A good number of unmanned U.S. military drones are operating in the skies over Syria, monitoring the President Basir al-Assads militarys crackdown against the opposition, U.S. defense officials tell NBC News.
According to the unnamed officials, the drone surveillance is not in preparations for a future military operation in Syria. Rather, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama is hoping to use the visual evidence and intercepts of Syrian government and military communications in an effort to make the case for a widespread international response.
Unlike in Libya and the regime of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, there has been no widespread international support for military intervention in Syria.
Despite debate among White House, State Department and Pentagon officials about possible humanitarian missions, officials fear that those missions could not be carried out without jeopardizing those involved and would almost certainly draw the U.S. into a military role in Syria.
On Friday, Syrian government forces, disregarding U.N. condemnation, renewed their bombardment of the opposition stronghold of Homs as a Chinese minister arrived for talks with embattled President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday.
A senior Iranian intelligence official says an estimated 16,000 computers were infected by the Stuxnet virus.
The powerful virus targeted Iran's nuclear facilities and other industrial sites in 2010, and Tehran has acknowledged the malicious software affected a limited number of centrifuges -- a key component in nuclear fuel production. But Iran has said its scientists discovered and neutralized the malware before it could cause serious damage.
The semiofficial Fars news agency on Saturday quoted a deputy intelligence chief identified only as Ahangaran as saying 16,000 computers were infected by Stuxnet, but he did not specify whether worldwide or just in Iran.
He said Iran is facing difficulties obtaining anti-malware software because of international sanctions, forcing Iran to use its own experts to design the software.
Three thousand Iranian women being trained as ninja warriors say they will use their martial arts skills to defend the country if necessary. Scores of black-clad female "ninja" fighters whose ages range from 5 to 56 are just a handful of 3,000 women in Iran who are being trained as lethal warriors at a school in Tehran.
"We train women to have strength and ability. We have to do everything in our power to protect our homeland," said Akbar Faraji, who runs the school.
One of the fighters who has been training for over 13 years said, "Our aim is for Iranian women to be strengthened and if a problem arises, we will definitely declare our readiness to defend our Islamic homeland."
Iran has proclaimed advances in nuclear technology, including new centrifuges able to enrich uranium, a move that has heightened its confrontation with the West over suspicions it is planning to make nuclear weapons.
On Friday, the Home Secretary, William Hague told The Telegraph that Iran's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction could trigger a "new Cold War."
Posted by: Steve White ||
02/18/2012 18:06
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#5
Are these the same lot videotaped a few years ago sliding down ropes three stories up in full regalia, only their eyes showing through slits in their veils? If so, like the dancing bear, it is not that they do it well, but that they are able to do anything at all.
#6
who's gonna drive them to their assignments? After all, they can't drive themselves, right? Sticking them in a burqa will surely help their dedication and assimilation skills. Can they jump through flaming hoops?
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2012 21:25
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#7
Does their training include kegal exercises? I hope so!
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
02/18/2012 21:34
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#8
whose ages range from 5 to 56
Just noticed that bit. However well trained, are there many deadly kindergartners?
The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as SWIFT, the financial clearinghouse used by virtually every country and major corporation in the world, agreed Friday to shut out Iran from its network, effectively barring it from every form of international electronic finance and commerce based on electronic money transfer. In February 2012, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved sanctions against SWIFT aimed at pressuring the Belgian financial telecommunications network to terminate its ties with blacklisted Iranian banks. Expelling Iranian banks from SWIFT would potentially deny Iran access to billions of dollars in revenue.
SWIFT transports financial messages in a highly secure way, but does not hold accounts for its members and does not perform any form of clearing or settlement.
SWIFT does not facilitate funds transfer, rather, it sends payment orders, which must be settled via correspondent accounts that the institutions have with each other. Each financial institution, to exchange banking transactions, must have a banking relationship by either being a bank or affiliating itself with one (or more) so as to enjoy those particular business features.
SWIFT is a cooperative society under Belgian law and it is owned by its member financial institutions. SWIFT has offices around the world. SWIFT headquarters are located in La Hulpe, Belgium, near Brussels.
#1
Iran will have no choice but to react to this, as otherwise their entire economy will collapse. They will no longer be able to import or export anything, unless they have physical cash on the barrel head.
#4
When they rock up in person, what will they get? A check. How will they clear it? I believe we will shut down the clearing mechanisms for Iran through western central banks if we have not already. It's going to be hard for Iran to trade with anybody except Russia and China. And how much will the mullahs want to leave on deposit there?
#8
Was it at Rantburg, or somewhere else, that I read that China was working out a semi-barter system with Iran for oil? Maybe with an eye towards something like this?
#9
It means the Iranians will trade some oil in the local currency and leave the proceeds in those countries banks to pay for imports. Iran has a huge trade surplus and can spread their money around as needed. India will be the prime beneficiary.
Exports $131.8 billion (2011 est.): China 19%, India 14.8%, Japan 11.6%, Turkey 8%, South Korea 6.7%, Italy 6.2%, Spain 4.7% (2010)
Imports $76.1 billion (2011 est.): China 17.4%, UAE 16.7%, Germany 7.6%, South Korea 6.3%, Russia 5.7%, Turkey 4.8%, Italy 4.2% (2010)
#10
Mizzou-------I read the same thing last week. Iran was to barter petro installations with China for oil. But China has been looking into alternatives for Iranian oil imports.
It seems to me that they could get around electronic funds transfers with paper as long as both banks go along with it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/18/2012 12:53
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#11
Lone Ranger, sure, Iran can use hawala, but most hawaladars are Sunni, and there's a limit to how much can be realistically transferred in a short period of time...
But the most salient point of all the comments so far is from JohnQC about whether this will prevent Iran's nuclear race. Unfortunately, it probably won't. Stopping the nukes is supposed to be the driving reason behind the entire sanctions regime. But we have seen that site explosions, computer viruses, and assassination of scientists are far more effective in slowing Iran's nuclear program.
Economic sanctions, even supposedly "smart" targeted sanctions, are too broad to prevent fungible transfers from Iran's coffers of whatever money it has left toward its nuclear program.
Posted by: American Delight ||
02/18/2012 13:11
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#12
Iran has a huge trade surplus and can spread their money around as needed. India will be the prime beneficiary
The other problem is Iran's 'charitable foundations'. They own businesses outside of Iran (mostly in the the Mid-East and Asia), plus maintain sizable investments in others.
Days after botched attempt to attack Israeli diplomats, Tourism Ministry puts on hold plan to allow visas on arrival to citizens of Middle Eastern countries, including Iran
Thailand's tourism industry rakes in more than $25 billion in revenue a year, accounting for more than 6% of the economy. But officials are now questioning if they should roll back the welcome mat a little.
"We have to admit that there are threats all over the world, and our country is a weak link," National Security Council chief Wichean Potephosree said after an apparently foiled bomb plot was uncovered when an kaboom in the Iranians' rented house Tuesday forced authorities to acknowledge that Thailand was a target of international terrorists.
Within days of the terror scare, the Thai Tourism Ministry put on hold a plan to allow visas on arrival to citizens of Middle Eastern countries, including Iran. Deputy Prime Minister Chalerm Yubumrung said he would order immigration authorities to "closely check people who enter the country, especially from countries that might have problems."
Part of Thailand's problem in tracking criminals is also a regional one. Borders in Southeast Asia are notoriously porous, making it easy to slip out of Thailand and disappear into Malaysia, Laos or Cambodia.
Malaysia has relaxed visa rules in recent years to boost tourism, allowing travelers from Iran and most Gulf countries visa-free entry for up to three months.
Sedaghatzadeh had traveled to Malaysia several times last year, according to a Malaysian security official who said authorities were investigating if the trips had any connection to the Bangkok plot. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Thai police said Friday they were searching for two more suspects, including a possible explosives specialist who may have been training the Iranians. They have also issued an arrest warrant for an Iranian woman who rented the Bangkok home, named Leila Rohani, who is now believed to be back in Tehran.
The foiled plot highlights another loophole in Thailand: It's very easy to rent a house or apartment. There are no background checks. The standard requirement is one month's rent in advance, no questions asked.
In January, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to Hezbullies was incarcerated at the airport and then led police to a rented warehouse near Bangkok packed with more than 4 tons of urea fertilizer and other materials that could be used to make bombs.
Authorities say they have not determined if the two plots were connected.
#2
>Within days of the terror scare, the Thai Tourism Ministry put on hold a plan to allow visas on arrival to citizens of Middle Eastern countries, including Iran.
How will that help when it's Iran doing the terrorism sponsoring?
The head of Egypt's parliamentary industry and energy committee announced Saturday that Egypt has decided to provide fuel for the Gazoo Strip's lone power plant, after fuel shortages and a dispute with smugglers from Egypt forced the plants shutdown and caused rolling blackouts.
According to Paleostinian Ma'an news agency, the quantities of fuel include 500 thousand liters of fuel for the power plant, and an additional 100 liters of fuel for vehicles.
Fuel shortages in Egypt had prompted smugglers to demand prices higher than Gazooks were ready to pay, according to Ma'an.
AFP reported that Egyptian authorities had upped their crackdown on the smuggling of fuel to the Strip, which relies on its own power plant for up to a third of energy in the coastal enclave.
#1
500,000 liters of diesel is only 132,000 gallons. A 10 megawatt plant would use 10,000 kw/14kw/gal/hr = 714 gal/hr. This consumption rate would use up the 500,000 liters up in little over a week. Assuming a 10 megawatt plant.
