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Smoking Gun in Hariri Murder Inquest?
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
United Fruit Company Happy with Haliburton Cyclone Division Results
BANANA growers in Western Australia, who had been poised to capitalise after Cyclone Larry devastated Queensland's banana industry, are instead bracing for their own potential losses.

Category-five Larry crushed the north Queensland banana industry early last week, prompting a big jump in the price of the fruit.

Growers in Carnarvon, 904km north of Perth, are now bracing for the impact of tropical cyclone Glenda, rated a category four, in what was expected to a big year for local producers.

The Carnarvon Banana Producers Association said Glenda, poised to cross the Pilbara coast in WA later today, could pose a threat to its growers in the Gascoyne region, to the south of the Pilbara.

Executive officer David Parr said crops could be destroyed in winds as low as 70km/h.

"It doesn't take an awful lot to knock bananas over," Mr Parr said.

"We were looking at a very lucrative business this year with the loss of the Queensland banana industry."

But Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Bruce Buckley expected WA banana producers would suffer more from flooding more than high winds.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/30/2006 18:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
Sistani ignores letter from Bush
A letter from President Bush to Iraq's supreme Shiite spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was hand-delivered earlier this week but sits unread and untranslated in the top religious figure's office, a key al-Sistani aide told The Associated Press on Thursday. The aide — who has never allowed use of his name in news reports, citing al-Sistani's refusal to make any public statements himself — said the ayatollah had laid the letter aside and did not ask for a translation because of increasing "unhappiness" over what senior Shiite leaders see as American meddling in Iraqi attempts to form their first, permanent post-invasion government.

The aide said the person who delivered the Bush letter — he would not identify the messenger by name or nationality — said it carried Bush's thanks to al-Sistani for calling for calm among his followers in preventing the outbreak of civil war after a Shiite shrine was bombed late last month. The messenger also was said to have explained that the letter reinforced the American position that Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari should not be given a second term. Al-Sistani has not publicly taken sides in the dispute, but rather has called for Shiite unity.

The United States was known to object to al-Jaafari's second term but has never said so outright and in public. But on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad carried a similar letter from Bush to a meeting with Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the largest Shiite political organization, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. The al-Sistani aide said Shiite displeasure with U.S. involvement was so deep that dignitaries in the holy city of Najaf refused to meet Khalilzad on Wednesday during ceremonies commemorating the death of the Prophet Muhammad. The Afghan-born Khalilzad is a Sunni Muslim.

The United States is believed to oppose al-Jaafari because of his close ties and strong backing from radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who has a thousands-strong heavily armed militia that was responsible for much of the violence that hit the country after the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. At a news conference Thursday, al-Jaafari said he had met with Khalilzad a day earlier and that the U.S. ambassador denied remarks attributed to him about the prime minister's candidacy for a new term. "I don't care much about these matters. I look at the Iraqi people and the democratic mechanisms," al-Jaafari said.

Al-Sadr, who is staunchly anti-American, met with al-Sistani in Najaf on Thursday but emerged without making a statement. The stalemate over forming a new government for Iraq, in its sixth week after the certification of the vote in parliamentary elections Dec. 15, is focused on al-Jaafari's candidacy, opposed by minority Sunni and Kurdish politicians as well as many moderate Shiites. He was nominated for a second and permanent four-year term by one vote and with al-Sadr's backing. The Iraqi constitution dictates that the largest parliamentary bloc is entitled to select the prime minister. The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance holds 135 seats in the 275-member legislature.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 17:51 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sistani was probably too busy on his latest fatwa about sex with goats
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 18:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Gee whiz, wotta surprise. Sistani probably actually believes Allah delivered his minions from Saddam.

It's preaching to the choir, but the time has come to destroy Sadr. It's at least 2 years overdue. He was clearly a murderer of competing "religious figures" and an Iranian agent from the very beginning. The Najaf campaign is a perfect parallel to Fallujah I. We allowed politics to stop what was a very beneficial cleansing campaign of Sadr's militia and murdering cult - recall what they found in the Najaf mosque. Perhaps we should've made sure Sistani stayed in London, by whatever means, so it could have been finished properly. Learn our lesson and finish now.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 19:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Ali al-Sistani's "unhappiness"

time for a cause and effect reality check,

'O Tater
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 23:39 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistani Militant Leader and OBL Brokeback Sand Dune buddy Is Beaten


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen on Wednesday attacked and seriously injured a longtime ally of Osama bin Laden whom U.S. authorities have linked to an alleged terrorist sleeper cell in California.
The fact they left him alive leads me to beleive someone is trying to make a point. I just don't know who is trying to make the point.

Fazlur Rehman Khalil, a signatory to Bin Laden's 1998 declaration of war on the United States and its allies, was severely beaten by eight armed men, supporters said.
8 banditos...and he's still alive? Interesting.

The assailants dragged Khalil and his driver from a mosque in Tarnol, about three miles northwest of Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, as they attended evening prayers, said his spokesman, Sultan Zia.
His spokesman? He's got a spokesman?

Khalil is a current former leader of Harkat Mujahedin, a militant group linked to Al Qaeda that he founded as Harkat Ansar to fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The U.S. labeled Khalil's group a terrorist organization in 1997, but it has continued its anti-Western jihad, or holy war, under the new name, Jamiat ul Ansar.
I guess it's kinda like Coke and Coke Classic.

Khalil's attackers held him for five hours, tying a rope around his neck and beating him with rifle butts before dumping him in front of a mosque on Islamabad's outskirts, his spokesman said. "He was left in a very serious condition with a severe head injury. However, he has survived with the grace of allan God," Zia said. Khalil was taken to a hospital in Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital.

In June, the FBI arrested Lodi, Calif., ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, 48, and his son Hamid, 23, and charged them with training in one of Khalil's camps in Pakistan for attacks in the U.S. The men are on trial in a Sacramento court. The prosecution rested its case Tuesday.
No mercy.

Khalil co-signed Bin Laden's 1998 fatwa, or religious edict, that declared it "an individual duty" for Muslims to kill American civilians and troops, or their allies, anywhere they could be found in the world.
There has to be a reason he hasn't taken a dirt nap. I just don't know what it is.

Bin Laden's deputy, Egyptian physician Ayman Zawahiri, and two other Egyptian and Pakistani extremists also signed the declaration by the so-called World Islamic Front for Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders.

That same year, then-President Clinton ordered an attack with Tomahawk cruise missiles on targets in Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden after Al Qaeda attacks on two U.S. embassies in East Africa left at least 224 people dead. The strikes also targeted Khalil's camps near the eastern Afghan town of Khowst.
Known enemy of the US. We know where he is at. The Pakistan government knows where he is at.

Intelligence assessments concluded that the missile strikes missed Bin Laden by a few hours, but Khalil claimed several of his fighters were killed in the airstrikes.
Living on borrowed time.

In testimony before the 9/11 Commission in 2004, Clinton's national security advisor, Samuel R. "Sandy,Don't Look Under my Coat or in My Pants" Berger, said an undisclosed number of agents from the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency also died in the strikes on the camps. The powerful ISI was long associated with Khalil and other militant groups.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf banned Khalil's militant group in 2001, after he ended support for the Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan and joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks.
But do not have him in custody.

Pakistani authorities arrested Khalil in 2004 when he was accused of aiding militants crossing into Afghanistan to attack U.S.-led forces.

He was detained at least two more times but was released each time under what Pakistan's government insisted was close supervision to ensure he didn't engage in militant activities.

As late as 2004, Khalil continued to raise funds and rally militants to wage jihad against the U.S. in a magazine called Al Hilal, published from his headquarters, in a mosque next to a school and across from an army base in Rawalpindi.

A November 2003 edition of the magazine featured an advertisement on the back page, announcing the "All-Pakistan Training Convention of Jamiat ul Ansar Activists," at Khalil's headquarters.

I dunno. I just don't understand.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 16:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan
America's Forgotten War
By SEBASTIAN JUNGER

More than four years after the invasion of Afghanistan, 20,000 U.S. soldiers are still there, pitting their diplomatic skills—and massive airpower—against the Taliban's terror tactics

This now, too, is war: an American colonel striding through the market of a mud-walled Afghan town, scanning the produce. There's lots of it—fresh tomatoes, peppers, carrots—which one vegetable seller attributes to a new storage facility in nearby Kandahar functioning as it should. Otherwise, the produce would be overpriced and imported from Pakistan. All this, in some indirect way, is good news for the American military, which for four years has been fighting an infuriatingly low-level war in the mountains of Afghanistan. If there's plenty of food, according to this line of thought, the locals are doing well and will support President Hamid Karzai's fragile coalition government in Kabul. And if they support the government, they won't help the insurgents, who have kept 20,000 American soldiers pinned down in an almost forgotten war.

As a result, Lieutenant Colonel Mark Stammer walks through town every week or so to take the pulse of the community. Minutes earlier he finished up a visit to a local girls' school—built with American money—where he had knelt down in front of the headmistress and knifed open several boxes of school supplies for the children. The supplies had been sent by his wife, and included soccerballs bought by the women's soccer team at the University of Texas. The schoolmistress thanked him, and another person added that if he "heard anything" he would let Stammer know. By that, he meant that he would call if he got word of Taliban activity in the area—which, in turn, might allow Stammer to pre-empt an attack on American soldiers.

By all measures the situation in Afghanistan may be skidding dangerously off the rails. American military deaths in the past year—nearly a hundred—almost equal those for the three preceding years combined. According to a recent internal report for the American Special Forces, opium production has gone from 74 metric tons a year under the Taliban to an astronomical 3,600 metric tons, an amount which is equal to 90 percent of the world's supply. The profit from Afghanistan's drug trade—roughly $2 billion a year—competes with the amount of international aid flowing into the country and helps fund the insurgency. And assassinations and suicide bombings have suddenly taken hold in parts of Afghanistan, leading people to fear that the country is headed toward Iraq-style anarchy.
Very long article

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 16:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Doom ! Despair!! Agony!!! That poor man really needs to take a Seratonin re-uptake inhibitor or he'll become seriously depressed. For the first time in two generations the Afghan people have the chance to build a peaceful society, and they are slowly and inconsistently inching in that direction. It would be absurd and unfair to expect them to reach the standards of Western civilization in less than half a decade, even if they didn't live in that particular neighborhood.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/30/2006 17:17 Comments || Top||

#2  If you want to make an American intelligence officer blanch, ask him whether the Pakistani military is supporting the Taliban. Officers like McGary seem willing to talk about it all day long—it's their men who are dying, after all—but intelligence officers inhabit that awkward world where politics and war intersect, and the wrong question can literally set them to stammering.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 17:28 Comments || Top||

#3  I hope with left the Indian Government a copy of

"Lithium 6 for Dummys"
Posted by: 6 || 03/30/2006 17:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Junger's most well-know piece of writing is "Perfect Storm", in which the entire fishing boat crew drowns at the end, so we're not talking about a guy who necessarily looks on the bright side of things. (Good movie, though- you get to watch George Clooney drown.)
Posted by: Matt || 03/30/2006 17:58 Comments || Top||

#5  I hope with left the Indian Government a copy of
"Lithium 6 for Dummys"

Being stockpiled right now...

http://www.thebulletin.org/article.php?art_ofn=ja98albright

"India also did not reveal whether the fusion material used in the thermonuclear device was lithium deuteride, tritium, or both. Bhabha started producing lithium 6 almost a decade ago and began producing tritium even earlier. Bhabha also recently opened a tritium production plant, which can extract significant quantities of tritium from the heavy water irradiated in its CANDU power reactors."
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 18:09 Comments || Top||

#6  waah, waah, waah

interesting stuff about Pakistan...

waah, waah, waah
Posted by: Iblis || 03/30/2006 18:10 Comments || Top||

#7  How long are the Paks going to get away with this?
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 18:14 Comments || Top||

#8  I find it hard to fathom why we have not made a major operation (Airstrikes followed by napalm, followed by ground troops) to destroy the bulk of the poppy fields and deny our enemies that economic resource.

At the very least it might convince the poppy growers to stop paying for Taliban soldiers. At very most it might bankrupt then and help us win.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/30/2006 18:33 Comments || Top||

#9  I don't read this as doom and despair, or waah, waah. I see a guy who is not a Ranger reporting on their life - full pack, 10,000 feet, dealing with sh*t. It's a tough job - both the soldiers' job and Junger's. Sometimes the news is bad, sometimes it's good, and mostly you just won't know for a while, but you just keep doing your job.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/30/2006 18:55 Comments || Top||

#10  Matt, "The Pefect Storm" is actually a true account of the Andrea Gail. No one actually knows what happened but the Andrea Gail was lost in the fall of 1991. I was living in the Boston area at the time and it was big news there.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/30/2006 19:11 Comments || Top||

#11  rjschwartz:

We should use napalm.
We have napalm.
We can't use napalm.
In the campaign against Baghdad, we used concrete-bombs.
The enemy got the message.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/30/2006 20:23 Comments || Top||

#12  I find it hard to fathom why we have not made a major operation (Airstrikes followed by napalm, followed by ground troops) to destroy the bulk of the poppy fields and deny our enemies that economic resource.

Immediately after any such strike, the jihadis would gather up a school full of children, take them into a burnt-out field, tie them up, douse them with gasoline, and set them on fire. Once the flames burnt down, they would invite every camera crew they could find to show the world "what the Americans did".
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 20:48 Comments || Top||


Britain
We, Band of Brothers
Time and gravity takes down another that Himmler & Co. couldn't.
Posted by: Cheregum Glereper6370 || 03/30/2006 15:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:


International-UN-NGOs
UN OFfice for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, The many hands and faces of Hezbollah.
Posted by: Glereck Spavigum6342 || 03/30/2006 15:48 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]"

Pretty nice writeup by UN staff for a 'non-sponsored' entity. More like how the Grey Lady advances the Communist Socialist Left Wing Democrat agenda.....ooops, I forgot, that never happens.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 03/30/2006 17:17 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
19 Charged With Racketeering to Support islamic Terrorist Organization
DETROIT, March 29 /PRNewswire/ -- A Federal Grand Jury in Detroit charged nineteen individuals with operating a global racketeering conspiracy in an indictment unsealed today, announced United States Attorney Stephen J. Murphy. The indictment alleges that portions of the profits made from the illegal enterprise were given to Hizballah, a foreign terrorist organization. Nine of the individuals were arrested this morning.
Put the word out they ratted on their buddies and dump them off in Gaza.
U.S. Attorney Murphy was joined in the announcement by Daniel D. Roberts, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit FBI; Valerie J. Goddard, Special Agent in Charge, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); Brian M. Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Maurice Aouate, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Office of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation; and Michael Cleary, Special Agent in Charge, FDA Office of Criminal Investigation.
Good job. Now go get the rest of the 1000s of the treasonous, islamofascists left.
The indictment charges that between 1996 and 2004, a group of individuals worked together in a criminal enterprise to traffic in contraband cigarettes, counterfeit Zig Zag rolling papers and counterfeit Viagra, to produce counterfeit cigarette tax stamps, to transport stolen property, and to launder money. The enterprise operated from Lebanon, Canada, China, Brazil, Paraguay and the United States. The indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on April 14, 2004, was sealed pursuant to a court order until today.
More indictments and arrests to follow I am sure. But it's just the tip of the iceberg.
Arrested this morning by members of the Detroit Joint Terrorism Task Force ("JTTF") were: Karim Hassan Nasser, 37, of Windsor, Ontario; Fadi Mohamad- Musbah Hammoud, 33, of Dearborn; Majid Mohamad Hammoud, 39, of Dearborn Heights; Jihad Hammoud, 47, of Dearborn; Youssef Aoun Bakri, 36, of Dearborn Heights; Ali Najib Berjaoui, 39, of Dearborn; Mohammed Fawzi Zeidan, 41, of Canton; Imad Majed Hamadeh, 51, of Dearborn Heights; Adel Isak, 37, of Sterling Heights.
Note that there are no Koe Smith's or Jimmy Johnson's in this bunch. Hmmmm.
Also named in the Indictment, but not arrested today because they currently reside outside of the United States were: Imad Mohamad-Musbah Hammoud, 37 of Lebanon, formerly of Dearborn; Hassan Ali Al-Mosawi, 49, of Lebanon; Hassan Hassan Nasser, 36, of Windsor, Ontario; Ali Ahmad Hammoud, 64, of Lebanon; Karim Hassan Abbas, 37, formerly of Dearborn; Hassan Mohamad Srour, 30, of Montreal, Quebec; Naji Hassan Alawie, 44, of Windsor, Ontario; and Abdel-Hamid Sinno, 52, of Montreal, Quebec.
Scum-bags. How many people are dead becasue of these clowns?
Theodore Schenk, 73, of Miami Beach, Florida was not arrested today but will be voluntarily surrendering himself for arraignment on April 10, 2006.
A non-arabic name? Hmmm.
The indictment alleges that Imad Hammoud, along with his partner, Hassan Makki, ran a multi-million dollar a year contraband cigarette trafficking organization headquartered in the Dearborn, Michigan, area between 1996 and 2002. Makki pleaded guilty in 2003 in federal district court in Detroit to racketeering and providing material support to Hizballah. Some of the cigarettes were supplied to the organization by Mohamad Hammoud, who was convicted in 2002 in federal district court in Charlotte, North Carolina, of, among other crimes, racketeering and providing material support to Hizballah. Makki and Mohamad Hammoud, who were not charged in the indictment unsealed today, were identified as unindicted co-conspirators. They both are currently serving prison sentences relating to their activities in this matter.
Read the rest...It'll make you sick knowing this is the tip of the iceberg.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 15:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Schenk - German name. And about the right age to have been Nazi, Nazi youth or just from a good Nazi family.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 18:23 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Sheriff System To Be Deployed To Both Iraq And Afghanistan Soon
The U.S. military plans to introduce direct energy weapons in Iraq later this year.

As part of Project Sheriff, the Army also plans to introduce directed energy weapons in Afghanistan. Officials said the weapons would employ short-range and millimeter waves.

The Defense Department has accelerated development of energy beam weapons for non-lethal missions in Iraq. The weapons would be supplied to the U.S. Army to help control hostile crowds without the use of gunfire.

The Pentagon has granted a contract to Raytheon to development the weapons. The company has already delivered a prototype vehicle and conducted demonstrations.

"This system will protect U.S. and allied war fighters operating in dangerous urban settings while reducing the number of civilian casualties," Mike Booen of Raytheon said.

The weapons have been integrated into the Stryker combat vehicle. Other platforms would also receive the energy beam systems, officials said.

