Perry wasn't in Iraq, we'd be hearing his ideas right now. He won't wait for any Federal assistance, he'll just do what he figures needs doing with what he has at hand. I do like CS's "1 incursion 1 Ranger" post, lol. Perry has lots of assets and will put some major hurt on these turds. Supposedly, the Mexican Govt has now directed all of their Army units to stay at least 3 miles from the border without direct authorization. We'll see. When Perry gets back, he'll ramp up something effective. He's organized, not askeered to act, and honestly loves this shit, lol. Recall his immediate Katrina response, since his people were actually paying attention and not relying on the Feds for anything. Compare and contrast with the Dhimmis on both sides.
#31
It was the Mexican Army. A Hummer with 50 cal Browning, others with government issue rifles, offical governmment transportation. Not something you can just casually pick up in Mexico. Photographic evidence. It's a "provication" to be sure.
#32
The Lefties will of course vote for everything before voting against everything - STAY ARMED, AND STAY VERY VERY V-E-R-Y WELL ARMED, EQUIPPED, AND READY. "TRUST BUT VERIFY", and "PEACE THRU STRENGTH".
#33
This shit has been going on for more than 25 years. All the locals know it. The local police should not have to face off against these Federales. That should be done by US Army. Put two Cobras at Bliss and two at Huachuca. These can produce dismembered bodies from 5 kilometers. Turn them loose and cut these bastards to sheds a couple of times. Let their rotting carcases lay out there until the sky gets black with buzzards. They'll never try it again
January 25, 2006: The UN appears to get getting tired of peacekeeping missions that drag on. Now there is more talk at the UN in favor of Peace Enforcement operations. For example, when the UN finally decided to do the Peace Enforcement thing in Sierra Leone, the whole business was cleared up in a couple of weeks. Such strong arm tactics are also working in Congo, where peacekeepers have been turned loose on militias that have long opposed settling down.
The UN has long been reluctant to engage in peace making, partly for philosophical and PR reasons, and partly for practical ones. The sad fact is that few countries have troops capable of the professionally executed operations required for peace making. To shut down troublemakers, you have to move fast, otherwise you get bogged down in low level violence that favors the irregulars. Everyone knows that a few thousand American, British or French troops could go into these areas and shut down the armed gangs that pass for armies in these crises areas. That's what happened in Sierra Leone (where British troops did the work.) These troops have the advantage of training, leadership, and rapid transportation (high tech armored vehicles or helicopters and other aircraft.) There are also second rank forces, like Bangladesh and Pakistan, which will go in on foot and clean out all but the most hard core warlord forces. But nations with competent troops, are not keen on sending a lot of them off to work for the UN.
gee, can't imagine why ...
... which is why we get the mighty Uruguayans instead ...
Pakistan and Bangladesh have contributed 17,000 troops to UN peacekeeping efforts, and are unable to provide many more. The Western nations note that whenever they send troops to these peacekeeping missions, the troops are often stuck on the job for years and years (like the Balkans).
The UN is trying to work out a deal whereby the first rate troops go in and shut down the warlords, followed by less capable forces to do the usual peacekeeping. While there is a lot of international support for this, the few nations possessing the shock troops, are not as enthusiastic. They dont trust the UN to use their highly trained troops in a responsible manner. The UN leadership has long been known for its corruption and incompetence, and that is not expected to change anytime soon.
There is a simple answer to this problem, contract the shock troop role out to a private professional organization.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
09:44 ||
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#1
Gosh, you mean you can't just give them food and money and stuff and get them to do what you want out of pure gratitude? I... I don't know what to say, this rocks my whole worldview.
With a growing base of satisfied customers, we will continue to enhance our reputation of responsiveness, professionalism, and excellence. We stand ready to offer this exceptional and talented group of men and women to assist you in meeting organizational requirements.
#4
There was a commercial outfit, Executive Action, if I recall correctly, which was doing this in an African country. Big howls of mercenaries and bad-bad from the UN. Maybe now they'll grasp the value of a commercial model with a definitive contract as having practical value. Instead of using national 'merc' who are used to generate income for some local dictator or authoritarian or cash strapped civil government providing less than quality troops now. But then again, it means you have to give up buggering little children too. That may quickly end the UN's interest in contracting out.
#11
There was a commercial outfit, Executive Action, if I recall correctly, which was doing this in an African country. Big howls of mercenaries and bad-bad from the UN.
Sierra Leone
Posted by: James ||
01/25/2006 12:50
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#12
Dubya's critics are still doing their all to maintain the OWG cannon barrage ags poor little Fort Sumter - in 1861 the then Union Commander did his best not to antagonize North-South relations by NOT firing back; ditto for Clintonian Fascist = Communist Amerika for anything and ags anyone vv the WOT. When it comes to 2008 DUbya and the GOP are hated Hitlerists and Nazis; when it comes to Dubya and USA spreading alleged Global/Universal Socialism-Governmetism, Amerikan and Bushite Fascists = mere De-Regulated/Limited Communists, Limited Totalitarianists, Lim Regulators, Empirists, etal. pro-Left "silent/shadow" labels. IMPERFECT ERROR-PRONE DISHONORABLE UNRELIABLE, ETC. ANTi-SALAD MALE BRUTE AMERIKA WINS THE WAR(S) OVERSEAS BUT LOSES IT AT HOME ERGO WILL STILL LOSE IT BOTH OVERSEAS + LOSE AT HOME. I.E STILL LOST ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING TO OWG AND COMMIE ASIA.
January 25, 2006: Many counter-terrorism operators are becoming expert in the complexities of Islamic theology. Partly, this is due to there being over fifty different sects in Islam. Only a few of these sects back Islamic terrorism. Its well known that the Wahhabi sect, from Saudi Arabia, is one of the most conservative and intolerant forms of Islam. What is less well known is that there are several different versions of the Islamic scriptures, the Koran, in circulation. Some of them are more conducive to aggression and terrorism than others. The original version of the Koran, created in the early days of the Prophet Mohammeds religious life, was a lot mellower than any subsequent version. Once Islam began to spread rapidly, often via the use of force, another version of the Koran appeared, one that was more agreeable to the use of violence in spreading Islam, and dealing with non-believers (infidels).
Things got worse in the 18th century, when the Wahhabis revised interpretations of the Koran to incorporate more inflammatory and violent examples of what Allah intended for the faithful to do while spreading the faith and dealing with infidels. The rhetoric got jacked up still more in the 1920s, when social critic, and Islamic radical, Sayyid Qutb tweaked the scripture once more. The Wahhabis admired Qutbs work. Unfortunately for the Egyptian Qutb, his countrymen did not, and he was condemned to death in 1966. But by then, the Wahhabis were the beneficiaries of a growing flood of oil money. If was considered virtuous for wealthy Saudis to contribute to religious charities, nearly all of them run by Wahhabis. Much of the money was used to establish pro-Wahhabi mosques overseas, run by clerics who could be trusted to preach the Koran as followers of Wahhab and Qutb saw it. This went largely unnoticed in the West until the 1990s. The full import of this bloodthirsty version of Islam became apparent to even the slow learners on September 11, 2001.
While Wahhabi Islam may not be very tolerant, most other sects are. Counter-terrorism efforts are now directed towards convincing the majority of Moslems, those who dont subscribe to Wahhabism, to openly condemn this pro-terrorist movement. This approach is having increasing success. Even many Saudis are having second thoughts about blindly following Wahhabi interpretations of the Koran. The true face of Islamic terrorism is losing whatever luster it ever had, and many Moslems are seeing the connection between the murderous violence, and the hate filled theology of Qutb and the Wahhabis.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
09:34 ||
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#2
While the Wahhabis are the widest source of Islamoterrorism today they are not the only source.
The Shia in Iran terrorize Christians, bahai and sunnis.
Non wahabbi (although Salafist) sunnis are responsible for the massacres in Dafar and were responsible for the east Timor massacres and the Armenian massacres.
And of course the worst of such massacres were the 8 centuries of Jihad against Hindus and Bhuddists in south Asia.
#6
You simply can't blame all this on the Wahhabis.
What mhw said.
Even the Sufis (loved by LLLs as peaceful, touchy-feely mystics) had their jihad killing spree. I don't have time right now, but I'll try to dig up a link to corroborate.
#7
Google "Sufi" and "jihad" and you'll find a surfeit of good information. It looks like Sufism may well be a mystical version of Sunni Islam, but violent jihad against non-Muslims is central to that mysticism. And, "humiliation of the kufr is the honour of Islam," according to one of Sufism's main theologians.
#8
The Ismaili (a Shia splinter group dating from early in Islam) and the Ahmadiyya (fairly recent Sufi splinter group which also incorporates a bit of hinduism and bits of other stuff) come pretty close to being non violent.
#9
could've sworn Mo's word was untranscribable in other than his original meaning and word, according to Allan and the Imam du jour. Infidels!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 21:07
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#10
You simply can't blame all this on the Wahhabis.
Hey, we can try. It's not as if they are totally undeserving of blame and if ever there was a particular body of flaming @ssholes to make an example out of, it would be them.
#1
small note: "et al" means "and others", referring to people (Jerry Garcia, et al, of The Grateful Dead). "et cetera (etc.)" means "and also", referring to other things in the same category.
"i.e." means "that is", and "e.g." means "for example."
DEBKA: Our Exclusive Palestinian sources report: Fear of defeat at the polls in Wednesdays general election brought feuding Fatah leaders Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan and Jibril Rajub together and led them to a consensual decision: not to accept defeat. In places where the vote goes against Fatah, balloting will be forcibly halted. To avoid disrupting the entire electoral process for 1.3 million eligible Palestinian voters, Fatah will interfere in only a select number of the 1,008 voting stations in the West Bank and Gaza.
The two-three hours from 14:00 to 17:00 are thought to be the critical. By then the local Fatah activists should have a good idea which way the wind is blowing. If rival parties including Hamas are seen to be pulling ahead, those activists will find ways to stop the voting, whether by starting a fight, setting the booth on fire or spraying the surrounding streets with gunfire. No one can tell whether Hamas, which has heard about the Fatah decision, will fight back or tell its people to back away from clashing with Fatah.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
08:09 ||
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#1
It hard to lose when you're the ones counting the votes.
Thousands of anti-globalisation protesters have marched through the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, at the start of the World Social Forum. The protesters shouted anti-war slogans and many of them carried banners criticising US President George W Bush.
Any puppets? Can't have a rally without giant puppets
The annual meeting is seen as an ideological alternative to the World Economic Forum, attended by business leaders in the Swiss resort of Davos. Delegates will discuss fair trade, debt forgiveness and indigenous rights. The country's President, Hugo Chavez, is attending the six-day forum.
Some 10,000 people from 54 countries joined the anti-war march in Caracas. Peace activist Cindy Sheehan, the mother of an American soldier killed in Iraq, addressed the crowds, saying the US needed to bring its troops home immediately.
Ah, I knew there'd be a puppet
Posted by: Steve ||
01/25/2006
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You are correct sir...
CARACAS (AFP) - Anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan, mother of a US soldier killed in Iraq, joined more than 10,000 anti-globalization activists in Caracas, where she hailed Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez.
"I admire him for his resolve against my government and its meddling," said Sheehan, who gained notoriety when she camped outside US President George W. Bush's ranch last year to protest the Iraq war. She said she hoped to meet Chavez later in the week.
Sheehan was among more than 10,000 people from across the Americas who took to the streets of the Venezuelan capital Tuesday in an anti-war protest that launched the six-day Caracas World Social Forum (WSF).
My government should not meddle anywhere, the "peace mom" told AFP during the march, which was marked by anti-Bush slogans.
We must stop the Iraq war, we must not let it happen again, said Sheehan, who has been arrested at least twice while demonstrating outside the White House.
Tuesday's march ended outside the armed forces headquarters, on an avenue usually reserved for military parades. "It's a peace route now," Sheehan said.
Sheehan, whose son Casey was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004, said she would remain in Caracas until the WSF concludes on Sunday, and would address participants on several occasions. She said Venezuela's foreign ministry sponsored her visit.
#4
I nominate Cindy Shehan as "Kidnap Hostage for Ransom of the week"
Let's see how much her moonbat friends can/will cough up for her.
It's a win-win situation, either we never hear from her again, or her "Organization" bankrupts itself getting her out of hock.
Either way, humanity and sanity prevail.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/25/2006 14:12
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#5
Wonder if she took the low-road or the heliocopter from the airport. I figure heliocopter.
Following is rare footage of TV comedian-turned-suicide bomber Muhammad Shazzaf Al-Shehri, which was aired on Al-Arabiya TV on December 17, 2005.
...
In the West, the woman is degraded.
We treat the woman like a protected pearl. A hidden pearl, a protected pearl.
Original title was "Stretch of U.S.-Canada border shut down"
BLAINE, Wash. - A high-speed chase that ended in gunfire closed the U.S.-Canadian border crossing near here for hours Tuesday, authorities said. Two men sought in a California homicide were arrested after one of them was shot and wounded...A car carrying two men matching the description was seen about six miles south of the border on Interstate 5. When a sheriff's deputy tried to stop the car, the occupants sped off, reaching speeds of 100 mph...a Customs and Border Protection agent fired his gun, striking one of the men...[The two suspects] were sought in the Saturday shooting death of a 43-year-old man [in Richmond CA].
We can all be sure terrorism was not a factor The most interesting line to me was
An unspecified number of Canadian border agents, who are unarmed, left their posts during the incident because they were concerned about their safety...Managers took over and security was not compromised
If the Canadian border agents are that concerned about their safety, they should seek different employment. They must not know there's a war on.
#1
I heard that the accused murderers were driving directly at the Border agents, who then fired at them. The fugitives responded by pulling onto a medium, and were rammed when they reached a south bound lane. The capture was made on the Canadian side.
We have all seen the movies where pursued people step across a border, and the chase promptly ends. I doesn't work that way. Hot pursuit privilege allows some freedom of operation. The last Canadian government would probably have claimed jurisdiction over the accused (AKA: scumbags). But they are history.
#4
If the Canadian border agents are that concerned about their safety, they should seek different employment. They must not know there's a war on.
They are UNARMED. Did you expect them to throw themselves in front of the car? Or maybe throw sticks and stones or something?
They must not know there's a war on.
What a ridiculous statement. What does that have to do with anything? These dweebs were criminals pure and simple.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/25/2006 15:00
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#5
The Canadian border guards are involved in union bitching. They feel they should be armed, just like their American counterparts. They do not currently carry weapons.
Their "protests" to being unarmed include abandoning their posts anytime something scares them.
#8
I was on Via Rail at the Canadian border on my way to T.O. when the BordersCanada gents came through. They seemed quite professional and well trained. I didn't even notice the lack of weaponry.
#9
I was on Via Rail at the Canadian border on my way to T.O. when the BordersCanada gents came through. They seemed quite professional and well trained. I didn't even notice the lack of weaponry.
#11
#4 - You have missed the entire point of my comment in the original post. (I use many different ways to access Rantburg & don't keep track of my nicks.) There is a war on, whether or not you admit it. If the Canadian government prohibits the arming of their own border agents, that government and those agents are contributing to lack of border security.
The guard union had requested arms for border guards.
The former Liberal goverment had a consultant review the situation and he recommended arming the guards. They then REMOVED that section of the report before they presented it to Parliament!
The new Conservative goverment has said they will arm the guards.
Posted by: john ||
01/25/2006 19:49
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I hope they get well trained with MP45s. They should have vests in any case.
#15
If the Canadian government prohibits the arming of their own border agents, that government and those agents are contributing to lack of border security.
But that's simply not true. In this scenario, guns are a purely defensive weapon (for the guards, not the country). The guards don't stop illegal entry by shooting everyone who attempts it.
These guards should have guns, but for their protection, not the country's.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/25/2006 20:53
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#16
Rafael - IMO your border guards REPRESENT your country. Harming them on entry and exit simply because they're unarmed is a weak answer fronm Canada on how hallow it views its' sovereignty. As usual, they depend on the weapons and efforts on our side. We are criticisizing only because of that lack of seriousness....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 21:11
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The Conservative justice critic [MP who served as justice critic in Opposition] says the party will stand behind its promise to give guns to Canada's border guards a day after two murder suspects from California made a run for the border before they were stopped in a shootout...said in an interview Wednesday he was bothered by news that a reported 40 Canadian border guards left their posts as the gunmen approached the border.
"I think it does nothing for our national image. I find it very disturbing that our officers felt compelled to leave because of this threat to their personal safety,"...A vice president for the Customs Excise Union, which represents border guards, was pleased that Toews said the Tories would keep their election promise.
"We will never work in a safe environment," said Steve Pellerin-Fowlie. "What we've been calling for for years is the tools that will provide the maximum amount of safety possible."
The Tories outlined in their platform promises to arm border guards and double staff at 139 locations where officers work alone.
Pellerin-Fowlie said that guards became resigned to the fact that the weren't going to get the protection of firearms under the Liberal government.
We can be thankful the previous Canadian Liberal government just lost the election.
The announcement of the killing of Abu Omar al-Saif, "the mufti of Arab fighters in Chechnya", on December 12, 2005, shed light on the movement's future and its presence in Chechnya. While the Russian government did not deny or confirm the news until December 16, 2005, Arab newspapers and forums covered the incident and published details on Abu al-Saif's life that correspond to a large degree with what was published in Jamestown's Terrorism Monitor on April 23, 2004 (Volume 2, Issue 8). The surprise was that qoqaz.com, the Chechen Arab fighters' website, came back online with news about al-Saif's killing, so much so that his brother said that "he learned about the his brother's killing from several parties, but became sure of it when he saw it on the Arab fighters in Chechnya's official website" (Al-Hayat, December 11, 2005).
ohammad Bin Abdullah al-Saif al-Jaber al-Buaynayn al-Tamimi is from the Bani Tamim tribes that are widespread in the Arabian Peninsula. His tribe is originally from Jubail in northeast Saudi Arabia. He was born in Qassim and died at the age of 37. Abu Omar al-Saif's brother, Ali al-Tamimi, told the al-Hayat newspaper, "my brother participated in jihad in Afghanistan. He studied with Dr. Abdullah Azzam then returned to Saudi Arabia after the Russian army's withdrawal and the civil war broke out in Afghanistan. My brother completed his university education in the College of Sharia at Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University. Upon graduation, he was offered a job opportunity in the judicial field, but he declined and joined up with the Mujahideen again" (Al-Hayat, December 11, 2005).
The Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper in Kuwait published the details of his trip to Afghanistan in 1986, where he stayed for two years. During that time, he only went back home once. Later, he returned home and graduated with honors from Imam Muhammad Bin Saud Islamic University. The newspaper also indicated that Abu Omar al-Saif went back to Chechnya in "1996 with his Saudi wife; two-year-old firstborn son; and two-month-old daughter, Asmaa, at the time" (Al-Rai Al-Aam, December 11, 2005).
Abu Omar al-Saif, who was responsible for the Islamic courts in Chechnya when then-Chechen president, Zelimkhan Yandarbiev, attempted to declare Chechnya an Islamic state, became an ideologue of the Arab fighters in Chechnya and connected the presumed state in Chechnya with groups of Muslim clerics in the Arabian Gulf (qoqaz.com). He wrote several articles and books on the issues of Iraq and democracy that did not depart from the jihadist movement's literature.