I also read recently that Hamas taxes tunnel smuggling. What a paradise on earth is Gaza.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/18/2012 13:18
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Actually Arab Israelis, but a Palestinain newspaper can't be expected to admit that...
demonstrated against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Despoiler of Deraa... on Friday, calling for him to step down and end his violent suppression of a nationwide revolt.
Chanting "Bashir al-Assad leave" and "Let the people live", protesters in the northern town of Kafr Kanna set fire to posters of the Syrian president.
Assad has shown no sign of easing his campaign to stamp out an 11-month uprising against his rule. His forces on Friday resumed attacks on opposition strongholds in the city of Homs, which has now been under fire for two weeks.
Two Iranian vessels, a destroyer and a supply ship, cross through Suez into Mediterranean, possibly en route to Syrian coast, source in canal authority says
#1
Israel must assume that the purpose of these ships is to launch an attack. Fortunately, having recently accomplished a treaty with Cyprus, narrows the field by which the Iranian ships could approach before entering the exclusion zone.
#2
More like bringing goodies to Iran's pet miscreants. A lone destroyer in the Eastern Med without air cover would have a short but exciting life when the party starts.
#5
I'd be concerned about IRBM's launched off that supply ship. Really short reaction times if fired from the coast of Syria. That ship should have an accident to take it out of play.
The Philippine government has reportedly agreed to the Muslim autonomy proposed by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The Oman Tribune quoted chief MILF negotiator Mohagher Iqbal as saying that President Benigno Aquino has approved the proposal through a parliamentary form of government similar to that of Malaysia, which is brokering the peace negotiations. Mohagher Iqbal said, "No less than His Excellency President Benigno Aquino 3rd agreed to the MILF proposal."
The MILF proposal calls for the direct election by the people of the leaders of the autonomous region to be led by a chief minister similar to the parliamentary government in the federal states of Malaysia, according to Iqbal.
Iqbal said the proposed government would replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, composed of the provinces of Basilan, Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Lanao and Maguindanao. But it was not immediately known how many more provinces would be included in the proposed expansion of Muslim autonomy.
Peace negotiators ended three-day talks in Malaysia on February 15 and a joint media statement said they would meet again next month to continue the discussion on substantive issues, among them governance and the reserved powers of the national government as contained in their respective draft. The MILF said the issues that most concerned the negotiators were issues on power-sharing, wealth-sharing, and interim mechanism.
chief government peace negotiator Marvic Leonen said, "The peace process with the MILF has moved forward. Now, we have moved at least a few feet. The day will come, I hope very, very soon that we will be able to sign a peace agreement."
A solider was seriously injured when his team, patroling a local road for teachers' protection in Yala province, was struck by a roadside bomb yesterday morning.
Private Jakkrit Raksanual, 21, and five other soldiers were patroling a local road on foot when the bomb went off at 8:15 a.m. Jakkrit, who sustained serious shrapnel injuries to his arm and leg, was rushed to the hospital. Police suspect terrorists insurgents had launched the attack.
A Soddy Arabian accused of associating with several of the September 11 hijackers and who disappeared from his home in the United States a few weeks before the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, is in London working for his country's state oil company.
Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife Anoud left three cars at their luxurious home in a gated community in Sarasota, Florida one of them new and flew to Soddy Arabia in August 2001. The refrigerator was full of food; furniture and clothing were left behind; and the swimming pool water was still circulating.
Security records of cars passing through a checkpoint at the Prestancia gated community indicated that Mr al-Hijjis home, 4224 Escondito Circle, had been visited a number of times by Mohamed Atta, the leader of the
19-strong hijack team, who piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in 2001.
The logs also indicated that Marwan Al-Shehhi, who crashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower, and Ziad Jarrah, who was at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93 when it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, had visited the house.
All three men had trained to fly at Venice Airport, which is 19 miles from Sarasota.
A US counter-terrorist agent told The Daily Telegraph: The registration numbers of vehicles that had passed through the Prestancia communitys north gate in the months before 9/11, coupled with the identification documents shown by incoming drivers on request, showed that Mohamed Atta and several of his fellow hijackers, and another Saudi suspect still on the lam, had visited 4224 Escondito Circle.
The suspect was Adnan Shukrijumah, an al-Qaeda operative who is on the FBIs Most Wanted list, with a $5 million bounty on his head.A decade after the worlds worst terrorist attack, which claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Mr al-Hijji is resident in London, working for the European subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, Soddy Arabias state oil company. Described as a career counsellor, he is based in the offices of Aramco Overseas Company UK Limited and lives in an expensive flat in central London.
In email correspondence with the Telegraph, Mr al-Hijji strongly denied No, no! Certainly not! any involvement in the plot, writing: I have neither relation nor association with any of those bad people/criminals and the awful crime they did. 9/11 is a crime against the USA and all humankind and Im very saddened and oppressed by these false allegations.
I love the USA. My kids were born there, I went to college and university there, I spent a good portion of my life there and I love it.
Mr al-Hijjis account is supported by the FBI, which has stated: At no time did the FBI develop evidence that connected the family members to any of the 9/11 hijackers and there was no connection found to the 9/11 plot.
Bob Graham, a former US senator who, in addition to co-chairing the congressional inquiry into 9/11, was chairman of the US senate intelligence committee at the time, disputes the FBI denials. He has long believed that there was Saudi support for the 19 terrorists, 15 of whom were subjects of the kingdom. He cites two secret documents to which he has recently had access.
The first document, Graham says, is not consistent with the public statements of the FBI that there was no connection between the 9/11 hijackers and the Saudis at the Sarasota home. Both documents indicate that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI.
Mr al-Hijji, 38, moved with his family to Britannia in 2003, setting up home in a rented four-bedroom detached house in the Southampton suburb of Totton. His stay there appears to have been uneventful.
The al-Hijjis abrupt departure from Sarasota aroused the suspicion of their next-door neighbour, Patrick Gallagher. He emailed the FBI within two days of 9/11 to report the disappearance of the couple and their young children.
Reports released recently by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement refer to the suspicious manner and timing of the familys departure.
One document states: In mid-August 2001 the above subjects purchased a new vehicle and renewed the registration on several other vehicles. On Aug 27 2001 a moving truck appeared and moved the subjects out of the house. Left behind were the vehicles and numerous personal belongings, including food, medicine, bills, baby clothing etc.
The document goes on to state that Mr al-Hijji and Esam Ghazzawi, his father-in-law and the owner of the Escondito Circle house, had been on the FBI watch list prior to 9/11.
Mr al-Hijji described the allegations against him as just cheap talk and denied having abandoned his home in undue haste, explaining: No, no, no. Absolutely not true. We were trying to secure the [Aramco] job. It was a good opportunity.
He said his wife and children followed him out to Soddy Arabia a few weeks after he left. She and his American-born mother-in-law had been questioned by the FBI when they returned to the United States to settle the familys affairs.
But he was not questioned when he returned to America for a two-month period in 2005.
#3
It can't be just Saudi money, Gruth McGurque5303, because the same thing happened in Egypt. It's that modernity, copying the West, hasn't worked for the Arab world -- mostly because they did it wrong -- so they're trying a retreat to traditional forms in the hope that leads to success. It won't, of course, because totalitarianism of any sort can't compete with capitalism and rule of law in an open society, but there it is.
#4
Tw, it may not be able to compete with capitalism & rule of law, but how about with crony capitalism/pseudo socialism & rule of FOO (Friends of Obama)?
Part III: Restructuring the Regime and Abolishing the Presidency
[MEMRI] By A. Savyon and Y. Mansharof*
Introduction
The present article, the last in the series on the schism within the Iranian leadership, focuses on the move by Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei ...the successor to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the actual dictator of Iran... to abolish the presidential regime in Iran and replace it with a parliamentary regime, as an institutional means of eliminating his rivals, Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad and Hashemi Rafsanjani. ... the fourth President of Iran. He was a member of the Assembly of Experts until he was eased out in 2011 He continues, for the moment, as Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council. In 2005 he ran for a third term as president, ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was in Khamenei's graces back then. In 1980 Rafsanjani survived an assassination attempt, during which he was maimed. He has been described as a centrist and a pragmatic conservative without all that much reason. He is currently being eased out of any position of actual influence or power and may be dead by the end of 2012... The lead-up to the upcoming Majlis elections, scheduled for early March 2012, saw an intense public debate Not as intense as last time but still intense. Only without so many dead guys except for IRGC officers in their 50s who pop off one a day for a week...
over the issue of changing the political system. The debate was sparked by a speech Khamenei gave in Kermanshah on October 16, 2011, in which he hinted at the possibility of eliminating the post of president and instating a parliamentary system in which the head of the executive branch of government is elected by the Majlis. Khamenei noted that this idea will only be implemented in the distant future, and only if necessary, yet his speech was perceived as ground breaking and as heralding a significant, and perhaps imminent, change in the structure of the regime. Some even assessed that the next presidential elections, slated for 2013, would be canceled. If they are, we'll know Holy Fearless Leader is on top. I suspect they will be...
As part of the initiative, some also suggested to abolish the Expediency Council, headed by Rafsanjani, and to transform it into a second house of parliament.
However, in the course of the ensuing public debate, many pointed out that the shift to parliamentary rule might be difficult, because Iran lacks a tradition of party politics.
It seems that the initiative to replace the directly elected president with a Majlis-elected prime minister (or president) is meant to help Khamenei achieve two goals; first, the goal of removing the ideological, political and personal threat that Ahmadinejad and his associates pose to his rule and to the current character of the Iranian regime;[4] second, the goal of politically eliminating his rival and former ally Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has already been removed from the centers of power and today serves only as the head of the Expediency Council. Even if there is no intention to implement the change in the near future, merely raising the possibility of abolishing the presidency and instating a parliamentary regime, especially so soon before the Majlis elections, is a clear signal to Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani that their place in the Iranian leadership is shaky.