The first prototype with energy weapons was delivered earlier this year. Officials said three prototypes would be produced and sent to Iraq in mid-2006.
Sounds like we are expecting large rent-a-mob riots. In both countries would seem to imply a single, causitive factor, read "Iran".
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/30/2006 14:37 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [26 views] Top|| File under:

#1  gonna be a big bullet magnet though if not used discreetly or heavily protected area - maybe greenzone gate gaurd and police station overwatch type set ups i'd think - very interesting stuff indeed.
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/30/2006 15:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Call me old fashion, but I'd be happy with a Jihadi-B-Gone spray formula
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 15:44 Comments || Top||

#3 
Phasers on Stun.
Posted by: doc || 03/30/2006 15:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Conceal several "brown noise" generators in Sadr City. They're small, low power consumption, inaudible.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 15:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Non-lethal use also means more interrogation subjects.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/30/2006 20:27 Comments || Top||

#6  We have worse crowd problems in LA. Can we bring one out ASAP for further testing ?
Posted by: SOP35/Rat || 03/30/2006 20:29 Comments || Top||

#7  Brown noise ? Shouldn't that be brown sound ?
What are we talking about, anyway ?
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 21:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Brown noise, sound, and note - all same thing.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 21:23 Comments || Top||

#9  Depends, WXJ.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/30/2006 22:23 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran suicide bombers sign up for attacks against U.S.
Radical Islamists in Iran’s western province of Lorestan were invited during a ceremony on Wednesday to enlist in garrisons to carry out suicide attacks against the United States.

The People’s Headquarters in Continuation of the Path of the Martyrs in Lorestan, a newly-founded government-backed group, began enlisting “martyrdom-seeking volunteers” to “confront possible threats by America and the West” against Iran.

The government-run news agency Mehr reported that the organisation comprised of “religious delegations” and “martyrdom-seeking garrisons”.

The radical group said that it was prepared to “carry out its real duties” on the orders of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Another state-organised group, which avowedly trains suicide bombers against “Western infidels and Zionists”, recently announced that it had enlisted 53,900 people to carry out “martyrdom-seeking operations”.

The Headquarters to Commemorate Martyrs of the Global Islamic Movement, an organisation set up by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in 2004, offers volunteers three choices: To carry out suicide attacks against “the infidels occupying Iraq”, against Israel, or against controversial British author Salman Rushdie.
Posted by: tipper || 03/30/2006 13:20 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  offers volunteers three choices: To carry out suicide attacks against “the infidels occupying Iraq”, against Israel, or against controversial British author Salman Rushdie.

What? No Danish cartoonist option? No East Timor? No Return Andalusia to the Ummah?

How disappointing!
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/30/2006 13:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Careful, martry seeking dudes. I hear they're cutting back on the virgins. And they don't put that in the brochure..
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 14:11 Comments || Top||

#3 
Will they test-fire them in the upcomming Persian Gulf maneuvers?
Posted by: Master of Obvious || 03/30/2006 15:11 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas MP's vow for jihad
Hamas adopted a strident tone after its cabinet won approval in the Palestinian parliament, with one MP declaring "jihad is our way". The parliament, dominated by members of the Islamist group, approved the cabinet line-up by 71 to 36 on Tuesday. The cabinet was expected to be sworn in on Wednesday by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose long-dominant Fatah faction refused to join the new government.

Chanting "God is Greatest" after the vote, Hamas parliamentarians hugged and kissed Ismail Haniya, their prime minister-designate, who vowed not to abandon the fight against Israel.
C’mere ya big lug. All this talk about killing Jews makes me want to plant a big wet one on yer scruffy face.
One Hamas MP, Hamed Bitawi, said: "The Quran is our constitution, jihad is our way, and death for the sake of God is our highest aspiration." His comments stood in contrast to a more conciliatory speech by Haniya on Monday in which he stressed the new government's push for peace and dialogue. The earlier speech drew fire from some MPs for not stressing resistance.

Change of tone
In presenting the cabinet for parliamentary approval on Monday, Haniya sought to reach out to the West by saying his government was ready for talks with the "Quartet" of Middle East mediators on bringing a "just peace" to the region.
Hey…keep it down youse guys…I’m trying to get some money over here!
In contrast, on Tuesday, Haniya said: "We were born from the womb of resistance, we will protect resistance and the arm of resistance will not be touched." Addressing Mariam Farhat, a newly-elected Hamas parliamentarian whose three sons died fighting Israel, Haniya said: "This the fruit of the sacrifices by martyrs, including your sons. You've got to be proud of this day."

Israel seized on Haniya's change of tone, saying it reflected the new government's "extremist" policies. Mark Regev, the foreign ministry spokesman, said: "I hope the sort of remarks we heard today help to dissolve any possible illusion that might exist as to the true character of this new Palestinian leadership."

After the vote, Haniya and several newly approved cabinet ministers prayed at the house of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the co-founder of Hamas who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2004. "We are coming to congratulate you and to say that the blood of our Sheikh [Yassin] did not go in vain," Haniya told Yassin's widow.
Grrrr…seethe…Grrr…
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/30/2006 12:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Haven't seen a good car swarm over there in awhile. Maybe it's time...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 14:09 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
An Easy Way to expose concealed Anti-Americanism
Debating tips from blogger "The Futurist" -- not new, but worth a look anyway

There are two superpowers in the world today. The United States of America, and anti-Americanism. Anti-Americanism is very powerful, as it is the sordid glue that holds the UN, fifth-column Americans, Euro-socialists, the world's fashion elite, and terrorists together. It is the invisible force that forces the US to withstand massive double standards that have been there for so long that they are taken for granted.

Interestingly, with the exception of terrorists, such individuals go to great lengths to conceal their anti-Americanism, pretending to stand for 'nonviolence', 'peace', 'equality', the 'world community', etc. This begs the question of why they don't feel comfortable with declaring their dislike for the US. . . . In any case, having a strong dislike for America, yet not having the integrity to be honest about one's true feelings, makes such a person easy to defeat through skillful debate.

There are many ways to do this. Two examples are below.

Option 1 :

While many who say this are merely fashion-parroting sheep rather than committed anti-Americans, if someone you believe to be a genuine anti-American says they oppose the Iraq War because "there were no WMDs" or "Bush lied about WMDs", then you can merely ask :

"So if WMDs were found, would you support the war?"

They can either answer "no", to which you can say "So why do you obsess over WMDs if you still would have opposed it anyway? That appears rather phony on your part."

Or they can answer "yes", to which you can ask them "But Iran and North Korea are openly admitting to the pursuit of nuclear weapons, and are threatening to use them. By your logic, invading them is fully justified, is it not?"

They have thus revealed that they merely avoid taking difficult decisions, in order to criticize from hindsight and mask their anti-Americanism in pseudowisdom. Either way, they are trapped. This is so simple, yet very effective. In reality, they oppose any action by the US because they oppose the very ideals of the US. Yet, they are too ashamed to admit it, and so hide behind phony guises.

Option 2 :

If you are the one who wants to initiate the debate, you can openly declare that "I feel that America, despite many flaws, has done more to benefit humanity than any other nation existing in the world today." If your opponent is a secretive anti-American, they may react with sputtering outrage (blowing their cover). They will point out various acts of evil that America has done (some true, some imagined), but it will become apparent that they are judging America to some utopian standard, rather than in relation to other countries existing in the world today. To this you can merely reply :

"Which country do you feel has done more for humanity than the US?"

or

"If an Asteroid were on a collision course with the Earth (never mind which country's instruments detected the asteroid), which country would be expected to take the lead in an effort to destroy or deflect the asteroid?"

In either case, the anti-American will be cornered, and seek to change the subject, or become visibly annoyed.

Expose their anti-Americanism, and you will gain a greater understanding of this shadowy second superpower. . . .
Posted by: Mike || 03/30/2006 12:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I've never heard it put quite this way - The United States of America, and anti-Americanism - but it really does sum it up well, doesn't it.

What's different now, than in the past is that their is another player on the field, radical Islam. They have to decide if they want to embrace Islam in their fight against America. It's so self-destructive, but by what I've been seeing in the last month or two, they seem to be ready to embrace radical Islam. Not really surprising since they've been willing to embrace blood thirsty dictators for the last century.

But embracing Islam is a bit different in that they will have to do a complete turnabout in what they claim to stand for and make changes in their own life - including tolerating the intolerance of their very own lifestyles. This will be interesting to watch.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 12:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Just as an aside, I predict that we will see moderate Muslims fight with us in the war against the return to barbarity.

This is becoming civilization v/s a return to barbarity. It will be interestingt to see how the sides shape up.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 13:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Just as an aside, I predict that we will see moderate Muslims fight with us in the war against the return to barbarity.

When?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 13:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Just as an aside, I predict that we will see moderate Muslims fight with us in the war against the return to barbarity.
--2b

When?
--Robert Crawford

The elected Iraqi government, its police and army and citizenry, for starters.
Posted by: Mike || 03/30/2006 14:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Oh gosh, I wish you hadn't asked me that, because it is such a long train of thought that gets me there and I don't have time to write the whole long mental process.

I'll try to give it in a nutshell. I think that there has been a tectonic shift that has occurred in the last two months for those who felt it was chic to be anti-American. Now they have to decide between radical Islam, the new leader of the anti-American superpower and freedom. And it won't in some far off place but in their own neighborhoods in Boston or Bakersville that they have to choose to accept the change. This will include all of those "I'm Chic Because I'm Anti-American" BDS type folks here in the western world, but also the educated Muslims in Iran, Iraq, Turkey and other semi-civilized countries.

I guess I'm seeing this shape up as a conflict between tyranny and freedom and I suspect that billions in the Muslim world will eventually come down on the side of choosing to find ways to dilute their own religion in exchange for ridding themselves of tyranny. If we are lucky, we may see it in Iraq.

Look at it this way, I heard Alan Colmes (of Hannity and Colmes) defending Yale's decision to enroll the Taliban butcher. Yet I've heard the Muslim women who escaped from Afghanistan denouncing it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not going to the issue of Muslims inability to reconcile their faith to life in the western world. But I think the western world will soon, after a few more "incidents" demand that from them. And it will probably get bloody before that happens. But I predict that events will make it come about that we won't tolerate the sedition of those who come here and then vote/murder/incite to remove our freedoms - whether they are Muslims, Christians, Jews Atheists, or tree worshipers.

I believe that billions in the Muslim world would be willing to dilute their faith in exchange for freedom both here in the US and in their native lands.

I just think there are as many stupid people here in the US (americans) who are no different than the stupid people who Sadr riles up. Look at Cynthia McKinney. Are her constituents any less stupid? And I think there are many smart people in the Muslim world - like Iraq the Model, etc, etc.

This is going to be a global war of freedom v/s tyranny - and the sides won't be Americans v/s Iran or Christians v/s Muslims ... but it will be those who want freedom v/s those who will bow to tyranny.

JMHO. Not much of a nutshell. Sorry.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 14:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Americans and anti-Americans.

Or those that left (aka immigrated to America) and the left-behind (no balls or desire to leave). The left-behind often hold a grudge, especially when those that left them turn out to be very successful.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 03/30/2006 15:37 Comments || Top||

#7  I would have agreed with you 2b had I not recently read the Koran. What a sorry piece of work. It filled not just with hatred, but with direct incitements to violence and domination (especially against us Pagans -- you Christians and Jews get to be dhimmis, we just get the sword). Any orthodox (alternatively, fundamentalist or mainsteam) Muslim is thus necessarily an ememy.

But there are millions of secular Muslims, liberal Muslims, and heterodox Muslims (Alevis, Sufis, Ismailis, Ahmadis, etc.) But they have lost the battle for the core of the faith. And when push comes to shove, who will they side with? I'm not at all sure.
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 16:35 Comments || Top||

#8  pagan, I actually agree with you. It's the battle of tolerance and collective good v/s power attained by the use blame, hate, revenge and brutal force.

That said, I think there is a similar battle going on in the Muslim world, but they are a couple of centuries behind us and as you say, their religion undermines their efforts to achieve it.

But most everyone yearns to be free. I think Americans and other westerners will come around to agreeing, after more bloodshed, that we simply cannot allow immigrants, who do not adhere to our beliefs, to come here and undermine what we have by turning our courts, our democracy and ways of tolerance against us. I think you will see the battle shaping up along those lines in the months and years to come. It will be global.

But we have to remember that much of the battle is going to be amongst ourselves, right here at home. There is a good portion of our own citizens, our media, our educational institutions and our congress that works to undermine these very freedoms as well. These are our neighbors, friends and family. We do ourselves a disservice if we don't recognize that the battle lines are no longer country v/s country, or along religious lines, but a battle between those willing to fight for freedom and those who will submit to tyranny.

I guess as much as things change, they stay the same.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 17:51 Comments || Top||

#9  I've thought a lot about anti-Amercanism and what causes it. As the article illustrates, it's fundamentally irrational.

I have recently concluded that at root its a manifestation of 'blame the Other' thinking. In the same way the Arabs avoid their own problems by blaming the Jews, often in bizzare conspiracies, many in this world avoid facing up to their own failings by blaming America.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/30/2006 19:18 Comments || Top||

#10  I think that what it boils down to, is that for the mythical moderate muslims to be able to learn how to get along well with others, is that they are going to have to admit quite plainly that "As far as bibles go, the Koran kinda sucks".

Which it does.

Not holding my breath ...
Posted by: Beau || 03/30/2006 20:07 Comments || Top||

#11  Well said, 2b -- and I certainly hope that you are right. I suspect that the "cartoon war" turned a lot of minds, and I hope that more than a few of those were Muslim ones.

I just read a book called Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mutazilism from Medieval Schoool to Modern Symbol. The Mutazilas were Muslim rationalists and liberals --- unfortunately they are all but extinct. One of them, an Egyptian professor named Abu Zayd, was officially declared a Kafir by an Egyptian high court in 1995. They didn't kill him, but they did force his wife to divorce him. (And we give how much money every year to Egypt?)
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 20:15 Comments || Top||

#12  I think the hatred of the anti-Americaqns, the UN, fifth-column Americans, Euro-socialists, the world's fashion elite, and terrorists together, is quite rational.

America is modernity. America's creative destruction is destroying the world the anti-Americans grew up in and love. In the last century the Americans saw to the destruction of the European empires, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Modernity, as created by the Americans has changed every traditional culture in the world such that they will never be the same. And the change is not stopping. They are correct, the only way to stop the change is to destroy America. It is unfortunate for them that they cannot succeed.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 20:31 Comments || Top||

#13  Pagan - thanks, right you are about those cartoons. I feel sorry for that cartoonist. Minding his own business, drawing his little cartoons and then suddenly he is suddenly thrust into a pivotal moment in history.

America's creative destruction is destroying the world the anti-Americans grew up in and love.

Which world is that Nimble? The one that gave rise to the Nazi's and other despots murdering billions? The one that created potato famines and starving peasants? Where most children died before reaching adulthood?

Ah, the good ol days. Fact is they were never all that good. But its fun to pretend that it's all America's fault that the best of times still don't exist.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 22:23 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
US to test 700-tonne explosive
The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said. "I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
we're sending the video to Tehran
Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. "We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters.
Big Dong?
"We also have -- are you ready for this - a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we're going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada," he said. "And that represents to us the largest single explosive that we could imagine doing conventionally to solve that problem," he said.

The aim is to measure the effect of the blast on hard granite structures, he said. "If you want to model these weapons, you want to know from a modeling point of view what is the ideal best condition you could ever set up in a conventional weapon -- what's the best you can do. And this gets at the best point you could get on a curve. So it allows us to predict how effective these kinds of weapons ... would be," he said.

He said the Russians have been notified of the test, which is scheduled for the first week of June at the Nevada test range. "We're also making sure that Las Vegas understands," Tegnelia said.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 11:58 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  damn. The picture format overlaps the text. Help, mods?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 12:05 Comments || Top||

#2  US to test 700-tonne shape charge

Why do I love this? It's love at first sight!

I *heart* Booms! I wanta to Gooooooo!!
Posted by: RDS || 03/30/2006 12:09 Comments || Top||

#3  RDS must be RD Shape Charge
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 12:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Iran has no f*cking clue what is coming to them if they keep on their same nuclear path.... no f*cking clue. W. should just send the words: SHOCK AND AWE to the government of Iran as a warning.
Posted by: bgrebel9 || 03/30/2006 12:43 Comments || Top||

#5  It's not exactly what you would call man portable is it. In some ways it reminds me of the gargantuan artillery pieces the Germans were in love with. Massive destructive potential but extremely limited utility.
Posted by: Cheaderhead || 03/30/2006 12:50 Comments || Top||

#6  That's the size of a whole fleet of semi-trailers - what kind of wings do you put on this thing if you want to deliver it air freight?
Big as it is, it is still just a few percent of the bang of the only nuclear weapons used in war (so far).
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/30/2006 12:55 Comments || Top||

#7  This could be a test for measuring what a very small nuclear weapon with a 700 ton yield would do. that would be deliverable.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 03/30/2006 13:04 Comments || Top||

#8  This could be a test for measuring what a very small nuclear weapon with a 700 ton yield would do. that would be deliverable.