Abu Omar al-Saif married a Chechen woman, who was killed with him in Chechnya. (He was not killed in Dagestan, as some media claimed). He had three children with his Saudi wifethe youngest a six-year-old boy he had in Chechnya when his wife was staying with him before she returned to Saudi Arabia in 1999 with all her children.
Abu Omar al-Saif had "five brothers, two older ones, Mubarak and Ibrahim, who work at the Royal Commission in the Jubail Industrial Zone East of the Kingdom of [Saudi] Arabia, and three younger ones: Faisal, Badr and Ali, respectively. He also had six sisters. His father died while Abu Omar was in college, and his mother still lives with her children in Jubail, where the whole family moved after they left Qassim" (Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper, December 11, 2005). That's the good information, now we get into the apologetics for Basayev and Co. Irrespective of how one feels about Russian policies in Chechnya, it's cognitive dissonance to believe that there isn't an international component at work there.
The announcement of the killing of al-Saif, which comes in the context of the killing of a number of Salafi-Jihadist leaders in Chechnya, beginning with Khattab, Abu al-Walid al-Ghamidi and Abu Ahmad al-Azimi, raises questions about the effect of Russia's policy in Chechnya and the likelihood of it succeeding in ending the violence that has been raging in the republic for a decade. Russian policy sees the assassination of Salafi-Jihadist and Chechen resistance leaders as a way to break up those groups. At the same time, Russia used the presence of Arab fighters in Chechnya to claim that there exists a connection between the Chechen resistance and "international terrorism" and thereby to justify its brutal war on Chechnya.
Yet the reality is the opposite. Since September 11, the Salafi-Jihadist movement in Chechnya has been facing a dilemma, because the Arab fighters' great financial capabilities, which were what legitimized their presence in Chechnya, changed as a result of the international community's steps to end funding for Jihadist groups, which cut the channels of financing for Arab fighters in Chechnya." In addition, the number of Arab fighters in Chechnya is limited because the path is blocked to young men willing to join the groups fighting in Chechnya. A review of the autobiographies of some Salafi-Jihadists in various parts the world indicates that after 2001 a large number of young men tried to go to Chechnya but failed, or left Chechnya to go engage in "jihad" in their own countries or other conflict zones.
Thus, we note that the situation of Salafi-Jihadists in Chechnya is already difficult. The killing of al-Saif is simply part of that context or crisis. This shows that Russian policy in Chechnya has failed, because the number of resistance operations is increasing despite the weakness of the Salafi-Jihadist movement, meaning that the effect of this movement is limited in comparison with the national Chechen resistance. The killing of Salafi-Jihadist leaders or their absence from Chechnya will not end the resistance. On the contrary, it will release the Chechen resistance from the burden of being connected with international terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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The last three months have been a busy media season for al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. He has released a number of lengthy statements addressing the earthquake in Pakistan, the perfidy of President Musharrafs government, elections in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and the military situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The core of the two most recent statements, however, seems more ominous. Released on January 6 and 7, 2006, the statements focus on three items: the coming mujahideen victory in Iraq, a new warning to the American people and an updated version of a warning to Americans first issued in 2002.
January 6 Statement
Zawahiri's January 6 video statementwhich was produced by al-Qaeda's as-Sahab for Media Production in December 2005covers a variety of subjects, but hones in on rallying Islamists on the basis of the Bush Administration's recent public discussion of the likelihood of some U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq in 2006. "I said to you over a year ago," Zawahiri reminds his audience, "that the Americans' departure form Iraq has become a matter of time and nothing else" [1].
"I will congratulate it [the Islamic nation] today on the victory of Islam in Iraq. Bush the liar was forced to announce in late November [2005] that he would withdraw his troops from Iraq. However, being addicted to lying, his justified his withdrawal by saying that the Iraqi troops have reached a good level and that he would not announce a timetable for withdrawal.
O liar and imposter: You have not stopped making yourself a laughingstock of the world. If your troopswith their aircraft, missiles, tanks, and fleetsare moaning, bleeding, and seeking a way out of Iraq....Bush: You have to admit that you have been defeated in Iraq, that you are being defeated in Afghanistan, and that you will be defeated in Palestine soon, with God's help and strength" [2].
In an interesting and apparently first-time occurrence, al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, on January 8, 2006, issued nearly simultaneous statements on the internet that complemented Zarwahiri's. "Since the start of mujahideen operations after the fall of the Baathist regime until today," Zarqawi said of the coming victory in Iraq, "nearly 800 martyr operations aimed at crusader targets and military convoys have been carried out....America has been defeated and it is just a matter of how bad the defeat will end up to be. I am not in a hurry for the Americans to leave, for the mujahideen enjoy slaughtering them .O nation of Islam, America today is drawing its last breath" [3]. Zarqawi also followed Zawahiri's lead on directly threatening Israel, saying that his group's recent "Rocket Expedition" against Israel was done on the "instructions of the sheikh of the mujahideen, Osama bin Laden ." Zarqawi said that the rocket attack "was only the start of a blessed in-depth strike against the Zionist enemy" [4].
In the statement of January 6, 2006, Zawahiri again goes out of his way to warn Americans that another al-Qaeda attack in the United States is inevitable if they do not listen to al-Qaeda's statements and begin to understand that the mujahideen's motivation is based on U.S. actions in the Muslim world. "People of the Crusader Alliance: Do you know the reason for your defeat in Iraq and losses in Afghanistan and Palestine?" Zawahiri asked.
"Simply, the basic reason is that you refuse to admit the truth. You follow illusions .The reality you refuse to admit is that the Islamic nation will not allow you to treat it as you treat slaves and animals. Unless you deal with the Islamic nation on the basis of understanding and respect, you will continue to face one disaster after another. Your disasters will not end unless you leave our homelands, stop stealing our wealth, and stop corrupting leaders in our countries" [5].
January 7 Statement
The January 7, 2006 Zawahiri video appears to be unique in the history of statements by al-Zawahiri and bin Laden. The substance and much of the wording of the message entitled "The Letter to the Americans: Why We Fight and Resist You"was originally issued as a letter from Osama bin Laden in the 2002-2003 period. In the January 7 broadcast, however, Zawahiri iswithout explanationidentified as the author. Adding to uniqueness of the video is that while a still photograph of al-Zawahiri remains visible throughout the reading of the statement, the text is read in English by Azzam al-Amriki "Azzam the American"and English subtitles are also shown on the screen; Azzam previously has issued statements of his own warning Americans of the coming al-Qaeda attack on their country. The use of Azzam speaking English is likely meant to impress the urgency of the warning; in essence al-Qaeda has an American speaking to and warning his own countrymen. This scenario is reminiscent of bin Laden's October 31, 2004 warning to the American people in which he used basic Arabic and very few Koranic quotes or allusions to Islamic history in an effort to make sure he was understood and taken seriously by Americans [6].
Reading the words formerly attributed to bin Laden, Azzam emphatically underscores the warning to Americans issued by Zawahiri is his new January 6 video.
"You [the American people] might argue that none of the above justifies attacking civilians for crimes they did not commit or participate in. But such an argument flies in the face of your constant refrain that your land is the Land of Liberty and you are freedom's standard-bearers in this world. Thus, the American people chose the American government with their own free wills on the basis of their agreement with its policies. Accordingly, the American people have chosen and agreed to America's backing of Israel's rape and occupation of Palestine. Conversely, the American people could, if they wished, reject the policies of their government For these reasons, it is not possible that the American people are innocent of all the crimes the Americans and Jews have committed against us. Allah has made Qisas [retribution] an observed law. So it is our right to attack whoever attacks us, and destroy the towns and villages of those who destroy ours, and destroy the economy of those who plunder our wealth, and kill the civilians of the country that kills our civilians" [7].
Conclusion
At this point in their conflict with America, Zawahiri and bin Laden primarily aim their statements toward Muslim audiences. While their statements are genuine warnings to Americans, they have long since given up any hope of persuading U.S. leaders of either political party to understand that the motivation of al-Qaeda and its allies pivots off what America does in the Muslim world, and not off American freedoms and liberties. In this context, the January 6 and 7 Zawahiri videosand al-Zarqawi's supporting statementare truly meant to warn Americans. Yet, more importantly, they are also meant to remind Muslims that since the 9/11 attacks al-Qaeda has done everything in its power to fulfill the Prophet Muhammad's demand that Muslims thoroughly warn their enemies before attacking them. The use of Azzam al-Amriki speaking in English, and accompanied by English subtitles, is, from al-Qaeda's perspective, irrefutable evidence for Muslims that al-Qaeda has gone more than the extra mile to urge Americans to change their policies before they are again attacked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
03:02 ||
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#1
Zawahiri is always planning a new attack on the US. That's his job.
#2
You have not stopped making yourself a laughingstock of the world. If your troopswith their aircraft, missiles, tanks, and fleetsare moaning, bleeding, and seeking a way out of Iraq....Bush: You have to admit that you have been defeated in Iraq, that you are being defeated in Afghanistan,...
#6
Al-Zawahiri is hopefully dead. Killed in the predator missile strike in Pakistan. Funny how the January 6 tape was old huh..... mayyybe someone wasn't around to make a new one.
Between August and December 2005, a series of attacks hit Bangladesh, collectively killing 12, wounding hundreds of others and involving the country's first suicide strikes. In the most audacious assault on August 17, 434 homemade bombs were set off in 63 districts over the course of just one hour. This unprecedented bout of violence has thrust the country to the forefront of regional and global terrorist attention, generating fears that a new jihadist beachhead is emerging in this predominantly Muslim nation of roughly 144 million people.
Two main militant organizations currently exist in Bangladesh: Jama'at ul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB, or the Bangladesh Assembly of Holy Warriors) [1] and Harakat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (HuJI-B, or Movement of Islamic Holy warBangladesh).
The JMB, which first came to prominence in 2002, is alleged to operate in 57 districts across Bangladesh. According to regional sources, the group is able to call on roughly 10,000 full-time and 100,000 part-time cadres and has recently formed a 2,000-strong suicide squad. The organization is thought to be led by a triumvirate consisting of a spiritual emir, Maulana Abdur Rahman, and two operational commanders, Siddiqur Islam and Muhammad Asadullah al-Ghalib. Together, these three individuals have worked to forge a movement to replace Dhaka's secular legal system with one based on Islamic law, and to ensure the eradication of all non-Muslim influences in the country.
The JMB took responsibility for the August 17 bombings, as well as three subsequent suicide strikes during November and December that killed 18. Leaflets written in Arabic and left at the sites of several of the earlier mid-year attack locations appear to confirm that the group's immediate goal is to terrorize the Bangladeshi judiciary in preparation for the full institution of Sharia rule: "It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law."
Similar to the JMB, HuJI-B aims to establish a fully-fledged Muslim theocracy in Bangladesh. Intelligence sources in Delhi, however, assert that the organization's real intent is to foster an Islamic revolution in India's northeast by working in conjunction with radicals based in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as Assam.
HuJI-B's roots date back to 1992, although it is only since 2000 that it has emerged as a prominent militant entity. Shauqat Osman leads the group, overseeing an operational cadre that is believed to number 15,000, of which 2,000 are described as hardcore. Most of these radicals are based in cells scattered along a stretch of coastline that runs from the port city of Chittagong to the Burmese border.
Most of HuJI-B's past actions have been directed against Bangladesh's Hindu minority as well as the country's moderate Muslim population. Western officials have expressed concern, however, that this focus has steadily expanded in recent years to include aggression against international aid agencies. There is widespread speculation that the group was responsible for a slate of firebomb attacks on Christian-oriented non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in early 2005.
The Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the dominant party in the coalition government that was formed in 2001, has moved to stymie the activities of domestic Islamic militants. JMB and HuJI-B were both been outlawed in 2005, following the August, November and December attacks, and the government authorized widespread detentions. The BNP's actions reflect a growing awareness of the internal threat posed by these two outfits, as well as pressure for more concerted counter-terrorist action by international financial and donor institutions (upon which Bangladesh is heavily dependent).
Despite these efforts, JMB and HuJI-B continue to enjoy broad latitude, largely because they retain the backing of the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JIB) and Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ). Both parties, which are part of the ruling administration and forceful advocates of a Sharia system, have studiously worked to limit the scope of measures aimed at disrupting the activities of fundamentalist Islamists. This allows the JMB and HuJI-B to steadily expand their national presence. Indian commentators additionally allege that the two outlawed organizations directly benefit from support provided by elements within Dhaka's Directorate of Field Intelligence (DFGI) and that it is this that accounts for the scale and sophistication of recent attacks.
Just as importantly, JMB and HuJI-B are thought to have established at least tenuous ties with foreign Islamist entities to buttress their current militant activities. Financially, funds have reportedly been sent from individual donors in the Middle East, allegedly channeled through prominent Arab NGOs such as the Revival of Islamic Heritage and the Al-Haramaine Islamic Institute. Operationally, there is speculation about the external provision of training and expertise. The advent of suicide attacks has been taken as evidence of outside influence, as well as the make-up of the improvised explosive devices (IEDs) used in many of last year's assaults.
The BNP-dominated administration now faces an overt challenge to its authority, which, worryingly, manifest the operational hallmarks common in the wider international jihadist movement. At the same time, the coalition government continues to be constrained by the actions of its JIB and IOJ partners and arguably lacks the complete loyalty of the country's security and intelligence apparatus. Under such circumstances, the future prospect for stability in Bangladesh is bleak.
Notes
1. Another group, the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), is thought to be a front name for the JMB.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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A series of documents recently (re)circulating on the internet continue to underline a pressing jihadist interest in targeting U.S. economic assets. Some of these documents are quite explicit and detailed, giving indications of specific pipelines and facilities to attacknot only in the Gulf, but wherever in the world such assets can be targeted. Terrorism Focus highlighted last month (Volume II, Issue 23) how Ayman al-Zawahiri has been urging the targeting of oil installations in the Gulf States as part of the "bleed-until-bankruptcy" strategy against the United States. More broadly, this strategy was underlined in posting last October on the forum Minbar Suriya al-Islami of Abu Musab al-Najdi's Al-Qaeda's Battle is an Economic Battle, Not a Military One, in which the targeting was extended to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela (www.nnuu.org.vb).
Yet a more detailed treatment on this strategy re-appeared last month on the Al-Safinat forum (http://202.71.102.108/~alsafnat/vb). The document authored by "Abu Yusuf 911" and entitled Targets for Jihad: a response to the words of Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri, is an extended exposition of the potential vulnerabilities of Western economies in the Middle East and around the world. The author details how best the mujahideen can strike America's "economic joints," understood in the sense of strategic centers of gravity. He divides the targeting for the mujahideen into sectors. The first is "Islamic lands seized by the Crusaders." Iraq heads the list, and here the treatise advises that the effort should not be on destroying what remains of the oil infrastructures but rather on depriving the enemy of financial gain from this "booty of war"either by limiting exports or preventing the Americans from using the oil as fuel for their tanks, armored vehicles, aircraft, or ships. The author therefore advises the striking of bases used for these purposes. This is accompanied by URLs providing information, maps, and images on distribution networks, transportation hubs and military fuel supply depots.
Following Iraq are the Afghanistan and Central Asian arenas. The treatise cites (with accompanying URLs) U.S. and Western strategic theories on the region, mentioning by name the book The Grand Chessboard by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and featuring analyses by Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. Congress Reports. This section, which also cites revenue from heroin production as a U.S. strategic target, gives details on pipeline, refineries, and pumping stations, focusing in particular on the Caspian Sea sector, and providing names and addresses of companies associated with the industry.
The second sector for activity are territories through which oil wealth passes, focusing on the United States and the state of Alaska in particular. The Alaska section is furnished with URLs that provide information on its oil distribution infrastructure, capacities, routes, facts and figures, and notably the Wall Street Journal article by Jim Carlton (October 8, 2001) detailing the attack on the pipeline and its "vulnerability to sabotage." The author suggests attacking it during the months of June and July, and at the pipeline's most isolated point, ideally in a heavily-wooded area so that an accompanying forest fire will maximize the delays to repairing the pipeline. States crucial in oil production and storage such as Texas, California, Louisiana and Oklahoma are also featured. As to the mujahideen most suitable for such operations, Abu Yusuf suggests "our Muslim brothers living in the land of the American rabble," (non-American) Muslims temporarily resident in the U.S., or mujahideen groups of four to five members that can enter the U.S. either directly or via Canada or Mexico. Each group should define itself according to the principal pipeline networks, so that their operations should cover the area covered by each major pipeline, and include production facilities, oil fields and pumping stations.
The Targets for Jihad treatise earlier appeared in March 2005 on the Risalat al-Umma forum (www.alommh.net). Again, at that time the posting followed a recent warning by Ayman al-Zawahiri's, on a videotape message aired by al-Jazeera, that the Western powers faced defeat through the collapse of their economies. The smaller original of the present 12-page treatise was first posted with reference to the sermon by Bin Laden on strategic directives on jihadist targets' posted on May 3 2003, and concluded with a note that these were "initial thoughts" to which readers could make "major additions."
Since then, interest in the potential of catastrophic reverse for the US and western powers has been re-kindled on the jihad forums by the recent spate of natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita) or accidents (the UK oil depot fire at Hemel Hempstead). While in Iraq attacks and threats of attacks on pipelines, refineries and oil-related transportation are frequent, the planned jihadi application of this strategy has not yet been observed outside Iraq.
The strategy is certainly being taken seriously on the web and is generating research traffic. The same day as the December Targets for Jihad posting, one identifying himself as Abu Saqr called for the updating of the document's links that had lapsed, and the collation of "all the available illustrations for the project into one file." Convinced that the attacks on U.S. oil interests "will inflame the final war between them and us, and lead to their downfall," Abu Saqr further took up the baton, promising to collaborate with "friends who have completed advanced studies in aerial photography and surveying" on a "complete and professional study of the subject, so as to offer it to the mujahideen and those who are at the forefront of jihad initiatives." He also once broadened the call for "participation from forum readers who are experts in petrochemical engineering, distribution networks and pumps," specifying the need for "PDF documents of books relevant to the subject." Abu Saqr then concludes by promising that the completed PDF document "will be distributed over the largest possible number of forums."
This treatise is notable for two reasons, which more broadly underlines the significant of the internet for the jihad. One is the element of collective endeavor that the author encourages, highlighting the speed of communication and the potential power that dispersed jihadi sympathizers across the globe can focus on a single project. The second is the facility for data mining that the web provides, allowing instant access not only to academic research data but also sensitive infrastructure details of utilities, distribution and transport networks, as well as threat and vulnerability perceptions of these facilitieswhich governments are now offering at ever greater levels of transparency. With official discussion papers circulating on strategically useful areas such as the functioning of intelligence and security agencies (often highlighting their deficiencies) or counter-terrorism methodology, the Internet eloquently illustrates the dictum made by an al-Qaeda training manual recovered in Afghanistan: "Using public sources openly and without resorting to illegal means, it is possible to gather at least 80 percent of all information required about the enemy."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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#1
"Islamic lands seized by the Crusaders."
The Medieval Mentality of Islam on display, demonstration #5,338.
Early in the morning on January 12, suspected U.S. aircraft fired missiles at houses in the village of Damadola in the Bajaur Agency of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), killing 18 people. This was the first attack of its kind in this area (Frontierpost.com.pk, January 14).