It should be mentioned that, until 1989, Iran had both a dual system, with a president and a prime minister whom were both subordinate to then-supreme leader Ayatollah Khomeini. From 1981, the role of president was discharged by Khamenei himself (who, following Khomeini's death was elevated to the status of Ayatollah and appointed Supreme Leader), and the prime minister was Mir Hossein Mousavi. After Khomeini's death, the role of prime minister was abolished, and Iran adopted the present system, in which the Supreme Leader, the jurisprudent ruler, is appointed by the Assembly of Experts (since 1989, this role has been discharged by Khamenei), whereas the president, subordinate to the Supreme Leader, is elected by the people and can serve a maximum of two consecutive four-year terms. It should be mentioned that changes to the character of the presidency have been suggested from time to time: for instance in 1997, just before the end of Rafsanjani's presidency, with an eye to allowing him a third term in office, and also during the presidency of Khatami, who wished to expand his presidential powers (the status of the presidency has always been fluid in Iran, and considerably influenced by the president's relationship with Supreme Leader Khamenei).
Posted by: Fred ||
02/18/2012
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#1
IRGC break-off, seperation of Kahmeni from admonkeyjacket. Stress in Jundollah and Azeri influence. Loss of confidence in governing Parliment.
Anger from Hezbollah, failing economy, currency dispute with all nations. Internal stress will break it into some obama wanting sin whore hole or a breakout from the 7 dwarfs.
The Pakistain army's vaulting mission to remain the most powerful actor in Pak politics has received irreparable setbacks in the last few years. This is due to the onset of several new factors in the country's body politic determining the direction of political change in the future. It is also a poor reflection of the ability and willingness of the army's leadership to understand the far-reaching nature of this change and adapt to it seamlessly. Pakistain's future as a viable nation-state now depends on how the generals read the writing on the wall and how quickly they come to terms with it.
The recent failures of the Mighty Pak Army have downgraded its stock with Paks. (1) The army's policy of nurturing anti-Americanism in Pakistain for leveraging its strategic relationship with the US has backfired and left it stranded in no-man's land. It can't let go of the US privately for purposes of economic rent and military aid extraction but it can't embrace it publicly because of the rampant "ghairat" brigade of krazed killer Islamic nationalists that it has brainwashed and brandished.
(2) The army's policy of nurturing the Afghan Taliban in private while appeasing the Pakistain Taliban in public has also failed. The Afghan Taliban are now negotiating directly with America while the Pakistain Taliban are bent on waging an "existential" war against the Mighty Pak Army and civil society.
(3) The army's relationship with the government, opposition, and media is at an all-time low. The government has meekly folded before the army on every issue; but it deeply resents the army's arrogant, intrusive and relentlessly anti-government propaganda and behaviour. The media is also resentful about its manipulation by the ISI viz drone policy, the Raymond Davis affair and Memogate. Question marks abound over its incompetence or complicity in the OBL affair, especially following recent revelations by former DG-ISI Ziauddin Butt that General Pervez Perv Musharraf ... former dictator of Pakistain, who was less dictatorial and corrupt than any Pak civilian government to date ... "hid" the late Osama bin Laden ... who is currently warming his feet by the fire with Hitler and Himmler... in Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... . The murder of journalist Saleem Shahzad, followed by threats to independent journalists, is laid at the ISI's door. The ease with which forces of Evil have breached military security, as in the attacks on GHQ, ISI offices, military messes, Mehran Naval Base, and army officers etc also rankle. Finally, the media is now speaking up and asking disturbing questions about the role of MI and related non-state actors in the disappearances and torture of Baloch activists. Consequently, the media is loath to blindly follow the army's "line" on any issue any more. The PMLN opposition, meanwhile, has gone the whole hog, openly demanding that the intrusion of the military in politics must be curtailed and the army's overweening power cut to size.
If its ratings are falling, the army's ability to manipulate politics for dubious ends is also diminishing. In the old days, the army chief was the most powerful member of the ruling troika by virtue of an alliance with the president. Now the president's role has changed and there are two new and powerful contenders in the equation. The judiciary under Chief justice Iftikhar Chaudry has unprecedentedly pushed the military on the defensive for being unaccountable (the Mehrangate affair of 1990, disappearances and murder of Baloch and Taliban cut-throats in captivity). And the electronic media is reaching tens of millions of Paks and courageously raising their consciousness. Neither will countenance any direct or indirect military intervention in politics.
Recently, General Asfaq Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... made a bid to salvage some maimed pride. He disputed the size of the defense budget and denied involvement in quelling unrest in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... . But there are few takers for his version. Defense expenditures are in fact closer to 25% than 18% if pensions and salaries and supplementary handouts are considered. And the fact remains that the Rangers and Frontier Corps who are in charge of "law and order" in Balochistan are directly commanded by army officers who report to GHQ even though they are formally under the interior ministry. No less questionable is the military's insistence on hogging key civilian positions in government and bureaucracy.
Many of the army high command's current troubles flow from its aggressive overreach and miscalculation. In the old days, setbacks and losses could be propagated as victories and gains, and coup-making generals billed as national saviours because information was not easily or freely available. But that can't be done now. Confronted by a tsunami of young people demanding "change", government, opposition, media and judiciary all want to appear "anti-establishment" because the establishment is another name for the status quo. The international environment is also anti-military hegemony in the third world following the Arab Spring.
The Pakistain military's 64 year old "national security state paradigm" has collapsed with devastating consequences for Pakistain. It is time it retreated to barracks for good and let the civilians cobble an alternative "social security state paradigm" for stability and prosperity. If it doesn't do that, a terrible alternative is staring us in the face.
Continued on Page 49
#1
It can't let go of the US privately for purposes of economic rent and military aid extraction but it can't embrace it publicly
Such clarity is refreshing after wading through the mush served up by the MSM here in the USA.
#2
For me the most interesting revelation is that Musharaf himself ordered the hiding of OBL in Abbotabad.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
02/18/2012 9:33
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#3
For me the most interesting revelation is that Musharaf himself ordered the hiding of OBL in Abbotabad.
Possibly the accusation is even true, Frozen Al. Certainly somebody did, but Musharref is conveniently both out of power and outside the country. Pakistanis pride themselves on being even twistier than the Byzantines were reputed to be...and paranoid conspiracy mongers to boot. It is quite possible, I suspect, that a committee of inquiry would conclude that it had been a conspiracy by Mossad and RAW, with any Pakistanis involved being mere innocent dupes.
#4
I can only imagine 30 years from now Pakistan is broken up into smaller states, unless another Superpower pumps in billions to keeping the military afloat again like we did in the 80s and like we did in the WOT. I won't weep.
#5
For me the most interesting revelation is that Musharaf himself ordered the hiding of OBL in Abbotabad.
Who else but the headman could make the decision in face of the awful consequences it may entail. That is if the USA were a real country and not the world's demographic and economic colony.
NEW DELHI: Indian exporters will be able to receive payments in the restricted rupee currency for sales to Iran within two weeks, the chief of India's top exporters' body said on Friday, as New Delhi puts a mechanism in place to maintain trade despite US sanctions.
About $3 billion in Iranian import arrears have accumulated since December 2010, M Rafeeque Ahmed said, when a previous payment conduit was closed under pressure from Washington, which is using sanctions to try to stop Tehran's suspected nuclear programme.
"The government has told us the mechanism for payment in rupee (to Indian exporters) will be in place in two weeks' time," Ahmed, president of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations, told Rooters in an interview. "Between December 2010 and January 2012 we have sent goods worth about $3 billion and almost all of it is stuck."
Ahmed is taking part in government negotiations to find a solution to the payment problems that have hit trade between the two countries after US sanctions on dollar deals. His organization is a quasi-government body set up by the trade ministry.
Indian oil importers have been paying for around $11 billion a year of crude since the middle of 2011 through Turkey's Halkbank, but this route would have been expensive for Iranian importers given sharp falls in the rial. India was Tehran's second-biggest crude customer last year after China and Iranian oil accounts for about 12 percent of its needs.
Most of the Iranian arrears are for imports of iron and steel ($623 million), chemicals ($453 million) and cereals ($419 million), machinery ($143 million) and pharmaceuticals ($87 million), Ahmed said.
Indian rice suppliers have also reported defaults by Iranian buyers and have said they are owed at least $144 million.
With payments for oil through Halkbank now looking vulnerable to fresh sanctions, India and Iran have agreed to settle 45 percent of this trade in rupees and boost exports to narrow their trade gap. Oil buyers are waiting for tax issues to be cleared up before they use the mechanism.
Iran's central bank has already deposited with India's UCO bank about $1 billion which had been used in the Asian Clearing Union (ACU), the longstanding mechanism that ended in 2010.
This will be used to kick off rupee payments to India's exporters -- allowing Tehran a way to use the restricted currency it would otherwise find hard to spend.
India abides by United Nations ...an international organization whose stated aims of facilitating interational security involves making sure that nobody with live ammo is offended unless it's a civilized country... sanctions on Iran, but has refused to go along with new financial measures imposed by the United States and European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... which aim to punish Iran for its nuclear ambitions.
India has pushed back the visit of a delegation to Iran to Mar. 10 to 14 from this month to explore boosting exports, said Ahmed, who will be part of that team.
A car boomwent kaboom! inside the compound of a major police building in Somalia's war-torn capital Mogadishu on Friday, wounding at least one police officer, officials said.
"A car full of explosives, which was seized by the security forces this morning, went kaboom! -- a policeman was injured," said Abdulahi Ahmed, a Somali police official. "We are still investigating the incident."