[wild speculation on my part] along those lines.. a simulation of the destructive power of a 2 ton "Rod From God" at mach ???.
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 13:27 Comments || Top||

#9  It's to test the blast effect of a tactical nuke on bored granite under 60 feet of sand.
Posted by: 6 || 03/30/2006 14:08 Comments || Top||

#10  LOTR and RD---My thoughts exactly. 700 tons (1.4 million pounds) is a sizeable load to carry on an aircraft. A 747 carries, say 150 tons, and a C-5A a similar load. Since we cannot test nuclear weapons physically, even underground, by treaty, a 700 ton blast would be about right to test bunker busters of the fission type. You do not need big nukes if you can get them close enough to the target to maximize the shock wave.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 14:37 Comments || Top||

#11  Further on this: .....DTRA Halliburton and CAT Tractor initiative. Modeled after the Big-Boy of WWII fame, the 700 tonne device dubbed the BF-DRP (Big F - Deep Rock Penetrator) can be incrementally delivered by SOF personnel to an undisclosed secure area few kilometers of the target site, assembled and pulled to the target area via a remote controlled lightweight palmer, muffled D9 CAT. A maritime version dubbed BF WAVE WNOS (Big F Wave - Which No One Survives) is under development as well. Little F variants are not being developed at this time.
Posted by: Janes || 03/30/2006 15:18 Comments || Top||

#12  For sake of comparison: MOAB = 21,000 lbs.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 15:56 Comments || Top||

#13 
can we call it the Margaret Cho??
Posted by: macofromoc || 03/30/2006 16:29 Comments || Top||

#14  It's to test the blast effect of a tactical nuke on bored granite under 60 6 feet of sand. »:-)
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 16:46 Comments || Top||

#15  btw tonne is more fune
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 16:48 Comments || Top||

#16  tonne is just too too, I avoid.
Posted by: 6 || 03/30/2006 17:49 Comments || Top||

#17  Pentagon Plans Explosion at Nevada Site

By WILL DUNHAM, REUTERS


The Pentagon plans to detonate 700 tons of conventional high explosives in Nevada in a June 2 test designed to gauge the effectiveness of weapons against deeply buried targets, officials said on March 30.
"I don’t want to sound glib here, but it’s the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, told a small group of reporters.
The test, dubbed "Divine Strake," is sponsored by Tegnelia’s agency and is set to be conducted at the Energy Department’s Nevada Test Site in Nye County, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las Vegas.
"All explosives, given the right thermal characteristics, will create a cloud that may resemble a mushroom cloud," the Defense Threat Reduction Agency said in a statement. "The dust cloud from Divine Strake may reach an altitude of 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) and is not expected to be visible off the Nevada Test Site."
Nuclear tests at the site sent mushroom clouds billowing high into the air and became tourist attractions in the 1950s, but surface tests ended in the early 1960s.
Pentagon leaders have expressed concern about potential U.S. adversaries building deeply buried bunkers containing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons stockpiles or command-and-control structures that are difficult to destroy with existing weapons.
The agency said the test will involve detonating 700 tons of the Ammonium Nitrate-Fuel Oil, or ANFO, a commonly used agent in commercial blasting operations.
Officials said the test’s primary purpose is to examine ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures, and the explosion will take place above an existing structure.
Tegnelia said because of the power of the explosion, officials will notify Russia and make sure authorities in Las Vegas understand the test.
He noted the Pentagon is currently developing several very large weapons intended to penetrate the ground to get at deeply buried and hardened targets.
Tegnelia said the "Divine Strake" test represents the largest conventional explosion Pentagon officials could imagine triggering to address the issue.
A strake is part of a ship’s hull.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 17:53 Comments || Top||

#18  Jimma Chauter is not going to like this one bit:

Excerpt:

"Our government has abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and spent more than $80 billion on a doubtful effort to intercept and destroy incoming intercontinental missiles, with annual costs of about $9 billion. We have also forgone compliance with the previously binding limitation on testing nuclear weapons and developing new ones, with announced plans for earth-penetrating "bunker busters," some secret new "small" bombs, and a move toward deployment of destructive weapons in space. Another long-standing policy has been publicly reversed by our threatening first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. These decisions have aroused negative responses from NPT signatories, including China, Russia and even our nuclear allies, whose competitive alternative is to upgrade their own capabilities without regard to arms control agreements." --A Dangerous Deal With India By Jimmy Carter
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Posted by: Happy 88mm || 03/30/2006 19:15 Comments || Top||

#19  If Jimmy doesn't like it, then it's probably the best thing for us.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/30/2006 20:02 Comments || Top||

#20  In order to drop the big bomb on the Islamic garbage dump, Iran radar and command structure would have to be taken out. A huge armada would have to be sent to attempt neutralization of air and anti-aircraft defenses. Once done, the Iranians would use their mobile missiles against US and Israeli ground targets, and US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. Some of these attacks would be successful.

Given the nature of the enemy, a single loss of American life would be undeserving. Ergo: I would set a proliferation example on the Middle East by using tactical nukes against Iranian targets, and then declare total zonal destruction of any area from which Iranian missile attacks were launched. The Iran terrorist entity imports 40% of its refined gasoline supplies, and these could be halted while existing facilities destroyed. Mere hints of Kurd and Azeri independence would cause Iran's leaders to sue for peace. The disgrace would cause the overthrow of the Ayatoilets, without considerable loss of civilian life.

I resent Jimmy Carter thinking - first use of nukes are against our values - that all but force lengthy, unworkable and costly, conventional war solutions.

Some of us wanted a post-9-11 declaration that those attacks constituted a WMD attack, and a disproportionate response with WMDs. Where would we be if that happened? US support in the Middle East would have risen. Instead, the same jihad-clerics who ordered 9-11 are now poised to take power throughout the Middle East.

Ahmadinejad's low regard for the US rests on America's tolerance of Hizbollah presence on Israel's borders. If you want our nukes to gather dust in face of WMD acquiring animals who incite, "Death to America" rants at every opportunity, be aware that US has used nukes on 2 occasions. Imperial Japan you know about, but be aware that during the nuke-monopoly period Russian occupation troops were ordered out of Iran (how ironic) under US nuclear-extortion. It is time for a 3rd use: vs genocidal Iran. Check your local library for a copy of the following book, by a liberal, on the monopoly period:
"The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950": Herken, Gregg.

We don't do that...yada, yada, yada...ad nauseum. We better.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/30/2006 20:12 Comments || Top||

#21  Fascinating post.

You have a Rabies tag?
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 20:22 Comments || Top||

#22  GG3445:

Ad nauseum...Take your paint-by-numbers brain back to KOS, princess.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/30/2006 20:35 Comments || Top||

#23  Lol. Nukes. Great.

You're a stealthy troll, usually very careful about all those hidden agenda points, but this time your hate is much clearer than usual.

If I disagree with you then I'm a KOS princess? Really?

You must be blowing yourself.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 20:41 Comments || Top||

#24  We've been working 24/7 at Pantex developing the small nukes for a long while now. Must be getting close to being able to produce. Someone was correct. Checking the damage effects here. Then if we have to scale up the yield slightly, we will. We're hoping that the shock waves do the job underground, without too much leaking to the general populace. Delivery by missile. No defense to worry about. They won't see them coming. Flight time will be short. Russians won't be able to detect and tip them off.
Posted by: SOP35/Rat || 03/30/2006 20:59 Comments || Top||

#25  Are you advocating nuke first use, as well?
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 21:03 Comments || Top||

#26  The Daily Kos Troll could be this C U Next Tuesday:

Donailin

Email: Donailin@aol.com

43, divorced, mother of three amazing teens, activist, armchair theologian, rock and roller, and servant of fellow man living just outside the beltway
Posted by: Groveling Princess || 03/30/2006 21:07 Comments || Top||

#27  You use "we've" regards Pantex. Are you saying you work there?

Nuke bunker busters, RNEPs (Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator) were dropped from the defense budget in Oct 05, as dotcom posted months ago.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 21:10 Comments || Top||

#28  "In order to drop the big bomb on the Islamic garbage dump, Iran radar and command structure would have to be taken out. A huge armada would have to be sent to attempt neutralization of air and anti-aircraft defenses. Once done, the Iranians would use their mobile missiles against US and Israeli ground targets, and US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf. Some of these attacks would be successful."

Actually not really, if this is to simulate a tac nuke strike you can deliver it by Tomahawk. Now if we REALLY wanted to send a message it'd be by a dozen nuclear armed Tomahawks sporting 200 kt warheads.
Posted by: Valentine || 03/30/2006 21:25 Comments || Top||

#29  I've been lurking at Rantburg for a couple of years, posting since Nov '05. I work at a large military facility - Senior Security. KOS? LOL - Doggie is the bitch princess.

We don't need to use nukes to stop the Mullahs. Sure, we might have to put 2 or 3 in the same spot to achieve the desired results, but so what? Simple to do with GPS. And regards the efficacy of our attack, I submit Doggie hasn't a first-hand clue.

First use of nukes? NO. When the political riot over RNEPs played out, President Bush dropped it - the support wasn't there. The repercussions for first use without congressional approval would certainly be impeachment - and he would be convicted.

Obviously some people have failed to pay sufficient attention for the last 60 years, or they're trolling idiots who know less than nothing about American policy. And if we were going to use nukes, we wouldn't be futzing about with 700 ton conventional weapons. Isn't that obvious?

Howling at the Moon is both a sick puppy and a troll with multiple agendas. I've seen the sick voyeurs come to Rantburg and use it for a dump for their ills for a long time. He / She is nothing new. These people should pay Fred by the hour.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 22:22 Comments || Top||

#30  Hmm... Google search turns up this one:


Airblast from Underground Explosions

**** Titan Research

Abstract:
Two- and three-dimensional computational fluid and solid dynamics calculations were performed to predict the airblast and dust environment for the DIVINE STRAKE high explosive field test. The DIVINE STRAKE test is planned to be a large-yield, buried burst detonated at the Nevada Test Site. The early-time airblast, crater formation, and ejecta environment were calculated using the two-dimensional CRALE code. This solution was then overlayed onto two- and three-dimensional MAZe code computational meshes. The MAZe calculations simulated the airblast environment as well as the propagation of the dusty environment produced by the ejecta and subsequent dust sweep-up. The airblast environment will be compared to test measurements when they become available, while the predicted dust environment will be used to aid in planning of the test.


and


Non Ideal Airblast Effects from Urban and Natural Terrain

xxx, yyy, ARA

Abstract:
Non-ideal airblast is produced from detonations over urban and natural terrain. Mechanical effects of a blast wave reflecting off non-ideal surfaces produces shielding and channeling effects that may be considerably different than those from a detonation over an ideal surface. Work in the area non-ideal airblast generated from urban and natural terrain is presented.



Divine Strake is a high-explosive (HE) test sponsored by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and is scheduled for the summer of 2006 at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). The test is a detonation of a 700 ton buried heavy AN/FO charge above a tunnel structure. The main purpose of the test is to study ground shock effects on deeply buried tunnel structures. Of secondary interest is the airblast produced by a buried charge and its modification as it propagates over the local terrain.



Sandia National Laboratory (SNL) recently sponsored a number of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) airblast calculations of the upcoming event. SNL contracted Applied Research Associates, Inc. (ARA) to perform two- and three-dimensional (2D and 3D) predictive airblast calculations for the test. The CFD calculations were run with SHAMRC and characterize the airblast environments induced by the non-ideal charge configuration and the surrounding terrain. They include 2D calculations with and without terrain and with a responding and non-responding ground model. A single 3D calculation with a non-responding ground model was also completed. Results of the calculations provide test planners with environments that can be expected at instrumentation and test structure locationS. A single, 3D calculation with a realistic ground model is planned once the charge and detonation site details are finalized.



ARA has also completed several SHAMRC calculations investigating non-ideal airblast over urban and natural terrain under a contract with DTRA for the Near Surface Weapons Effects Tools – 3D (NSWET-3D), Airblast/Thermal task. One set of calculations modeled a nuclear detonation in New York City. The buildings were generated automatically from ArcView shapefiles, placed on a flat ground surface, and modeled as non-responding. One of these calculations was run under the Capability Applications Project (CAP) sponsored by the Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). Another set of calculations modeled the Smoky nuclear event at NTS. The calculations included models of natural terrain, thermal heating of the terrain surface, and dust sweep-up from the surface.



Initial contract appeared to be bid at: $301,925.00

oops...
One document was redacted as a PDF but I could read it as google converted HTML in googles cache....
Security at Los ALamos needs to look into that weakness. Discrete G. and co-projects were also mentioned along with names of people and orgs.
I will send the google link to our mod
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 23:36 Comments || Top||


Anne Applebaum on Condolezza Rice
EFL, Reg Req

A long time ago, before George W. Bush was elected, and before ‘Condi’ was an internationally recognised nickname, someone who knew Condoleezza Rice in one of her previous incarnations told me that the thing to remember about her is that she is definitely not a token, but that because people assume she is a token, they always underestimate her. A black woman Republican! From Alabama! Who speaks Russian! Of course she’s overrated, they say — until they wake up one morning and discover she’s taken their job, or been promoted over their heads, or got the President’s ear first. It’s happened over and over again on Condi’s road to where she is today — which is to say, to one of the most important jobs in the world.

When she was national security adviser, many did call her opportunistic, or worse. She was thought not up to the job of negotiating compromises between the administration’s two alpha males, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld. As a result, the US wound up having policies and programmes in Iraq which were sometimes in direct conflict with one another. She was thought to be too close to her mentors in George Bush Snr’s administration, some of whom were famously fond of the status quo. She was thought too cautious, too timid, too afraid of the consequences of military action to be taken seriously.

Once again, she was underestimated. Now that she is Secretary of State — and by all accounts the President’s main foreign policy adviser, trumping not only her replacement as national security adviser but Rumsfeld himself, and obviously Powell too. What used to look like a tendency to bend whichever way the wind was blowing suddenly looks like flexibility, diplomacy and statesmanship. Since Condi took over at the State Department, relations with Europe have improved. Britain, France and Germany have been brought into the negotiations over Iran’s nuclear weapons. The military strategy in Iraq has changed to put Iraqi police and the new Iraqi military on the front-line instead of US and British troops. Maybe not all of that was her idea, but she’s managed to get the credit, no mean feat in Washington.

Above all, Condi has now embraced the President’s democracy advocacy project. She’ll probably do a bit of that in Britain this week, since she tends to do it wherever she goes, talking about the benefits of elections and the rule of law everywhere from South America to Eastern Europe to East Asia (never forgetting to mention that childhood in segregated Birmingham). Once again, don’t make the mistake of believing she is doing so for the sake of any crusading ideology or utopianism. She has simply judged that at present the only pragmatic approach to the world, especially in the Middle East, is to talk a lot about democracy and to push it wherever possible. She has concluded that the United States has more stable relationships with countries which, as she often puts it, ‘share our values’. Hence new money for radio and television broadcasts in Iran, or friendly noises about more liberal Arab countries such as Dubai, or comments about how Indonesia could serve as a ‘model’ for other Islamic nations.

Don’t expect rigid application of principle. This is not a woman who is going to dump the Saudis because they won’t let women drive, or who will stop talking to the Russians because they nationalise a few television channels. Don’t expect she’ll necessarily keep it up either, if conditions change or if the world is altered once again by an event on the scale of 9/11. If it comes to that, this is not a woman who will be picky about who enters her coalition of the willing either. Call it hypocrisy or call it, well, pragmatism. It’s not that she doesn’t mean what she says, it’s just that she understands everything has its limits. And don’t underestimate how far it will get her.

In the end, of course, Condi insists upon absolute behavioural consistency from only one person — herself. Once, a couple of years back, Condi came to lunch at the Washington Post. What was said was off the record, but it hardly mattered; Condi, at least in my very limited experience, almost never says anything off the record that she wouldn’t say on the record anyway. In any case, what was most interesting about this particular meeting was not what she said, but the fact that while seated in a room where some 15 people were happily eating two courses plus dessert, Condi herself ate nothing at all. She swept in with her entourage, took a seat in the middle of the table, refused everything but water and answered questions for an hour. Then she got up, shook hands and swept out again.

‘Ice princess’ isn’t quite the word for this ex-figure-skating, ex-piano-playing, ex-academic star, since she’s invariably amicable, even cheerful, and always upbeat. But to ordinary mortals, that level of self-control — not even a piece of bread, for goodness sake — is intimidating. As, of course, it was intended to be.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 11:40 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's our girl!
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/30/2006 18:05 Comments || Top||

#2  I think you mean President Rice, Ms. Applebaum.
Posted by: Secret Master || 03/30/2006 18:25 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
New French Kenyanians?
Two Kenyans now French

Two Kenyan athletes have defected to France, it was revealed on Wednesday.

Hitherto unknown James Theuri and Simon Munyutu were declared eligible to compete for France immediately, having not competed for Kenya for the past three years. The two names don’t appear anywhere in Kenya’s athletics records.

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Council meeting in Osaka on Wednesday also confirmed that Moroccan Brahim Lahlafi became French on April 3 2002.

"The waiting period of three years have elapsed and he has been eligible to compete for France since 3 April 2005," said a dispatch from IAAF.

Nigeria’s Ambrose Ezinwa and Hanan Fahoun Collette acquired Australian and French citizenship respectively. The Council said that Collette was confirmed as eligible to represent France from January 20, 2006.

Meanwhile, IAAF general-director, Pierre Weiss has been elevated to act as general secretary following the death on March 12 of Istvan Gyulai, who died on March 12 until June next year. The Council observed a minute’s silence to honour Gyulai.

"We mourn the passing of an exceptional colleague who, by the very nature of his position of course, but, beyond that, by his intelligence, his sense of duty, his managerial skills and the unerring quality of his work, was the lynchpin of the day to day operations of the IAAF," he said.

Later, the Council confirmed, with immediate effect, the appointment of general director, Pierre Weiss, as acting general secretary until the next IAAF Congress in 2007, prior to the World Championships in Osaka.

Weiss, who has been IAAF general director since 1991 with particular responsibility for events and marketing, worked in close association with Gyulai over the past 15 years.

French Kenyanians ?
Posted by: Anginert Whutch1614 || 03/30/2006 09:38 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Standard headline says "Kenyans", which is correct.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/30/2006 11:09 Comments || Top||

#2  I thought the headline read "Keynesians."
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 13:28 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Recognition of Hamas - Communal Indian foreign policy
On the 29 March 2006: In May 2005, the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, visited India, after discussions with the Pakistani president, General Parvez Musharraf. Despite the late Yasser Arafat’s attempts to play a good friend of India and balance relations with Pakistan, the Palestinians have not always been able to take away the Islamic element from their state relations in this region, and consequently, they have been closer to Pakistan.

But such things are not usually one-sided, the Israelis have found a more natural alliance with India, relations picked up in the late-Seventies, dipped in the Eighties, were rescued by P.V.Narasimha Rao in the Nineties, and have grown solid and deep in subsequent years. The best testimony to our relations with Israel, military-strategic relations, with a very strong component of defence acquisitions, is that neither side wants to talk about it very much. Within the forces, they are among our most valued allies, their assistance to us in the time of our need, especially the May 1999 Kargil War, has been extraordinary. Because of the very sensitive nature of relations, little more can be said about it.

But despite knowing this background, Mahmoud Abbas, the PNA president, was astonishingly frank in his discussions with the Indian leadership, which we had reason to focus in one of our commentaries of that time (“ The Hamas connection,” 31 May 2005). What Abbas disclosed was fairly shocking, the Hamas, behind the Intifida and suicide bombings in Israel, was training the Jaish-e-Mohammad, the notorious Pakistani terror group operating in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere. The reason for the training was both to update Jaish cadres in military fighting after the Jaish’s centres in Afghanistan were wound up following the ouster of the Taliban regime, and second, the group and its Pakistani military patrons wanted a Palestinian-type Intifida in J and K.