What is the significance of Banjaur agency and its relation with the central government? What is the connection if any of Bajaur to the Al-Qaeda terrorists and why would one, of all places, look for Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two man in the al-Qaeda hierarchy, in Bajaur? Who is Mawlawi Faqir Mohammad, who appeared briefly to eulogize the bombing victims, and then disappeared into thin air? What about Bajaur makes it so tempting for the terrorists to hide there?
FATA, which roughly comprises the size of Florida, has a population of over three million, predominantly of Pashtun tribes. As some major tribes inhabit FATA, Pashtunwali, or the Pashtun tribal code, provides the foundation for the area's legal system.
This area of Pakistan has remained isolated for centuries. Afghan kings, the British Raj, Pakistani generals, the Soviets and American Green Berets have all tried unsuccessfully to assert control over these wild lands at one point or another. These loosely administered territories are not governed by boundaries or politicians, but by tribal elders and tribal loyalties. The British granted the tribal people maximum autonomy and allowed them to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs and traditions. This prickly borderland formally belongs to Pakistan, but has deep historical, cultural, and ethnic ties to Afghanistan (The News, March 14).
Of the seven FATA Agencies, North and South Waziristan and Bajaur play the most significant role in the war on terrorism because of the presence of local militant groups and their association with the top leaders of al-Qaeda. Bajaur has the added dimension of being the suspected host to several members of al-Qaeda's top leadership. Also notable is its proximity to the volatile province of Kunar in Afghanistan, one suspected hiding area of Osama bin Laden.
In May of last year, a prominent al-Qaeda leader, Abu Farraj al-Libbi was arrested in Mardan a town southeast of Bajaur. At one time, al-Libbi was also serving as bin Laden's secretary. When another key al-Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11 attacks was arrested in March 2002, Libbi had replaced him as the terror network's number three leader.
Two days later, security forces arrested thirteen people including ten foreigners of having al-Qaeda links from Bajaur Agency. The foreigners included Uzbek and Afghan nationals. Al-Libby was at some point living under the protection of Malawi Faqir Mohammad (UPI, May 5, 2005).
Faqir Mohammad, who delivered a fiery anti-Pakistan and anti-U.S. speech at the collective funeral of the civilians killed in the Friday bombing on January 12, left the scene. He narrowly escaped the missile attack.
Mawlawi Faqir Mohammad and al-Zawahiri along with Mullah Omar were reportedly invited to a feast in the village. Faqir Mohammad, who had a close connection with the Taliban, is also wanted for giving shelter to foreign terrorists. (al-Jazeera, January 14).
Faqir Mohammed is a leader of the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Sharia, a religious group that forcibly imposed Islamic religious laws in the Pashtun tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan in the 1990s. Although the Pakistani military later removed most of the parallel courts and administrative units established by the movement, the group continued to run a parallel government for some time.
The group still has some influence and occasionally sets up temporary tribal courts to try cases such as fornication, alcohol consumption and selling narcotics. In 1996, when the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the group established a close working relationship with Mullah Omar's regime.
This group is also believed to have recruited thousands of ethnic Pashtuns to fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban when the United States attacked the country in December 2001. Many of these volunteers later died in prison camps in northern Afghanistan.
The group was never directly involved with al-Qaeda but is known to have cooperated with it in the past on the instructions of the Taliban. Pakistani intelligence officials say they would not be surprised if the group is now sheltering senior al-Qaeda leaders. Faqir Mohammad himself, as a result of his association with the Taliban and especially Al-Qaeda leaders is on the wanted list in Pakistan. "They are very influential and have the infrastructure to hide bin Laden and his comrades," said the Pakistani official. (UPI, May 5, 2005).
Al-Zawahiri, aside from his association to Faqir Mohammad is the son in law of the Momands, one of the largest Pashtun tribes inhabiting Momand Agency. His wife is a Momand Pashtun and is living with her children on the border of Bajaur and Momand. Under Pashtunwali, al-Zawahiri is considered part of the family and the tribe and he must be protected with the lives of the tribesmen.
Aside from its "hospitality," Bajaur is important to the Taliban and foreign terrorists for its proximity to Kunar province. The tribes straddling the border area are drawn to two basic tenets: Pashtunwali and Islam. Giving shelter to a fellow Pashtun or Muslim is a Pashtunwali tradition and an Islamic duty. This and the rugged terrain and inaccessibility of the border region make it an ideal sanctuary for al-Zawahiri and other members of al-Qaeda. Any pressure, whether from the U.S. or Pakistani government, will not change the mentality of the people. Attacks in which allegedly innocent people are killed, will only reinforce the militants' position and further isolate the central government in Islamabad.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
02:59 ||
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#1
Just turn the whole, cancerous wasteland into radioactive glass. It has been a cancerous sore on the butt of civilization for centuries.
#3
Harboring international fugitives from justice, are they? In that case, a little hot pursuit is in order. Fuck their "traditions." Our practice is to kill terrorists, and damn harboring collaterals.
#5
Picture an adult child doing whatever he pleases, selling dope, shooting at people out the family house window, fighting with and refusing to obey his parents unless they happen to overpower him, and yet hides behind momma's skirts and DEMANDS that the parents take the fall, not him, when the cops come calling. Picture the situation when the parents are half scared, half complicit, with his behavior.
This area of Pakistan has remained isolated for centuries. Afghan kings, the British Raj, Pakistani generals, the Soviets and American Green Berets have all tried unsuccessfully to assert control over these wild lands at one point or another.
They said the same thing about Afghanistan when we arrived, and we disproved the conventional wisdom. Due to the above "no one can be held responsible, but everyone is in authority" set-up, our armed forces have not been fully unleased on these miscreants.
High time we said, "If pakistan cannot exert effective authority over the FATA, then FATA is not a part of Pakistan: thus ALL ATTACKS in FATA that are not directed at Pakistani armed forces are actions directed against stateless individuals."
I.e. if FATA ACTS like a country independent of Pakistan, and if Pakistan ACTS as if FATA is a country uncontrollable by Pakistan, then we should TREAT FATA AS a country independent of Pakistan.
#7
Very interesting...how do we know where Zawahiri's wife is living? How many does he have? I think women are the secret weapon in the War on Terror. They just think differently, and most men are clueless to what they are thinking, especially in paternal, anal-retentive societies, and they seem to pay little attention to what segregated women-folk do. How much more so when they have multiples, and many aren't well cared for. Isn't there a grateful Pashtun female, liberated from the Taliban, willing to at least be wired, perhaps concealed in a burqa, just for listening or tracking purposes? Deborah and Barak are commemorated as war heroes, but it was Jael who made the victory sure.
#8
I've been a stamp collector for almost 50 years, and Afghanistan is one country I collect. Afghanistan has issued stamps since the late 1950's to celebrate "Free Pashtunistan Day". "Pashtunistan" incorporates the provinces of Baluchistan, the NWFP, and Gilgit Agency. There are also a couple of Afghan border provinces (Kandahar, Kunar, etc.) that have a majority Pashtun population that would probably revolt and join Pashtunistan if it ever got its independence. Pakistan can't control the area because of the animosity between the Pashtuns and the Sindh. It's going to continue to be a problem for both Afghanistan and Pakistan until it's either brought under government control, or destroyed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 15:26
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#9
Hey OP, send me some lo-res scans of the stamps. I'm sure Fred can find something creative to post with them...
#11
In 2006 can civilization survive if we tolerate "tribalism" as an excuse for terrorism and acts of war? I say no. In 2006 your tribe has to be the "human race." If it isn't perhaps you need some rough treatmet to educate your sorry hide.
On January 15 al-Qaeda in Iraq announced that it had set up an umbrella body with five other militant groups in Iraq, called the Mujahideen Shura Council, to coordinate the fight against the U.S.-led forces and confront the "Crusaders and their Rafidi (Shi'ite) and secularist followers who have seized Baghdad." The following groups are members of the Council and all share the jihadist perspective on the struggle in Iraq: Tanzim al-Qaeda fi Bilad al-Rafidayn (al-Qaeda in Iraq Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's group), the Jaysh alTaifa al-Mansura, Ansar al-Tawhid, Al-Ghuraba, Al-Jihad al-Islami and Al-Ahwal.
The announcement comes at the end of a period of increasingly open disaffection between the "nationalist" and Islamist groups of the insurgency. Pointed comments in the announcement of the Mujahideen Council's formation reinforce this division. It described the Council's purpose to "unify all the Mujahideen's efforts, planning and decisions to abide by Allah's command," for which it has "made a covenant with Allah to fight in His cause until religion becomes Allah's in its entirety or to die in the process." The announcement noted with distaste that "other groups of people have surfaced to pull the rug from underneath the Mujahideen, seeking nothing but short-lived material benefits" (www.jihadunspun.com).
Disagreements over tactics, rumors of groups holding discussions with the U.S. military and outright internecine confrontations have progressively destroyed the "enemy of my enemy" consensus within the resistance. Despite similar nomenclature, groups such as al-Jaysh al-Islami fi al-Iraq (Islamic Army in Iraq), which do not share al-Zarqawi's extreme Islamic jihadist agenda, are excluded from the Council. The Islamic Army in Iraq, in particular, was outraged by the killing at the hands of al-Zarqawi's group of Iyad al-Azzi, a leading member of the political bureau of the Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party (see TF Volume III, Issue 1). A December 1 statement on the website of the Islamic Front of Iraqi Resistance (Jami) stated, "we are not surprised that he should have been targeted in this treacherous action from one who has set himself up as a tool in the hands of the occupier to wield in any way they so choose" (www.jami.com).
While the number of resistance activities, compared to other insurgent groups, has always been relatively small (although higher in profile), al-Qaeda has been achieving statistically fewer casualties recently. If this is anything other than a temporary hiatus, the consolidation of forces indicated by this announcement may suggest that al-Qaeda's room to maneuver is narrowing, and its ability to mount large-scale attacks is being drained by the growing trend toward "red on red" conflicts.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
02:58 ||
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RUSSIAN billionaire Boris Berezovsky has never made any secret of his loathing for President Vladimir Putin, but in an interview in his London exile the controversial tycoon went one step further with a vow to mount a coup.
"President Putin violates the constitution and any violent action on the opposition's part is justified today, and that includes taking power by force, which is exactly what I am working at," the oligarch, looking vibrant despite five years in self-imposed exile, said at his Piccadilly office.
For the past 18 months, "we have been preparing to take power by force in Russia", he said, claiming he would finance this with a fortune that had "tripled" over the past five years.
The disgraced eminence grise of Russia's former president Boris Yeltsin and one-time media baron fled Russia in 2000 after Mr Putin's rise to power, saying charges of large-scale fraud against him were politically motivated. He successfully fought off extradition attempts and in 2003 was granted political asylum in Britain.
Mr Berezovsky said Mr Putin had wrecked the country's post-Soviet constitution. "The Kremlin has demolished Russian federalism, particularly through the law on appointing governors" for the regions, a law the parliament adopted in late 2004, he said.
This reform abolished election of regional chiefs by popular vote and sparked biting criticism in Russia and concerns abroad that Russia's leadership has taken an authoritarian course."Everything that will be done to reestablish the Russian constitution will be constitutional by definition and that will happen before 2008," the year of the next presidential elections, he said.
However, a coup, he said, could only be mounted by "one elite against another in power".
"I do not rely on one elite only, military, media, business or secret services - rather on each and all, not excluding even an alliance with former enemies," he said.
Mr Berezovsky's Civil Liberties Foundation recently acknowledged having donated $US21 million ($27.9 million) to sources close to Viktor Yushchenko, the opposition candidate who led the "orange revolution" and then was elected Ukraine's president over a pro-Russian rival.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:29 ||
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#1
Darn it, this needed an accompanying photo, like maybe...
Or maybe...
I mean, it almost sounds like some sort of bad bond movie where Blofeld is fighting against Goldfinger...
Posted by: Phil ||
01/25/2006 2:12
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Well, Putin did stomp on democracy there, and it's about time for the facts to find the light of day. Maybe Georgy Soros will join Berezovsky, and get the hell out of our hair, but then, Georgy is a lefty, so who wants him ?
Good luck Boris, you crazy billionair.
Iran is racing to dig a network of tunnels and upgrade its air defences to protect its nuclear facilities from possible attacks by America or Israel, it was reported yesterday.
Israel this week issued thinly-veiled warnings that it has drawn up plans for pre-emptive strikes against Iran. The United States insists it will not take the military option "off the table".
Seeking to avoid a repeat of Israel's 1981 air raid on Osiraq, Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has issued orders for the underground complexes to be completed by the beginning of July, Jane's Defence Weekly reported.
It said the network of facilities deep underground or in the sides of mountains has been built with help from North Korean designers.
Atomic inspectors discovered in 2003 that Iran was building a vast underground complex to enrich uranium near the town of Natanz.
But other facilities, such as the uranium conversion plant in Isfahan, are still above ground and exposed to attack.
Iran insists it only seeks to develop a nuclear industry for "peaceful" purposes, but the West is convinced it is trying to build nuclear weapons.
Teheran provoked an international crisis earlier this month when it restarted the enrichment programme, under the guise of "research", after it had been frozen for two years during negotiations with European countries.
At an emergency meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna next week, western countries will seek to report Teheran to the United Nations for possible sanctions.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:27 ||
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#1
they could spend $100 billion and they still cannot stop us. Clueless bunch.
#7
Remember when Saddam's vast underground Baghdad bunker was in the news before the war? Didn't do him much good, did it? He ended his career in a spider hole.
#8
yeah, but it was HIS spider hole....ownership means somethin'
:-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 20:10
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#9
Every congresscritter that voted to kill the US burrowing nuke program should be hanged from the nearest light pole in DC. We need those weapons NOW. Sometimes politicians can just be SOOO da$$$$ Stuck on Stupid.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 23:20
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Old Spook
Remember %75 of the people (and likely more senators) have an IQ less then 110
South Korea's president on Wednesday warned Washington against pressuring North Korea to force the totalitarian regime's collapse, apparently rebuffing U.S. demands that Seoul move against Pyongyang's alleged illegal financial activities.
Meanwhile, the North reiterated Wednesday that it will stay away from international negotiations on its nuclear programs until recently imposed U.S. sanctions over the illegal activities are lifted.
Appearing at his annual New Year's news conference, President Roh Moo-hyun avoided directly answering whether the South believes the North is engaged in counterfeiting, money laundering and drug trafficking, as Washington alleges. He said the matter required review and consideration of how measures are "related to efforts to resolve the nuclear issue and if that involves any intention to pressure North Korea's regime."
But Roh said coercive steps were not the way to resolve the latest dispute over the North's nuclear ambitions, which erupted in late 2002 after U.S. officials accused Pyongyang of running a secret uranium enrichment program.
"I don't agree to some opinions inside the U.S. that appear to be wanting to take issue with North Korea's regime, apply pressure and sometimes wishing for its collapse," he said. "If the U.S. government tries to resolve the problem that way, there will be friction and disagreement between South Korea and the U.S."
He added that there's no such friction yet because the opinions don't reflect current U.S. policy.
Despite that, tensions between the South and Washington were laid bare when South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that it hadn't been asked by a visiting U.S. Treasury Department delegation to take action to prevent illegal financial activity by the North.
The U.S. officials were on a trip through the region to present evidence of their claims against Pyongyang, and a statement from the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday said they had urged the South to strengthen controls to prevent proliferation of weapons of mass destruction by financially isolating those who seek to do so and their support networks.
"The U.S. Treasury Department team did mention the need for general cooperation ... but didn't urge our government to take specific actions, either officially or unofficially," the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.
The ministry said the embassy's press release on the visit "overstates some of what was discussed between the two sides and does not correctly reflect" the discussion.
But U.S. Embassy spokesman Robert Ogburn said "we still stand by our press release," declining to give details of what exact measures were discussed.
Washington has rebuffed Pyongyang's demands for lifting the sanctions to resume six-nation nuclear talks, saying the measures are unrelated to the weapons issue.
On Wednesday, the North repeated its demand.
"If the U.S. truly wants the resumption of the six-party talks and their progress, it had better opt for lifting its financial sanctions against (North Korea) and coexisting with it," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a commentary.
The nuclear talks have failed to make any progress since September on implementing an agreement where the North pledged to abandon its atomic programs in exchange for security guarantees and aid.
Seoul been noncommittal on whether it shares a U.S. belief that the North engaged in illicit activities, apparently out of concern it could affect a resolution of the nuclear crisis.
In September, the United States slapped sanctions on a bank in the Chinese territory of Macau, alleging it helped the North distribute counterfeit currency and engage in other illicit activities.
Washington also has sanctioned North Korean companies it claimed were fronts for proliferating weapons of mass destruction.
North Korea, which had used the Macau bank for decades as a main channel for outside funds, called the sanctions a "sheer lie" and evidence of U.S. hostility against the communist regime.
Wary of Pyongyang's anger, South Korea also hasn't committed itself to the Proliferation Security Initiative, which involves maritime drills to stop and search ships suspected of carrying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, materials to make them, or missiles to deliver them.
But the South said Tuesday it will provide "possible cooperation" with the effort, such as sending delegates to observe exercises and including weapons of mass destruction interdiction drills in regular military exercises with the U.S.
South Korea made clear that it was not considering participation in PSI drills or providing logistical support.
About a dozen PSI drills have been held since the program was launched in 2003 with 11 countries. Since then, five other countries have actively participated, while 60 more expressed support of its goals.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:22 ||
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#1
You know, this is exactly why we couldn't help those little bastards during the war, they won't fight for themselves.
#3
The Koreans understand perfectly that Seoul is the first target Kim would launch a nuke missile at if things get too tight, so they play this cagy game of "America bashing" and "standing up" to America. At the same time, they also know that their continued independence and prosperity is directly linked to American military protection. They have one of the strongest, most capable militaries in Asia, but it's no match for the Chinese, who would probably intervene on behalf of N. Korea. What you end up with is clandestine support for US actions, but nothing open or direct. S. Korea also saw the difficulties Germany had with the East, and know that it would cost them trillions of dollars to rebuild N. Korea, if the north DID collapse. That prospect is almost as scarey to the South as a war, and would be about as costly. Hence you get crap like this.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 14:48
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The SKors have to make a choice: Either they enable the regime or they work to change it. They are enabling the blackmail game by Kimmie. If they do not help out the regime, then Kimmie throws a tantrum and rattles his sabres. Make no mistake, the stakes are high for SKor. The Norks can make life unbearable in an hour for Seoul with a massive artillery barrage.
In an ideal world, we would be working with SKor to make plans for massive aid once the Nork regime falls. If the SKors want appeasement, then they will have to finance their defense. We have major committments and we do not need to throw away precious military assets for people that do not hold up their end of the deal.
If we go into Iran, I would not be suprised to see Kimmie doing some active infiltration or attacks also. He will think it a great opportunity. We need to be ready for that one.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/25/2006 14:49
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As a side note, I've recently received some independent corroboration of the basic gist of this. The propaganda videos of hundreds or possibly thousands of jihadis openly training (looks like a cross between the Hosts of Mordor in Lord of the Rings with black flags and all and the thousands upon thousands of stormtroopers in Attack of the Clones) are now too extensive to just shrug off as bluster. This pisses me off to no end too, since we didn't destroy their training camps in Afghanistan just so they could set them up all over again. The longer those camps are active, the longer the war is going to go on.