The blast occurred in the grounds of the Criminal Investigation Department of Somalia's police, close to the busy central K4 roundabout.
Witnesses said the car went kaboom! while parked inside the building, destroying the perimeter wall.
"The car went kaboom! in a parking lot, the blast was very heavy, and smoke and fire shot up high into the sky," said Farah Adan, a witness.
No group immediately grabbed credit for Friday's attack, the latest in a string of blasts including roadside kabooms and grenade kabooms that have rocked the Somali capital in recent months.
The city has seen an increase in such attacks since the al-Qaeda linked Shebab abandoned fixed positions there in August and switched to guerrilla tactics against the Western-backed government and African Union ...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful... troops.
#1
So, let me get this straight - the Somali cops, whoever they are, found a car bomb, and then BROUGHT IT INSIDE THEIR HEADQUARTERS to the parking garage? Seriously, wtf.
Thirteen Russian troops have been killed and at least 17 others maimed in five days of festivities with Islamic faceless myrmidons in the snowy mountains covering restive Chechnya and Dagestan, a report said Friday.
The North Caucasus standoff first erupted on Monday and resumed again on Friday morning after an overnight lull, Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian security source as saying.
The fighting on Thursday broke out when Russian interior ministry forces met resistance from three separate groups of faceless myrmidons hiding in the heavily forested hills, the source said.
"Five coppers died in Thursday's heated exchange," said the source.
The rebels' kavkazcenter.com website confirmed the toll and said Russian forces -- comprising federal interior ministry troops and coppers from Dagestan and Chechnya -- were also using aviation forces.
Russian reports said the clash initially broke out near Chechnya's eastern border with Dagestan, a larger Mohammedan region that has been the center of North Caucasus unrest in recent years.
Chechnya is currently ruled by Ramzan Kadyrov, a former rebel turned Moscow supporter whose crackdown on faceless myrmidons has been accompanied by widespread allegations of rights abuses.
But the republic has remained largely peaceful since waging two post-Soviet wars against federal forces that claimed tens of thousands of lives and saw hundreds of thousands flee the ravaged Chechen capital Grozny.
Thai police say they are searching for two more suspects in a botched terror plot against Israeli diplomats that has been blamed on Iran.
Bangkok police commissioner Lt. Gen. Winai Thongson says one of the two new suspects may have been providing training in the use of explosives to three Iranian men who were jugged in Thailand and Malaysia this week.
ISLAMABAD: Pak-China Centre and International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) on Friday launched monthly 'Youlin' (Good Neighbours) during a ceremony at the Faisal Mosque Campus.
Speaking on the occasion, IIUI Rector Professor Fateh Muhammad Malik announced opening of China Studies Centre at the university.
A 22-member delegation from China, IIUI Acting President Sahibzada Sajidur Rehman, PML-Q leader Mushahid Hussain Sayed, President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, magazine editor Dushka Syed, Agha Murtaza Poya, Dr Khalid Masood and other scholars attended the event.
Pak-China Centre Chairman Senator Mushahid Hussain said the centre had originated from the IIUI and opening ceremony of 'Youlin' was also taking place on the same campus. He said IIUI is the institution that hosts the highest number of Chinese students in Pakistain. He said Pak-China Centre would fully cooperate with the IIUI for establishment of China Studies Centre.
Professor Malik appreciated Pak-China friendship, saying that Pak-China Centre means non-political and real friendship between the two countries, credit for which goes to Mushahid Hussain Sayed. He said Sayed has a clean personality and his endeavours are resulting into consolidation of Pak-China friendship. He termed Sayed a political scientist and a politician, and stressed the need for political scientists to join practical politics. He also announced that the university intends to set up a China Study Centre, dedicated to research and teaching regional and international affairs related to China. He said Prophet Muhammad (PTUI!)'>(PTUI!)) had advised humanity to seek knowledge even if they have to go to China, adding Pakistain wanted to utilise full benefits of this friendship in the field of knowledge and research. Sahibzada Sajid said peoples of the two countries were tied into historic bonds of fraternity and friendship.
He said, "We take great pride in the fact that China has been most sincere and dependable friend of Pakistain".
Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi accused some Arab states he did not identify Friday of helping to fund terrorism, and expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about security at the Syrian border.
"Businessmen from some countries in the region, with the help of their governments, are providing significant funds to terrorist groups in Iraq," Assadi said in an interview with state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
"The leaders of these countries say they know nothing about it but the facts prove otherwise."
There are nearly 300 prisoners from other Arab countries in Iraqi jails, the majority of them Saudis, according to the justice ministry.
Assadi said the worsening security situation in neighboring Syria, where Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... 's regime has been battling to crush an uprising for 11 months, was a cause for concern.
"What worries us is the deteriorating situation on the Syrian side, because the army is occupied with other problems," he said.
"There is smuggling and even festivities between the smugglers and the Syrian forces.
"The Syrian army is still at the border but in reduced numbers. It's chaos and public institutions are being pillaged from near the frontier. We have even seen some soldiers leaving their positions on the border."
LAHORE: In an effort to rid their army of Taliban infiltrators, Afghan officials have begun ordering soldiers with families in Pakistain to either move their relatives to Afghanistan or leave the military, the Washington Post reports.
Afghan defence officials told the newspaper that the policy was crafted in response to a recent spate of incidents in which soldiers who were secretly working for the Taliban carried out attacks against NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... or Afghan troops. According to the army's counterintelligence findings, those men often have ties to myrmidon havens in Pakistain. But the ultimatum could force painful choices for thousands of Afghan troops, and it is likely to stoke ethnic tensions just as the country's leadership is seeking a negotiated end to the war, the Post said, adding that purging members of the military with family in Pakistain also has the potential to aggravate long-troubled relations between Afghanistan and its eastern neighbour.
The policy has not yet received final approval from the Defence Ministry, and Afghan officials are still weighing whether to apply it nationwide, even as implementation begins in some areas. Mere consideration of the policy reflects the depth of anxiety in Afghanistan -- both among Afghan officials and Western powers -- over sleeper agents within the military, according to the newspaper.
US officials have expressed concern ...meaning the brow was mildly wrinkled, the eyebrows drawn slightly together, and a thoughtful expression assumed, not that anything was actually done or indeed that any thought was actually expended... about the Taliban's ability to penetrate Afghan cops but have not publicly proposed concrete remedies. Afghan commanders say that the connection between sleeper agents and time spent in Pakistain has been well documented and that there is consensus on the need to act.
"When they're in Pakistain, they can be influenced and intimidated by the enemy," said Lt Gen Sher Muhammad Karimi, the army chief of staff. "It's a big concern, and it's something we're trying to change," he told the Post.
According to the newspaper, Afghan counterintelligence officials have already compiled lists of soldiers with ties to Pakistain. In some parts of the country, such as the battle-scarred south, soldiers on the list have been told to move or leave the army. "We've told them, 'If you can't move your families, you'll be kicked out'," said Col Abdul Shokor, the top Afghan counterintelligence official in the Afghan army's Kandahar-based 205th Corps. No deadline has yet been set for the families to move, he said. If the new rule is implemented nationally, it could affect several thousand soldiers, the Post said.
After an infiltrator's attack last month on French troops north of Kabul, La Belle France announced its troops would depart a year earlier than expected. The assailant probably had a contact with the Taliban in Pakistain, French Defence Minister Gerard Longuet said.
Shortly after the incident, the Afghan Defence Ministry sent top Afghan military officials a memo titled "Keeping the Enemy Out of the Army", the newspaper reported, adding that the memo highlighted the urgency of the infiltration problem and the need to make changes.
A report commissioned by the US military said at least 58 Western military personnel were killed in 26 attacks by Afghan soldiers or police between May 2007 and May 2011, when the report was finished.
In Kandahar alone, four rogue Afghan soldiers have killed three American and two Australian soldiers in the past year. Shokor said that in each of those cases, "upon investigation, we found a relationship with Pakistain".
A Pentagon brasshat played down the threat from Afghans with Pak relatives. "Our strong sense is that the insider threat isn't an organised effort. Insurgents are probably to blame in some cases, but sometimes it's simply disaffected members of the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces]. And it's worth noting that instances of Afghan-on-Afghan violence inside the ANSF are more frequent than ANSF-on-NATO attacks," the official told the Post on condition of anonymity.
Yemeni authorities announced on Friday the arrest of 21 suspected members of al-Qaeda in connection with the murder of five people in Bayda province, including two electoral officials.
The five were killed when gunnies opened fire on their car in Bayda, southwest of the capital, on Tuesday.
The army and security forces "set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock 21 suspected members of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, among them the authors of this ignoble crime," said a defense ministry statement published by state news agency Saba.
Referendum-like elections will be held in Yemen on Tuesday to approve Vice President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi as a consensus president for a two-year term to replace President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , who is stepping down after a year of protests under a Gulf-brokered deal.
The people killed in Bayda included a Republican Guard officer responsible for electoral security, two soldiers and a civilian, the sources said.
On Thursday, dozens of people were hurt in festivities in southeast Yemen between rival demonstrators supporting and opposing the election.
JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli official accused Iran's shadowy Quds Force on Friday of criminal masterminding a string of attacks on Israeli diplomats abroad this week, fleshing out allegations denied by Tehran.
Monday's apparently coordinated attempts to bomb staff at Israel's embassies in New Delhi and Tbilisi killed nobody but left the wife of the defense attaché to India maimed.
Georgian police defused the bomb in Tbilisi, while Thailand said it had uncovered an Iranian squad of saboteurs who had plotted an attack on Israeli interests Tuesday.