Acting on the intelligence passed on by Abbas, our own agencies went to work, identifying the possible Jaish cadres trained by Hamas, and so on, and there was also some visible toughening of the government’s stand against Pakistani terrorism. The reason for picking Jaish and not Lashkar-e-Toiba, the more active terror group in J and K, was because of its links to the Saudi royal family, while the Hamas has connections with opponents of the Saudi royalty, including the Al-Qaeda. But personally for Musharraf to countenance the Hamas-Jaish connection is still strange, because the Jaish-Al-Qaeda combination had made two unsuccessful attempts on his life in December 2003-January 2004. Yet, perhaps, with the larger goal of wresting J and K from India, Musharraf was willing to overlook this rather touchy, personal connection.

However, the strangest aspect was the PNA president, Abbas, ratting against the Hamas, and yet, it is not so strange, he and Hamas have opposed each other, and since January this year, when Hamas won a landslide victory, his position has grown even more shaky. But it was beyond Hamas, as officials on our side understood, Abbas was trying to get the PNA closer to the US, and India was becoming a good bet in that direction. This was in May last year, two months before the 18 July Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement was signed, but it was fairly clear India was well on its way to having a special relationship with the United States. And Abbas wanted to be at hand to extract some advantage from it.

So much so he was willing to turn over some of the Hamas dirt, and he was also risking relations with Pakistan in doing so. But in international politics, none of this should surprise, there are, as diplomats like to say over and over again, no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Of course, subsequent to the publishing of the commentary, Palestinian diplomats posted here denied that the PNA president had disclosed anything about the Hamas-Jaish connection, such disclaimers are routine, and anyhow it looked the Pakistanis were more outraged by the leak than anybody else. But we stood by our report then, and we have no reason to change our stand now, but unfortunately, the Indian government seems preparing to amend our position with regard to the terrorist Hamas that has come to power in the Palestinian territories.

As we have published the relevant intelligence today (“ India may recognise Hamas government,” 29 March 2006), the government is testing the waters to follow the Russians in recognising the terrorists who are running the Palestinian Authority now. The elections which brought them to power were indisputably fair, but neither is Hamas willing to give up its terrorism against Israel, an all-weather friend of India, and there is the Hamas-Jaish connection that we can hardly shut our eyes to.

It is not clear what great compulsion we have to rush and recognise the Hamas government, Russia sees the need to fill in in the Middle East and recover its old Cold War role now that the US is weakened in Iraq, and as a great power, the Russians have played these games for decades. But we are not in that league, we have no roadmap for Middle East peace and for our own role in the region, and it is downright dangerous to interfere in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute when we have our own tinderbox in J and K. What if somebody in the region demands a similar role in our J and K dispute with Pakistan? As such, Musharraf never passes up an opportunity to liken J and K to the Palestinian dispute, and here, we are giving him tinder-dry fodder.

But the funny thing is, nobody has asked for our recognition, certainly not the Hamas terrorists. Early this month, a Hamas cabinet minister was feted by Pakistani terror groups, including the Jaish, in Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province. The Hamas-Jaish terror link continues, and outrageously, the government pushes for recognising the Hamas terror regime.

A senior foreign office official who was sent to sound out the Israelis got an earful. The Israelis shot him so many questions he had no answers to them. Hamas wants to destroy the Israeli state, and they are training the Jaish for terrorism and Intifida in J and K. Should we close our eyes to all this, and extend a friendship hand to them? If we cannot, why are we doing it? You know it, bad old vote bank politics. The government believes it can win over the Muslim voters from the Samajwadi Party and other appeasers.
This is sick.
This is communalising our foreign policy.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 09:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Culture Wars
Borders And Waldenbooks Folds, Won't Carry Magazine
Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries.

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

The magazine, published by the Council for Secular Humanism in suburban Amherst, includes four of the drawings that originally appeared in a Danish newspaper in September, including one depicting Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban with a lit fuse.

Islamic tradition bars depiction of Muhammad to prevent idol worship, which is strictly prohibited.

"What is at stake is the precious right of freedom of expression," said Paul Kurtz, editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry. "Cartoons often provide an important form of political satire ... To refuse to distribute a publication because of fear of vigilante violence is to undermine freedom of press — so vital for our democracy."

Bingham said the decision was made before the magazine arrived at the company's stores. Borders Group, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., operates more than 475 Borders and 650 Waldenbooks stores in the United States, though not all regularly carry the magazine.

"We absolutely respect our customers' right to choose what they wish to read and buy and we support the First Amendment," Bingham said. "And we absolutely support the rights of Free Inquiry to publish the cartoons. We've just chosen not to carry this particular issue in our stores."

The cartoons, which were reprinted in European and American papers in January and February, sparked a wave of protests around the Islamic world. Protesters were killed in some of the most violent demonstrations and several European embassies were attacked.
Posted by: tipper || 03/30/2006 08:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Makes me wonder what other literature they have self censored for my safety.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/30/2006 9:10 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't blame the booksellers, who justifiably are concerned about the "deranged" taking out their vile against innocent employees.

It's not the booksellers at fault. It is the radical Islamists who are at fault.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 10:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Sig HEIL, Borders and Waldenbooks!!! Put on those Brownshirts and bow down and worship Adolf mohammed and your islamic masters. Why don"t you just throw them in the streets and burn the magazines? Maybe you should start banning Jooooooooooos, or maybe make them wear a "Star of David" when they come in the store?

Piss on mohammed and allan.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#4  And so, what could just as easily have been a unified front crumbles like so much dried bovine fecal matter. Fortunately, I do not shop at either store so boycotting them will be more pleasure than pain.

I become increasingly angry that, when the initial demands for apologies over the cartoons were made, the White House did not simply publish several pages of Arab cartoons that are so derogatory towards the West. A demand for reciprocity should have been made, then and there, without the least backing down.

Instead, Europe, the White House, America's broadcast and newspaper media and too many corporate entities have cowered in the face of a gigantic threat to our free speech. All of them should be deeply ashamed.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:27 Comments || Top||

#5  "For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said Wednesday.

And, Benjamin Franklin replied, "Those who would trade their freedoms for security will end up with neither." While, actually, I don't feel this is a true 1st Amendment issue (as relates to government dictating what can/can't be said), it would be nice to see such a big company stand up for America. I mean, good grief, I gotta think they wouldn't have sold that many anyways, but now, their stand will make me stay away from their stores, as well as drive many to look elsewhere for copies of the cartoons themselves. I mean, our press has basically self-censured themselves from printing the actual cartoons themselves, and those who aren't internet savvy need a way to see what all the brew-ha-ha was about. Shame on Borders.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 12:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Sadly, my preferred grocery store is next to a Borders, making them entirely too convenient to boycott. The nearest Borders is an hour's drive away, and there *aren't* any independent bookstores around.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 12:15 Comments || Top||

#7  Perhaps someone should have a look to make sure that they aren't selling anything that would be found offensive by Christians, Jews, Athiests... Or, for that matter, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Communists, Socialists... Americans, Mexicans, Japanese, Canadians, Italians, Chinese, Taiwanese, Ethiopians, Russians, Koreans...
What the hell, just close the stores.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/30/2006 17:08 Comments || Top||

#8  "For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority,"

I'll assist in that desire by staying far enough away as possible in order not to create an attractive crowded target. There's always Amazon for my business.
Posted by: Omaiting Shineper6088 || 03/30/2006 17:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Mr. Wife's great uncle used to give us a subscription to that magazine every year for Christmas, alternately with the Skeptical Enquirer (which did a lot of interesting debunking studies). We'd let it slide for a couple of years, but I think I need to start again. Both magazines have interesting web sites -- although I b'lieve it's Free Inquiry that sometimes goes over the top atheist... and had an entire issue full of articles arguing strongly against responding to the 9/11 attacks at the time. The Amazing Randi (the magician who debunked that Israeli spoon bender) is on their board of directors, as I recall.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/30/2006 17:59 Comments || Top||

#10  The Amazing Randi (the magician who debunked that Israeli spoon bender)

I remember that, got him on video bending the silverware when he thought nobody was looking, then called attention to the bent spoons later.

Hard to claim you're psychic when you got video proving he's just another fake.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 21:10 Comments || Top||

#11  A shame, I used to like going to Borders.
Posted by: DMFD || 03/30/2006 23:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
Norway folds, backs universal ban on sketches
March 29: Norwegian Ambassador Janis Bjorn Kanavin on Wednesday reiterated his government’s commitment to support international initiatives for a universal ban on publication and broadcast of sacrilegious material concerning holy prophets.

He was speaking to a delegation of Tanzeem-i-Ahl-i-Sunnat clerics from Gujrat and Gujranwala. The meeting had been arranged on the request of the clerics.

Ambassador Kanavin said the question was not that of merely calling for new international legislation, but it should be seen if the countries were willing to abide by their international commitments.

Referring to the caricature issue, he said Islam and Christianity taught forgiveness and it was because of this the editor whose magazine reproduced the Danish cartoons was forgiven by the Muslim community after an extensive dialogue in which the motives behind the publication of cartoons were questioned.

He said now it was time for a constructive community to take centre stage. We have to move on, he added.

Mr Kanavin hoped that dialogue between Muslims and Christians could promote inter-faith harmony.

One of the members of the delegation, Afzal Qadri said the clerics would now be meeting ambassadors of other western countries in this connection.

The delegation parried a question regarding the reason for such a belated move for reconciliation and said lot of time was consumed in making contact with the Norwegian embassy.
Posted by: tipper || 03/30/2006 08:28 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder if the Democrats will bash bush for not signing the upcoming Oslo treaty the same way they bashed him for not signing Kyoto.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Morons, total fricking morons. Just when a united front is most called for these idjits tremble and cower like the spineless cowards they are. They richly deserve their coming dhimmitude.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:35 Comments || Top||

#3  just the ambassador to pakiwakiland making nice with the locals, with some doublespeak that means nothing.
Ambassador Kanavin said the question was not that of merely calling for new international legislation, but it should be seen if the countries were willing to abide by their international commitments.

Which international commitments? I dunno, some international commitments. International commitments are important. Think about guys. Now is my limo back to Islamabad ready?


Referring to the caricature issue, he said Islam and Christianity taught forgiveness and it was because of this the editor whose magazine reproduced the Danish cartoons was forgiven by the Muslim community after an extensive dialogue in which the motives behind the publication of cartoons were questioned.

yeah, its all about forgiveness. Muslims forgive the JP, we forgive the muslims, and I'll forgive you for dragging me out to this godforsaken stinkhole. Is my limo back to Islamabad ready yet?


He said now it was time for a constructive community to take centre stage. We have to move on, he added.

Yes, we must move on. Let focus on something important, like world trade in fisheries products. Now dammit Olaf, where in blazes is that limo??

Mr Kanavin hoped that dialogue between Muslims and Christians could promote inter-faith harmony.

Dialogue, thats it, its all about dialogue. Thats what diplomats get paid for, doncha know? Ah, theres my limo, at last. Hasta la vista, guys, and my sympathies to the next diplo you drag out here.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/30/2006 14:16 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Paleostinian Space Program Nears Launch
DEBKAfile Exclusive: Palestinians are manufacturing new multiple-rocket launchers with Palestinian Authority funding. The broad program involving all the armed Palestinian organizations is close to producing a facsimile of the Russian-made Grad, renamed Quds-3, supplied by Iran, which can simultaneously fire 10 rockets from a truck to a distance of 18-30 km. The system weighs 13 tons and enables a crew of 7-10 Palestinians firing from the Gaza Strip to hit not only the Israeli port of Ashkelon, but Ashdod to the north too, as well as the towns of Netivot and Ofakim to the east.
No word on how far the pieces will fly when the IDF takes this monster out.
The system was proudly displayed to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas when he visited the Gaza Strip last week.

DEBKAfile’s military sources: The new 122mm rocket, test-fired against Ashkelon on Israel’s election-day, Tuesday, March 28, weighs 66 kilos and carries 17 kilos of explosives. It was developed in Palestinian workshops in the Gaza Strip on instructions from Iranian instructors using the Russian-Made Grad and BM21 Katyusha as their model. Several dozen rockets are already in stock, substantially upgrading the Palestinian war arsenal with a heavy artillery system and extending its long-range assault capability. The product currently produce is wire-operated. The crew pulls back some 60 meters from the launcher and releases the rockets by pulling the wire.
What, they're out of long fuses to light with a match?
A ten-rocket volley has a far better chance of hitting an Israeli target than the hit-or-miss, primitive Qassam missiles fired daily from the Gaza Strip.

Our military experts point out that, as the Americans discovered in Iraq, sophisticated weaponry, including drones and electronic surveillance, offers no solution to countering roadside bombs and rockets fired on the ground. The Palestinians have concluded that, even if the Israeli air force knocks out some of their Quds-3 rocket systems, they will still be left with enough launchers to cause heavy Israeli casualties and damage in the towns within range of Gaza.
Posted by: Steve || 03/30/2006 08:10 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [26 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Palestinians are manufacturing new multiple-rocket launchers with Palestinian Authority funding.

Yeah, so let's make sure that foreign funding keeps rolling in. It's for the children you know...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 8:44 Comments || Top||

#2  The Palestinians have concluded that, even if the Israeli air force knocks out some of their Quds-3 rocket systems, they will still be left with enough launchers to cause heavy Israeli casualties and damage in the towns within range of Gaza.
So the Israelis are left with the option of overrunning and annihilating them. Sounds about right.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 8:54 Comments || Top||

#3  The Paleos are "stuck on stupid." Firing a few 122's will only reap them a handy allocation of much deserved 155 counter battery fire.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 9:08 Comments || Top||

#4  The Paleos are "stuck on stupid."

Seriously stuck.

These savages need to be removed from the gene pool, STAT.
Posted by: Dave D. || 03/30/2006 9:31 Comments || Top||

#5  The crew pulls back some 60 meters from the launcher and releases the rockets by pulling the wire.

NB: mechanical, not electrical.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Push is going to turn to shove, as in the Paleos being shoved into the sea. Enough of the defensive measures by Israel, innocent Israelis are the targets.

Time for the Israelis to take serious pre-emptive action, a la the Bush Doctrine.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 9:46 Comments || Top||

#7  now that they are an effective state, the Paleos will find no skirts to hide behind. Demolish them and their stupid dreams, agreed, STAT
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 9:52 Comments || Top||

#8  Okay, artillerymen, you will now be firing a TOT on a circle with a 60m radius.

3.14(pi)*120m(diameter) = ~380m circumference.

Coverage of a 155mm HE round, 50m. Ergo, with 8 rounds, over the circumference of the circle, you will most likely take out the firing crew. Throw in 2 more for the launcher and problem solved.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/30/2006 10:12 Comments || Top||

#9  105mm Howitzer, 30m. Calculate accordingly.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/30/2006 10:13 Comments || Top||

#10  What a fine excuse for the Israelis to simply blast each and every large multi-ton vehicle in the entire Palestinian Terrortories to he|| and back again. Seeking ever-larger toys of destruction should carry with it ever-increasing penalties. Blowing the snot out of all Palestinian commercial cargo carrying capacity sounds like just the place to start. F&ck knows that if there were such things as 13 ton ambulances, the Palestinians would have camouflaged this launch system as one. As Robert Crawford so aptly observed, never has such a hapless collection of f&ckwits trodden the face of this earth.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:54 Comments || Top||

#11  Israeli counter-battery MLRS time!!!
Posted by: radrh8r || 03/30/2006 14:02 Comments || Top||

#12  What percent of the Paleos in Gaza know how to swim?

What percent of those are good enough to swim down the Coast to Egypt?
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 16:25 Comments || Top||

#13  Paleos being shoved into the sea
Finally, there's been a huge lack of "Push 'em into the sea recently"
Posted by: Shamu || 03/30/2006 17:42 Comments || Top||

#14  Only 13 tons? The paleo-pterrs have quite the ambitious program going there. I've always been envious of their glut of smelly, swarthy, stupid Aerospace engineers. Be afraid ISR. Be very afraid! (C'mon, Lets re-grow those grapes and just- "Git 'er Done". How 'bout it?
Posted by: Asymmetrical Triangulation || 03/30/2006 20:15 Comments || Top||

#15  "No word on how far the pieces will fly when the IDF takes this monster out."

...enjoyed the good, hearty laugh ... thanks, Steve
Posted by: rantfan || 03/30/2006 22:50 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Taylor trial 'may move to Hague'
Sierra Leone's war crimes tribunal has asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to host the trial of ex-Liberian leader Charles Taylor, officials say.
A spokesman for the Dutch foreign ministry said a formal request had been made to the court in The Hague. Liberian leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has backed the request, reports say.

Mr Taylor, who was captured on Wednesday in Nigeria, faces charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including responsibility for murder.
Sounds good to me. Last couple of guys on trial there commited "suicide".


Posted by: Steve || 03/30/2006 08:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Or he'll die an old man waiting for the 'paperwork' to be completed.
Posted by: Mullah Richard || 03/30/2006 9:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Taylor escaped from an American prison, fled the country and overthrew the Liberian regime.

Doubtful those UN guards can hold him.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 9:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Actually, he escaped from the Plymouth County House of Correction up here. It's not exactly Alcatraz guarded by Delta Force...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 10:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, now that they're docket is rather empty....it will keep them busy for the next ten years.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/30/2006 17:40 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Hostage Jill Carroll Freed
Baghdad, 30 March (AKI) - US freelance journalist Jill Carroll has been released in Iraq after being held hostage since 7 January. Carroll's release came a day after an appeal made by her twin sister Katie on pan Arab network al-Arabiya. Carroll was working for the Christian Science Monitor in Iraq. "She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine," confirmed David Cook, a Monitor editor in Washington. Details of how and when she was released have not been provided. In her message broadcast Wednesday Katie Caroll said: "There is no one I hold closer to my heart than my sister, and I am deeply worried wondering how she is being treated"

The journalist was pulled from her car on 7 January and her interpreter was killed. She had been due that day to interview Adnan al-Dulaimi, the leader of a Sunni political grouping. Jill Carroll's captors had demanded the release of all women detainees in Iraq by Feb. 26 and said Carroll would be killed if that didn't happen. However that date passed with no further word about her welfare.
I'll be dammed, she got out alive.
Posted by: Steve || 03/30/2006 08:03 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Very good news. I would not have given her any chance for survival. I hope there was no pay off involved.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 9:19 Comments || Top||

#2  Take the towel off your head, love.
Posted by: Screaming Nun || 03/30/2006 9:19 Comments || Top||

#3  This whole thing doesn't smell right. I think there might be more to it.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 03/30/2006 9:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Whiskey, I couldn't agree more. The journalists in Iraq are fawns for the insurgents and Zarq.