The release of a new audio tape featuring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden marks the group's announcement that the new strategy it has been developing is now very much in place.
The tape, the first from bin Laden in more than a year, was aired on Thursday by the Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel. It appeared to have been made in early December, US intelligence officials said.
In the tape, bin Laden warned that al-Qaeda was preparing terrorist attacks on the United States: "Operations are in preparation, and you will see them on your own [US] ground once the preparations are finished."
Since the ouster in 2001 of the Taliban from Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had a strong base, and with the ongoing "war on terror", al-Qaeda has lost hundreds of operatives through killings and arrest. By the end of 2003, the organization was in the doldrums and its cadre infested with spies.
As a result, the organization as it had been run was practically dismantled. Its vertical, centralized structure was abolished and its various groups and cells - apart from a few - were abandoned and allowed to scatter. Bin Laden, in the meantime, went low-key.
The US attack on Iraq then provided al-Qaeda with a trump card as it was able to reactivate members and sympathizers in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco and beyond.
* In fact the success of the Iraqi resistance, in which al-Qaeda is a component, figured significantly in the thinking of al-Qaeda's leadership to relaunch the group as an open organization to pitch a worldwide battle against US interests. Serious debate on this new direction began in 2004, with two main issues prominent: Should al-Qaeda drop its shadowy nature and call for a jihad in the open against the United States?
* Should the "war" be exclusively against the US, or also against Muslim regimes sympathetic to the US?
These issues were later linked with two conditions:
* The acquisition of bases to launch a war in the open.
* The reorganization of sympathizers and new recruits to launch a worldwide battle.
At this time, al-Qaeda decided to defer its war against Muslim regimes until a clear-cut victory was gained in Iraq. Bin Laden has always resisted taking the fight to these countries.
Throughout 2005 al-Qaeda underwent extensive changes to prepare itself for major operations.
Information gathered by Asia Times Online from various sources suggests that though al-Qaeda is now working on a horizontal structure, some top-level decision-making bodies have been revived to discuss key issues and to communicate decisions to other levels. These include a religious committee and an al-Qaeda council.
First the council addresses issues and then passes its decisions to the religious committee, which reviews the religious implications of the decisions. It then gives the final approval, or not.
A special committee coordinates matters worldwide with other organizations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Ansar al-Sunna and other Iraqi resistance groups.
Al-Qaeda has now achieved many of its targets, including the acquisition of various bases in the shape of small pockets. The leadership has safe havens in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, including Khost-North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Kunar-Chitral and Kunar-Bajur.
The areas in the South and North Waziristan tribal areas are the most significant as the Pakistan government has virtually lost its writ there. According to credible information, there is very little room left for Pakistani security agencies to move around beyond South Waziristan's headquarters, Wana, and North Waziristan's headquarters, Miramshah.
Pro-Taliban militants rule the roost here, and even local journalists cannot file stories without the prior approval of these militants. Other journalists simply are not allowed into the area. As a result, very little information filters out from North and South Waziristan.
Nonetheless, contacts in various jihadi organizations suggest that both North and South Waziristan have become hubs for all jihadi activities.
Hundreds of youths previously belonging to such organizations as the Laskhar-i-Toiba, Jaish-i-Mohammed, Harkat-i-Jihadi-i-Islami, Harkatul Mujahideen etc, left for bases in South and North Waziristan.
Here they receive fresh jihadi orientation, including both military and ideological training, and after a few months they are launched into Afghanistan. Their numbers run into the thousands.
The acquisition of these bases and fresh recruits are the prime successes of al-Qaeda as it prepares to wage its new battle. Bin Laden's appearance confirms this to his followers.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:14 ||
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#1
All this has been done with the complicity of Pakistan. What the hell is Bush going to Pakistan for?
#2
This pisses me off to no end too, since we didn't destroy their training camps in Afghanistan just so they could set them up all over again. The longer those camps are active, the longer the war is going to go on.
#3
I'm not saying this article is wrong, but Asia Times is a notoriously anti-US publication which tends to hype the capabilities of the jihadi forces. A week before the Taliban fell they were boasting about how fucked up US military strategy in Afghanistan was.
#4
This article is probably painted pro al Qaeda, so believe only half of it. They seem to be stepping up activities in Afghanistan, so I believe they do have renewed training, but nothing a few well placed snipers can't reduce. I doubt they have enough concentration to waste a bomb on. Don't forget, we have drones watching, so our side knows the facts on AQ.
#5
Reminds me of a passage on the battle of Gallipoli. The Ozzies were shooting up a Turkish attack as each man climbed to the top of the trench across No Mans Land. It dawned on the Ozzies to let them all get up first, allowing the Turkish officers to act as beaters making sure each formation was in place. The Ozzies would then cut them all down, except for the officers who'd provide another assemblage for butchery.
Let them mass. Watch their behaviors. Set up a good kill zone.
#9
Hey Thimble Glitch,
Please stop repeating urban legends that were debunked several years ago. The CIA never gave any money to Bin Laden, largely because his anti-American views were known even then. The money he got was stickly from private Saudi donations -not part of the joint CIA-Saudi project.
As for Iraq, these guys are not living long enough to be a problem. They last only a few weeks before the become "human DNA" or deserting and coming home complaining about lousy working conditions.
The Europeans keep complaining about Super-terrorists coming back from Iraq, but nobody can point to a living breathing example.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
01/25/2006 15:10
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#10
America's Pacific Island-hopping Campaign was an excellent training ground for Japanese Banzai charges. Fucking Roosevelt & Truman.
#11
Now Thimble you forgotten most of the rest of the story - please include....
The war is about: (please pick iv for your next post)
a) oil
2) profits
iii) Haliburton
d) tax cuts for the wealthy
5) Global Warming Climate Change
vi) Enron's homeless
g) faith based protestant insanity
8) Skull and Bones again
#14
Hey, if these wankers are massing in storm troop parade rank and file formations, bring in a few mini-gun choppers and toss some raw hamburger around. Pakistan is one of our very worst enemies. So long as they continue to drag their heels on just about every critical topic under the sun, their sh!thole country is our private shooting range.
#15
We are just keeping the Paki/Islamic nukes on a leash until we can deal with them. Perhaps we can decapitate Iran, glass over Waziristan, and destroy the Paki/Islamic nukes all in one massive attack. A three-fer, while only riling the Arab Street(TM) once. Useful for reducing our nuke stockpile a little bit too. Then we can have a "Bush Doctrine" -- no Islamic nukes anywhere, ever.
#22
I don't quite get this. they're testing in Singapor ? I would feel better if only America and it's closest allies ever saw this gun.
More reason to focus on small unit warfare.
#24
Inspector Clueso
I've been wanting to invest in them for years but their stock doesn't perform. I am curious what the problem is. Maybe it is demoing in places not in Echelon.
In the early months of 2004, a lone convoy of Toyota pickup trucks and SUVs raced eastward across the southern extremities of the Sahara. The convoy, led by a wanted Islamic militant named Ammari Saifi, had just slipped from Mali into northern Niger, where the desert rolls out into an immense, flat pan of gravelly sand. Saifi, who has been called the "bin Laden of the Sahara," was traveling with about 50 jihadists, some from Algeria, the rest from nearby African countries such as Mauritania and Nigeria. There are virtually no roads in this part of the desert, but the convoy moved rapidly. For nearly half a year Saifi and his men had been the object of an international hunt coordinated by the United States military and conducted primarily by the countries that share the desert. Soldiers from Niger, assisted by American and Algerian special forces, had fought with Saifi twice in the past several weeks. Each time, the convoy escaped. Now it was heading further east, toward a remote mountain range in northern Chad.
At the time, Saifi was by far the most sophisticated and resourceful Islamic militant in North Africa and the Sahel, an expansive swath of territory that runs along the Sahara's southern fringe. In the Sahel, the Sahara's windswept dunes gradually reduce to semi-desert, and then, further south, become arid savanna. The terrain extends roughly 3,000 miles across Africafrom Senegal through Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad, and into Sudan. It is awesome in its scale, poverty, and lack of governance. Troubled by restive minorities, environmental degradation, economic collapse, coups, famine, genocide, and geographic isolation, the Sahel has been described by one top U.S. military commander as "a belt of instability." (Last year, the U.N. ranked Niger as having the world's worst living conditions; Mali and Chad were among the five worst.) The region is also home to some 70 million Muslims, and since 9-11 there have been reports that Islamic radicals from other parts of Africa, as well as from the Middle East and South Asia, are proselytizing there, or seeking refuge from their home countries, or simply attempting to wage jihad.
Saifi seemed to belong to this final, most worrying, category. He had spent much of his adult life trying to unseat the secular Algerian government, and in 2003 he orchestrated a terrorist act of stupendous bravado: taking 32 European adventure travelers hostage in the Algerian Sahara, shuttling half of them hundreds of miles south, into Mali, and after 177 days of captivity, exchanging the tourists for suitcases filled with 5 million euros in ransoman immense sum of money in the Sahel, by some estimates a quarter of Niger's defense budget. Most of the tourists were German, and the German government, which reportedly paid the ransom, filed an international arrest warrant for Saifi. The United States declared him a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, a classification shared by bin Laden and his senior commanders. The United Nations put his name on a roster known as "The New Consolidated List of Individuals and Entities Belonging to or Associated With the Taliban and Al-Qaida."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:07 ||
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#1
thx Dan for the follow up. I remember the Saif/group and the kidnappings because the event was covered 3 years ago right here at the RBU.
#2
The journalist clearly went to the Columbia School of Journalism... or wants to. Lots of good information, thank you, but also lots of gritty atmospheric description, of the kind the author couldn't possibly have personal knowledge. And just a tad too carefully "balanced".
#3
was Saifi. "He was tall, much taller than most of the others," Bin Laden's evil twin? Did anyone check to see if the two have ever been seen in the same place at the same time? :-)
#4
This is a great article and the guy did a good job. However this bothers me...The former official also suggested that other secret missions had been conducted during that time period. "Rumsfeld had his goons running all over the continent," he said.
no bias there.
Hmm, former unnamed official perhaps it could be Scheuer?? Seeing as he's quoted earlier. Why does everyone always quote from this guy? He never seems to get ANYTHING right. Here's another example of Scheuer's inability to master the obvious.
Kidnapping the tourists was atypical for the GSPC, and it is true, there were easier ways to raise money and weapons. Scheuer speculates that Saifi may have wanted to boldly demonstrate that the GSPC was not beaten. Another possibility is that he was heeding a 2002 recommendation from Al Qaeda's leadership to attack "the enemy's tourist industry" because it "includes easy targets with major economic, political, and security importance," and because its impact can sometimes surpass "an attack against an enemy warship."
I think the author did a nice job of not offending Scheuer by not dissing his quote, but still giving his readers what they needed to know.
#6
And here's another food for thought. Maybe if "Rumsfeld and his goons" had been running the show back when Bin Laden could have been handed to us on a silver platter, and his mighty army squased like a bug, 911 might not have happened.
#7
The former official also suggested that other secret missions had been conducted during that time period. "Rumsfeld had his goons running all over the continent," he said.
Could've been Scheuer; it might also be Richard Clark. Sounds like the terminology he'd use.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front renewed efforts to help authorities capture the leader of the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group and the Jemaah Islamiah network in Mindanao, coinciding with the start of antiterror training between US and Filipino troops.
The MILF said it is helping the government track down Khadafy Janjalani, whose group is blamed for the spate of kidnappings and bombings in Mindanao, and in Manila the past years.
Our forces are working in coordination with the Philippine authorities under a two-year old agreement between the MILF and the government, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu told The Manila Times on Tuesday.
The MILF, the countrys largest Muslim separatist rebel group, is negotiating peace with Manila. It signed an agreement in 2004 that enabled it to help the government hunt down terrorists and criminals.
Kabalu said latest intelligence reports suggested that Janjalani could be hiding in western Mindanao or the Sulu archipelago, which covers the islands of Jolo and Tawi-Tawi.
The spokesman added that they have stepped up their hunt for the terrorists in Basilan, Zamboanga, Jolo, Tawi-tawi and in other parts of Mindanao.
But MILF rebels are under strict orders to stay away from the areas where US and Philippine soldiers are conducting their training to avoid clashes.
US and Filipino troops are participating in joint trainings in Carmen, North Cotabato. A bigger exercise is taking place in southern Jolo, where the rebels actively operate.
Kabalu quoting previous intelligence reports, said Janjalani was last seen with the group of Jemaah Islamiya bomb-makers Umar Patek and Dulmatin, tagged as the brains of the 2002 Bali bombings.
The Jemaah Islamiah has been blamed for a string of attacks in the Philippines and Indonesia, including a blast at Jakartas J.W. Marriott hotel that killed a dozen people dead and the Australian embassy bombing also in Jakarta that killed 10 people.
Manila said the two groups remain the biggest threats in the country and in Southeast Asia.
The MILF said the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemaah Islamiya have fragmented into smaller groups and are hiding from one place to another in Mindanao.
Government troops mounted last year a massive operation against Janjalani, Patek and Dulmatin in Maguindanao province but failed to capture the trio, although eight of their followers were killed.
Kabalu said the huge bounty offered by Washington and Manila has forced many Abu Sayyaf leaders, including Janjalani, Patek and Dulmatin to hide for their life.
The US has offered as much as $10 million bounty for the arrest of Dulmatin and $5 million for Janjalanis capture. It also offered $1 reward for Pateks capture.
Rohan Gunaratna, head of Singapores terrorism research institute for defense and strategic studies, said the Jemaah Islamiya is allegedly receiving funds from the al-Qaeda and unidentified financiers in the Middle East.
Our operation against the Abu Sayyaf is going on, but we cannot determine yet whether Janjalani has returned to hiding in Jolo, but we have intelligence operatives out there, Brig. Gen. Alexander Aleo, Jolo military chief, said in a separate interview Tuesday.
Philippine authorities said at least 60 Jemaah Islamiah members are believed to be hiding in Mindanao and are training local recruits.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:06 ||
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#1
the giant can of worms continues.....
Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 10:47
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Our forces are working in coordination with the Philippine authorities under a two-year old agreement between the MILF and the government,
Its common knowledge that KJ and the ASG are being safehoused on MILF land where the military can't go because of that two year old agreement. Lipless needs to answer the tougher questions as to why the MILF are pushing Muslim judges into restraining orders against the police when they want to search a known safehouse. This guy is a cadidate for the 17cent solution.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 10:49
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#3
I wonder if that beer drinking governor has much to do with it?
Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 11:41
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#4
Nope, he's in it for the Catholic girls. We should open a Hooters on Jolo, hold mass on Wed and set up a pray rug zone. All the big leaders will be there.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 11:51
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A jury in Dagestan on Tuesday acquitted a man charged with carrying out a 1999 apartment blast that killed 64 people and helped trigger Moscow's renewed military campaign in Chechnya, court officials said.
Magomed Salikhov was acquitted of charges of organizing the Sept. 4, 1999, explosion that destroyed a building housing Russian military officers and their families in the Caspian Sea town of Buinaksk, said Andrei Ashurov, a spokesman for the Dagestani Supreme Court.
The jury found Salikhov guilty of illegally crossing into Russia from Azerbaijan and using forged documents. Kurban Pashayev, the presiding judge, said Salikhov would be sentenced later this month.
Several other men were convicted in 2001 on charges of carrying out the explosion, and two of them, including Salikhov's younger brother, were sentenced to life imprisonment.
Prosecutors said they had been promised $30,000 for carrying out the blast by Omar Ibn al-Khattab, a Saudi-born militant who led rebel fighters in Chechnya, which neighbors Dagestan. Al-Khattab died in 2002.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:04 ||
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This is the war on terrorism that most Americans haven't heard of:
A few days after Christmas, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Adam Reed rode into the parched, hungry village of Sankabar with a present: a new water pump. Last week, Reed returned to the village, where elders gleefully showed the soldier from Sidon, Miss., what the simple irrigation system had brought: budding green fields of corn, bananas and oranges, the most promising crops in years.
A small U.S. military task force in East Africa is installing water pumps, rebuilding schools and health clinics, making medical house calls and training national armies - all part of a mission to stabilize a region that's seen as a potential breeding ground for terrorist groups.
"We are coming out of drought because of the pump," said Omar Ahmed, a Sankabar elder. "So we say thank you, America. And thank you, Mr. Reed. He is the first guy to give us help."
What's going here provides a glimpse of the Bush administration's global war on terrorism, which is being fought - mostly in the shadows - elsewhere in Africa and across the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia using different combinations of military, covert, economic and diplomatic weapons.
Separated from the Middle East by only a narrow waterway, the Horn of Africa is home to 90 million Muslims, many of whom live in crushing poverty and political isolation. Al-Qaida has had success in the area, bombing U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, attacking the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen in 2000 and nearly shooting down an Israeli charter plane over Kenya in 2002.
The 1,500 troops of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa have been stationed since 2002 at Camp Lemonier, a former French base on the Red Sea in the tiny coastal nation of Djibouti. They were sent to hunt down al-Qaida operatives in East Africa, but there are few known terrorist cells working in the vast area - two-thirds the size of the United States - and the troops haven't made many arrests.
Instead, theirs has become a humanitarian mission, with public relations benefits. By bringing aid to remote villages, commanders say, they help alleviate the poverty and alienation that foster terrorism and score image points against terrorist recruiters who would paint the United States as a villain.
"We are in a generational fight for hearts and minds," said Maj. Gen. Timothy Ghormley, the task force commander. "We do water projects and build schools that help a poor child in a village, and in 20 years that child will remember us."
Ghormley, who as a young Marine in Vietnam helped train militias to fight Viet Cong, likes to boast that his troops haven't fired a single shot. Made up largely of engineering and construction units, the task force has built 52 schools, 23 medical facilities and 25 water wells. It's also trained military forces in six countries, including Uganda and Ethiopia, to shore up their border security.
Though far smaller, it's the most significant U.S. military engagement in Africa since 25,000 troops went to Somalia in 1992, an operation that ended after 18 were killed in the infamous "Black Hawk Down" episode.
The emphasis on Africa in the U.S. war on terrorism has grown in recent years. Last year, the American military launched a $500 million program to train the armies of nine West and North African countries in counterterrorism operations. A similar $100 million project began in East Africa in 2003.
The Horn of Africa task force covers 11 countries: Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Yemen. But there's no troop presence in Somalia - the place analysts think is the most likely terrorist haven in the region.
Without a functioning government or security force, Somalia has devolved into a quasi-nation of warring factions where Islamic militants have strong ties to al-Qaida. No one has asked the United States to come in, so Ghormley says the task force's limited manpower and modest $11 million budget are directed at countries that have welcomed the assistance.
Ghormley's troops are a rare foreign presence in Ethiopia's Ogaden desert region, a drought-stricken area in which most people are poor, ethnic Somali and, officials think, susceptible to Islamic extremism.
American troops - including Army well-drilling units, Navy construction teams and Marines - arrived in the Ogaden last fall, setting up camp in a hotel in the hamlet of Gode, so cut off from the rest of Ethiopia that at first some of them worried they'd be a target.
Until recently, the massive cargo planes that roared into Gode to deliver supplies didn't even shut off their engines. They made quick, combat-style landings, then disappeared back into the sky within minutes.