Iran has denied involvement but Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon named Brig.-Gen. Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, a covert arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, as the criminal mastermind. "We see what is happening in India, Georgia and Thailand. It is the same pattern. The same bomb, the same lab, the same factory," Yaalon said in a newspaper interview.
"Soleimani is subordinate to the Iranian leaders and is responsible for the special force and for subversive activity against everybody," Yaalon told the Maariv daily, adding that the Iranian general had coordinated operations with Leb's Hezbullies guerrillas.
The United States blamed the Quds Force last year for an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran rejected that as baseless.
US officials have previously also charged Quds proxies with carrying out attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, while a European government source said in October that Britannia was looking into possible new Quds plots.
The Netanyahu government was quick to accuse Iran over the attacks, but some analysts have puzzled over why Tehran might risk what say saw as inept and rash actions -- especially on the territory of its big oil client India.
Yaalon said Iran was "under economic and political pressure," a reference to the stiffening of international sanctions meant to curb its controversial nuclear program, and the domestic tensions that they have helped stoke.
Libyans celebrated on Friday the first anniversary of the uprising against Muammar Qadaffy ...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later... with fireworks and slogans, even as their new leader vowed to prevent further instability.
Thousands gathered in Tahrir (Liberation) Square in Benghazi, the city which first rose against Qadaffy and his 42-year regime, after traditional Moslem prayers, waving Libya's new flag and proclaiming the revolution's "birthday."
Libya's rulers have not organized official celebrations at a national level as a mark of respect for the thousands of people killed in the conflict that saw Qadaffy captured and slain on October 20.
But spontaneous commemorations began nationwide, as former rebels, who toppled Qadaffy last year with NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... backing, set up fresh checkpoints in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of thich is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , Benghazi, the western port city of Misrata and other towns.
In Tahrir Square, mothers held pictures of their sons killed in the fighting, while singers and poets performed for the crowds.
Nearly everyone wore the red, black and green colors of the new Libya.
A Libyan flag said to be 17 kilometers long and about three meters wide was carried along the corniche to the square. It was impossible to verify the length, but the banner stretched off into the distance and out of sight.
"This is the first birthday of Libya. It is a day of freedom, a day to remember. The days ahead will be better now that Qadaffy is gone," said Malek L Sahad, a Libyan-American rap singer who returned to his native country last year.
Former army colonel Idris Rashid, 50, said the difference between the new Libya and the old was "like the difference between the sky and the earth."
"We were living before, but never knew the meaning of life. Today we can feel the breeze of freedom," he told AFP.
Libyan ruler Mustafa Abdul Jalil was expected to attend a function in Benghazi later on Friday to mark the anniversary of the revolution, along with interim Prime Minister Abdul Rahim al-Kib and other dignitaries.
Thuwar, or revolutionaries, were deployed across the city to ensure the celebrations went peacefully, and Abdul Jalil warned on Thursday that Libya's revolutionary spirit and stability would not be compromised.
"We opened our arms to all Libyans, whether they supported the revolution or not. But this tolerance does not mean we are incapable of dealing with the stability of our country," he said in a television address.
"We will be tough towards people who threaten our stability."
Tripoli resident Naima Misrati said traffic police and former rebels were distributing leaflets, warning people against thinking of carrying out attacks, which said: "We cannot bring back the buried man (Qadaffy) but we can send you to him."
The pro-Qadaffy Libyan Popular National Movement posted a statement on several websites saying the situation in Libya "is becoming worse every day."
"There's very little interest from the international media in the many horrors that have taken place. We are reorganizing ourselves outside Libya in an inclusive political movement that would encompass all Libyans who understand the terrible reality of Libya," it said.
One year after the uprising, Libya is battling challenges ranging from how to tame the rowdy militias that fought Qadaffy to establishing a new rule of law.
Thousands of people were killed or maimed in the conflict, the country's vital oil production ground to a halt, and homes, businesses, factories, schools and hospitals were devastated.
But the most immediate headache is how to control the tens of thousands of ex-rebels who have now turned into powerful militias, whose jealously guarded commitment to their honor and power occasionally erupts into deadly festivities.
Global human rights ...which often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless... organizations Amnesia Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... and Doctors Without Borders have accused militias of torturing their prisoners, most of whom are former pro-Qadaffy fighters.
U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... on Friday urged "all Libyans to stand together in a spirit of reconciliation."
"A revolution in the name of human rights must not be tarnished by abuses but must bring about justice through rule of law," Ban said.
The White House called on Libya's rulers to protect the freedoms and rights of the country's citizens.
"Protecting the rights of all the Libyan people will help preserve the unity of purpose that defined the revolution," front man Jay Carney said, while also encouraging ex-rebels to work with the government "to establish stability, peace, and reconciliation."
Prime Minister Kib has acknowledged that integrating thee militias into security services is a "complex" issue, but his government said on Thursday that about 5,000 of them had already been integrated.
New Delhi intelligence zeroing in on the possibility of an Iranian hand in the targeted "sticky bomb" attack.
NEW DELHI -- India's intelligence agencies are zeroing in on the possibility of an Iranian hand in the targeted "sticky bomb" attack on Tal Yehoshua-Koren, wife of the Israel defense attaché, in New Delhi on February 13. A motorcyclist had planted the bomb on Yehoshua- Koren's car at a traffic light, a short distance from the Israeli embassy and the Indian prime minister's residence.
Top intelligence analysts, briefing bigwigs on their assessment of the incident thus far, expressed the view that the attack was definitely carried out by a "foreign bomber" who could be "an Iranian affiliated to a Shi'ite terrorist group." Thursday's briefing was attended by India's National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon, Home Secretary R.K. Singh, and officials from the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, and the Intelligence Bureau, its domestic intelligence agency.
According to the assessment, logistical support was provided to the "foreign attacker" by "local contacts," said a bigwig who insisted on anonymity. The bomber is believed to be an Iranian, with the plot thought to have been put into action some six months ago, once the contacts were secured. Investigators are now focusing their efforts on identifying these local contacts.
Intelligence and security agencies have yet to reach a decisive conclusion. They are looking into the possibility that the bomber may have been a Shi'ite jihad boy from Leb, a Paleostinian or a Jordanian, and are scrutinizing records from the Bureau of Immigration and the Foreigners Registration Office.
Iranian, Lebanese and Paleostinian students and visitors to New Delhi and other cities are also being investigated. Agencies are examining their activities and movements over the past few months, and are believed to be questioning some travel agents.
Information communicated by Thai authorities investigating the Bangkok kabooms, who confirmed Iranian involvement in the Thai bombings, was utilized by the Indian agencies while preparing their initial assessment report. They are awaiting a detailed report from Georgia on the attempt to bomb an Israeli embassy staffer's car in Tbilisi.
Forensic experts have determined that the sticky bomb used in the attempt on Yehoshua-Koren's car was a "sophisticated device" that has not been used by Islamic fascistiin India until this point. They have not yet concluded whether it was similar to the Bangkok bombs, although in both cases magnetic components have been identified.
The bomb used to attack Yehoshua-Koren would have had a "devastating impact" had it been "planted in the right place" in the car, such as below the fuel tank, say forensic experts.
India's External Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry have not officially acknowledged the involvement of a "foreign hand," or commented on the possible identity or nationality of the bomber. In official briefings for journalists, they stated it was too early to comment.
Massoud Habibion and the company he founded, Costa Mesa, CA-based Online Micro LLC pled guilty to conspiring to ship computers to Iran illegally via Dubai. Part owner Mohsen Motamedian pled guilty to obstructing justice.
First Online Micro sold and shipped 1,000 Dell computers, for which they had paid $500,000 in 2007. Dell cut them off after receiving a number of service calls from Iran.
In 2009 and 2010 Online Micro conspired and did ship computer-related goods to Iran via Dubai valued at more than $4.9 million. The two men lied on export forms and to federal agents, a very bad thing for which Habibion will likely spend five years in prison after paying a large fine, and Motamedian will be sentenced to twenty years with a smaller fine.
Forgotten is our peculiar urban folklore, yesteryear's spontaneous fun of small Israeli kids rapidly rolling off their tongues the names of assorted Syrian tyrants. This singsong accompanied sidewalk games and was a staple of silly summertime tongue-twister contests.
Rather than be wowed, we laughed. Incomparable satirist Shai K.(Shaikeh) Ophir popularized a sidesplitting routine consisting of a rollcall of Syrian tyrants going back to 1948. He recited them with what in hindsight appears like a forerunner of fast-paced rapper-style chants.
Nobody then remotely believed that riots and havoc in neighboring autocracies could betoken the rise of democracy in the Arab-speaking sphere.
But for too long we've lost touch with our not-so-distant past, a time when recurrent "Arab Springs" were once announced with dizzying frequency. In Syria especially they followed in furious succession until, in 1970, one Hafez Assad proclaimed the longest-lasting self-styled spring and actually managed to pass on control of the abundant Damascene sunshine and blossoms to his son, Bashar.
Continued on Page 49
ORAKZAI/KHYBER AGENCY: Seventeen bad boyz were potted and 18 others were maimed in encounters with security forces in different areas of Orakzai and Khyber agencies. Three security volunteers were also killed during the encounters. Security forces also demolished four faceless myrmidons check-posts of bully boyz through helicopter shelling. Separately, one person was killed and three others were maimed in a grenade attack in Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora....
Thousands of Syrians rallied Friday to demand Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Trampler of Homs... 's ouster, as the embattled leader's forces unleashed their heaviest pounding yet of Homs in a brutal bid to crush dissent and killed 39 people across the country, monitors said.
The 39 victims included 12 dissident soldiers who were summarily executed at the hands of regime troops in the southern province of Daraa, the cradle of the revolution, the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, said.