Their decision is simple: report the truth, which is pro-USA, and face death threats from Zarq; or, slant the news in the insurgents and terrorists favor and face little to no threat.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 9:50 Comments || Top||

#5  If she was in cahoots with these these people as some here suggest, it is really troubling, as the driver was killed. I pray that if she was in cahoots with them, that she now realizes what kind of people they are to kill the driver. And if it dosen't bother her, than I pray for her family, because she has them duped.
Posted by: plainslow || 03/30/2006 10:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Speaking of Journalists pandering to 'Insurgents', check out this Hugh Hewitt Interview with Michael Ware.
Posted by: doc || 03/30/2006 10:46 Comments || Top||

#7  She claims that "they treated her well", yet the videos show her on her knees crying and pleading for her life. Sounds like she'd make a good muslim wife.
Posted by: KBK || 03/30/2006 11:09 Comments || Top||

#8  I'll withhold judgement 'til more facts come in. I'm glad she's alive and well.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 11:19 Comments || Top||

#9  You just KNOW that money changed hands to make this happen--money that will purchase food, shelter, and WEAPONS that will be used against us.
Posted by: Crusader || 03/30/2006 11:37 Comments || Top||

#10  Was the sister giving a coded message, indicating that someone agreed to the terms of the ransom?
Posted by: Kalle || 03/30/2006 12:45 Comments || Top||

#11  Latest
Concurrent with the release from capture today of Jill Carroll, an American reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who was captured in Baghdad on January 7, 2006, her captors, the Revenge Brigade issued on March 30, 2006, an 8:50 minute video interview with Ms. Carroll. Both the questions asked by the interviewer and Jill Carroll’s responses are in the English language, as she is asked of her conditions during her captivity and her opinions on the American-led War in Iraq and the mujahideen. Her answers are lauding towards the mujahideen, stating that she was treated as a guest and they are clever and very familiar with the Iraqi terrain, as opposed to the American Army that could not locate her with all the technology and manpower at their disposal.

Concerning her release, the interview asks Ms. Carroll how she feels that she will be granted freedom, while women are continuing to be held in Abu Ghraib. Though she is relieved that she is being released, she states that she feels guilt, and her condition juxtaposed with that of the women in prison shows the dichotomy in terms of human respect shown by the mujahideen and American Army. She asks President Bush to cease the war and end the aggression upon the Iraqi people who are continuously living in abject condition.

Near the close of the interview, a statement is read in Arabic announcing Jill Carroll’s release, and noting that the Americans forces and CIA did not assist in her freedom. It was the American government agreeing to some of their conditions that brokered her release. The mujahid states: “Jill Carol, go back in peace to your family and to your country, to tell them and to the American people what you saw and heard during these three months. You are a witness of the events here and we have full confidence in you that you will tell the truth without any falsification.”
Posted by: tipper || 03/30/2006 12:46 Comments || Top||

#12  And killing the interpreter also shows shows "the dichotomy in terms of human respect shown by the mujahideen and American Army."
Posted by: plainslow || 03/30/2006 13:14 Comments || Top||

#13  so basically they realized they werent going to get a ransom, theyd seen evidence that other hostages HAD been freed, they decided holding on to her longer wastn worth it, and they made a propaganda video to try to salvage something from the operation.

and shes keeping quiet for now. Is she out of the country yet? You suppose they threatend to go after other CSM reporters if she blabs? Or perhaps Centcom is busy debriefing her?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/30/2006 13:32 Comments || Top||

#14  Add one to the list of useful idiots. I guess I'd have done the same thing. If she really feels guilty, she can go back to being a hostage, if ever she really was a hostage.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 15:22 Comments || Top||

#15  She has such a strange insistance that they didn't hit her. She mentions this several times in various articles. They "never hit me, never even threatened to hit me. (from the Yahoo news stories).

Over and over - it's the hitting thing.

Something really stinks in her story. And she still won't take off the scarf. Such a good dhimmie.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 17:51 Comments || Top||

#16  naturally occurring cauliflower ear
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 19:41 Comments || Top||

#17  They "never hit me, never even threatened to hit me.
They only killed mydriver and pukked me from my car.
Posted by: wpapke || 03/30/2006 19:48 Comments || Top||

#18  Local newscasst is on with this item (Citypulse in Toronto).

Folowing the "They didn't hit me" clip, the newscaster commented. Well, they certainly did threaten to kill you, didn't they?
Knock me over with a feather! This is MSM and a channel quite left in most positions. Grain of salt for Carroll's sotry. Mind you, the constant tucking of hair back under the veil begs the Helsinki syndrome speculation.

I loved the unexpected comment. Scales tippin'.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 20:10 Comments || Top||

#19  When they have a change in government in Canada are all the broadcasters required to submit resignations?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 20:19 Comments || Top||

#20  "#3 This whole thing doesn't smell right. I think there might be more to it."
Posted by Whiskey Mike

Right on Whiskey Mike. Me thinks Jill Girl went native in more ways than one ... as in, sympathy for the enemy.
Posted by: Happy 88mm || 03/30/2006 20:55 Comments || Top||

#21  Indeed, #20, its smells fishy. They aren't(selectively) reporting some important details. #2, that rag on her head signifies cover-up. It means plenty to 'em mossies and is a giveaway esp. after being released.
Posted by: Duh! || 03/30/2006 21:26 Comments || Top||

#22  There's a reason why we used to flexi-cuff both the bad guys and good guys when practicing hostage rescue missions. She may have been tortured or repeatedly raped while in captivity. Or put on the conveyor until she recited the shahada. Or all three. Give her a few weeks to unfuck her mind, then let's see what she says.
Posted by: 11A5S || 03/30/2006 22:21 Comments || Top||


Britain
Terrorism Act arrests at UK hospital
Four men have been arrested at a Staffordshire hospital under the Terrorism Act. Staffordshire Police arrested the men after a police unit, which included firearms officers, was called to the Stafford District General Hospital. The four are being held at a police station in the county. A fifth man who was being treated at the hospital was transferred to another hospital for specialist treatment, police said. Got the Ricin under his nails did he?A Staffordshire Police spokeswoman said the men were arrested "under the Terrorism Act 2000 as a result of information received".

"They were arrested by officers from the force's incident management unit which included some specialist firearms officers," she said. "The men are now in custody at police stations in Staffordshire."

Two sections of the hospital car park are still cordoned off with police tape, with two police cars parked nearby. Armed officers arrived at the car park at 2145 BST on Wednesday after being alerted by staff at the hospital. Martin Yeates, chief executive of the Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals Trust, said access was restricted for a "short period" and ambulances diverted to other hospitals.

"From this morning the hospital has been operating as normal and patients should attend their appointments as normal," he said. "The hospital operated as normal throughout the night. Hospital patients were unaffected by the police operation."

Buckingham Palace has confirmed a scheduled visit of the Queen to Stafford on Friday will be going ahead as planned. A spokeswoman said: "As it stands, there is no change to the royal visit and the Queen will be arriving in Stafford tomorrow morning." Stafford's Labour MP David Kidney said he thought there was "no substance" in the incident and thought it was probably members of hospital staff being over zealous in reporting something suspicious ahead of the Queen's visit.
Better safe than sorry. Linkey fixed
.
Posted by: Howard UK || 03/30/2006 06:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Link to the original story? Or is there one? I'd like to look for names, because I suspect the reporting lacks any.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 7:11 Comments || Top||

#2  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4859496.stm

Ooops.
Posted by: Howard UK || 03/30/2006 7:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Buckingham Palace has confirmed a scheduled visit of the Queen to Stafford on Friday will be going ahead as planned.

Bingo - not printed in original piece.
Posted by: Howard UK || 03/30/2006 7:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Praytell, is "Firearms Officer" English for bobbies who are authorized to carry firearms in Tony Blair's kinder, gentler police force? I had read, I believe, that not all officers in the UK can carry weapons...
Posted by: mjh || 03/30/2006 8:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Yes 'Firearms Officers' are bobbies with the extra-special responsibility of carrying a loaded weapon. You also correctly assert that most bobbies are unarmed.
Posted by: Howard UK || 03/30/2006 10:10 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Indonesian Muslim Leaders Criticize Blair for His Role in Iraq
Islamic leaders in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim nation, criticized U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair for joining the invasion of Iraq, saying the U.S.-led occupation has fueled terrorism.

Blair, who is on a one-day visit to Indonesia, met five Muslim leaders including Din Syamsuddin, chairman of Muhammadiyah, Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organization in Jakarta today. Blair also visited an Islamic school in the Indonesian capital.

``We advise Britain to pull out troops in Iraq because the occupation in Iraq is fueling radicalism, extremism and new terrorists,'' Syamsuddin told reporters after meeting Blair. ``There's a misunderstanding between the West and the Muslim world. The West stereotypes Islam as a violent religion, terrorism and a threat, while the Muslim world hates the West which it demonstrates by using threats, violence and terrorism.''

Global terrorist attacks surged to 635 incidents in 2004 from 190 cases in 2003 and 198 attacks in 2002 according to U.S. State department data. The U.S. invaded Iraq in March 2003. In Indonesia terrorist attacks killed 23 people including the three suicide bombers in the beach resort of Bali in October. Bali was also the site of an attack which killed 202 people in 2002, while 52 people were killed in attacks in London in July last year.

Blair's policy in Iraq was also criticized by teenagers at the Darunnajah Islamic Boarding School in the capital.

``Did your Excellency ever ask your best friend George W. Bush to stop the war in Iraq?'' Rezar Risky, a student in the school asked Blair. ``America is completely wrong.''

``We will not agree about Iraq,'' Blair said in response. ``There is a process now in Iraq for the people to vote a government in. When you are 18 you can go and vote for your government. That is a good thing.''

Another student who didn't give his name asked Blair how he would feel if he had lost his family in the war or lived in constant fear of his life.
There's room in the article for this question, but none for Blair's response?

Indonesia and the U.K. agreed to set up an Islamic Advisory Board to boost understanding between the West and the Islamic world, Blair said.

The Islamic leaders Blair met ``are all moderate but critical,'' Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at a press conference with the prime minister.

Blair today pledged 25 million pounds ($43.5 million) of aid mainly to improve health care in Indonesia. The Southeast Asian nation will also get easier access to military equipment and training and closer educational and police ties.

Blair's spokesman Tom Kelly said before the visit that the prime minister hoped that by encouraging a ``moderate democratic Muslim country'' he would find ways of tackling the extremism that leads to terrorism.

``I hope he got more understanding about Islam because Islam is a part of our world,'' said Abdullah Gymnastiar, an Islamic preacher, who met with Blair today. ``I would like to say this was going better if the leader had a clean heart. Don't destroy other countries.''
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 05:33 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ``I hope he got more understanding about Islam because Islam is a part of our world,'' said Abdullah Gymnastiar, an Islamic preacher, who met with Blair today. ``I would like to say this was going better if the leader had a clean heart. Don't destroy other countries.''

You mean like East Timor?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 7:41 Comments || Top||

#2  ``I hope he got more understanding about Islam because Islam is a part of our world,'' said Abdullah Gymnastiar, an Islamic preacher,

Maybe not for long.
Posted by: SR-71 || 03/30/2006 8:18 Comments || Top||

#3  I look forward to the physics paper that explains how invading Iraq in 2003 caused the Bali bombings in 2002.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:18 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Stolen diesel tanker in Michigan raises terror concerns
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 03/30/2006 05:29 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  HARTLAND TWP. - A stolen tanker truck authorities were concerned could "potentially be used as a weapon of mass destruction" was found Tuesday at a Mobil gas station in northeastern Livingston County.

The 2001 Freightliner was fully loaded with 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel when it was taken Monday evening in Oakland County. It was empty when it was found, said Trooper Jason Hoogstra of the Brighton post of the Michigan State Police. With diesel fuel prices at $2.59 a gallon Monday, the load would be worth more than $5,000.
Posted by: Steve || 03/30/2006 8:01 Comments || Top||

#2  I am no expert, but isn't diesel fuel less explosive than regular gasoline? I believe I read it's less volatile and more viscous. Hence the need for winter-formulation diesel, as otherwise it will "freeze"...

Clearly, diesel fuel is highly combustible and could cause damage if it leaked and were lit, but could a diesel tanker actually be made to explode?
Posted by: mjh || 03/30/2006 9:05 Comments || Top||

#3  For mixing with AmPhos ?
Posted by: SR-71 || 03/30/2006 9:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Is probably just run-if-the-mill crime (fuel being pricey these days and all), but it still should tracked down.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 03/30/2006 10:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Mix diesel fuel and ammonium nitrate for your clasic fertilizer bomb.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/30/2006 10:54 Comments || Top||

#6  Right. Sorry.
Posted by: SR-71 || 03/30/2006 11:43 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Deadliest battle for Canadians in 32 years
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - At 10 p.m. Tuesday, on a cool, cloudless night in Afghanistan, Private Robert Costall and 30 fellow members of Canada's Quick Reaction Force were scrambled into helicopters at Kandahar Airfield and whisked to the lawless wastes of Sangin district, a difficult corner of a dangerous land.

Five hours later, Pte. Costall was dead, and his fellow soldiers were in the midst of the most serious and deadly battle faced by Canadian soldiers in 32 years.

A U.S. soldier and an unspecified number of Afghan army troops also died in the battle -- as did a reported 33 Taliban insurgents.

Not since the death of three Canadian peacekeepers in 1974 -- killed defending Nicosia airport in Cyprus -- has a Canadian soldier been killed during a firefight with enemy troops.

The Battle of Sangin began on Tuesday afternoon in Helmand province in south-central Afghanistan, outside the normal operating area for Canadian soldiers based in the neighbouring province of Kandahar.

An Afghan National Army convoy -- on a resupply mission to a forward operating base (FOB) in Sangin district, a remote area in the northern reaches of the Helmand desert -- was ambushed by Taliban insurgents.

The Taliban first hit the convoy with small-arms fire and then with a remotely detonated roadside bomb.

Eight Afghan soldiers died in the ambush, according to military officials. While the Taliban were temporarily driven off, the disabled convoy became stranded on a lonely road eight kilometres from the FOB -- a collection of tents and dug-in defensive positions surrounded by razor wire and manned by Afghan soldiers and a handful of American troops.

On Tuesday night, as troops from the Sangin FOB struggled to get help to the stranded convoy, the base itself came under attack from Taliban forces around its perimeter.

Decisions were made in Kandahar to send air support, and British Harrier fighter-bombers were launched, as were American Apache attack helicopters and B-52 heavy bombers.

By 10 p.m., Canadian Brigadier-General David Fraser, commander of all coalition forces in southern Afghanistan, also ordered his Quick Reaction Force to support the Afghan and U.S. soldiers under attack at the FOB.

A Canadian combat platoon, on special duty this month for rapid deployment anywhere in southern Afghanistan, boarded helicopters for the hour-long flight to Sangin.

The Canadians landed in a tight situation; the Sangin FOB was already under siege, but worse was still to come.

At around 2 a.m., a "significant force" of Taliban launched their main assault on the base, "during which a pretty fierce firefight ensued," according to British Colonel Chris Vernon, chief of staff to Brig.-Gen. Fraser.

Details of the firefight itself remain unclear, yet it appears the coalition troops, firing rifles, machine guns and mortars from inside the FOB, fought off a sustained assault on the base.

Col. Vernon also suggested yesterday that many of the Taliban casualties likely came from the air -- from rockets fired by helicopters and the Harrier jets and from bombs dropped by the B-52 bombers.

Col. Vernon said that after the main attack was repulsed, coalition air forces destroyed a local compound where insurgents were believed to have taken refuge.

Yet Col. Vernon also said the situation remained "a little bit unclear" yesterday, as coalition forces assessed the fallout of the battle from the ground and from the air.

What was clear, he said, was that the size and intensity of the Taliban attack had taken coalition army commanders by surprise.

"The size and tenacity may have slightly exceeded our estimates," he said.

"The Taliban generally operate in small groups of eight to 10 and they will generally avoid confrontation against larger numbers. Their coherence as a fighting unit in Western military terms is not great. Their co-ordination measures are not great ... but the only thing I will say is they are brave.

"However, there is always a fine line between bravery and stupidity."

Army officials have not yet explained how Pte. Costall and his American and Afghan counterparts were killed or how three other Canadians were wounded before being evacuated by helicopter to Kandahar.

Afghan radio reporter Humayon Shaieb, a correspondent for Voice of America, told Col. Vernon he had received reports yesterday that a number of civilians had been killed and homes destroyed when bombs fell on their town during the battle.

"I find that very unlikely," Col. Vernon said. "I've seen aerial photographs of the forward operating base. It's in the middle of nowhere, and the Taliban attack came over open ground.

"There is not a lot of Afghan habitation in that area at all. So I cannot see in any way how any degree of civilian damage could have been done."

Sangin is a clear line of communication for the Taliban because it is part of the Helmand River valley, where several roads converge and then move northward.

It sits in the heart of a major poppy-growing area for the opium trade, which helps fuel the Afghan insurgency.

The Sangin FOB is meant to give the Afghan army and its coalition allies a military presence in the area, in the hopes of bringing law and order to the district.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 05:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [25 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It sits in the heart of a major poppy-growing area for the opium trade, which helps fuel the Afghan insurgency.

And that is why the "Taliban" group was bigger than 8-10. Maybe a few "taliban" sprinkled in, but for the most part drug smugglers and hired guns trying to drive off outsiders.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/30/2006 8:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Poppy shepherds, if you will.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 8:38 Comments || Top||

#3  So, no mention of enemy loses. What's the over/under on this action ? 20 ? 30 ?
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 9:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Oops, on second glance, I see 33 dead applicants.
Applications are being accepted for reward virgins. When the new shipment of baby pigs virgins comes in, they will be assigned on a first come, first served basis.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 9:13 Comments || Top||

#5  wxjames, if you recall, there was a Danish cartoon where mohammed was telling the explo-jihadis to stop, since they had run out of virgins.

This was a quintuple offense to muslims, because the cartoon:

1. Stated that they blew things and people up, along with themselves.

2. Stated that they blew things and people up mainly for sex with multiple virgins.

3. Depicted mohammed (PTUI).

4. Implied that Islamic heaven has limits, since they ran out of virgins.

5. Implied that Allah was not omnipotent, because he could not create more virgins for the Explo-jihadis when the original supply ran out.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/30/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#6  The body count following a B-52 strike is usually:

zero.