But troops say the locals have welcomed them. When their dirt-spattered SUVs rumble into a village, children in tattered clothes run to greet them and elders shake their hands warmly, like old friends.
"Before they came, some people were giving us bad information, that the Americans kill people without reason, that Americans hate Africans," said Wali Aden, the tall, thin mayor of the village of Goderay, where the troops installed a $1,400 water pump last fall.
"But we believe now. They are the only guys who give us assistance."
The troops say they don't ask villagers for intelligence or place any conditions on aid.
"I'm not here to fish for information," said Army Sgt. Dave Hoffner of Manahawkin, N.J. "If they want to give us information, we'll pass it up" the chain of command.
In villages where the troops have worked, the feel-good factor is unmistakable. But the region is huge and complex and the mission's budget limited, and some experts wonder whether the military is willing to remain in the region long enough to have a serious impact.
Even the small irrigation projects need ongoing attention. Villagers in Sankabar love their new water pumps - bearing the logo of a Chinese manufacturer - but they used up 55 gallons of diesel fuel in two weeks and had to ask the American troops for more.
If the pump fails, it's not clear that anyone in the village will know how to fix it; a secondhand pump that farmers bought themselves broke down several months ago and now sits alongside the new one, rusted and forgotten.
"It's nice that we can do these things, but this isn't long-term development," said Princeton Lyman, the director of the Africa task force at the Council on Foreign Relations, a research center in New York and Washington. "It's good for our image ... but it doesn't substitute for general development because the troops come and go."
Still, Ghormley sees hope in his mission.
"If we fight this battle here well," Ghormley said, "we won't have to fight battles like we do in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
01:03 ||
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#4
good point 3dc - this money, spent through the UN, wouldn't get a singlye UN point person on teh ground. Money well spent. Weshould continue and let the Saudis know mosque money for Wahhabiism is prohibited. Oh, and F*&K Somalia. Let them rot
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 21:41
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IRAQI rebels in the Sunni Arab city of Ramadi have turned against their former al-Qaida allies after a bomb attack this month killed 80 people, sparking tit-for-tat assassinations.
Residents yesterday said at least three prominent figures on both sides were among those killed after local insurgent groups formed an alliance against al-Qaida, blaming it for massacring police recruits in Ramadi on January 5.
"There was a meeting right after the bombings," one Ramadi resident familiar with the events said.
"Tribal leaders and political figures gathered to form the Anbar Revolutionaries to fight al-Qaida in Anbar and force them to leave the province. Since then there has been all-out war between them."
The bloodshed is the latest example of a trend US military and diplomats have been pointing to as a sign some militants may be ready to pursue negotiable demands through the new Sunni Arab engagement in parliament after taking part in last month's election.
In a further sign of the rifts emerging within Iraq's insurgency, Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has stepped aside as the head of a new council of radical groups in favour of an Iraqi, according to a posting on a website used by al-Qaida.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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THOUSANDS of British combat troops are expected to be sent to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan. John Reid, the Defence Secretary, is said to be ready to announce that 4,000 soldiers from 16 Air Assault Brigade, built around the 3rd Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, will be sent to the Helmand province to help with its reconstruction. There are about 1,000 British troops in Afghanistan now. The influx will be cut to 3,500 when engineers complete camp building.
Officially the role of the new troops will be to help the Afghan Government with provincial reconstruction, but ministers expect that they may be deployed against al-Qaeda groups and drug barons.
Apache helicopter gunships and Merlin and Chinook helicopters will accompany them, along with Harrier jets. The decision to send the Parachute Regiment underlines the risks of the mission. They will take over from US forces and lead a new Nato force.
Soldiers are now training on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire, and learning about Afghanistan and its culture. Mr Reid will visit them before they embark.
Ministers have said that the rise in suicide bombings in Afghanistan is of great concern. Al-Qaeda forces have killed 100 US soldiers and thousands of civilians, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawis al-Qaeda group in Iraq is believed to have set up a new insurgency unit in southern Afghanistan.
The escalation in suicide attacks has raised alarm within Nato, which believes that the Taleban and its supporters are targeting southern Afghanistan because of the alliances plan to move into the region by spring, increasing the number of international troops in the country from 10,000 to 16,000.
Since the new year there has been a spate of suicide attacks, with one bomber killing at least 20 people in Spin Buldak on January 16. Another bomber killed three in Kandahar, including a Canadian diplomat, a day before.
There has been growing concern among member countries, particularly in the Netherlands, over extra troops. MPs on the Commons Defence Select Committee aired misgivings last week about sending British troops to Helmand, home to opium barons and one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan. The Paras will be expected to launch operations against them.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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#1
Our Military other Gov assets met the very tough challenges presented in Afganistan and have done a great job [under reported]. You would think the true story would be so compelling that the MSM would cover it from A_Z.
enter the UK troops..is this the best the Timesonline can do?
sent to one of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan
rise in suicide bombings in Afghanistan is of great concern.
Al-Qaeda forces have killed 100 US soldiers and thousands of civilians
Abu Musab al-Zarqawis al-Qaeda group in Iraq is believed to have set up a new insurgency unit in southern Afghanistan.
The escalation in suicide attacks has raised alarm within Nato
the Taleban and its supporters are targeting southern Afghanistan
Since the new year there has been a spate of suicide attacks
one bomber killing at least 20 people in Spin Buldak on January 16.
Another bomber killed three in Kandahar, including a Canadian diplomat, a day before.
There has been growing concern among member countries, particularly in the Netherlands, over extra troops. MPs on the Commons Defence Select Committee aired misgivings last week about sending British troops to Helmand, home to opium barons and one of the most dangerous areas of Afghanistan.
Not one sentence about the mission helping Afghanistan or helping the Afghani people establish a government and society free from War Lords and Muslim fanatics. Not one word about health services, clean water supplies, schools etc. that will result directly from UK soldiers being there.
#3
RD, well said. You think at some point the NYT stock holders would get the connection between that 41% drop and their refusal to accurately report the news.
British troops launched a crackdown Tuesday on Basra's troubled police, arresting several officers in a force long believed infiltrated by extremist Shiite militiamen. Curbing militia power is considered crucial to building trust among Iraq's rival communities, but finding a way to do it has proven elusive.
Fourteen people were detained in the early morning raids, British officials said. Nine were released but five others all policemen were jailed for alleged roles in murder and other crimes "connected to rival tribal and militia groups," British spokesman Maj. Peter Cripps said.
They include Maj. Jassim al-Daraji, assistant director of Basra's criminal intelligence department, according to police spokesman Lt. Abbas al-Basri.
"Everyone in this part of Iraq has some allegiance or grouping with a tribe or some political group or militia," Cripps told The Associated Press. "The point ... is whether their allegiances are greater to the police service or their tribe or militia."
He said British and Iraqi forces were "trying to root out those who follow militia-like allegiances."
Shiite-dominated Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, is located 340 miles south of Baghdad, and has been far calmer than the turbulent Sunni Arab areas where most American troops are based. Still, 10 British soldiers have been killed since May in bombings and ambushes, some of them blamed on tribal and militia groups.
Trouble escalated last September in Basra when Iraqi police arrested two British Arabic-speaking commandos during a surveillance mission. Fearing the soldiers would be transferred to militia control, British troops stormed a police station and freed the captives.
Following the incident, the local Department of Internal Affairs was abolished because of militia ties. However, those dismissed in the reorganization "got jobs in another department within the Iraqi police services in Basra," Cripps said.
In Iraqi parlance, "militia" refers to armed groups associated with political parties, tribal leaders or religious figures. Many are Shiite and are different from the Sunni Arab insurgent groups, such as the Islamic Army of Iraq or the al-Qaeda faction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that seek to oust foreign troops and topple the U.S.-backed government.
Some are locally based and are little more than criminal gangs. Others play a role in the fight against Sunni insurgents. Some Shiite militias are believed behind killings of Sunni Arabs, often in reprisal for attacks by insurgents and religious extremists against Shiites.
Sunni Arab politicians blame Shiite militias for driving disaffected Sunnis into insurgent ranks, but U.S. efforts to persuade Shiites and Kurds to disband their militias has proven difficult in the face of the raging Sunni insurgency. Shiite and Kurdish parties dominate the current government.
The U.S. goal now is to try to integrate the militias into the police and army, where they can be controlled. However, the Bush administration acknowledged in a report to Congress last October that "the realities of Iraq's political and security landscape" make it unlikely that goal will soon be achieved.
The militias number from a few hundred to tens of thousands of members.
Major militias include the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army both Shiite and the peshmerga, the Kurdish force believed to number up to 100,000. Peshmerga troops fought alongside the U.S. military in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and veterans of the Kurdish force are strongly represented in the new Iraqi army and police.
Kurdish leaders insist the peshmerga is not a militia but the legitimate security force of the three-province Kurdish Regional Government. Kurdish leaders stuck by that position in 2004 after interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi announced a deal to disband militias by January of this year.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr refused to accept the deal and disband his Mahdi Army, which battled U.S. forces in two uprisings. Despite an agreement last year to end the fighting, the Mahdi Army still operates in parts of Baghdad and Shiite areas of the south, including Basra.
Under U.S. pressure, the Badr Brigade changed its name to the Badr Organization for Reconstruction and Development in 2003 and maintains that it is no longer a militia. The group is linked to Iraq's biggest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq senior partner in the Shiite coalition that won the biggest number of parliament seats in last month's election.
Badr is also widely believed to have links to Iranian intelligence, and many of its key figures lived in Iran until the fall of Saddam Hussein in March 2003. Badr veterans are believed represented in ranks of the Interior Ministry special commando forces at the center of Sunni abuse charges. Interior Minister Bayan Jabr is a former Badr official.
However, those units, especially the feared Wolf Brigade, are considered among the toughest fighters among government forces in the battle against insurgents. The U.S. military announced this month that it would assign up to 3,000 U.S. and international personnel to such units, not only to accelerate their training but to curb their abuses.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:59 ||
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#1
Wow, the Brits are actually doing something. Maybe it means the Iran invasion (link)is on.
Yemen has detained 19 people on suspicion of planning attacks against Westerners on the orders of the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a state-run Web site said yesterday.
The September 26 site (www.26sep.net) quoted government sources as saying those held would be questioned before possibly standing trial for planning sabotage and terrorist attacks in the port of Aden.
Several members of the group had returned from Iraq after Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi told them to go back to Yemen and carry out terrorist attacks, including killing American citizens, the site quoted a source as saying.
It said one of the targets was the Aden Hotel and the suspects had bought arms, explosives and detonators.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:58 ||
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President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda fighters were probably killed in a suspected CIA air strike that killed 13 civilians in Damadola village in Bajaur Agency earlier this month.
Now that weve started investigating the reality on the ground, yes, we have found that there are foreigners there. That is for sure, Musharraf said in response to a question at the Oslo Nobel Institute following his lecture on Pakistans Role for Peace and Development in the Region and Beyond.
There is indication that there were some people, also Al Qaeda people, who have gotten killed. Now we need to ascertain that. Im not 100 percent sure of that, he added. The president said Pakistan contacted the United States after the air strike on Damadola village. Yes, indeed, they do assure that they will not act against Pakistans interest, he said, without giving details. My regret is that these foreigners are there and we need to eliminate (them), he added. He said Pakistans armed forces were capable of combating Al Qaeda militants without outside interference. We dont want interference in Pakistan ... only Pakistan forces will act, said Musharraf.
He dismissed criticisms by opposition politicians that his government was too servile in allying itself with the US war on terror. He said that Pakistan was acting in its own interests. We are first of all doing something for ourselves, he said, adding that peace was a condition for economic growth. Asked whether he was concerned about Irans nuclear ambitions, Musharraf said: Iran is our neighbour. There is no threat from Iran to Pakistan. He added that Pakistan opposes nuclear proliferation.
Earlier on Tuesday, Musharraf met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and had lunch with King Harald. He was also to meet with representatives of the Norwegian telecom company Telenor. Speaking to reporters after talks with Stoltenberg, he said that only dozens of Al Qaeda fighters remained in Pakistan. Weve taken over their sanctuaries. Where they were in the hundreds, now they are only in the dozens around in the mountains and we are chasing them, he said.
Musharraf said Pakistan had done more than any other to crack down on Al Qaeda, arresting 700 militants and deploying 50,000 troops to scour trackless mountainous areas where he said British colonialists never dared to venture. We are succeeding. It will take some time, you have to show patience, he said. There are no limits. We will go anywhere.
He said that only a long-term Muslim Renaissance could defuse the threat from religious extremism. Military action against mountain hideouts of Islamic militants was only a short-term fix. We are trying to introduce a Muslim Renaissance as I call it, he said. In the long run, he planned to work against extremism through school curricula, the teaching of tolerance in Islam and by integrating madrassas into the general education system. Norway on Tuesday agreed to cancel $20 million of Pakistans $45 million debt on condition that Islamabad spends an equivalent amount on reconstruction efforts in the regions devastated by last Octobers earthquake.
There was tight security for Musharrafs visit to Norway the first by a Pakistani head of state. Norway is home to about 30,000 Pakistani-born immigrants. Musharrafs visit is part of a weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe, and he is also due to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:57 ||
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#1
If Pakistani forces will act why haven't they Perv?
#2
Wasn't there a cross-border shooting incident at the border with Canada? If the Canadians don't mind helping American cops and US Border Patrol members, then Pakistan should be similarly tolerant.
#6
"He said that only a long-term Muslim Renaissance could defuse the threat from religious extremism.
but their decrepit culture lacks the momentum for any kind of renaissance,it's more like we're witnessing the death throes of a culture
Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 11:25
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So when is Perv going to fire Aziz, who swore there were "no foreigners, no Al-Qaida" killed in Blamadola? You can't have your president saying one thing, and your UN Ambassador saying something totally different. That's not "dissonance", that's stupidity.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 15:30
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed Tuesday a wave of public demonstrations that followed a massive suicide bombing last week, in particular praising a provincial chief who implicated Pakistan.
Thousands of Afghans have taken part in protests in at least four towns to condemn the January 16 attack the deadliest in a recent string of suicide blasts and accuse Pakistan of supporting the perpetrators.s.
The blast killed at least 22 men leaving a wrestling match in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan. The latest demonstration was in the western city of Herat Tuesday with nearly 1,000 people shouting, Down with Pakistan, down with Pervez Musharraf.
The entire nation was saddened, Karzai said at a meeting of provincial governors in the capital Kabul. There were demonstrations everywhere ... it was very good and courageous, he said.
The president singled out the governor of southern Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, who bluntly accused Pakistan of supporting Taliban and other militants apparently behind a spate of suicide attacks in his province, including the Spin Boldak blast.
Khalid has political courage and knowledge, Karzai said.
The governors criticism of Pakistan reflects popular opinion in Afghanistan although the president has himself never made similar accusations.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:56 ||
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A Foreign Office minister last night expressed regret at misinforming parliament over meetings with the United Nations on extraordinary rendition. In a written reply to a question from to Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott, Lord Triesman explained why he told peers that Foreign Office officials had not held talks with the UN on the alleged use of British airports for secret CIA flights, before admitting that a meeting had taken place.
It has been confirmed that Martin Scheinin, the UN Human Rights Commission's special rapporteur, travelled to London for meetings with Home Office and Foreign Office officials in November last year.
Lord Triesman said : "I very much regret this oversight." "Extraordinary rendition was not raised at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office meeting. But I understand it was covered at the meeting in the Home Office in which an FCO official participated.
"The officials who prepared my answer to your original question apparently overlooked that fact.
"The purpose of the Home Office meeting was to discuss the government's terrorism legislation and policy of deportation with assurances. Extraordinary rendition was raised briefly.
"We have sought throughout to keep parliament informed of developments and will continue to do so if new information comes to light," he said.
Fresh demands were made last night for a UK inquiry into so-called ghost flights after Europe's human rights watchdog claimed EU governments almost certainly knew the CIA was "outsourcing torture" by flying al Qaeda suspects through their territories, including the use of Scots airports.
Dick Marty, the Swiss MP investigating rendition claims for the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, said: "The entire continent is involved. It is highly unlikely that European governments, or at least their intelligence services, were unaware of the rendition of more than a hundred persons affecting Europe."
"We have no proof, of course, it's highly unlikely!"
Last night Angus Robertson, the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman, called for disclosure from London and Edinburgh, saying: "This is a serious issue about our standing in the world and the UK government and Scottish Executive need to end the culture of secrecy."
Nick Clegg, LibDem foreign affairs spokesman, insisted there ought to be a full government inquiry on rendition. Liberty, the civil rights group, said that if the government did not carry out an investigation, then it could be "complicit in acts of torture".
Tony Blair's spokesman dismissed Mr Marty's report, saying: "From what I have heard, there seem to be no new facts."
Or old facts.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:55 ||
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#1
How about there are no facts.
SNP TRANAZI jokes of the likes of Galloway andf Red Ken. How about a diginified "sod off."
A bit of a different spin than that the original CNN report had to it.
In his initial report to the Council of Europe on alleged secret prisons run by the CIA in eastern Europe to question terror suspects, a Swiss investigator said there was evidence of the "outsourcing" of torture by the United States, adding it was likely a number of Europe nations or their intelligence agencies knew about it.
"It has been proved -- and, in fact, never denied -- that individuals have been abducted, deprived of their liberty and transported ... in Europe, to be handed over to countries in which they have suffered ... torture," said Swiss Senator Dick Marty in a written statement.
Last month, the group Human Rights Watch said it had "not reached final conclusions about CIA operations in eastern Europe," but had collected information that CIA airplanes traveled from Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, making direct flights to remote airfields in Poland and Romania, and sometimes passing through other European nations.
According to Marty, the alleged operations involved more than 100 people.
While admitting there was no formal, irrefutable proof of the existence of secret CIA detention centers in Romania, Poland or any other country, Marty said there was "a great deal of coherent, convergent evidence pointing to the existence of a system of 'relocation' or 'outsourcing' of torture."
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack on Tuesday afternoon called the report "old ground having been plowed."
"Same old reports wrapped up in some new rhetoric," he said. "There's nothing new here."
McCormack repeated what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she told European leaders on a trip to the continent in December: "The United States does not torture. We respect the sovereignty of our European friends and allies."
He added, "Most importantly , the United States and Europe are fighting a common fight against terrorism."
During her talks in Europe, he said, Rice "got down to the core issue" of the challenge of fighting terrorism in a free society."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:52 ||
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#1
Yawn. I'll wait for the Oliver Stone movie, thanks.
#2
Last month, the group Human Rights Watch said it had "not reached final conclusions about CIA operations in eastern Europe," but had collected information that CIA airplanes traveled from Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, making direct flights to remote airfields in Poland and Romania, and sometimes passing through other European nations.
We will not be deterred. The training flights and humanitarian relief airdrops to hungry villagers will continue.
#4
No Proof(s) ergo the law was broken, just as the Commie Parties of Russia-China promise that, contrary to their history, they won't try to take over the Commie andor Socialist Parties of America and Europe.
Even while acknowledging that some al Qaeda leaders may have been killed in a recent U.S. military strike in his country, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf Tuesday insisted it's his army that's winning the war on terrorism.
He told an audience at the Nobel Institute in Norway that his military has now captured 700 al Qaeda terrorists.