Fifteen people were killed in Daraa, five in the Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... neighborhood of Mezzeh, four in the central province of Homs, and three in each of the eastern protest hub of Deir al-Zour, the northern province of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , the central flashpoint province of Hama and the restive countryside around Damascus, the LCC said.
The protesters emerged from mosques after the main weekly Mohammedan prayers, including in Damascus, following a call by Internet-based activists for a rally for a "new phase of popular resistance."
"We want Dire Revenge™ against Bashar and Maher," they chanted at gatherings across the country, according to videos posted on YouTube, referring to the president's brother, who heads the feared Fourth Armored Division.
They turned out after the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly backed an Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... initiative calling on Assad to step aside, and ahead of a visit by a Chinese envoy pushing for peace.
Assad, in remarks to visiting Mauritanian Prime Minister Moulaye Ould Mohamed Laghdaf, said reforms have to be synchronized with a "return to peace" in the unrest-swept country.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said security forces fired at a demonstration in the capital.
At least 10,000 people demonstrated in the southern town of Dael, in Daraa province, cradle of the 11-month revolt inspired by the Arab Spring, said the Britannia-based monitor.
In Homs, rockets crashed into strongholds of resistance at the rate of four a minute, according to one opposition activist who warned the city was facing a humanitarian crisis.
"It's the most violent in 14 days. It's unbelievable -- extreme violence the like of which we have never seen before," said Hadi Abdullah of the General Commission of the Syrian Revolution.
"There are thousands of people isolated in Homs ... There are neighborhoods that we know nothing about. I myself do not know if my parents are okay. I have had no news from them for 14 days," he told Agence La Belle France Presse by phone.
A tank fired into a residential part of Homs, before bursts of machinegun fire clattered across the neighborhood, a video activists uploaded to YouTube showed.
"The regime troops are still shelling ... but are reluctant to enter Baba Amr. They are on the periphery and are moving slowly. The army will lose if it begins urban warfare," activist Omar Shakir said later on Skype.
Rights groups estimated the two-week assault on Homs has killed almost 400 people, and a medic reached on Skype said 1,800 have been maimed.
"There are injuries that cannot be treated because of a lack of medical equipment," Dr. Ali al-Hazzouri told AFP. "There are casualties who are close to dying."
The onslaught killed five people in Homs, while another nine bodies were found in the city, said the Observatory, which also reported the shelling was the most intense in a fortnight.
The violence came after the U.N. General Assembly demanded on Thursday an immediate halt to Syria's brutal crackdown on dissent, which human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... groups say has cost more than 6,000 lives since March last year.
The strongly worded resolution, adopted by a 137-12 vote, calls on Damascus "to stop all violence or reprisals immediately, in accordance with the League of Arab States initiative."
It was referring to a peace plan put forward by the pan-Arab bloc calling on Assad to hand power over to his deputy and for the formation of a unity government ahead of elections.
Russia, China and Iran opposed the non-binding resolution. The vote came just days after Beijing and Moscow vetoed a similar resolution at the U.N. Security Council.
Such a strong vote in favor of the resolution adds to mounting pressure on Assad to curb a crackdown that left at least 41 people dead on Thursday as security forces bore down on focal points of dissent.
Egypt's deputy U.N. ambassador, Osama Abdul Khalek, said the General Assembly had sent an "unambiguous message" to Damascus: "It is high time to listen to the voice of the people."
But Syrian envoy Bashar Jaafari lashed out at other Arab nations, saying Western powers had exploited the vaporous Arab League to "internationalize" the crisis.
"The Arab Trojan horse has been unmasked today," he said.
Iran's U.N. representative, Mohammad Khazaee, warned that the resolution would only deepen the crisis, "with all its ramifications to the region as a whole."
On the eve of his trip to Damascus, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhai Jun said that Beijing opposed armed intervention and forced "regime change" in Syria.
On Thursday, Syria's opposition rejected a newly drafted constitution that could end nearly five decades of Baath Party rule, and urged voters to boycott a February 26 referendum on the charter.
One of them, the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, told AFP "it is impossible for us to take part in this referendum before a stop to the violence and killings."
A Cypriot foreign ministry official, tasked with following up the natural resources issue with Lebanese authorities, held talks with a number of bigwigs during an undisclosed visit to Beirut.
According to As Safir newspaper published on Friday, the result of the visit was described as "positive."
Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis is set to also visit Leb before Speaker Nabih Knobby Berri Speaker of the Lebanese parliament, a member of AMAL, a not very subtle Hizbullah sock puppet... 's scheduled trip to the island state end of February, the daily reported.
Berri held talks on Thursday with U.S. State Department special coordinator on Middle East affairs Frederick Hof, stressing that Leb is committed to the drilling of oil within all of its maritime borders.
Al-Joumhouria newspaper quoted Berri as saying "Leb will not retreat one iota from its rights" concerning the issue.
An Nahar daily reported that Hof described his visit as a chance to resolve the dispute over the maritime border in order for Leb to start excavating for its natural resources.
Leb has been slow to exploit its maritime resources compared with other eastern Mediterranean countries. But the government has warned that it will not give up its maritime rights and accuses Israel of violating its waters, territory and air space.
In January, the cabinet endorsed plans to implement legislation that will clear the way for offshore oil and gas exploration as it aims to invite tenders to explore for offshore gas within three months, downplaying the risk of conflict with Israel despite a dispute over the maritime border.
In August, Parliament passed a law setting Leb's maritime boundary and Exclusive Economic Zone.
Leb has also submitted to the United Nations ...aka the Oyster Bay Chowder and Marching Society... a maritime map that conflicts significantly with one proposed by Israel. It argues its map is in line with an armistice accord drawn up in 1949, an agreement which is not contested by Israel.
The disputed zone consists of about 854 square kilometers, and suspected energy reserves there could generate billions of dollars.
A jacket wallah attacked a market in a largely Shiite Moslem area of northwest Pakistain on Friday, killing at least 19 people and wounding 54 others in the deadliest attack for a month.
The bomb went kaboom! near a mosque as the main Friday prayers took place in Parachinar, a flashpoint for sectarian violence between majority Sunni and minority Shiite Moslems in Pakistain's tribal badlands on the Afghan border.
Parachinar is the main town in Kurram district, part of the semi-autonomous tribal belt where U.S. drone strikes target Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked faceless myrmidons in what Washington considers the world's largest international terror hub.
It was the deadliest attack in Pakistain since a remote-controlled kaboom killed at least 35 people in the Khyber tribal district on January 10.
"At least 19 people were killed and 54 others were maimed when a suicide bomber on a cycle of violencewent kaboom!" in a crowded market," top regional administrator Sahibzada Mohammad Anees told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Fourteen of the maimed were in a critical condition, he added, fuelling fears that the corpse count could rise further.
A splinter group that broke away from Pakistain's umbrella Taliban faction grabbed credit for the attack.
"We sent the suicide bomber following attacks on Sunni Moslems by the Shiite tribes in the area," Fazal Saeed told AFP by telephone, claiming to be the leader of the so-called Tehrik-e-Taliban Islami.
"We caught a man yesterday who was planting a bomb at a petrol station owned by a Sunni. We did it in response," he added.
Since the late 1980s more than 4,000 people have been killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite jihad boy groups in Pakistain.
Residents said the bombing destroyed at least eight shops in the city's crowded bazaar.
Telephone links broke down after the attack and news of the elevated corpse count was slow to arrive via radio, Anees said.
Officials had earlier said eight people died in the blast, which struck as locals visited a special Friday market.
"A curfew has been imposed in the area after some people tried to hold a demonstration. Security forces have sealed the area," Anees said.
According to an AFP tally, Islamist bombers and gunnies have killed more than 4,800 people across Pakistain since July 2007.
Paleostinian gunnies fired RPG rockets at an IDF force patrolling the Gazoo Strip border Friday evening and detonated an bomb near the troops.
No injuries were reported in the incident but the border fence in the area was damaged.
IDF troops at the site directed tank fire at the terrorists.
Earlier Friday, two rockets fired from Gazoowent kaboom! in the Eshkol regional council and south of Ashkelon, causing no injuries or damage.
'Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, responsible for escalation'
Following the escalating violence in the Gazoo region, the IDF Spokesman's Office issued the following statement: "The IDF considers these to be grave acts of terror, which aim to harm residents and communities in the State of Israel."
"The Hamas terror organization, which carries out acts of terror against the State of Israel, is jeopardizing Gazoo Strip residents and will bear the responsibility for any future operation executed by the IDF in order to lift the threat of terror and restore the relative calm in the area," the army said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the chili cook-off, Chuck and Manuel's rivalry was entering a new and more dangerous phase... Paleostinian sources reported that the IDF directed tank fire at an open area east of the al-Bureij refugee camp in the central Gazoo Strip. No injuries were reported in the incident, the sources said.
Earlier Friday, the Color-Red rocket alert was activated in several southern Israel communities after gunnies fired Qassam rockets from Gazoo.
Four other rockets were fired at Israel earlier this week, prompting Air Force gunships to strike open areas in Gazoo. Later, the army struck two more targets in the northern and central Gazoo Strip.
It's not Turkey's to share or not share. But Constantinople was once the center of its universe, and they haven't yet gotten over that.
Foreign Minister says Turkey won't share NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... radar system with any country -- especially not Israel
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Friday that Turkey will never make a third party privy to intelligence collected by the NATO radar system located in the country -- especially if that party is Israel, the Al Arabiya news network reported.
"We will never allow any third country to use any NATO facility. Our position will be even more clear if it is particularly Israel," Davutoglu was quoted as saying during a joint presser with NATO Chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who is visiting Ankara.