This includes any and all lifeforms down to the larger insects.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/30/2006 10:22 Comments || Top||

#7  The Princess Pats kicked some serious butt!
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/30/2006 10:53 Comments || Top||

#8  Col. Vernon, "However, there is always a fine line between bravery and stupidity."
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 11:00 Comments || Top||

#9  I loved that quote too, RD! A very fine line, indeed for many!
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 12:22 Comments || Top||

#10  Don't be surprised to read the Canadian Left Press (which is basically all of Canadian media) calling this Canada's modern-day Dieppe! Quagmire, Bush's War, blah, blah, balh , blah...
Posted by: Happy 88mm || 03/30/2006 19:22 Comments || Top||

#11  May Pte. Costall rest in peace.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 20:15 Comments || Top||

#12  Why do I get the impression that the whole FOB concept and operating principle is similar in concept and operating principle to the Firebase concept and operating principle used in Viet Nam?

It failed there (overall, although on the whole it did appear to be successful for awhile) so why are we using it here?

Doesn't anyone learn from history? This isn't cowboys and indians and forts on the friggin' frontier.
Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/30/2006 22:59 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
South Africa will work with Hamas
CAPE TOWN — SA has condemned what it terms “collective punishment of the Palestinian people for electing Hamas”, Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said yesterday.

Speaking ahead of today’s state visit by Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, Pahad said government was planning to work closely with Hamas, which recently won elections for the Palestinian parliament.

SA’s approach is contrary to that of the US, European Union and Israel, which have deemed Hamas a terrorist organisation and responded to its victory by threatening diplomatic isolation and a funding freeze for the Palestinian Authority unless Hamas recognises Israel and renounces violence.

The Abbas visit comes against the background of another major shift in Middle East politics with victory for the new and moderate Kadima party in Israeli elections this week.

Briefing the media on Abbas’ visit, Pahad said the changes in the region presented an historic opportunity for both Palestine and Israel to take a new approach to the resolution of their conflict.

He said it was unacceptable that those clamouring for democracy in Palestine should now reject the result because they did not like the people’s choice.

This was particularly worrying since the Palestinian election was considered fair and transparent.

“SA will interact with whatever authority the Palestinians have chosen,” Pahad said.


On the issue of certain countries threatening to withhold donor funds because of Hamas’ election, he said such measures could only make matters worse.


“The Palestinians should not be collectively punished for exercising their democratic rights,” Pahad said.


He said the Abbas visit was eagerly anticipated in SA and it was hoped that Abbas would enlighten President Thabo Mbeki on the situation in the Middle East.


Mbeki and Abbas were expected to discuss the relations between SA and the Palestinian territories. They will also discuss the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian territories.


Pahad said he and Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils would visit Palestine next week to assess how SA could boost the peace process. He said he hoped that they would also get the opportunity to meet the new Israeli leadership.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 05:14 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Surprise meter please. I hope the community is keeping a close eye on the nuclear power reactors built by the French at Koeberg. I'd put nothing past the ANC.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 8:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Once again, thank you, F.W. De Klerk.
Posted by: Grunter || 03/30/2006 10:56 Comments || Top||

#3  South Africa will work with Hamas

Shit Head working with Hamas, [lives in America now [Caliphornia] with anti-American Iranian wife and awaits citizenship, thank you]
Posted by: Ulinter Thrash6708 || 03/30/2006 12:04 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Could Sanctions Stop Iran?
Recent History Suggests That the Prospects Aren't Good

Now that the U.N. Security Council has agreed on a statement demanding that Iran restrict its nuclear program, the United States and its allies are doubtless considering tougher measures, including sanctions, to force Iran's compliance. The experience of sanctions imposed on Iraq (and on other countries), which I helped engineer and maintain as a British diplomat at the Security Council, offers some lessons.

First, no sanctions regime is effective unless its objective is widely shared, especially by the neighbors of the targeted state. On Iraq, even though the United States and Britain managed, through strenuous diplomatic effort, to gain Security Council approval of sanctions, there was considerable evasion of the sanctions by Iraq's neighbors and others, for whom their economic welfare was more important that the goal of disarming Iraq. Even if China and Russia do not block any sanctions resolution on Iran, no resolution will be effective unless they and other states choose to enforce the sanctions.

Second, oil sanctions are a double-edged sword. In the latter years of the 12-year sanctions regime on Iraq, Saddam Hussein often threatened to stop Iraq's oil exports in order to deter the United States and Britain from imposing measures in the Security Council to thwart his sanctions-busting techniques. Then as now, the gap between global oil demand and supply was so small that even the threat of stopping Iraq's exports caused damaging spikes in global oil prices. Any attempt to block or limit Iran's oil exports would surely have similar effects.

Third, even the most aggressive sanctions regimes, such as comprehensive economic sanctions, tend not to achieve their desired effects. While they were in effect, sanctions on Iraq prevented it from rearming -- despite the claims of the U.S. and British governments before the 2003 invasion. But the sanctions did not force Iraq to comply fully with the United Nations' weapons inspectors. It finally took the threat of invasion for Iraq to cooperate with the inspectors in the months before the war.

Instead, comprehensive sanctions caused considerable human suffering in Iraq and, thanks to the control over food rationing that the oil-for-food program placed in the regime's hands, they not-so arguably helped reinforce Hussein's rule. This mistake must not be repeated.

Fourth, any sanctions regime requires a long-term, patient and detailed effort to succeed. Sanctions on Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavia were effective partly because the United States and the European Union devoted considerable resources to targeting Milosevic's illegal financial holdings. Although there was lots of rhetoric, and American ships patrolled the Persian Gulf, sanctions enforcement on Iraq was sporadic, as the United States and its allies allowed Iraq's neighbors, particularly Jordan and Turkey, to import oil illegally. It's hard to believe that support for sanctions against Iran, even if they were imposed, would endure for very long.

Sanctions on Libya, imposed in 1992 after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, were more effective in part because they were more limited. The U.N. ban on arms sales and air travel to Libya was seen as measured and commensurate pressure on Moammar Gaddafi to comply with the Security Council's demand that two Libyan agents accused of planning the bombing be handed over for trial. Even then, it took many years before Libya complied. Here there is a lesson that sanctions, when supported politically and patiently applied, can eventually work. Perhaps here there is scope for something that could work with Iran: a package of travel bans and financial measures targeting Iranian leaders. Targeted sanctions are, after the Iraq experience, now the fashion.

But there is one big reason why any U.S. effort to obtain sanctions against Iran is unlikely to be effective. All U.N. sanctions in the past have been imposed on governments that have done something seriously wrong -- such as invading other countries (Iraq) or brazenly hosting terrorist organizations (the Taliban). The claim that Iran might be developing a nuclear bomb hardly meets this standard, particularly because Pakistan and India got away with it (and with U.S. sympathy) and because U.S. intelligence assertions on weapons of mass destruction are, thanks to the Iraq experience, thoroughly disbelieved. Unless Iran is silly enough to do something such as testing a bomb (which is not very likely?), there will probably not be sufficient international support for punitive measures.

All of these reasons suggest that sanctions, as a policy option, are far from straightforward. Without troublemaking from Iran (which perhaps the United States is hoping for), they are unlikely to be agreed to under the current circumstances, and even if they are, they will succeed only if they are very carefully designed, targeted and supported by long-term and diligent diplomacy to shore up support.

The writer is a former diplomat who served in Britain's delegation to the United Nations from 1998 to 2002. He is now director of Independent Diplomat, a nonprofit diplomatic advisory group.

Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 04:56 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Could Sanctions Stop Iran?

Ummmmm ... no. Next question, please.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Sanctions punish the people of a nation for the acts of its tyrant.
Posted by: Mike || 03/30/2006 12:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Did it stop Iraq, no next question.
Posted by: djohn66 || 03/30/2006 12:38 Comments || Top||

#4  DUH??!?!?
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 12:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Insert Master of the Moronic Question pic here.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 17:37 Comments || Top||

#6  "The Loo Sanction" could.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/30/2006 21:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Yee gods, the simple idiots we are forced to have serving us...

What do you want for God's sake! A 20kt nuke going off over Tel Aviv? A 200 kt nuke going off 200 miles up and 20 miles offshore of Washington, DC?

Would that be enough for you?

How about a 20kt nuke going off above Camp Fallujah?

How about a 200kt nuke going off in New York Harbor onboard a freighter docked at sea level?

What would be enough to convince some of you self-righteous zealots of foreign policy that an Iran armed with nuclear weapons represents a clear and present danger to the national security of the United States of America?

What? Tell me - or STFU and deal with the bastards the way anyone with any brains in their skull would deal with them if they want to keep those brains in their skull

I'm sick of this shit already.
Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/30/2006 22:40 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Staring Down Shariah
We are not finished with Abdul Rahman, yet -- the Afghan who was being tried on the capital crime of converting to Christianity, until international pressure got him released -- for the very reason that the Afghans are not finished with him yet.

As readers may know imperfectly from the usual selective coverage in the media, the "problem" was not with one crazy Shariah judge in Kabul. There have been large demonstrations (riots according to an eyewitness in Mazar) in several Afghan cities; and across the country, prominent imams, whom we had counted as "moderates" in the sense that they had themselves previously been gaoled or persecuted by the Taliban, have been delivering incendiary sermons, demanding that their followers find Mr Rahman and kill him. "Kill" may be a slight understatement, since I gather most specify the sort of torture he should first endure.

That this is no minor issue, nor taken lightly abroad, may be surmised from reports that both the Italian and Australian prime ministers threatened to remove their troops from Afghanistan if Mr Rahman was not released. They, and other leaders of countries with troops in Afghanistan (Canada, for instance) made clear to President Hamid Karzai, in a semi-public way so as also to apprise their own electorates, that they could not possibly continue to sacrifice the lives of their soldiers, to defend a regime in which people are executed for being Christian. Or for any other allegiance of religion or conscience.

Whatever its value to build pressure, such a threat is foolish. We forget that we are in Afghanistan only secondarily to create a democratic constitutional order. This is a means only, towards the primary end of eliminating Afghanistan as a refuge and staging area for international terrorism. The same end could be achieved, hypothetically, by other means. I don't have the stomach to list them. But according at least to the "Bush doctrine", it would be a lot easier, and ultimately less costly in blood and money, if the country could be made responsibly self-governing.

It is difficult to achieve responsibility in politics, even in the West. Those who argue that, given the violence and fanaticism we are encountering, we should get out of such countries as Afghanistan and Iraq, and leave them to their squalid fate, take an extremely irresponsible position. They must first explain what their alternative would be, to eliminate these countries as hatcheries of terror. They must consider the consequences of leaving elected, pro-Western governments, to be overthrown by ruthless psychopaths. They must justify abandoning the huge numbers of innocents who will be butchered and massacred when our troops withdraw -- including everyone who trusted us. And contemplate the effect this spectacle will have on our remaining allies.

"Cut and run" is the opposite of a moral position. But neither is it a practical position. The bargain it offers, even to us, is less pain now, for more pain later -- as Afghanistan and Iraq shift back from being importers to exporters of jihadis.

Yet among those willing enough, for the moment, to send troops and keep shooting, there is the alternative irresponsibility -- which consists in underestimating the size of the task. You have not won a war until your enemy ceases to be your enemy. And by this standard, we are a long way from victory.

The case of Abdul Rahman, like the organized Danish cartoon apoplexy (still continuing in some parts of the world, where Muslim demagogues are still using it to whoop up anti-Western hysteria), brings us face to face with Islamic doctrines inimical to the survival of our civilization. And here, I wish I could say "Islamist", but the unpleasant truth is, Islamic doctrines. For the Shariah principles in question are shared by all four of the Sunni schools of jurisprudence (Maliki, Hanbali, Hanafi, and Shafi'i), plus the Shia school. There is no "sixth school" that recognizes religious and civic freedom, in any way that resembles what these expressions mean in the West.

All five of the actual schools or traditions take a view of idolatry, that entirely removes the possibility of freedom of expression in public life. Moreover, all take a view of apostasy that presents a palpable threat to the life and liberty of every non-Muslim, and excommunicated Muslim. And such doctrines as "jihad" (when interpreted as perpetual holy war against all infidels), and "razzia" (permission to raid and plunder our infidel communities) are not such as can be assimilated with Western jurisprudence.

We cannot pretend for long, the way President Bush has been doing (albeit from humane and sound tactical motives to begin with), that the Shariah is compatible with freedom and democracy. The systems of government we advocate, or by necessity impose, must explicitly provide civil protection to non-Muslims and Muslims alike, against Shariah courts and their rulings. I have come to realize there is no alternative to this.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 04:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
The striking idiocy of youth
Theodore Dalrymple

French students should go back to class to learn some economics

THE SIGHT OF MILLIONS of Frenchmen, predominantly young, demonstrating in deep sympathy and solidarity with themselves, is one that will cause amusement and satisfaction on the English side of the Channel. Everyone enjoys the troubles of his neighbours. And at least our public service strikers just stay away from work, and spend the day peacefully performing the rites of their religion, DIY, and not making a terrible nuisance of themselves. In fact, many of them are probably less of a public nuisance if they stay at home than if they go to work.

Of course, demonstrating in huge numbers is what the French do from time to time. We should never forget that to break a shop window for the good of humanity is one of the greatest pleasures known to Man. Trying to topple governments by shouting insults is also great fun.

We like to think of France as having a deplorably statist and centrally controlled economy, while the French like to think of Britain as a land of savage liberalism (in French parlance, the two words are as inseparable as Siamese twins), divided unequally between plutocrats and beggars. In fact, the two countries differ far less than is often supposed. While it is true that there remain some differences — despite Gordon Brown’s best efforts, the British labour market is still more flexible than the French — the similarities grow daily more striking (as it were).

The ultimate cause of the demonstrations and strikes in the two countries is the same: the State has made promises that it is increasingly unable to keep. It has pursued policies that were bound in the end to produce not just cracks but fissures that could no longer be papered over. The main difference is that while Dominque de Villepin is tentatively dragging France, albeit kicking and screaming, and with every likelihood of failure, in the right direction, Mr Brown is still stuck on the royal road to disaster, for which the British people, but not of course Mr Brown, will ultimately pay very dearly. When the crash comes, the social dislocation in Britain will make French disaffection seem positively genteel.

Whether they know it or not, the people on the streets in France were demonstrating to keep the youth of the banlieues — who recently so amused the world for an entire fortnight with their arsonist antics — exactly where they are, namely hopeless, unemployed and feeling betrayed. For unless the French labour market is liberalised, they will never find employment and therefore integration into French society. You have only to speak to a few small businessmen or artisans in France — the petits bourgeois so vehemently despised by the snobbish intellectuals — to find out why this should be so. The French labour regulations make employment of untried persons completely uneconomic for them.

It is often pointed out that French unemployment under the age of 26 is the highest in Europe, running at about 25 per cent. Moreover, in the banlieues it is 50 per cent. These banlieues are homes to millions of people, disproportionately young. It follows — does it not? — that there must be a considerable section of the young population in which unemployment is less than a quarter, actually much less. One would hardly have to be de Tocqueville to guess in which section of the young population the unemployment was less: the section from which the demonstrators, or at least their leaders and agents provocateurs, are drawn. In an increasingly desperate situation, the demonstrators are so afraid of the future that they want to hang on to their privileges and job security by hook or by crook, even if it means that the youth of the banlieues will eventually have to be kept in order by the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité, the much-feared riot police, the CRS. There is nothing idealistic or generous about the demonstrators, just as there wasn’t in 1968.

There are of course deeper but intangible problems that are even more difficult to solve than the inflexibility of the labour market. If you speak to small businessmen in France, they will tell you that the young in any case do not want to do the kind of work of which there is no shortage. At a time of such high unemployment, artisans have no one willing to be trained by them, even if they are willing to take the risk by taking them on. This is even though such artisans are so overwhelmed by work that a carpenter, for example, is booked up for more than a year in advance and can charge almost anything he likes.

We have no reason to condescend to the French, however, for the British are in fundamentally the same boat, with a few extra problems of our own. The vast and fraudulent expansion of tertiary education, which leaves students indebted for their own useless education, is merely a means by which the Government disguises youth unemployment and keeps young people off the streets. Contrary to government propaganda, unemployment is not low in Britain: but it is now called sickness.

Our economy is corruptly creating public service jobs — endless co-ordinators of facilitation and facilitators of co-ordination — but not many in the private sector, the only true measure of economic health and growth. Any fool can create public sector jobs, and Mr Brown has done so: but not even the most brilliant man can make them economically productive in the long term.

The British economy has all the brilliance of a fish rotting by moonlight, and eventually — to change the metaphor slightly — the bill will come in. And since so large a proportion of the population is now dependent, wholly or partly, on the State, the bill will be a large one, not only in financial terms but in social terms as well. We will need our very own CRS.

It can’t be said either that we won’t deserve what we get. It is we, after all, who have listened to the urgings of demagogic confidence tricksters, and believed their promises of irreconcilable goods. We should have paid attention instead to the wise words of Benjamin Franklin that apply as much to economics as to politics. He who gives up freedom for security, he said, will end up with neither.


Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 04:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the much-feared riot police, the CRS

Much feared? The CRS (and their Gendarmerie counterprt the Gerndarmes mobiles) are a superbly disciplined troop who can stand for hours under a rain of projectiles without retaliating until they are ordered to. All while they see their comardes fall wounded, sometimes severely. And the last time a CRS got too far and killed a demonstrator was decades ago.

Even during the massive 1968 riots there were zero dead. But of course this didn't impede the demonstrators to shout "CRS SS", but if the CRS had really been like SS none of those cowardly momaboys of 1968 would have gone to a demonstration.
Posted by: JFM || 03/30/2006 6:22 Comments || Top||

#2  It is often pointed out that French unemployment under the age of 26 is the highest in Europe, running at about 25 per cent.

Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. When is the concept of socialism ever going to be buried along with the concept of monarchy or slavery?
Posted by: Elmeter Slans6241 || 03/30/2006 7:18 Comments || Top||

#3  When is the concept of socialism ever going to be buried along with the concept of monarchy or slavery?

Given that one of the biggest supporters of terrorism and militant Islam (but I repeat myself) is a kingdom in which slavery is illegal only in the sense of "don't get caught", I suspect socialism will be with us forever.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 7:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Yup, RC, let us not forget that Saudi Arabia was the last nation on earth to abolish slavery waaaaaaay back in 1962.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 12:04 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Bill Roggio's e-mail to Wretchard on political crisis in Baghdad.
[..]