"We've taken away their sanctuaries, where they were in the hundreds. Now they are only in the dozens around in the mountains and we are chasing them," Musharraf said.
But there are many more out there, and they want the world to know it, reports CBS News correspondent Jim Stewart.
Somehow, the ones being chased continue to find time to make home movies. The latest batch on a terrorist-linked Web site show volunteers being trained in small arms and tactics somewhere in Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. They leave no doubt who their targets are and even display ground to air missile capability.
Lately al Qaeda and Taliban-linked Web sites have been flooded with such videotapes that purport to show terrorists setting up shop once again in the region. But some appear well over a year old. It's impossible to date others, and U.S. counter-terrorism officials warn not to read too much into them.
Still, they are impressive. There are detailed classes on how to construct anti-personnel mines. Future operations are explained, complete with topographical maps. New volunteers give testimonials one appears to speak English with an Australian accent.
But who can tell whose voice that really is behind the head dress?
There are even housekeeping scenes glimpses inside a terrorist dormitory, a well-made camp fire and the evening meal of lentils and fresh baked bread.
The videos are all accompanied by background messages from Osama bin Laden.
It is hard to tell what it all means in the end. However, the movies suggest Pakistan has more than just a few dozen terrorists still on the loose, which may explain the mounting number of U.S. missile strikes there.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:51 ||
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A court specialized in terrorism cases will launch the trial of six people on charges of operating for Al-Qaeda, including four who were repatriated from Guantanamo a year ago.
A source quoted in the pro-government daily September 26 said Monday that among the defendants are Mohammed Hamdi Al-Ahdal, also called Abu Asem Al-Macci, and Ghaleb Zaidi, who were arrested in Sanaa in December 2003.
Al-Ahdal reportedly admitted during interrogation he received large amounts of money from overseas through intermediaries in Kuwait.
Al-Ahdal, believed to be the No. 2 Al-Qaeda man in Yemen after Sinan Al-Harithy who was killed in a U.S. drone attack in eastern Yemen in 2002, said he distributed the money to the families of Al-Qaeda prisoners and detainees in Guantanamo.
The four other defendants who were handed over to Yemen by the U.S. authorities a year ago rejected accusations of being involved directly in terrorist activities, but acknowledged they have forged travel documents and identity cards for Al-Qaeda operatives.
The Yemeni government describes Al-Ahdal as one of the most active and dangerous members of Al-Qaeda in Yemen. They said he was involved in fighting with Al-Qaeda in Chechnya and Afghanistan, where he was wounded and had his leg amputated.
After becoming disabled, Al-Ahdal shifted from field action to the administration and financing of Al-Qaeda operations in Yemen.
Investigations by intelligence agencies revealed Al-Ahdal was directly involved in bombings attacks in Yemen and terrorist plans which were aborted.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
00:48 ||
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#1
Maybe the chow at Gitmo wasn't so bad after all.
Unidentified attackers threw a hand grenade at the Indian consulate in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar while two grenades were thrown on streets in the capital, Kabul, security officials said on Wednesday. The grenade was thrown at the Indian mission in Kandahar from a speeding vehicle Tuesday. No one was hurt, said deputy provincial police chief, Abdul Hakim.
Must be Hek's boys.
India has good relations with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
In Kabul, two grenades went off on Tuesday but no one was hurt, police said. One exploded in front of the Ministry of Women's Affairs while the other went off later on a deserted commercial street. Police said they had no idea who was responsible.
"Could be anyone, this is Kabul, after all."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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India has good relations with the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai....Police said they had no idea who was responsible.
The trial of more than 70 Al Qaeda suspects in Turkey was postponed shortly after convening on Tuesday to allow a new prosecutor assigned to the case time to prepare.
The defendants, many of whom have been in prison for more than two years since 2003 Al Qaeda linked suicide bombings in Istanbul, face charges ranging from aiding and abetting terrorism to membership in a terrorist group.
Prosecutors in Turkey are assigned to different duties each year, and changing them is a routine procedure.
The trial was adjourned until March 20.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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Al Qaeda and its former protectors the Taliban are in the midst of a powerful resurgence, according to accounts by local officials and information contained in new al Qaeda videotapes obtained by ABC News. The new videotapes show open recruitment for the jihad, or holy war, to kill Americans and their allies. The narrator says, "Come join the jihad caravan."
"The Taliban resurgence this year has been enormous and quite extraordinary," said Ahmed Rashid, author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and the Fundamentalism in Central Asia."
The tape claims Taliban officials have taken over government functions. There is no date on the tape, but in the last month ABC News reporters have confirmed that Western aid organizations have been forced out, their headquarters burned, schools shut down, teachers and journalists killed, and music banned.
The tape shows men described as thieves being dragged through a village behind a truck, and later beheaded. "We're seeing a complete breakdown of law and order," said Rashid. "The army is holed up in its barracks or in its bunkers."
A much rosier picture was described at the White House today as President Bush met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, thanking him for all his government is doing. "We're working closely to defeat the terrorists who would like to harm America and harm Pakistan," Bush said during a news conference.
But there's no sense of defeat seen in a second tape obtained by ABC News, this one produced by al Qaeda. The tape shows the planning of an attack on a government building across the border in Afghanistan. The commander is identified as one of the four men who last year escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan and are now back in action.
The commander is seen on tape, giving a Powerpoint presentation of how the attack was carried out. It also shows scenes of fighters firing their automatic weapons and of buildings burning. The fighters seen on tape shout "bin Laden forever! Long live al Qaeda!"
"It has regrouped, reformed and re-emerged with new vigor," said Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, "and this is a very dangerous emergence."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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#1
if there ever were a moral justification for a series of dirty, small nuclear weapons...this may be it. It would akin to wrapping a house in plastic and fumigating the place...killing evrything in the house. The islamo-cockroaches and those that support them are subhuman.
#6
Sounds like the "Islamic republic of Quam" in Iraq we all no how that one turned out.
If you believe this you should believe this::
I just yesterday took control of a small US rural city yesterday we had a bon fire and kegs a tapped in the town square the cops were all order to take the day off and participate. I got pictures and I sware that building in the background is town square.
#11
if there ever were a moral justification for a series of dirty, small nuclear weapons...this may be it. It would akin to wrapping a house in plastic and fumigating the place...killing evrything in the house. The islamo-cockroaches and those that support them are subhuman
Whoa! My mistake! I thought you were talking about ABC News..
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 21:16
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Threats to use car bombs against UN premises, embassies, security forces and Palestinian leaders in Lebanon have been made by a previously unknown group calling itself "The Black Tigers - the millitary wing of al-Qaeda in Lebanon". A statement released by the group Tuesday, and seen by Adnkronos International (AKI), threatens imminent attacks against a wide range of targets.
"We will strike with car bombs all the offices of the UN inside and outside the [Palestinian refugee camp] Sabra and Shatila and we will hit many foreign embassies" says one of the ten points in the 'first statement' by the group.
"For some time we have been committed to entering Sabra and Shatila, a 'symbol' for Palestinians in Lebanon and known world wide".
"It [the camp] needs reform and this warning must be taken seriously. Today we are admonishing, while tomorrow we will proceed with the elimination of tens [of people] as God is our witness" the statement reads.
The statement by the group claiming to represent al-Qaeda in Lebanon goes on to issue a series of warnings; against Lebanese army officials "not to infiltrate the Palestinian camps with their informers and urging Palestinian factions in Lebanon to 'return to Islam because their leaders are an easy target for our warriors".
There is also a threat against Walid ben Talal [a Saudi prince with Lebanese citizenship and a pan-Arab media magnate] and anyone working with him - if they enter the camps, it says, they will be poisoned.
As well as political and security threats, there are also "moral" warnings; to women from the camps not to go to the red light areas in Beirut, frequented by foreign intelligence agents; to outlets selling alcohol, that their premises will be blown up; to pirate CD vendors; and to the camp pharmacy accused of handing out 'drugs' and giving medicines without prescriptions.
The unknown group also names some of the people they want to eliminate; collaborators of Abbas Zaki, the PA minister for Palestinian refugees; Ghassan Abdallah, a leading Palestinian official in Lebanon, and Khaled Aref, the Palestinian movement Fatah's representative in southern Lebanon.
"Ulema (muslim clerics) who do not respect their faith and who steal our goods" are also cited as objectives, as are Lebanese security officials , "who exploited our fighting brothers who went to Syria and Iraq" and "Were paid more than 800,000 dollars".
The message concludes with a call for the Lebanese state to support the 'brother combatants" who want to go to Iraq and "fight the infidels".
For some years there have been suspicions about thte possible presence of al-Qaeda in Lebanon, and in particular in the camps, like Ein Hilwe, near Sidon, where the Israelis allege that there are elements of Bin LAden's network coming from Afghanistan.
In 2004, a plot for an attack against the Italian embassy in Beirut, was attributed to a presumed al-Qaeda cell.
Last December the Lebanese security forces arrested13 people - seven Syrians, four Lebanese, a Saudi and a Palestinian - suspected of being members of the al-Qaeda network and found in possession of arms and plans for future attacks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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Threats to use car bombs against UN premises, embassies, security forces and Palestinian leaders in Lebanon have been made by a previously unknown group calling itself "The Black Tigers - the millitary wing of al-Qaeda in Lebanon".
SECURITY agencies in the country may have been placed on red alert following an alarm raised by the Federal Government that it had uncovered a 10,000-man terrorist organisation in the Niger Delta region whose motive is to disrupt Nigerias oil production by kidnapping and killing oil workers.
Government also expressed concern over the activities of an Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat (GSPC), believed to be affiliates to the dreaded Al-Qaeda, which it said has recruited and trained many Nigerians on destructive and sabotage acts against the countrys interests.
Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency, Ambassador Uche Okeke, who made the revelations in Abuja, disclosed that these groups were being sponsored by foreigners in connivance with wealthy individuals within the country who mean Nigeria no good.
He told Sunday Vanguard: Though some people might dispute this, the fact is that terrorist activities have been established in the Southern part of the country, particularly in relation to the activities of the Ijaw militants in the Niger Delta area. This area has remained volatile with incessant disruption of oil exploration activities, kidnapping and killing of oil workers.
This group whose total strength is estimated at 10, 000 is equipped with sophisticated weapons that facilitate its attacks against oil related targets especially oil installations in the area. But for the intervention of the federal government through dialogue, the situation would have been worse, the DG said, explaining, How and where this group acquired its weapons is still a mystery and source of concern to government.
He disclosed that the recent spate of violence in Nigeria particularly in some Northern states like Yobe and Borno had underscored the reality of the presence of terrorist intentions against Nigeria.
The fact that Nigeria was listed by Osama Bin Laden among five apostate states ripe for revolution also confirms our worst fears the intelligence chief said and pointed out: It is on record that out of these five states, Nigeria is the only country yet to experience a major attack by Al-Qaeda or its sympathizers.
Furthermore, the activities of the Algerian terrorist group, the Salafist Group For Preaching and Combat (GSPC), in the Sahel countries of West Africa from Mauritania to Niger Republic and Nigeria are sources of concern to us, Okeke said. It is instructive that three Nigerians were among the GSPC combatants captured by Chadian soldiers during an exchange of fire between Chadian forces and GSPC terrorists in April 2004. There were also some Nigerians among those killed by the Chadian troops, he disclosed.
The NIA boss concluded: You would recall that at least 17 people were killed in Yobe between December 2003 and January 2004 when the self styled Talibans, otherwise known as Al-Sunna wal Jamma attempted to impose what they called purification of Islam on the community where they set up their well fortified military styled camps. The group also attacked two local government headquarters in Borno State in September 2004 causing death, destruction and pain to many people. These events are linked with international terrorism organizations, and there is evidence of foreign funding for the group.
You may also want to know that in December 2003, the NIA provided information about a planned terrorist attack on the MEGA PLAZA in Lagos, which is owned by an Israeli citizen. The Agency, the department of State Services and the Nigerian Police Force mobilized pre-emptive forces on receipt of the plan.
Though the attack did not take place most probably because of the presence of security operatives in and around the area, it shows that Nigeria is very vulnerable and could become target for terrorist attacks from international terrorists organizations. Okeke disclosed that, in July this year, operatives of the NIA interrogated one Al-Qaeda operative in Tripoli, Libya who confirmed that he was sent to Nigeria by the Al-Qaeda organization in late 2003 to arrange a number of targets for them.
He successfully concluded his assignment and sent his reports to his handlers in Afghanistan through a Nigerian he recruited before leaving the country in October 2004. The Nigerian was arrested by Pakistani authorities while trying to return to Nigeria having delivered the Al-Qaeda operatives work to their handlers.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/25/2006
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Americans should not expect the war in Iraq to be wrapped up quickly as violence and instability will likely continue, a U.S. governor said Tuesday during a visit here with three other state governors. But Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said the Sunni-led insurgency was losing momentum even though insurgent attacks rose over the past year.
Huckabee flew into Baghdad from neighboring Kuwait City with Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal. The four met U.S. troops and were briefed by military commanders on the state of the rampant insurgency. Perry and Huckabee are Republicans and Doyle and Freudenthal are Democrats. "A light bulb burns very brightly right before it goes out," Huckabee said of the insurgency during his first trip to Iraq. "The insurgents know they have everything to lose if democracy continues."
But he also asked for patience from the American public. "For us to expect that this is going to be rock solid and peaceful is unrealistic," Huckabee said. "Americans are impatient people. We are a people who like things solved quickly."
About 4,000 Arkansas national guardsmen are in Iraq, said Huckabee, who visited Baghdad and Tikrit during his two-day visit to Iraq. He was scheduled to fly on to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and then to Belgium for a visit with NATO officials.
Doyle told CNN that he was impressed with the high morale of the American soldiers he met during his prearranged trip to Iraq, despite threats of suicide and roadside bombings and other attacks that they face each day. "The troops have a very high morale and are very committed to the mission, and I think would very much agree with that definition," said Doyle.
About 2,000 Wisconsin National Guards forces are serving in Iraq and Kuwait. Asked whether Wisconsin had enough forces to deal with any emergency with so many troops outside the state, Doyle said at least 8,000 were still at home and capable of dealing with any crises that may arise. "But that's not to say this doesn't put an enormous drain on us," Doyle said. "It is what it is. We are very proud of our leadership of the National Guard who have managed this very difficult time very, very effectively."
Perry, from President Bush's home state, told FOX News that he sees progress in Iraq. "Obviously you're not going to rebuild a country overnight, but I think this is going along very well," Perry said.
The governors' trip to Iraq and Kuwait was arranged by the Department of Defense to provide the state leaders with an idea of the conditions under which American forces are serving.
This is a clever idea. The governors generate press in their home states; this will make page 2 or page 3 of the metro papers back home. It will get a little TV coverage. It's a nice little bit of push-back, and the DoD ought to do more of it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006
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Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 11:04
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#7
BAM, I would guess it's the DOD or State footing the bill. I don't care who is paying this is still a good idea. Seafarious, Arnold did visit in 2003 and brought T3 with him for screening. Sure he wasn't the Gov (yet) then but he has gone. Also we can't have Arnold leave the state or Cruz "control" Bustamove will think he Gov and start making dumb decisions.
#8
I don't care who is paying this is still a good idea.
I'm not convinced there's a tangible benefit to this. American involvement in Iraq is mostly a matter for the top levels of the US government, and governors' powers/authority is confined to the state level. I can see a need for congressional personnel to be briefed/updated, but any push-back generated by involving state governors doesn't seem likely to be of much help or use.
Camouflage-clad attackers raided an Italian oil company's riverside offices in Nigeria on Tuesday, sparking a gunfight that left nine people dead before assailants fled by speedboat into the oil-rich delta's waterways.
This doesn't sound like a bunch of the locals picked up their hunting rifles and set out to raise some hell. I may have mentioned this a time or two before, but natty uniforms, guns, ammunition, transportation, logistics, and speedboats aren't free. If there's an organized, coordinated force attacking oil companies or anyone else, for that matter somebody's financing it, which should leave a money trail to follow.
The attack on Agip's offices in the southern oil center of Port Harcourt is the latest in a recent rash of violence across the restive Niger Delta that has killed nearly two dozen people, cut petroleum production in Africa's largest oil exporter and helped push up prices of crude worldwide.
Quite by coincidence when oil prices are getting hammered by Iran and the depredations on Iraq's oil production, while Hugo's making faces and threatening to cut his own sales to the U.S...
The attackers, wearing army-style uniforms, cruised up behind Agip's riverbank facility in their boat, forced their way into the compound and stole about $28,000 (euro23,000) in cash before the shoot-out with security forces, said Samuel Adetuyi, the head of the police in the city.
I'm not impressed. $28k's a fair piece of cash, but how long will it support operations by, say, a 15-man platoon? How long will it support them in garrison, even in Africa?
Seven uniformed police, a plainclothed security official and one company employee died in the gunfight that ended when the attackers fled in their speedboat back into the region's labyrinth of creeks and swamps, he said.
"Fled" in this case means they beat it. Their mission was prob'ly accomplished: steal some dough, bump a few guys off, and further destabilize oil production.
Agip's parent company Eni SpA said in Italy that it "has temporarily evacuated staff and contractors from the area of the base affected by the incident and the situation is currently under control." The company said there were others injured, but it was unclear how many. Italy said none of its citizens were among the dead.
Like I said, mission accomplished.
A rash of attacks and kidnappings in recent weeks by militia groups demanding the release from prison of local leaders have cut Nigeria's daily exports of 2.5 million by nearly 10 percent and claimed at least 23 lives. But Adetuyi said there was no immediate evidence that Tuesday's attack on Agip was linked to that. "I can't confirm whether there is any link with militiamen," Adetuyi said.
A bunch of boyos in camo duds and no doubt fearsome-looking berets show up in a speed boat waving guns and bumping people off, but he's not confirming they're linked to militiamen. My knees creak when I get up, my hair's mostly fallen out, and when I shave in the morning my Grandaddy looks out at me from the mirror, but I can't confirm I'm getting old.
Despite the massive amounts of crude pumped from southern Nigeria, much of the region remains in abject poverty and activist groups have been agitating for President Olusegun Obasanjo's federal government to provide them with a greater share of state oil revenues. At least 14 other people have been killed in oil-platform attacks and other violence since earlier this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A jury began deliberating Tuesday in the case of an Indiana truck driver accused of conspiring to sell U.S. intelligence secrets to Saddam Hussein's government. Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 53, is accused of meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer at a Baghdad hotel in late 2002 and agreeing to sell the names of U.S. operatives for $3 million. The jury deliberated for eight hours and planned to reconvene Wednesday morning.
This really shouldn't be too hard, either he was there or he wasn't.
Shaaban was indicted in March on counts including conspiracy, acting as a foreign agent and violating sanctions. If convicted, he faces as many as 65 years in prison and more than $1.5 million in fines.
Shaaban, who represented himself during his trial with the help of two standby public defenders, repeated during his closing arguments his contention that the government has mistaken him for a now-dead identical twin. But Assistant U.S. Attorney reminded jurors that witnesses testified no such twin exists.
"We was triplets once!"
Shaaban was working as a truck driver and living near Indianapolis when he was arrested in March.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006
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Ah, yes. The "dead identical evil twin defense".
I think I saw that on "Matlock" once.