According to the report, Davutoglu made the statement in response to reports that the United States and Israel have carried out a joint missile test by using intelligence gathered by the NATO radar system based in eastern Turkey.
Rasmussen, on his part, expressed NATO's appreciation for Turkey's willingness to host the facility.
"Data are shared within our alliance among the allies," he was quoted as saying. "It is a defense system to protect the populations of NATO allies."
He did not mentioning Israel, which is not a NATO member.
The radar system is believed to located in Turkey with the aim of collecting intelligence on the neighboring Iran and its nuclear development. The West sees Turkey as an important alley in all that is concerned with the possibility of a strike on the Islamic Theocratic Republic, due to its strategic location.
But Davutoglu stressed during Friday's conference that the radar system was not directed at any nation in particular.
"This system is not against any country," he said. "It is entirely for defense purposes."
#1
Just kick the turkeys from Turkey out of NATO.
We still owe them big time for not letting the 4th ID enter from the North.
Posted by: Water Modem ||
02/18/2012 1:40
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#2
move Incirlik to Cyprus. That'll twist the Turkish Turbans
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/18/2012 8:51
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#3
I have a feeling that this is just for local consumption. NATO data is shared with NATO members, but after they have the data, it is no longer proprietary, and there is no way for Turkey to prevent it going to Israel. It just means that it won't officially be from NATO.
The Permanent Military Tribunal headed by Brig. Gen. Nizar Khalil on Friday sentenced to death Haitham al-Sahmarani, a retired Internal Security Forces first sergeant, on charges of collaboration with Israel.
Upon his arrest in 2009 Sahmarani confessed to collaborating, along with his wife, with the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
With the help of his sister who had decamped to Israel in 2000, Sahmarani began his relation with the Israelis in 2004.
The sister, Sahera al-Sahmarani, and her husband Mohammed Amin Khazaal were sentenced to death in absentia on Friday.
Hizbullah's mouthpiece, Al-Manar television, said "Sahmarani met with Israeli officers in Turkey and Israel and gave coordinates to the enemy during the (2006) July war of (Hizbullah chief) Sayyed (Hassan) Nasrallah's possible locations."
Separately, the military tribunal sentenced Ragheda Daher to two years hard labor on charges of spying for Israel.
And it handed a similar verdict to Assem Hammoud, who had been accused of plotting to bomb train tunnels in the U.S.
More than 100 people have been set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock on suspicion of spying for the Israeli Mossad since April 2009, including members of the security forces and telecom employees.
Former cop found guilty of giving sensitive security information to Jewish state during 2006 Leb War
Judicial officials say a Lebanese military court has convicted a former policeman of spying for Israel and sentenced him to death.
More than 100 people in Leb have been placed in long-term storage since 2009 on suspicion of collaborating with the Jewish state.
A military court on Friday found Haitham al-Sahmarani guilty of giving sensitive security information to Israeli intelligence agents including during a monthlong 2006 war between Israel and the Death EaterHezbullies group.
The officials said al-Sahmarani's sister and her husband who are believed to be in Israel were also sentenced to death in absentia on similar charges. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.
Al-Sahmarani is a former chief sergeant. He was placed in long-term storage in 2009.
Special Tribunal for Leb Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare referred a new indictment to Pre-Trial Judge Daniel Fransen in the attacks on the three Lebanese officials that have been linked to ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's murder, al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Friday.
Sources close to the prosecutor's office told the daily that Bellemare referred to Fransen in the past few days the new indictment in the liquidation attempts of MP Marwan Hamadeh, ex-Defense Minister Elias Murr, and the murder of former Communist party leader George Hawi.
Media reports had said that Bellemare was expected to issue a new indictment before he leaves his post in March. His successor has not yet been named.
The sources didn't disclose the content of the indictment, hinting that it might include a fifth suspect linked to Hariri's Feb. 2005 liquidation.
STL front man Marten Youssef said during an interview with An Nahar newspaper this month that Bellemare can follow two ways to refer an indictment to Fransen: either discreetly, or he can refer it without revealing its context (to the public).
Eight lawyers have been selected to represent four Hizbullah members due to be tried in absentia for Hariri's liquidation.
Each of the four defendants will have a counsel and co-counsel who "are fully independent and can choose any strategy they see best fit to defend the rights of the accused," the court has said.
The Hague-based tribunal indicted Salim Ayyash, Mustafa Badreddine, Hussein Anaissi and Assad Sabra and sent arrest warrants for them to Lebanese authorities in June last year.
But the authorities in Leb have so far failed to arrest them.
The Syrian National Council, the largest opposition group in the strife-ridden country, will not be officially represented at a "friends of Syria" conference next week, host Tunisia said on Friday.
"There will certainly not be an official SNC representative" at the conference, Foreign Minister Rafik Abdesalem told news hounds while recognizing that the topic had caused wide debate.
"Each thing in time," the minister said, adding that he hoped to see the creation of an opposition group with "real representation".
Tunisia, which hosted a first international conference on Syria in December and broke off ties with Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... earlier this month, does not recognize the SNC as an official entity.
The SNC said last week recognition by the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... was imminent, though members did not specify the extent of recognition they expected.
Tunisia has invited members of the vaporous Arab League and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... , along with the United States, to attend the February 24 conference.
Abdesalem confirmed invitations were also sent to Russia and China, the two powers have that have gone furthest to defend the regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... "There's no reason to exclude two countries," the minister said.
The minister said the conference would "apply maximum pressure on the Syrian government so that it stops killing its own people."
Abdesalem said military options were not on the table and that Tunisia would never be a staging ground for an attack on Syria.
"We are acting within the Arab League framework," he said.
Abdesalem also defended Tunisia's decision earlier this month to expel a top Syrian diplomat, calling it "ethical".
Tunisia's opposition had criticized the decision as a reckless break with the country's diplomatic tradition.
Abdesalem said Tunisia could not "stand back in silence" noting that the expulsion was decided the day after regime attacks in Homs killed 230 people, according to Syrian activists.
"The situation in Syria is critical and no one can accept such violations against human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. ," the minister said.
"What is happening there is just revolution not so different from what happened in Tunisia, a revolution for dignity and freedom," the minister said.
Syrian forces on Friday continued to blast Homs despite an overnight U.N. vote condemning the repression.
Turkey's Parliament voted late Thursday to stop prosecutors questioning spies without the prime minister's permission, after a row which analysts said revealed divisions inside the state on ending the war with Kurdish bully boys.
The governing AK Party hastily introduced the amendment after prosecutors summoned National Intelligence Agency (MIT) chief Hakan Fidan for questioning over secret talks he held with the bully boy separatists, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Some analysts have interpreted the move against Fidan as a challenge to Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan by followers of a rival wing within the ruling AK Party to scupper the prime minister's secret efforts to end the 27-year-old conflict with the PKK.
Fidan was working in Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's office at the time of the talks before Erdogan promoted him to lead the MIT. He ignored the summons and the prosecutor who issued it was removed from the case and then put under investigation himself.
Fidan and MIT have repeatedly clashed with police over the detention and exposure of undercover agents during the arrests of hundreds of suspected PKK sympathizers, media said.
The AKP denied any split and there was little evidence of it when government deputies swung behind the prime minister and voted to back the amendment to the law on intelligence agencies.
Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said there was nothing wrong with talking to the PKK and that military, security and intelligence officials had repeatedly spoken with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan since he was captured by Turkish special forces in Kenya in 1999 and tossed in the calaboose on an island on the Sea of Marmara.
Opposition parties said the motion was a further grab for more power by Erdogan.
"It's clearly contrary to the rule of law. It's not right to give one person this authority," social democrat opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu told the NTV news channel. This can only happen in a dictatorship."
He said his Republican People's Party planned to appeal to Turkey's constitutional court.
In the past year, Turkey's courts have become swamped with dozens of often inter-linked cases against hundreds of military officers, journalists and suspected supporters of the PKK, which Ankara, Washington and the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... all class as a terrorist organization.
The secularist opposition says the judiciary has been filled with officials, until now sympathetic to the government, since Erdogan's AK Party came to power in 2002.
The AK Party, which emerged from a series of banned groups, won its third election last year with a large majority, giving Erdogan a comfortable mandate.
In tapes of the talks with the PKK in Oslo and leaked to the media last year, Fidan, then the prime minister's special envoy, said Erdogan was prepared to take a great political risk to pursue peace talks with the PKK.
Fighting has since flared up in the mainly Kurdish southeast where Turkish troops are determined to show no signs of letting up in their campaign against the PKK during the winter months when the mountainous region is blanketed under heavy snow.
Kurdish analysts say there are elements within the Turkish armed forces, the second biggest in NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all.... , and the police which have a vested interest in continued fighting. The war has so far cost the lives of 40,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians.
* Blast claimed by TTI may trigger fresh sectarian violence in Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora...
The tragic suicide kaboom in the Parachinar area of Kurram Agency on Friday, which killed 26 people and injured 36, has exposed the failure of a peace agreement between rival factions in the agency, Daily Times learnt.
According to media reports, Fazal Saeed Haqqani-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Islami (TTI) -- a breakaway faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) -- has grabbed credit of the attack. Saeed Haqqani is said to have close ties with the Haqqani bad boy group, one of the most feared factions of the Afghan Taliban.
Kurram Agency is the only part of Pakistain's border region that has a significant Shia population. It has been racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia tribes.
Saeed Haqqani had reportedly issued a statement soon after the accord -- inked in October 2011 -- in which he made claims that no peace could be established in Kurram Agency against his will and "it is only possible when TTI wishes for it".