We are definitely at a 'crisis point' and the crisis is more political than military in nature. The attempt to remove or marginalize the Sadrs from the political process is now underway and the outcome is by no means certain.

The player to watch here is SCIRI (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq). Muqtada al-Sadr has threatened Hakim, SCIRI's leader, as well as other members of the United Iraqi Alliance if Jaafari was not chosen as Prime Minister. It appears there is a real break between SCIRI's political wing and Iran (which is why Iran is throwing its weight behind Sadr.) SCIRI's Badr Brigades are said to be Iranian controlled, and may very well be, but the political party itself is not. They support Sistani, who leads the leads the Najaf school of Shia Islam, and opposes the Qom school which is based out of Iran. This is a major schism in Shiite Islam. Sistani opposes the Khoemeist brand of governance. SCIRI does not back Sadr, and will be the kingmaker here. SCIRI can cross the lines (and Fadihla will likely follow) and create the unity government. My opinion is the Army will back the unity government. The Iraqi Army has acted as an apolitical organization to date, and there is no indication this will change.
[..]
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 02:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [28 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Great insight into the political mess. Anyone for mashed taters?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 10:08 Comments || Top||

#2  No thank you. Got any fried 'taters?
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 15:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Sistani didn't want tater out of the pic, so now he's paying for it.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/30/2006 22:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Correction - Iraq is paying for it.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 03/30/2006 22:10 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Take 2 on the Hummer!
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 02:31 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well...if she insists...
Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/30/2006 21:51 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Saddam crazy old man interview was a hoax
http://memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=1088
Al-Fayhaa TV Hoax: A Telephone Interview from Jail with Saddam Hussein

Following are excerpts from an Al-Fayhaa TV hoax. The station faked an interview with former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The interview was aired on Al-Fayhaa TV on March 28, 2006.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 03/30/2006 02:24 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Has Scrappleface opened a Baghdad office?
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 8:35 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
SciAm: Sex workers organized as a collective to fight Aids with Gate's money.
The Prostitutes' Union
Among the poor and most vulnerable, Smarajit Jana has found a way to slash the incidence of HIV--by organizing sex workers as any other labor collective...
[..]
"I strongly believe that for a program to succeed, the subjects have to adopt its goals as their own," he explains. They have: the sex workers run the HIV program themselves. Jana persuaded them to form a growing collective that now includes 60,000 members pledged to condom use. It offers bank loans, schooling for children, literacy training for adults, reproductive health care and cheap condoms--and has virtually eliminated trafficking of women in the locale. Best of all, the project has kept the HIV prevalence rate among prostitutes in Sonagachi down to 5 percent, whereas in the brothels of Mumbai (Bombay) it is around 60. Other sexually transmitted diseases are down to 1 percent. Jana now works with CARE in Delhi, assisting other social workers in similarly transferring their HIV prevention programs to the people they serve. Such community-led interventions have become integral to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in its five-year, $200-million effort to combat AIDS in India.
[..]
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 02:08 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hats off to the Gates. I'm sure there's a million nay-sayers out there, but the Gates' are out there doing something for no other reason than they believe it's the right thing and because they can. Keep it up!!
Posted by: 49 Pan || 03/30/2006 14:32 Comments || Top||


Home Front Economy
Does the money immigrants send home do any good?
Scientific American article:

The Check Is in the Mail
Does the money immigrants send home do any good?

[..]

Even though the average migrant sends back just a couple of hundred dollars a month, it adds up to serious money. The World Bank estimates that developing countries received $167 billion last year--twice as much as they got in foreign aid. Mexico's intake has quintupled in a decade, to $18 billion; labor is now the country's biggest export after oil. And that is just the amount flowing through official channels.

To be showered with money seems like a happy arrangement for the receiving country. Yet in the 1980s remittances acquired a reputation among social scientists as "easy money" that, like an oil windfall, can rot out an economy. Case studies have found that recipients invest little of the money in farm equipment or business start-ups, preferring instead to go on shopping sprees. People grow dependent on the MoneyGram in the mail, and all that cash sloshing around pushes up inflation. Those not so lucky to have relatives abroad fall behind, worsening social inequality, and exporters' costs rise, making it harder for them to compete in global markets.

In the 1990s, though, Durand and others argued that case studies do not track the full effect of remittances as they ripple through an economy. Even if families do not invest the money, the businesses they buy from do, so remittances can jump-start growth. In one widely cited model, $1 of remittances boosts GDP by $3. The infusion of money makes a real difference in places where entrepreneurs have no other access to capital. Compared with alternatives to catalyze economic development, such as government programs or foreign aid and investment, remittances are more accurately targeted to families' needs and more likely to reach the poor.

Today the debate has settled into a "both sides are right" mode. Some towns achieve prosperity aided by remittances; others get trapped in a cycle of dependency. A number of cross-country analyses, such as one last year by economist Nikola Spatafora of the International Monetary Fund and his colleagues, have concluded that nations that rake in more remittances have a lower poverty rate--but only barely. A larger effect is to smooth out the business cycle, because migrants increase their giving during economic downturns in their homelands and scale it back during upswings. Averting the disruptive extremes of boom and bust can help bring about long-term growth.

One burning question is whether immigrants who sink roots into their adopted countries send less money. "Some people are actually saying that in Mexico remittances might stop in 10 years' time," says World Bank economist Dilip Ratha. Meanwhile his institution and others are working to procure good data. "When these flows are as large as they are and as important as they are," Ratha says, "it would be worth investing in a better database."
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 01:53 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [23 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, Fox thinks it does good. It is the only thing holding up his corrupt government.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/30/2006 8:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Mexico City 2013?
[video]
Preview
Someone know something we don't?
Posted by: Glailing Clomble9233 || 03/30/2006 8:59 Comments || Top||

#3  The money sent back home also doesn't go into the local consumer-based economy in the local communities. Small local businesses in agricultural areas do not benefit, as they establish their own groceries imported from home and don't spend it here. The immigrants rent, not paying property taxes to support the local public schools. They also use the emergency room for primary medical care, at taxpayers expense. It has the opposite effect of the economic boost that tax breaks give by putting money into circulation. Sending money home encourages the illegals even more. Immigrants that come here should want to become Americans,learn English and good citizenship, like paying taxes, and not for the free ride at taxpayers expense it has become. I don't want my children to be Islamomexican.
Posted by: Danielle || 03/30/2006 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  You've got to wonder what it says about a nation, like Mexico or the Philippines, when self-exiled individuals who remit earnings to support their stranded families are the country's largest economic sector. In other words, aren't these shells merely a house of cards with some major parasites hooked in at the top? The flipside of the coin is just how much more successful would the host countries be without all of that cash flight?
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 13:13 Comments || Top||

#5  And after having rreceived all this free money for years from America (and other western countries), they fund their own illegal arrival on the shores - entititled to their entitlements. Heck, they are already citizens in their own minds.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 19:39 Comments || Top||

#6  IMHO, the host countries won't be any better until their way of doing things are cleaned up. That is business, government, law enforcement, etc. The home countries are not evolving and developing positively when they depend up a huge labor force working somewhere else and sending back money. Take a look at Mexico. Great oil potential, manufacturing, tourism. But it is a mess. The oligarcy likes the status quo, so nothing happens and in the case of Mexico, the US is the safety valve.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 20:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Zenster--Shells merely a house of cards? A house of cards with parasites hooked in at the top? Block that metaphor!

Danielle, renters DO pay property tax. Surely you don't think the landlord pays it cheerfully, without passing on the costs to the tenants?
Posted by: mom || 03/30/2006 21:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Russian argument to India against the Nuke Deal with the US
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 01:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You got Iran to deal with, Russia, and the US will go with India. Better get the red-line drawings turned into as-builts for Bushehr before it is returned to the earth from which it came.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 2:40 Comments || Top||

#2  This is the fear of GE and Westinghouse.
India is not likely to buy Russian VVER units when GE offers its LWRs.

Cirus was excluded from the list of 14 local sites India vowed to open for the International Atomic Energy AuthorityM

Wrong. India will shut down the CIRRUS reactor.

CIRRUS was a sore point with Canada and India wants to buy Canadian Uranium. India therefore had to placate Canada, NOT the US.

Problem was that CIRRUS is located inside the BARC weapon complex and no IAEA inspector will be alowed inside BARC.

Solution - Indians will just shut down CIRRUS, and Canadians will ask no questions about the Plutonium derived from CIRRUS over the last few decades.

the Indians might face big problems in terms of the secrecy of their military effort and the availability of dual-use technologies for peaceful purposes.

Indians will not allow IAEA inside any of their military nuclear complexes.
IAEA will inspect the civilian plants only.

India has had decades of experience working with the IAEA. Four of India's reactors are under safeguards, two more under construction will also be under safeguards.
One of India's Plutonium reprocessing plants is placed under safeguards whenever spent fuel from a safeguarded reactor is being processed. Its nuclear fuel complex is likewise put under safeguards whenever fuel rods are being fabricated for a safeguarded plant.

Albright from ISIS has already named Indian Rare Earth Ltd. of Bombay as the first potential victim of U.S. proliferation action

Albright alleges that Indian government tenders for equipment (to local Indian manufacturers) published in Indian newspapers amount to proliferation.
No wonder he could find no WMD in Iraq.

RMP at Ratahili will never be opened to IAEA. It will receive no foreign fuel or equipment.

It is where Indian centrifuge cascades are located. Uranium is being enriched there for use in naval reactors (for a nuclear submarine being built at Vizag naval base).

It may also be where U233 is separated.
India apparently tested a weapon using a U233 pit and its Thorium reserves can be used to breed U233 for weapons.

The comparison with Iraq is absurd.
When a country has a population one sixth that of the entire planet, a large professional volunteer military that can actually fight and win wars and a huge internal economy, it gets to do things denied to rogue arab regimes.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 8:37 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Spacewar.com: Outside View Japans Quiet Nuclear Debate
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 01:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I should have posted this short clip with the article:

Koizumi's Foreign Minister Taro Aso declared to his host Dick Cheney, no less, "Japan must also be nuclear armed." He could not have made the remark, let alone leak it to the media, idly.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 12:48 Comments || Top||

#2  China's anti-Japan campaign on "history consciousness," as they call it, is not about indulging an old grudge. A communist dictatorship is a lot smarter than that.

Oh?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 13:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Couple years ago Japan announced it was missing about 300lbs of Plutonium. Just assumed this was their way of letting people know they'd already gone nuclear.
Posted by: Iblis || 03/30/2006 18:07 Comments || Top||

#4  The Japanese are not stupid - and there's not one Japanese politician on the planet who would make the comment to the Predident of the United States "Look, the sun is rising." without having a clear intent that that comment had powerful and monumental connotations.

Of the entire article that's the single biggest statement that struck me.

It's tantamount to a Japanese declaration that the Empire was back IMO.
Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/30/2006 22:06 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Senator Levin talks of Bush Impeachment Hearings - Video at link
FoxNews Video at link

“I don’t think this document says we favor the immediate censure of the President. That is something that would be decided upon AFTER hearings and not before hearings; I doubt that this document supports the censure AT THIS TIME.”
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 01:21 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The idiots still don't get it. Yeah, yeah, his poll numbers are down, but compared to what? That's the problem. As soon as you make it choice between GWB and anything the Dems have to offer, the majority suddenly hold their nose and choose GWB.
Posted by: Elmeter Slans6241 || 03/30/2006 7:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Yep.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/30/2006 8:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Democrats have been thinking impeachment since... the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Didn't matter who. Didn't matter for what reason. They were going to get back at the GOP no matter what.
Posted by: eLarson || 03/30/2006 10:04 Comments || Top||

#4  And, that's the big problem, eL. It's all about the power for them, not what is actually going to be best for the country. And part of that power, is the votes...thus the caving to the illegal immigrants crowd.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Senator Combover hasn't been interested in doing anything for National Security, and "Little Debbie" Stabenow adds nothing as well. Neck and neck with my Sens Feinstein and Dumb as a Box of Rocks for worst pair
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 11:50 Comments || Top||

#6  Frank G: your Sens get honorable mention, but mine are in a league of their own: I'm from Mass.
Posted by: Xbalanke || 03/30/2006 12:26 Comments || Top||

#7  This Link: On the Return of History, pointed out by another Rantburger, makes the excelent argument that the Democrats are stuck on the "ME" issue.

You know the 5 year old temper tantrum based on the World Revolves Around ME argument.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 12:26 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
San Francisco Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval renews demand to abolish military on Fox News
Video at link.

“I don’t want to just ‘get rid’ of the military, I want to cut the numbers in it so drastically that even those in high ranking positions will say we don’t have a military.”

“Ohhhh the military is too expensive fiscally each year.”

“Constitution will fight for our rights, not the military.”

Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 01:16 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Could it be because the military takes an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and is therefore an impediment to your establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat?
Posted by: Elmeter Slans6241 || 03/30/2006 7:21 Comments || Top||

#2  That, plus it's an impediment to the reconquista. (Or would be, if any of our politicians had the balls to use it.)
Posted by: Dave D. || 03/30/2006 7:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Man, I can't wait for that big earthquake they're always talking about to hit...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 8:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Man, how did we get so lucky to have such stupid opponents?
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/30/2006 10:07 Comments || Top||

#5  lol, Dread...that about sums it up. And, I'd like to see the "Constitution fight for us" instead of the military. Heck, we can't even get homegrown LLLs to follow the Constitution, much less binny and crew.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:30 Comments || Top||

#6 
Everytime a Demm speaks Rep. gain anutha seat.
Posted by: macofromoc || 03/30/2006 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Just five more f&@ing months and I move to Nevada. Forever.
Posted by: Secret Master || 03/30/2006 18:05 Comments || Top||


Time Magazine Smears Afghan Christian Convert
From Jihadwatch:

In "Abdul Rahman's Family Values," Time Magazine (thanks to all who sent this in) reveals "an official police report on the Christian convert in Afghanistan" which "alleges a tawdry domestic life."

It never seems to occur to Time that anyone in Afghanistan might have any interest in blackening Abdul Rahman's name, and they retail these stories from supposedly disinterested officials and family members (that's right, the family that turned him in for apostasy) without critical comment.

Most importantly, these stories are a gigantic red herring, of interest only to the most befogged dhimmis. It doesn't matter if Abdul Rahman is a deadbeat dad, a father stabber, a mother raper, or the second coming of Adolf Hitler. If he is any of those things, of course he should be prosecuted in a sane society by a sane court system. But ultimately whether he is or is not those things is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he is free, or should be free, to leave the Islamic religion in Afghanistan.

He said he was a Christian, you see, so Time Magazine has to portray him in a negative light. Time's enemy, after all, is Christianity, not the global Islamic jihad.

By attempting to divert attention away from that central question, Time Magazine deserves the opprobrium of all free people everywhere.

....
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 00:46 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Christian bad, Jew bad, Muslim good."
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I do find it a bit alarming, this suddenly more outward embrace by the left of Islam.

Waldenbooks and Borders and just about every other free speech outlet folding on the cartoons. The defence and embrace by the left of enrolling a Taliban murderer by Yale. I could go on and on. They are dropping even the pretense of ,that they once claimed to represent, and willingly and openly joining their side.

This willingness, of those who claim to be "progressives", to embrace Islamists who stand for the antithesis of everything they have ever claimed to stand for is indeed shocking and very, very, troubling.

Time's smear of Rahman is less about their hatred of Christianity than it is their alignment with Islam in their fight against America.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 12:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes indeed, 2b -- the left is now the right, and the right the left. If you care about -- at the global scale -- such issues as religious freedom, women's rights, human dignity, and even the rights of homosexuals, then the left has no place for you.

This is all so weird that I sometimes think that I'm going crazy -- or that the whole world is. But I can thank Rantburg for helping me maintain some sense of reality. (Confession: I was, until recently, a liberal democrat -- and all of my friends and family members still are. They, unfortunately, can't even begin to understand how they are betraying their own ideals!)
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 13:02 Comments || Top||

#4  PI - I share your feelings of shock and dismay about how "liberals" and "progressives" have dealt with the war on Islamic fascism. As a gay guy who has felt perfectly comfortable in an Amsterdam "coffee house", some find it counter-intuitive for me to support Bush. But I agree with Mark Steyn when he says that the WOT should be the left's issue. Who has done more to give hope to the highly oppressed women and gays of the Middle East - Bush or Clinton (or any other Democrat for that matter)? One would think that toppling the Taliban (and Saddam) would be considered a significant accomplishment for the rights of minorities. And one would also think that, even for far lefties, the issue of court-mandated gay marriage would seem trivial in comparison (to put it mildly). But to some (not all, fortunately) of my friends, the reflexive antipathy for Bush makes this point difficult to grasp. When I watched the Twin Towers go down, the scales on my eyes came crashing down with them. I decided to educate myself about Islam (reading Lewis, Spencer, Pipes) and military strategy (Keegan and Hanson). But if I had had to rely soly on the MSM for my information, I still might have seen Bush as a bumbling failure. Thank God for the blogosphere, especially Instapundit, LGF, MEMRI, Starship Clueless (I still miss this one trememdously), and Rantburg! Without the internet, one sees only a funhouse-mirror distortion of what is really happening, with glimpses of the truth few, far-between, and uncoordinated.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 14:24 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
2 busted in Kenyan bomb plot
Kenyan police were on red alert Tuesday after two people were arrested in the capital with 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of ammonium nitrate and a variety of bomb detonators and fuses, a top police official said.

The two Kenyans were arrested in the eastern part of Nairobi with the ammonium nitrate, which can be used to make bombs, and 500 long-range bomb detonators, 150 detonation short-range detonators, 45 pieces of connectors and 52 rolls of detonating material for both and long- and short-range bomb detonators, Criminal Investigations Department Director Joseph Kamau told the privately owned Capital FM radio station.

Kamau said that investigators suspect sabotage and conspiracy with suspects from other countries that he did not identify, the station reported.

Kenya's entire security system is on red alert, Kamau told the station.

Kamau did not give any other details.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:45 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Abu Sayyaf claims responsibility for bombing, warns of more attacks
A man claiming to be a spokesman of the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group warned Wednesday of impending terror attacks in Zamboanga City and Basilan islands in the southern Philippines, a local radio network reported.

"The next bombings will be in Zamboanga City and Basilan," said Abu Sayyaf self-proclaimed spokesman Abu Omar in a text message to a radio station.