KATHMANDU - At least two policemen were killed when Maoist rebels raided a major commercial town in west Nepal, setting off a string of explosions at government buildings and police posts, police and residents said on Wednesday.
Coordinated attacks began late on Tuesday in Nepalgunj, about 500 km (310 mile) west of the capital, Kathmandu. Nepalgunj is the biggest town close to the Maoist heartland in west Nepal and a major business centre near the Indian border. First there were big explosions and then continuous gunshots, local journalist Krishna Adhikary said by telephone from Nepalgunj. The fighting went on for nearly two hours.
A police officer said details, such as the number of explosions, were still being awaited.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006
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Now, now, this is suppos to be a WOT against armed Radical Islamist groups only - Maoists, Commies, and Marxists are not supposed to be there, or even be around anymore. Get a Grip and stick wid the Program - BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA.
Three schoolboys were injured in a bomb explosion at a school in Sreenagar upazila of the district yesterday. Locals said the bomb exploded in the room of class X at Shamaspur School and College with a big bang at 10:00am, leaving three student of the class--Sumon, Nimmy and Urmi--injured. They are now undergoing treatment at the upazila health complex. Officer in-charge (OC) of Sreenagar Police Station told the news agency that though the bomb exploded with a big bang, it had no splinters. The bomb might have been blasted to create panic among the students, he said. Police kept the whole area cordoned following the bomb blast.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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Nimmy! I *told* you to put those detonators down. No, no! Put them down the other wa....
A Hizb Allah cabinet minister has said Lebanon must respond to UN Security Council pressure to disarm the group by stating that it is defending the country against Israel, and is not a militia. On Monday, the 15-member Security Council demanded that the Lebanese government should disarm Hizb Allah's guerrillas in line with a resolution the council adopted 16 months ago. Mohammed Fneish, the energy and water minister, said on Tuesday: "This is a continuation of the American pressure to achieve the goal of enabling Israel to continue to occupy [Lebanese and Arab] territories and to expose Lebanon to Israeli schemes. It is an insult to all Lebanese that the resistance is called a militia.
"It's... ummm... something else."
"If we tell them this is a resistance and not a militia, it'll prevent such interference in our affairs."
"What's the diffo between a resistance and a militia?"
"Turbans. We got green turbans."
Fneish's call is central to a government crisis that saw him and four other Shia Muslim ministers boycott cabinet sessions in December. They linked their return to a demand that Hizb Allah's armed wing be considered legitimate and not a militia that must disarm. The ministers, all pro-Syrian, suspended attending cabinet sessions over a cabinet vote calling on the UN inquiry into last year's assassination of Rafik al-Hariri the former Lebanese prime minister, to include other political killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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lebanon and palistine were the spoils of the 6 day war, how quickly they forget
Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 11:49
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I've been to Rock City, but I haven't made it to Bomb City yet. I guess that's one of those peculiarly Islamic attractions. Wonder what the local equivalent of Muffler Man is?
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been due to visit the southern city where bombs at a bank and government building killed six people Tuesday, his officials have said. Ahmadinejad had been due to visit Ahvaz on Tuesday, but his office said he cancelled the trip on Monday night. Differing reasons for the cancellation were reported: Reuters said it was due to sandstorms that would have wrecked his hallmark walks through the streets while the official Islamic Republic News Agency, quoted by The Associated Press, said heavy rain was to blame.
Sandstorms and heavy rain, huh? Lousy weather we're having this week. Careful! Don't step on all those lips!
Ahmadinejad and his entire Cabinet had been expected to meet in Ahvaz -- a city with a history of violence involving members of Iran's Arab minority -- as one of a series of visits to regional capitals to address key local issues. Lebanon's al-Manar television, run by the Hezbollah militant group, said earlier that Tuesday's bombs had been intended to kill Ahmadinejad. Its Tehran correspondent said the president had canceled his trip after a security tip-off.
That's more believable that simultaneous sandstorms and pounding rain...
Ahvaz city governor Mohammad Jafar Samari said there was no word yet on who planted the bombs. "The place where the bombs exploded was a long way from where the president had planned to make a speech," he told Reuters.
Which kinda negates the security tipoff, too...
Iranian news agencies said the Saman bank was gutted by fire and broken glass littered streets near the blast sites. State TV said six people were killed and 34 others wounded. Officials at Ahvaz's Mehr hospital said one person needed a leg amputating and another three of the wounded might need similar operations, AP said.
Ahah! Legume! My cape! And my saxophone!... [Blows a few bars of "St. James Infirmary"... Tries "Lady of Spain"...] So! A total of four people had legs blown off, did they? And were they, by chance, all left legs?
Iranian authorities are sensitive about protests in Ahvaz and the surrounding province of Khuzestan, which sits on most of the country's oil reserves, the second biggest in the world. Bombings took place in Ahvaz last June and October that the government blamed on Iranian Arab extremists whom it claimed were trained abroad and had ties to foreign governments, including Britain.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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"...That's more believable that simultaneous sandstorms and pounding rain..."
It may be that the rain was in the vicinity of the Tehran airport and the sandstorms in the vicinity of Ahvaz.
#2
Heh, on the other side of the Gulf of Rumsfeld, we'd get sandstorms and super-fog at the same time... old hands had ice scrapers, lol, sold at the SACO True Value Hardware, to scrape off the resulting mud - between .25 and .5 inch thick - a few times per year. It was, um, memorable.
#5
That's more believable that simultaneous sandstorms and pounding rain.
You've never lived in New Mexico, have you? Two inches of thick, red mud on my car in less than three minutes.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 23:25
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed Tuesday a wave of public demonstrations that followed a massive suicide bombing last week, in particular praising a provincial chief who implicated Pakistan. Thousands of Afghans have taken part in protests in at least four towns to condemn the January 16 attack the deadliest in a recent string of suicide blasts and accuse Pakistan of supporting the perpetrators. The blast killed at least 22 men leaving a wrestling match in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan. The latest demonstration was in the western city of Herat Tuesday with nearly 1,000 people shouting, Down with Pakistan, down with Pervez Musharraf.
The entire nation was saddened, Karzai said at a meeting of provincial governors in the capital Kabul. There were demonstrations everywhere ... it was very good and courageous, he said. The president singled out the governor of southern Kandahar province, Asadullah Khalid, who bluntly accused Pakistan of supporting Taliban and other militants apparently behind a spate of suicide attacks in his province, including the Spin Boldak blast. Khalid has political courage and knowledge, Karzai said.
The governors criticism of Pakistan reflects popular opinion in Afghanistan although the president has himself never made similar accusations. Hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants fled to Pakistan after the hardliners were toppled. Afghan officials say they cross the porous border to launch attacks in Afghanistan, although Islamabad denies it.
But then their lips fall off.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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"...Islamabad denies it." But looks the other way and helps with the provision of beans and bullets through ISI and Pakistani Military complitity.
Arrested JMB 'regional commander' and suicide squad member Reaz confessed to police yesterday that the Isamist militant outfit had a plan for a 'major' bomb attack in Gaibandha. He told police during interrogation that he and five others came to Gaibandha, for a 'major bomb attack' like the August 17 serial blasts, police sources said.
Ziaur Rahman Badar alias Reaz Ahmed, 22, JMB 'regional commander' for Gaibandha and Joypurhat, was arrested by Rab (Rapid Action Battalion) during a raid on Ayub Ali Ansari Jame Mosque in front of Gaibandha circuit house in the early hours of Monday. A Rab team from Bogra made the raid, acting on a tip-off. Rab also recovered two powerful live bombs and books on Islamic jihad from his possession. The bombs, tied with blue tape, are now in police custody. He is on seven days' remand.
On reaching Gaibandha, Reaz contacted with one Kamal, a militant in Shaghata Upazila, for chalking out a plan for the bomb attack, police said quoting him. Reaz further told police that they (including three militants from Lalmonirhat and Kamal of Shaghata) were involved in the serial bomb blasts in Gaibandha on August 17. They were planning a 'second major bomb attack'. They were in a discussion on their planned attack when Rab personnel raided the mosque and arrested him. The other militants including Kamal managed to flee.
Police suspect that other members of JMB suicide squad are also carrying bombs for heir planned attacks in the district. Police are now on high alert and hunting for the militants who escaped from the mosque. Shaghata upazila in Gaibandha was a den of JMB activities. Locals said that two years ago, JMB and JMJB (Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh) held regular meetings and arranged training sessions for its activists in different mosques and madrasas. The two banned Islamist militant outfits recruited a large number of youths, mostly from poor families, from different areas in the district, earlier reports said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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If anyone wondered what a miscreant looks like, this is a good example. :)
Iran on Tuesday defended its plan to organize a conference to examine what it terms the scientific evidence for the Holocaust. At the United Nations, the Israeli ambassador said the conference plans were proof that Iran was run by an "extreme, fundamentalist, lunatic regime."
Has Gillerman been reading Rantburg?
The planned conference, which has drawn condemnation from Western leaders, is yet another step in hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's public campaign to make an ass of himself against Israel. "For over half a century, those who seek to prove the Holocaust have used every podium to defend their position. Now they should listen to others," Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hamid Reza Asefi, was quoted as saying Tuesday by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
... to include photography, motion pictures taken at the sites, captured records of the Nazi regime, eye witness testimony, and other such inconsequential data.
Ahmadinejad already had called the Nazis' World War II slaughter of 6 million European Jews a "myth" and said the Jewish state should be "wiped off the map."
That was when even the guys wearing intellectual blinders started to get the uncomfortable feeling — so far sternly suppressed — that he might be a nutbag.
Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said the planned conference was "proof of what a global threat Iran really is."
Yassss... A major nation straddling the Middle East and Central Asia, with lots of oil money to blow on foreign adventurism and a large pool of unemployed youth to mobilize, striving for nuclear weapons and ruled by men in really tight turbans. You might say that.
"I fear that the only reason Iran is showing so much interest in the Holocaust is because they may be preparing another Holocaust and it is up to the world and the United Nations to prevent that from happening," Gillerman told The Associated Press on the sidelines of the opening of the "No Child's Play" exhibit at the U.N. commemorating Holocaust remembrance week.
Right, Dan. The UN. Preventing something. Uhuh. That happens all the time.
IRNA quoted Asefi as saying: that "blind prejudice together with political interests and aims have closed the eyes of the Holocaust defenders to the realities of the world, and they reject without any logic a scientific conference." Iran's Foreign Ministry, which was expected to sponsor the conference, has yet to fix a date or place. It was not clear who might attend.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The sooner the U.S. the E.U., the U.N., the IAEA, and NATO all agree to annihiliate these a-holes the better. Then go to North Korea, then go to Syria, then go to Sudan, then go to Somalia, then go to Lebanon, then go to Chechnya, the go to Dagestan, then go to Ingushitia, then go to Nigeria, then go to venezuela, then go to bolivia, then go to argentina, then go to....
#5
"I fear that the only reason Iran is showing so much interest in the Holocaust is because they may be preparing another Holocaust ...
The Islamic obsession with genocide and holocaust must be laid directly at their feet with an explicit and resounding emphasis upon exactly who will be annihilated should even the most remote attempt at such evil occur.
The world's Muslim population has been thunderously silent (as usual) regarding Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for genocide. They need to realize that the future holds only one more potential holocaust, and it ain't going to be the Jews again.
If Islam cannot rise as one against this sort of penultimate evil they will perish as one as a result of their unwillingness to condemn such outright savagery and barbarity.
About 1.3 million Palestinians will head to the polls Wednesday in the first parliamentary elections in a decade -- a key vote that observers say could be pivotal in the Palestinian push for statehood. On the eve of the election, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinians to turn out for the vote, and an array of militant groups said they would not disrupt voting, which will be held at more than 1,000 polling stations from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. "Voting is the right of every citizen," Abbas said. "It's a national obligation because the results of the election should reflect a truthful expression of all Palestinians."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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the election should reflect a truthful expression of all Palestinians
The Bush administration's effort to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority and its governing Fatah party before critical parliamentary elections this week came under intense criticism Monday from a number of candidates, some of whom charged that the program amounted to illegal interference in the democratic process.
A leader of Hamas, formally known as the Islamic Resistance Movement, called for an investigation into whether the $2 million program violated the prohibition against parties receiving funds from foreign sources. U.S. officials involved in the program said it was not meant to favor one party, but the Palestinian public closely identifies the Palestinian Authority with the Fatah movement that runs it.
Candidates from several other parties said the program was an attempt to undermine Hamas in voting scheduled for Wednesday and predicted that it would backfire. "Every time the United States says it doesn't want Hamas, they boost Hamas," said Mustafa Barghouti, a former presidential candidate who is heading the Independent Palestine candidate list. "Let us do our elections entirely on our own. These interventions run counter to our efforts, and they hurt the Palestinian people. This effort was completely counterproductive."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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Women in burqas (veils) and men in wheelchairs were among hundreds of Afghans who marched in the western city of Herat on Tuesday to denounce a wave of suicide bombings that many blame on neighbouring Pakistan.
Since that's where they originate...
The march was the third well-organised protest in Afghanistan since a suicide bomber killed 23 people in the town of Spin Boldak, on the border with Pakistan, on January 16. Many people were sacrificed for our freedom. Now, thank God, we have freedom but our enemies dont want us to have peace, said a woman.
They're determined not to let you have peace until they're in charge — or you've killed them. I'd go for killing them, myself. You had them in charge before.
Protesters waved the Afghan flag and carried banners with messages such as: Death to terrorism.
I'm not really turned on by protest marches. I'll be much more impressed when they start shooting people who wear turbans.
Afghanistan has seen a spate of suicide blasts with 13 since November. The government blames foreign Al Qaeda and Taliban supporters.
Since they're the ones claiming credit, that's as it should be...
US forces in Afghanistan say the bombings show the insurgents are becoming increasingly desperate, after suffering heavy losses in their guerrilla campaign last year, and are now going after soft targets. Security analysts suspect the Taliban have stepped up suicide attacks after seeing Al Qaedas success in Iraq.
Ummm... Right. Look at all their gains...
Many ordinary Afghans blame Pakistan, which backed the Taliban before the September 11 attacks on the United States, for the violence. I ask the government of Pakistan not to allow terrorism in madrassas, said protester Abdul Hamid, referring to religious schools, some of which in Pakistan are seen as breeding grounds for militants.
The word "Taliban" means "students." While the real men were fighting the Russers, the Talibs were warm and secure in their madrassahs in Pakland, memorizing their Korans and beating women.
Another protester urged the government to denounce Pakistan, which rejects accusations that Afghan insurgents get help on the Pakistani side of the border. It says it has reinforced the border to prevent militants from crossing back and forth but a small number might be able to slip through the porous frontier.
I'm really curious as to how they've reinforced the border when they don't control Waziristan or Bajaur.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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I'm really curious as to how they've reinforced the border when they don't control Waziristan or Bajaur.
Perv reinforces the border at night. He gits out the map and traces out the border with a #2 pencil.
GHALANAI: A tribal leader demanded Azad Jammu and Kashmir-like status to seven tribal regions along the Afghanistan border, while talking to reporters on Monday. The demand for Kashmir-like autonomy does not mean separation from Pakistan, said Malik Noor Ahmed Haleemzai, president of Tehrik-e-Ittehad-e-Qabails Mohmand Agency chapter. Tribal traditions and customs are different from the rest of the country and they can be protected with a separate status, he said. The NWFPs resources are limited, and whatever funds come from the federal government are embezzled before being spent on the tribl areas development, he added. Haleemzai said the tribal areas should have their own prime minister, president and ministers, who should be tribesmen. He said the demand for autonomy was his movements only agenda.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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Would that include the ability to wage war into neighboring states from your semi-autonomous region? Would that include the right of said neighbors to strike back? I'm not sure you know what you're asking for here Malik Noor Ahmed Haleemzai.
DENVER - A US military interrogator convicted of killing an Iraqi general by stuffing his head into a sleeping bag was on Monday sentenced to a reprimand and fine but no jail time, local media reported. Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer must also give up 6,000 dollars of his pay and was confined to his base and place of worship for 60 days, according to the sentence handed down by a six-member court-martial board or jury.
He's convicted, his career is over, and he'll be known by other military people as someone who crossed the line.
Welshofer, who was convicted by the same panel on Saturday of negligent homicide, had faced a sentence of up to three years in military prison. He could have faced a life sentence had he been convicted of murder. Welshofer, who argued that his actions were not extreme and that interrogation rules were unclear, on Monday thanked those colleagues who supported him. The military is a family when you get right down to it, Welshofer said on Denver televisions 9News in remarks that appeared to come after the verdict. I cant thank them enough for their support.
The officer was accused of torturing Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush, covering his head with a sleeping bag, binding him with electric cord and sitting on his chest until he died. The general died of suffocation at a detention center in Al Anbar province, near the Syrian border in November 2002.
Military officials could not immediately be reached to confirm the sentence.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/25/2006
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#2
Correct, his career is over. He now carries a federal felony conviction on his record. If he hasn't made 18 years yet, he'll be administratively removed from service.
#3
Would you like paper or platic bags?The 56 year old Mowhoush said he "felt sick." He undoubtedly had a pre-existing condition, compounded by an uncooperative attitude, an aversion to fart sacks, and warrant officer interrogators. He was a terrorist financier captured near the Syrian border. I'm glad he's dood, maybe some IED or some small arms ammo orders had to be cancelled. It's a tough business, cooperation and remaining alive is the key to the benefit program.
#4
No his career is not over and they didn't give him a Dishonorable Discharge so he can retire when he gets to 20 or now if he has the time. I am sure he didn't want the guy to die so he couldn't be convicted of murder, so this sentence seems just and fair. FYI after six months he can appeal to get the money back and have the reprimand expunged. Given the circumstances the review board might just let it go with a stern warning: "Don't do that again."
#5
I'm sure he will be allowed to retire. OC is correct in that he will most certainly apeal it but this will haunt him and his career. Military leaders will view him as a bad risk to have in their commands. His career, or and promotions, are over. This is too bad, the general's life was not worth a good Warrant officer's career.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 11:47
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"...Welshofer must also give up 6,000 dollars of his pay and was confined to his base and place of worship for 60 days..."
The average sentence for criminally negligent homicide in US civilian/criminal courts ranges from about 16 months to three years behind bars.
#7
Little trivia bit I picked up somewhere. People who are ethnic Dutch generally stink as spies. However, they are often brilliant in counter-espionage.
For this reason, the names of US Military Intelligence staff looks like the Rotterdam phone book. Now I've no idea about CWO Welshofer, but were I to guess...
#8
Sorry didn't have my handle on the comments above for OC. Since he was an Chief Warrant (not sure about Army ranks) I doubt he was going to get many more promotions anyway. No it's not a good trade, but someone had to answer for the prisoners death. Not knowing all the facts it sounds like this guy did cross the line, but that is just my Monday morning quarterbacking.
#9
Warrant Officers are god, Senior Warrant Officers tell God what to do.
Trust me on this, they even tell Officers where to get off, and the Officers do it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/25/2006 14:20
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Warrant officers are the trusted agent for any officer worth a shit. They don't fall into to the "Yes Sir" and execute of the NCO corps and are not stuck in the political Regulular Army Officer crap. They mentor junior officers and give the old dog the straight answer regardless of agendas. Too bad on this one.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 17:06
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#11
The trial has been conducted here in Colorado Springs, and I've been following it in the local newspaper, the Gazette. He's a CWO-W4, the highest warrant officer rank. His career is over, but I think he only has about 14 months to go until retirement. He'll probably end up working in some administrative capacity until then. As an interrogator, he'd have to have a security clearance - that's gone. That also means no government employment after retirement.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/25/2006 23:08
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#12
means Blackwater or equal? Better than a desk job procuring...