There are also reports that he had refused to give any guarantee for the implementation of the accord and to follow the decisions made by the two factions.
Hailing from Bagan area of Kurram Agency, Saeed Haqqani is known to be the first cousin of Munir Orakzai, parliamentary leader of FATA. He has been involved in abduction of more than 40 Turi Bangash rustics. A dozen of those kidnapped were killed. Reportedly, TTP, TTI and the Afghan Taliban movement fighting Western forces in Afghanistan are deep-rooted in Pakistain's Tribal Areas. All have allegedly been involved in anti-Shia activities for years. They continue to have strongholds in the region despite a series of military operations in the last few years. Pak forces have been conducting operations against bad boy groups in Kurram Agency since the beginning of this year, in which dozens were killed in fierce fighting. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... Saeed Haqqani's group is said to remain safe during the military operation, especially during the 'Operation Koh-e-Sufaid' following some unofficial accords. This indicates that absence of any operation against him has made him a sole powerful player in the area.
Saeed Haqqani started his bad boy activities with the help of between 300 and 400 gun-hung tough guys a few years ago.
After the agreement between the two factions, the Parachinar-Beautiful Downtown Peshawar road remained opened after a four-year siege by beturbanned goons. However, you can observe a lot just by watching... Friday's bombing could be a TTI's attempt to close the road again. Such a closure will affect 500,000 residents of the area. The bombing has also put the future of the peace accord at stake, driving the agency once again on the verge of sectarian festivities. It also reflects the failure of security forces in maintaining peace in the region. Ono the other hand, TTI claims the Shia community of Parachinar is involved in activities against the group. At least 26 Shias were reportedly killed while more than three-dozen injured on Friday, after a jacket wallah detonated his explosives just near the targeted mosque in the congested Kurmi bazaar in the main town of Kurram Agency. The miseries of the locals did not end there, as security forces fired on crowds protesting the attack, killing three people.
ISLAMABAD: Former prime minister and Pakistain Mohammedan League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... on Friday said there could be no peace in Pakistain unless stability was achieved in Afghanistan. Sharif made these remarks on the occasion of a dinner that he hosted in honour of President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... . He emphasised the need for enhancing understanding and cooperation between Pakistain and Afghanistan, as this was essential for maintenance of peace and stability in the region. Sharif said that as a neighbour and brotherly country, Pakistain wished Afghanistan and its people to have peace and stability. In this context, he lauded the efforts of President Karzai to promote reconciliation in his country, which he felt was the only way to achieve peace. He also expressed his grief at the liquidation of former Afghan president Rabbani, who led the High Peace Council and whose strenuous efforts had already started bearing fruit. Thanking Sharif for the meeting, President Karzai spoke of his long association with the former prime minister, who he referred to as a sincere friend and well-wisher of Afghanistan. He also recalled the former prime minister's past efforts to promote peace and stability in Afghanistan, which was deeply appreciated in his country. President Karzai extended a cordial invitation to Nawaz Sharif to visit Kabul.
* 26 killed, dozens injured in blast outside Shia mosque
* Three more killed as police shoots at Shia protesters
PARACHINAR/ISLAMABAD: At least 26 Shias were reportedly killed while more than three-dozen injured on Friday, after a jacket wallah detonated his explosives just near the targeted mosque in the congested Kurmi bazaar in the main town of Kurram Agency ...home of an intricately interconnected web of poverty, ignorance, and religious fanaticism, where the laws of cause and effect are assumed to be suspended, conveniently located adjacent to Tora Bora... . The miseries of the locals did not end there, as security forces fired on crowds protesting the attack, killing three people.
According to details, the bomber struck outside the mosque in the busy market shortly after Friday prayers. Scores of shops in the bazaar were also damaged as a result of the kaboom, while security forces sealed the entire bazaar. Local government administrator Wajid Ali told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that many of the victims were shoppers or people with stalls in the market.
Since the late 1980s more than 4,000 people have been killed in outbreaks of sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia bully boy groups in Pakistain.
It was the deadliest attack in Pakistain since a remote-controlled kaboom killed at least 35 people in the Khyber tribal district on January 10.
Residents said the bombing destroyed at least eight shops in the city's crowded bazaar. Telephone links broke down after the attack and news of the elevated corpse count was slow to arrive via radio, said top regional administrator Sahibzada Muhammad Anees.
A curfew was imposed in the area and law enforcers launched a search operation. However, man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them... no arrests were made till the filing of this report.
Fazal Saeed, leader of a breakaway faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain, grabbed credit for the latest attack in Kurram. "We have targeted the Shia community of Parachinar because they were involved in activities against us," he told Rooters by telephone from Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location. "We caught a man yesterday who was planting a bomb at a petrol station owned by a Sunni. We did it in response," he told AFP.
"We also warn the political administration of Parachinar to stop siding with the Shia community in all our disputes."
Officials had earlier said eight people died in the blast, which struck as locals visited a special Friday market. "A curfew has been imposed in the area after some people tried to hold a demonstration. Security forces have sealed the area," Anees said.
Parachinar is the main town in Kurram district, part of the semi-autonomous tribal belt where US drone strikes target Taliban and al Qaeda-linked bully boyz in what Washington considers the world's largest international terror hub.
According to an AFP tally, Islamist bombers and gunnies have killed more than 4,800 people across Pakistain since July 2007.
President Asif Ali President Ten Percent Zardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... strongly condemned the Parachinar bombing and said the country was suffering the scourge of terrorism which, he said, needs to be eradicated at priority.
In a message, the president prayed for the departed souls and directed the authorities to provide the best possible medical treatment to the injured. He said the perpetrators of such heinous crimes would not be spared.
Dozens of people were hurt in festivities in southeast Yemen between rival demonstrators supporting and opposing Tuesday's presidential election, witnesses said on Friday.
They said the trouble began late on Thursday when activists of the pro-secession Southern Movement, which opposes the election, threw stones and petrol bombs at a sit-in of pro-election activists in Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province.
The activists have been campaigning for the election, which will see Vice President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi stand as the sole candidate to replace veteran strongman President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... , who is standing down under a Gulf-brokered deal.
Tuesday's election follows a year of protests against Saleh's rule, deadly unrest that erupted last January as the so-called Arab Spring swept through Tunisia and Egypt.
Saleh's departure has been the main demand of the anti-regime demonstrators in Yemen.
"Armed men of the Southern Movement" attacked their sit-in, the activists said in a statement, "injuring 60 youths of the revolution, some seriously, and setting fire to four tents" in Mukalla's Change Place, focus of the protests.
Residents also reported Southern Movement protests against the election in several other Hadramawt towns late Thursday.
Thousands of people have burned their electoral cards in recent weeks at the urging of the Southern Movement.
KATHMANDU: A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman on Friday after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said. Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practising witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district, told.
"Nine people started to beat her after a local shaman pointed the finger at her over the death of a boy a year ago," the officer said. "They accused her of having hands in the death of the boy, who had drowned in a river."
Bhandari said the shaman and the nine locals suspected of taking part in the crime had been nabbed on suspicion of murder.
"They poured kerosene and threw straw over her and then set fire to her. No one came to her rescue. By the time we heard about it, she had already died," he told.
The atmosphere was tense in Madi village following the murder, he added, with Mahato's neighbours refusing to allow police to take her body away for a post-mortem examination.
#1
What are the odds that the shaman drowned the boy? 50-50?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
02/18/2012 9:34
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#2
Hmmm....wonder if the practice of economic theory by certain elements of financial and economic government central planners qualifies as 'witchcraft'? How about moving their next summit to the summits in Napal?
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.
A senior Iranian intelligence official says an estimated 16,000 computers were infected by the Stuxnet virus.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Mahmoud 
The Pakistain army's vaulting mission to remain the most powerful actor in Pak politics has received irreparable setbacks in the last few years. This is due to the onset of several new factors in the country's body politic determining the direction of political change in the future. It is also a poor reflection of the ability and willingness of the army's leadership to understand the far-reaching nature of this change and adapt to it seamlessly. Pakistain's future as a viable nation-state now depends on how the generals read the writing on the wall and how quickly they come to terms with it. 
Pervez 
A 
Thirteen Russian troops have been killed and at least 17 others 
ISLAMABAD: Pak-China Centre and International Islamic University Islamabad (IIUI) on Friday launched monthly 'Youlin' (Good Neighbours) during a ceremony at the Faisal Mosque Campus. 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
LAHORE: In an effort to rid their army of Taliban infiltrators, Afghan officials have begun ordering soldiers with families in Pakistain to either move their relatives to Afghanistan or leave the military, the Washington Post reports.
Yemeni authorities announced on Friday the arrest of 21 suspected members of al-Qaeda in connection with the murder of five people in Bayda province, including two electoral officials.
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
New Delhi intelligence zeroing in on the possibility of an Iranian hand in the targeted "sticky bomb" attack.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Paleostinian 
The Permanent Military Tribunal headed by Brig. Gen. Nizar Khalil on Friday sentenced to death Haitham al-Sahmarani, a retired Internal Security Forces first sergeant, on charges of collaboration with Israel.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Turkey's Parliament voted late Thursday to stop prosecutors questioning spies without the prime minister's permission, after a row which analysts said revealed divisions inside the state on ending the war with Kurdish
Kurram Agency
Nawaz Sharif
Asif Ali 
KATHMANDU: A mob burned alive a 40-year-old woman on Friday after accusing her of casting black magic spells in a remote village in southern Nepal, police said. Dengani Mahato died after she was severely beaten, doused in kerosene and set alight for allegedly practising witchcraft, Gopal Bhandari, a superintendent of police in Chitwan district, told. 