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 23:16
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Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday that Israel will have to give up parts of the West Bank in order to preserve a Jewish majority inside its borders but would keep the main settlement blocs and Jerusalem. Olmert, standing in for ailing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the annual Herzliya Conference, said that the main challenge facing Israel now is "setting the permanent borders of the state of Israel to ensure a Jewish majority."
In his first policy address, Olmert said Israel would have to undertake further pullbacks. "The choice between allowing Jews to live in all parts of the land of Israel and living in a state with a Jewish majority mandates giving up parts of the Land of Israel," Olmert said. "We cannot continue to control parts of the territories where most of the Palestinians live." Olmert said Israel "will keep security zones, main settlement blocs, and places important to the Jewish people, first of all, Jerusalem, united under Israeli control. There can be no Jewish state without Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty."
He said it would be a "historical mistake to let the Palestinians escape their commitment to dismantle the terror groups." He said Israel would insist on implementing the "road map" peace plan, which requires the Palestinians to stop violence.
Posted by: Fred ||
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"There can be no Jewish state without Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty."
And there is the crux of the issue...
good luck boys,
they should let the Greek Orthodox guys run Jerusalem as a nuetral 3rd party, after all, they are there too.
Posted by: bk ||
01/25/2006 11:02
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The Greek Orthodox? They are the most antisemitic flavour of Christianity, still holding firmly to "the Jews killed Christ" thingy. No thanks. Read Twain on his visit to that little shared church in Gethsemene (?) -- a Moslem family holds the keys, because none of the priests there trust any other.
#3
I vote for letting the Dali Lama run the place Jerusalem if you want the parties treated with kid gloves. Otherwise, let the Hindus run the place and everybody will get treated roughly...
#4
the Jooos are fine thankyouverymuch in this RC's eyes
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 15:01
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they should let the Greek Orthodox guys run Jerusalem as a nuetral 3rd party, after all, they are there too.
No way... The Greek and Armenian Orthodox will kick the snot out of each other when they're not ganging up on the Roman Catholics.
The Indians are out because they'll try to erect some temple to a ram-headed snake thingy. The Chinese are out because they freak anytime they see someone doing Tai-Chi For Jesus Falang Gong and start running them over with tanks.
I guess that leaves the Japanese. I don't think they'll try to move the Chrysanthemum Throne to Jerusalem...
#7
Zephaniah 1:10 predicts wailing fome the New Quarter:
On that day, declares the LORD,
a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
wailing from the New Quarter,
and a loud crash from the hills.
The son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will pay import duties he initially avoided by using his father's name while importing a Mercedes car into Ghana, according a letter his lawyer released Tuesday. According to a U.N.-appointed commission report last September, Kojo Annan avoided $14,103 in import duties. He also received a discount of $6,541 on the price of the car by telling the dealership it was for his father. "The automobile was not for the Secretary General's own personal use and therefore the exemption was not justified," William Taylor, Kojo Annan's lawyer, wrote in a letter sent last Thursday to Ghanaian officials. "I write to inform you that Mr. Kojo Annan wishes to make full payment of the amount due."
The U.N. report found no wrongdoing on the part of any U.N. official, despite initial suspicion that the car was used as a bribe from Swiss-based company Cotecna Inspection S.A. to Kofi Annan in return for the awarding of a multimillion-dollar contract in Iraq's oil-for-food program. Taylor, in an e-mail reply to the AP on Tuesday, said he did not know if Ghana would accept payment of the import duties owed. He also said he did not know if Kojo Annan would face criminal charges in Ghana.
Somehow I doubt it.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Yeah. So y'all be cool now, ariight?
Peace out.
Posted by: Kojo A. ||
01/25/2006 7:43
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Is he making a statement in this photograph, or does his nose not function properly?
The head Catholic priest for the Greater Waco, Texas, area, Monsignor Isidore Rozycki, plans to bless a new Hooters restaurant in a private opening ceremony, according to The Waco Tribune-Herald. "Blessings are part of the Catholic tradition," Rozycki, the pastor of St. Martin's Church in Tours, told the paper. "You bless the building so it will be a safe haven, so that the families that enter will be blessed, so the employees will be blessed as they support their families."
The public can bask in the Hooters' divinity beginning Tuesday, as the chain's newest location officially opens since they won't be able to attend the actual blessing.
A man of the cloth blessing an establishment best known for waitresses in short shorts may draw the ire of many local religious leaders, Rozycki admitted, adding that he knows many other residents will find the move bizarre as well. This fall, some 60 ministers signed a letter expressing disapproval of the restaurant saying they oppose Hooters because of the sexual innuendo used in ads and the exploitation of female employees. "I respect [the ministers'] opinion, but I think it's the way and the attitude with which you approach it," Rozycki told The Tribune-Herald. "I look it as a very fun place. It was a place of laughter. You forget about the tensions and stress of daily life and get an opportunity to laugh with friends. And it's great food."
Rozycki, 63, emphasized that giving his blessing is a good way to reach out to his community pointing to the story of Jesus eating with a tax collector, even though at the time they were thought of as the some of the worst sinners. And some of us still think so. Blessing Hooters isn't any different, Rozycki said. "God's image is in all of these folks," Rozycki told The Tribune-Herald.
Rozycki also said Hooters doesn't deserve its bad rap: Recounting two enjoyable dining experiences at a Dallas-area Hooters. Without doubt, lustful sinners who head to Hooters will find what they're looking for, Rozycki said, adding that that's true no matter where they go especially at the local beach or public swimming pool.
#5
It's times like this you start to wish that the Catholic Church really was controlled by a rigid hierarchy of strict moralists with no tolerance of heresy or dissent. (I like curvy young things as much as the next guy, but everything in its proper place, OK?)
Posted by: Mike ||
01/25/2006 10:51
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#6
Imagine the increase in followers if they held Mass at Hooters! Communion would be a must see event! Football, Hooter girls, communion and confession in that order! Yahoo Im movin to Waco.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
01/25/2006 11:37
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#7
Just 'cause the dog is chained to the fence doesn't mean he can't bark.
/Love that photo!
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
01/25/2006 13:15
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#9
I have been to Hooters about a dozen times. While the girls do have short shorts and cleavage there isnt much else going on except food and drink. I think Jesus started the idea of food, drink, (body/blood) and was probably served by women; Therefore, you might say that Hooters is just following in the spirit of that last supper for Jesus and the wise men. People act like there are lap dances and strippers at hooters, but its just a place for food and spirits (with jiggly waitresses). Now if the Monsieur was blessing a strip club then I would think there was cause for concern but not just a Hooters restaurant.
#10
My upstairs condo neighbor manages the Mission Valley Hooters at nite - always has to remind sailors and marines it's for looking, they ain't stripping, and no, they didn't find you that charming and attractive for a $2.00 tip
:-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 18:44
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President Bush announced yesterday that he will travel to India and Pakistan in March in a visit likely to be dominated by discussions of terrorism, democratic governance and the recent U.S. airstrikes in Pakistani territory. Bush met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz at the White House yesterday to discuss the U.S.-Pakistan alliance and the strikes that killed at least 13 people, including women and children.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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How about a frigging "visit" along the southern border of the US !!!!!!!
The usual suspects Unidentified assailants blew up a pipeline supplying water to Pirkoh Gas Plant on Tuesday. There were also unconfirmed reports that a paramilitary force vehicle struck a landmine, injuring three paramilitary personnel.
Dera Bugti District Coordination Officer (DCO) Abdul Samad Lasi said that water supply to Pirkoh Gas Plant and surrounding communities was cut off after the explosion. The Frontier Corps (FC) later arranged an alternate water supply, he said. Jamhoori Watan Party (JWP) General Secretary Agha Shahid Aziz said that the water pipeline blew up at two different places. He quoted local people as saying that the agreement on water supply with the gas company expired on December 30, after which water could not be supplied to the company. The same pipeline has been damaged by explosions twice in the past.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. won a Senate Judciary Committee vote along strict party lines today as well as commitments from a majority of senators.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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"Alito nomination goes to full Senate"
or
"Democrats Gone Wild, Supremes II"
Two Islamic militants and two policemen died in a gunbattle during a pre-Republic Day raid on a rebel hideout in Indian Kashmir. The militants were killed in a joint raid by the army and counter-insurgency police in the northern district of Kupwara bordering Pakistani Kashmir, Indian army spokesman Colonel Hemant Juneja said. Two policemen also died in the fire fight. Another gunbattle sparked by a similar raid was under way in the same district, Juneja said. The raids were part of tightened security across the region ahead of Indias Republic Day celebrations Thursday.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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South Korea's president said Wednesday that he hopes for for an agreement this year on taking back wartime control of the country's military from the United States. South Korea transferred control of its forces to a U.S.-led U.N. command in 1950 that helped the country repel invading communists from North Korea during the Korean War. The conflict ended in a 1953 truce, but control over the South's forces remained with an American general as chief of the U.N. command, or the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. In 1994, South Korea regained peacetime control of its military, but the chief of U.S. forces in South Korea is still able to take control during wartime.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Fine with me. You can have it right after we pull all of our troops out. Have fun playing with your evil twin to the north.
#5
Just a public face on what has been operational fact for over a decade. Once we moved the nukes off the land and placed in the reserve, air or naval form, the issue has been pretty much mute. Outside of that, its always been about coordination and cooperation.
West Bengal police yesterday confirmed that they had not arrested Shaekh Abdur Rahman, the chief of banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), as the issue remained the talk of the country for the last two days.
"Nope. Sorry. Wudn't him. It wuz... ummm... some guy named Herb."
The confirmation followed reports on Monday and yesterday by wire services and local media about the arrest of the supreme leader of JMB, responsible for countrywide bomb attacks on August 17 and subsequent suicide bombings. Our Delhi correspondent reports that it was in fact a case of mistaken identity. A 23-year-old youth named Obaidur Rahman, who had been staying illegally in a West Bengal village for several months, was taken for JMB chief Abdur Rahman.
Right. They mistook a 23-year-old yoot for a 45-year-old holy man with a hennaed beard. I'll buy that for a dollar.
Two Bangla and an English dailies on Monday carried reports saying that Indian police arrested Rahman the previous day. AFP quoting Inspector General of West Bengal police Raj Kanojia yesterday reported that Abdur Rahman was arrested along with a relative on Sunday while attending a wedding ceremony in the village of Joragachha near the Bangladesh border. The news agency also quoted Kanojia as saying that Rahman had entered India a few weeks after the 17 August blasts and taken refuge in a relative's house in a village 250 kilometres north of Kolkata. Superintendent of Police (SP) in Murshidabad Niraj Singh said the militant kingpin has been charged with travelling India without proper documents. He was remanded in police custody by a district court on Monday, according to the AFP report. Police were interrogating him to establish his link to the August 17 blasts in Bangladesh. He would be produced before the court again on Wednesday, it added.
But private TV channel ATN reported yesterday evening that Abdur Rahman was not arrested. Rather a youth from northern Bangladesh district Bogra was held in Murshidabad. He introduced him as Obaidur Rahman, a student of sociology department of Dhaka University, ATN said, quoting Kolkata IGP (Law and Order) Raj Kanojia.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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Mary Lou Henna
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/25/2006 0:09
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Opposition Leader Sheikh Hasina has said while the Islamist militants don't get killed in crossfire, the snatchers are not being spared from such killing. Hasina, also the president of the Awami League (AL), accused the ministers and BNP lawmakers of patronising the militants and said the government is staging drama in the name of apprehending them.
Methinks the lady has a point. I think we've noticed here that it's the Purbo Banglar Commies and the other upazila hard boyz who regularly get bumped off in crossfires. I can't recall having seen an Islamist whose accomplices opened fire on RAB at 3 a.m., unfortunately fatally perforating him as he tried to beat feet.
Funny you should mention that, Fred: Two armed cadres of outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP) Janajuddha faction were killed during an encounter between Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and their associates yesterday in Khulna. They dead are Mofazzel Hossain alias Mofa, 32, and Sheikh Golam Mostafa alias Mosto, 30.
The encounter between the Rab members and the PBCP outlaws took place at 9:30pm during an arms recovery operation at Jabusha village under Rupsha upazila of the district. The Rab seized one revolver, two pipe guns and 16 bullets from the place of encounter. According to Rab, Mofazzel was arrested at Uttara in the capital while Mostafa was arrested in Rayermahal area of Khulna city on Monday. Both were wanted in a dozen of murder and several other criminal cases filed with different police stations in Khulna and Bagerhat. They were also involved in extortion, rape and kidnapping, Rab said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/25/2006
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The court trying Saddam Hussein abruptly called off Tuesday's session, asserting that some witnesses and complainants were away on pilgrimage to Mecca and did not show up. Tribunal spokesman Raed Juhi announced the delay only after a four-hour wait for Tuesday's scheduled session to start. The court is set to reconvene Sunday, Juhi said. He refused to say who the missing witnesses and complainants were, or why the court waited past midday to delay the hearing. The trial has been plagued by months of delays and postponements.
Posted by: Fred ||
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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.
Senator Clinton's emergence as the early and perhaps prohibitive favorite for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008 is fueling anxiety among Democratic strategists and operatives who are worried she would lose to a Republican in the general election. Recent polling underscores some of those worries. In a CNN/USA Today/ Gallup poll made public yesterday, 51% of voters said they would definitely not vote for Mrs. Clinton if she chooses to run for president in 2008. In a separate nationwide poll conducted this month for a spirits company, Diageo, and a political newsletter, the Hotline, 44% of all voters and 19% of self-described Democrats said they viewed the New York senator unfavorably.
Pop star Michael Jackson took a shopping trip to a Bahrain mall Wednesday, covering himself in a black abaya robe traditionally worn by Bahraini women and a veil hiding his face, along with three children _ apparently his _ with their faces covered with dark scarves. 
January 25, 2006: The UN appears to get getting tired of peacekeeping missions that drag on. Now there is more talk at the UN in favor of Peace Enforcement operations. For example, when the UN finally decided to do the Peace Enforcement thing in Sierra Leone, the whole business was cleared up in a couple of weeks. Such strong arm tactics are also working in Congo, where peacekeepers have been turned loose on militias that have long opposed settling down. 
However, a coup, he said, could only be mounted by "one elite against another in power".
British troops launched a crackdown Tuesday on Basra's troubled police, arresting several officers in a force long believed infiltrated by extremist Shiite militiamen. Curbing militia power is considered crucial to building trust among Iraq's rival communities, but finding a way to do it has proven elusive.
Camouflage-clad attackers raided an Italian oil company's riverside offices in Nigeria on Tuesday, sparking a gunfight that left nine people dead before assailants fled by speedboat into the oil-rich delta's waterways.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) - A jury began deliberating Tuesday in the case of an Indiana truck driver accused of conspiring to sell U.S. intelligence secrets to Saddam Hussein's government. Shaaban Hafiz Ahmad Ali Shaaban, 53, is accused of meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer at a Baghdad hotel in late 2002 and agreeing to sell the names of U.S. operatives for $3 million. The jury deliberated for eight hours and planned to reconvene Wednesday morning. 
KATHMANDU - At least two policemen were killed when Maoist rebels raided a major commercial town in west Nepal, setting off a string of explosions at government buildings and police posts, police and residents said on Wednesday.
A Hizb Allah cabinet minister has said Lebanon must respond to UN Security Council pressure to disarm the group by stating that it is defending the country against Israel, and is not a militia. On Monday, the 15-member Security Council demanded that the Lebanese government should disarm Hizb Allah's guerrillas in line with a resolution the council adopted 16 months ago. Mohammed Fneish, the energy and water minister, said on Tuesday: "This is a continuation of the American pressure to achieve the goal of enabling Israel to continue to occupy [Lebanese and Arab] territories and to expose Lebanon to Israeli schemes. It is an insult to all Lebanese that the resistance is called a militia. 
Iranian President 
Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed Tuesday a wave of public demonstrations that followed a massive suicide bombing last week, in particular praising a provincial chief who implicated Pakistan. Thousands of Afghans have taken part in protests in at least four towns to condemn the January 16 attack the deadliest in a recent string of suicide blasts and accuse Pakistan of supporting the perpetrators. The blast killed at least 22 men leaving a wrestling match in the town of Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan. The latest demonstration was in the western city of Herat Tuesday with nearly 1,000 people shouting, Down with Pakistan, down with Pervez Musharraf.
Arrested JMB 'regional commander' and suicide squad member Reaz confessed to police yesterday that the Isamist militant outfit had a plan for a 'major' bomb attack in Gaibandha. He told police during interrogation that he and five others came to Gaibandha, for a 'major bomb attack' like the August 17 serial blasts, police sources said. 
Iran on Tuesday defended its plan to organize a conference to examine what it terms the scientific evidence for the Holocaust. At the United Nations, the Israeli ambassador said the conference plans were proof that Iran was run by an "extreme, fundamentalist, lunatic regime."
About 1.3 million Palestinians will head to the polls Wednesday in the first parliamentary elections in a decade -- a key vote that observers say could be pivotal in the Palestinian push for statehood. On the eve of the election, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas urged Palestinians to turn out for the vote, and an array of militant groups said they would not disrupt voting, which will be held at more than 1,000 polling stations from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. "Voting is the right of every citizen," Abbas said. "It's a national obligation because the results of the election should reflect a truthful expression of all Palestinians."
The Bush administration's effort to increase the popularity of the Palestinian Authority and its governing Fatah party before critical parliamentary elections this week came under intense criticism Monday from a number of candidates, some of whom charged that the program amounted to illegal interference in the democratic process.
The son of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will pay import duties he initially avoided by using his father's name while importing a Mercedes car into Ghana, according a letter his lawyer released Tuesday. According to a U.N.-appointed commission report last September, Kojo Annan avoided $14,103 in import duties. He also received a discount of $6,541 on the price of the car by telling the dealership it was for his father. "The automobile was not for the Secretary General's own personal use and therefore the exemption was not justified," William Taylor, Kojo Annan's lawyer, wrote in a letter sent last Thursday to Ghanaian officials. "I write to inform you that Mr. Kojo Annan wishes to make full payment of the amount due." 
South Korea's president said Wednesday that he hopes for for an agreement this year on taking back wartime control of the country's military from the United States. South Korea transferred control of its forces to a U.S.-led U.N. command in 1950 that helped the country repel invading communists from North Korea during the Korean War. The conflict ended in a 1953 truce, but control over the South's forces remained with an American general as chief of the U.N. command, or the South Korea-U.S. Combined Forces Command. In 1994, South Korea regained peacetime control of its military, but the chief of U.S. forces in South Korea is still able to take control during wartime.
West Bengal police yesterday confirmed that they had not arrested Shaekh Abdur Rahman, the chief of banned Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), as the issue remained the talk of the country for the last two days.
The court trying Saddam Hussein abruptly called off Tuesday's session, asserting that some witnesses and complainants were away on pilgrimage to Mecca and did not show up. Tribunal spokesman 