The warning came two days after a powerful Abu Sayyaf bomb ripped through a two-storey convenience store in Jolo island, killing nine people and wounding two dozen others.

Security officials appealed to the public to stay calm and be vigilant, saying authorities were hunting down members of the Abu Sayyaf group, blamed for the series of terrorism and kidnappings for ransom in the southern region.

"We urge the public to cooperate with authorities and report to us any suspicious persons or abandoned package. Do not listen to rumors, but stay vigilant," said Air Force Major Gamal Hayudini, spokesman for the military's Southern Command.

He said Omar had been sending threat letters in the past to different radio and television stations in Zamboanga City, but his real identity remains unknown. Omar also previously threatened to kidnap and kill local journalists who criticized the Abu Sayyaf.

It was not immediately known if Omar also claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Southern Command tagged Abu Sayyaf militant Ismin Sahiron as behind the bombing in Jolo.

Sahiron is the son of Radulan Sahiron, a senior Abu Sayyaf leader in Jolo who is wanted by the United States for terrorism, said Hayudini.

The US Department of Treasury has recently included the elder Sahiron and Abu Sayyaf leaders Jainal Antel Sali Jr. and Isnilon Totoni Hapilon in its list of terrorists.

"The Abu Sayyaf Group instills terror throughout Southeast Asia through kidnappings, bombings, and brutal killings. This action financially isolates senior members of the Abu Sayyaf, who have planned and carried out vicious attacks on Americans, Filipinos and innocent citizens from around the world," said Patrick O'Brien, the Treasury's assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crime.

The US government, through the Department of State's Rewards for Justice Campaign, has offered to pay up to P5 million for the capture of individuals belonging to the Abu Sayyaf. In addition, the Department of Defense's US Pacific Command (Uspacom) has added the three terrorists to its Rewards Program offering up to $200,000 for information leading to their capture.

Southern Command chief Major General Gabriel Habacon has ordered a tightened security in the region following the bombing in Jolo. "We are pursuing the terrorists and have tightened security in key areas in Mindanao," Habacon said.

The US had deplored the bombing in Jolo and said it will continue to work closely with the Philippines to fight the threats of terrorism.

Jolo military chief Brigadier General Alexander Aleo said the bomb used in the attack was made from ammonium nitrate and was so powerful that it destroyed the facade of the building.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Mindanao Senator Aquilino Pimentel condemned the latest attack.

"I condemn in the strongest terms this most recent attack in Sulu. The Armed Forces and police shall leave no stone unturned in the hunt for the perpetrators and I ask our people to remain calm and vigilant," Arroyo said, as she urged the immediate passage of the proposed anti-terrorism law.

The senator feared the bombing was aimed at sabotaging the peace process in Mindanao. "Saboteurs of peace in Sulu are killing innocent people to promote their own ends. It's very unusual incidence that it's budget time and the desire for more appropriations money could be a motive," he said.

Pimentel said the timing of the bombing was "very unusual" as it happened while the Senate is set to take up the budget of the Department of National Defense and Armed Forces of the Philippines. He did not elaborate.

Brigadier General Francisco Callelero, an army spokesman, said the Southern Command was investigating reports the attack was connected to a failed extortion by the Abu Sayyaf group.

"Our investigators found a letter demanding money from the managers of the Sulu Cooperative Store days before the attack," he told reporters in Zamboanga City.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:43 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
The new Hamas government and its political platform
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:42 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [8 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Islam in Southeast Asia
Amid the heated debate about Islam and the global war on terrorism, Indonesia has emerged as a voice of reason and moderation, one that can bridge the gap between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds.

For too long, Muslims in the Middle East, both the Arabs and the Persians, have dominated the international scene in defining what Islam is and what Islam should be.

As the world's largest Muslim country and a key member in Asean, Indonesia needs to reconsider its place in the international arena and strive to live up to its full potential.

Observers say Indonesia, which embraces a more progressive form of Islam, should play a more active role in Muslim communities in Southeast Asia.

While some see it as a moral obligation that Indonesia has for other fellow Muslims, others think it's only a matter of time and practicality before the world's largest Muslim country takes up the responsibility that comes with its sheer size and status.

Indonesia's input could help mend fences - in Malay-speaking southern Thailand, where 1,200 people have been killed since January 2004, or the southern Philippines, where decades-old separatist violence continues.

In a recent interview with The Nation, a leading Indonesian scholar of Islam, Dr Jamhari (who, like many Indonesians, uses only one name), called for more dialogue among Muslim communities within the region.

As the director of the Centre for the Study of Islam and Society at the State Islamic University in Jakarta, Jamhari praised plans to open a private Indonesian Islamic school in southern Thailand.

He said that active alumni from this institution, Pondok Gontor, which has more than 200 schools across Indonesia, would help pave the way for more educational exchange, understanding and tolerance between communities and states.

Like most institutions in Indonesia, Pondok Gontor teaches a moderate form of Islam and embraces an Islamic jurisprudence that is compatible with both the Malay and Indonesian ways of life, he said.

Jamhari dismissed as a "romantic notion" that somehow Islamic scholarship in the Middle East is superior to what is available in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. He said Islam in Indonesia was very compatible with Islam in southern Thailand, and of course, people in the two regions speak a similar language.

At a seminar at Chulalongkorn University earlier this week, the rector of State Islamic University, Professor Azyumardi Azra, said Thais should be happy when Thai Muslim students choose Indonesia as a place to study, because their experience will expose them to a very progressive and liberal form of Islam. Part of this model includes a particular relationship between religion and the democratic process.

Azyumardi described the presidency of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as a "period of consolidation for Indonesia" in which the state, civil society, non-government organisations and other stakeholders are coming together as "a pillar of democracy".

Besides the push for moderation, Islam in Southeast Asia must also be understood in the context of the ongoing development of person-to-person links among Muslim communities in the region.

Because schools in Malaysia employ the Roman text, more Malaysian Muslim students are turning to traditional pondoks in southern Thailand to maintain their knowledge of yawi, the Malay language written in Arabic text.

And as Thailand begins to teach standard Bahasa Malayu in public schools, teachers from Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia can be recruited to help with instruction.

Indeed, there is no stopping person-to-person contacts, and states must learn to live with this situation - in fact, they should encourage and facilitate these arrangements.

Southeast Asian countries should understand that the political borders of their respective countries were not drawn in stone; these lines on the map are a legacy of the colonial past.

The state should also let go of the age-old fear that stronger Muslim communities in the region would somehow challenge the progress made by nation-states.

Malays in southern Thailand and Moros in the southern Philippines have taken up arms against their respective states, but, with the exception of the underground Jemaah Islamiyah organisation, there is no indication that these two regions are planning to export their fights to neighbouring countries. The fact that violence is confined to political borders suggests that both groups understand that any settlement must be reached within the nation-state.

Therefore, what is needed is freedom of movement, with the understanding that person-to-person contacts will strengthen local Muslim communities and give them a sense of pride and dignity that they enjoyed prior to the arrival of their colonial "masters".

While extra precaution is understandable in these times of trouble, officials must carry out their duties with common sense.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:39 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Between 1965-67, Muslim paramilitary organizations - with secret aid of the government of Indonesia - slaughtered up to 500,000 ethnic Chinese, many of whom were Christian. The dictatorship spoke of alleged Communist subversion, and Muslim clerics responded with extermination fatwas. During the invasion and occupation of East Timor, 300,000 Christians were slaughtered. Christians are subject to persecution 24-7-365.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/151/43.0.html
Posted by: Listen to Dogs || 03/30/2006 2:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Javanese Islam (sometimes called Abanagan) used to be very lax and open-minded, heavily influenced by Buddhism and Hinduism. It is now dying out, having been largely replaced by the orthodox form of the religion (actually, not a religion at all, but a death cult aimed at global domination). It's the same story across much of the Muslim world -- thanks in good part to Saudi money (much of which was originally our money).
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 16:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes good ol' corrupt Indonesia, what a great example.
Posted by: Oztrailan || 03/30/2006 19:26 Comments || Top||


Abu Sayyaf blamed for Jolo bombings
An Islamist terror group linked to al-Qaida has been blamed for the bombing of a cooperative store on the Philippine island of Jolo that killed nine people.

A senior police official in Jolo City said the attack on the store Monday had the hallmarks of Abu Sayyaf, which uses cell phones to trigger improvised explosive devices composed mainly of ammonium nitrate.

The device that exploded at a cooperative store was apparently left in an area for the checked bags of shoppers.

The Manila Times said Wednesday authorities believe the store was targeted because it is operated by an order of Roman Catholic priests who also run the city's cathedral.

In addition to the nine shoppers killed, 24 others were injured.

The Philippine military has stepped up operations to hunt down Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the southern Philippines, where Muslim separatists have been battling the government for years. The government and the main Muslim organization are currently holding negotiations in Malaysia over questions of autonomy and/or independence.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:


Cathedral was the original Abu Sayyaf target
The Abu Sayyaf terrorist group had initially targeted the Jolo Cathedral in its Monday bombing attack that left five people dead and 20 others wounded but was forced to alter its plans, police investigators revealed yesterday.

Owing to strict security measures around the Jolo Cathedral, the bombers diverted their attack to the Sulu multi-purpose cooperative, a store owned and managed by priests and Notre Dame of Jolo college administration, police said.

A police investigator revealed the Abu Sayyaf had targeted the store since "it serves both as a religious and commercial target."

The initial investigation into last Monday’s blast by military investigators also revealed the handiwork of the Abu Sayyaf.

Armed Forces Southern Command spokesman Brig. Gen. Francisco Callelero said the military is now tracking down a certain Abu Abdulgawey who claimed to have led a group of Abu Sayyaf bandits in the bombing attack.

"That was a clear act of terrorism and the Southern Command is pursuing the lead that the Abu Sayyaf demolition team was behind the bombing under Abu Abdulgawey," Callelero said.

A day before, Abdulgawey reportedly called up the management of the Sulu cooperative warning of a bombing attack.

Abdulgawey earlier sent a letter in Tausog dialect demanding money from the cooperative but this was turned down.

"We are informing the management of the coop to negotiate with us through the cell phone numbers that we are providing. If you will not negotiate we will explode the bomb," a part of the supposed extortion letter read.

Southern Command information chief Maj. Gamal Hayudini added the investigators believed that the bomb was already planted inside the store.

"And the suspect in fact called up a day (Sunday) prior to the explosion, but the management turned down any demand," Hayudini said.

The military said the supposed extortion letter made no mention of an amount but left two cellular phone numbers in case the store management decided to "negotiate."

The letter was left with a pharmacy clerk but it did not reach the cooperative management which had earlier closed for a one-hour lunch break. When the store reopened an hour later, the bomb went off.

The blast occurred around 1:15 p.m. at the ground floor of a two-story commercial building along busy Serrantes street in downtown Jolo, the capital of Sulu.

Police said a portion of the building’s facade was blown off due to the impact of the explosion.

The investigation revealed a cell phone was used as a triggering device for a pack of ammonium nitrate. Some traces of the fertilizer have been recovered at the blast site.

Security officials pointed out the method of using a cell phone as a triggering device is a known signature of the Abu Sayyaf.

Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) spokesman Brig. Gen. Jose Angel Honrado said the initial report of military investigators revealed the attack was carried out by the Abu Sayyaf.

Honrado also confirmed five people were killed in the bombing attack with 20 others wounded.

The fatalities were identified as Nasser Hadjinul, Masser Saipuddin, Jesus Cabrera, Marivic Manuel and 18-year-old Mukarsa Abduharim.

The report made by the Disaster Response Operation and Information Center of the Department of Social Welfare and Development also revealed 20 people were wounded in the blast. The youngest of the victims is five-year-old Nurfasa Kasim.

Honrado added the report by military investigators at the site concluded the bomb was planted at the ground floor of the establishment.

Meanwhile, other sources suggested the bombing attack might have been carried out by rival business groups.

Autonomous Region for Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) police director Senior Superintendent Akmad Mamalinta pointed out the cooperative grocery store might have earned the ire of other business establishments since it sells products cheaper than other outfits in Jolo.

The bombing attack prompted Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Arturo Lomibao to place all police forces under heightened alert.

Lomibao directed all the 16 regional police directors nationwide to strengthen security measures of vital installations and other probable terrorist targets.

"Checkpoints in strategic locations should be conducted to negate criminal and terrorist acts," he told his men.

Lomibao ordered Mamalinta to tighten security measures in Jolo following the bombing.

Last Monday’s blast was the second deadly bomb attack to hit the area this year. On Feb. 18, a bomb exploded at a bar outside an Army camp which left one civilian killed and 20 others wounded in that attack which was blamed on the Abu Sayyaf.

The island province of Sulu is a stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, notorious for kidnappings and terror attacks.

It was also the venue of a counterterrorism exercise last month between Philippine and US troops.

Dozens of US soldiers who took part in the exercises on the island quickly responded to the blast, sending ordnance experts and medical personnel to help transport the wounded to the hospital.

President Arroyo strongly condemned the bomb attack and ordered the police and military to hunt down the perpetrators.

"I sympathize with the families of the victims and direct the treatment of the wounded be given priority by our health services," Mrs. Arroyo said.

The President called on the public to remain calm and vigilant and took the opportunity to reiterate her call on Congress to approve the mothballed anti-terrorism bill.

"Indeed, terror never sleeps and we need to consistently carry out our comprehensive action plan to rid our country and the world of this grave threat," she stressed.

"Once more and with a deep sense of urgency, I ask Congress to pass the anti-terrorism law that will enable our nation to constrict, contain and control this threat more effectively," the President said.

Congressmen, for their part, noted last Monday’s bombing attack highlighted the urgency of passing the anti-terrorism bill.

Eastern Samar Rep. Marcelino Libanan said the Jolo bombing provided another compelling reason for the passage of the anti-terror bill.

"We condemn the attack as we work to ensure the passage of the anti-terror bill so perpetrators of attacks like this will be meted with the death penalty," he said.

Deputy Speaker for Mindanao Rep. Gerry Salapuddin (Basilan) said the enactment of the anti-terror bill was "a matter of necessity and a call of the time" in the light of the Jolo bombing attack.

Salapuddin said, however, that the measure must ensure that civil liberties and human rights will be respected in its implementation.

Anak Mindanao Rep. Mujiv Hataman condemned the bombing and claimed that in most cases of violence in his region and other areas, the casualties were innocent civilians.

"Unleashing terror against innocent civilians is deplorable and condemnable to the highest degree. Those behind the Jolo attack are enemies of the state and the people. This is unforgivable in a civilized society like ours," Hataman said.

Hataman urged the authorities to act fast and apprehend those responsible for the bombing.

But he warned the police and the military not to use last Monday’s attack as an excuse to launch indiscriminate crackdown on Muslims.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:35 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...the cooperative grocery store might have earned the ire of other business establishments since it sells products cheaper than other outfits in Jolo."

Now thats a "Price War".
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/30/2006 8:57 Comments || Top||

#2  But he warned the police and the military not to use last Monday’s attack as an excuse to launch indiscriminate crackdown on Muslims.

Okay, just launch "Discriminate" attacks against Muslims.
Get the Muslims responsible, that ststement is an open admission that Muslims did it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 20:52 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
3 injured in Chechnya blasts
A series of explosions in Chechnya have left three people wounded, local law enforcement officials said Tuesday.

The first explosion occurred on a road in the southeast of the troubled North Caucasus region, wounding a military serviceman from a reconnaissance group.

Two other explosions occurred in the Gudermes district, about 20 miles east of the regional capital, Grozny. The first blast, at a railway bridge, wounded a policeman, while the second injured a local female resident.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:32 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Democrats offer national security strategy
Democrats on Wednesday proposed a wide-ranging strategy for protecting Americans at home and abroad, an election-year effort aimed at changing public perception that Republicans are stronger on national security. Republicans, for their part, criticized the national security policy statement as a stunt.

"We are uniting behind a national security agenda that is tough and smart, an agenda that will provide the real security President Bush has promised, but failed to deliver," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.

His counterpart in the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Democrats were providing a fresh strategy - "one that is strong and smart, which understands the challenges America faces in a post 9/11 world, and one that demonstrates that Democrats are the party of real national security."

They spoke at a news conference at Union Station, near the Capitol, in front of banners reading "Real Security." They were flanked by some of the Democratic Party's top authorities on national security, including retired Gen. Wesley Clark and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

In the strategy, Democrats vowed to provide U.S. agents with the resources to "eliminate" Osama bin Laden and ensure a "responsible redeployment of U.S. forces" from Iraq in 2006. They promised to rebuild the military, eliminate the United States' dependence on foreign oil by 2020 and implement the recommendations of the Sept. 11 commission. Those are many of the same proposals Democrats have offered before.

Republicans refused to let Democrats portray themselves as stronger than them on the GOP's signature issue.

"Their behavior has been totally inconsistent with what they're now promising to do," said Vice President Dick Cheney. Interviewed on Fox News' "Tony Snow Show," Cheney said he did not believe Democrats had a credible plan for tracking down bin Laden and that their plan to move U.S. forces out of Iraq this year "would be a strategic retreat."

"It makes no sense at all to turn Iraq over to the terrorists," Cheney said. "We can succeed in Iraq, we can complete the mission."

Indeed, the Democratic statement lacks specific details of a plan to capture bin Laden, the al-Qaida chief who has evaded U.S. forces in the more than four years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But Democrats suggest they will double the number of special forces and add more spies to increase the chances of finding al-Qaida's elusive leader.

Democrats also do not set a deadline for when all of the 132,000 American troops now in Iraq should be withdrawn.

They say: "We will ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for security and governing their country and with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces."

The latest in a series of party policy statements for 2006, the Democrats' national security platform comes seven months before voters decide who will control the House and Senate.

Bush's job approval ratings are in the mid- to high-30s, and Democrats consistently have about a 10 percentage point lead over Republicans when people are asked who they want to see in control of Congress.

With the public skeptical of the Iraq war and Republicans and Democrats alike questioning Bush's war policies, Democrats aim to force Republicans to distance themselves from the president on Iraq and national security or rubber-stamp what Democrats contend is a failed policy.

Democratic strategists say their polling shows Democrats leading in all other areas - such as the economy, health care, education and retirement security - and having closed a gap in polls with Republicans on national security.

For months, House and Senate Democrats have tried to craft a comprehensive position on national security, but they have splintered, primarily over Iraq.

Republicans have sought to use that division to their own political advantage, claiming that Democrats simply attack the president and his fellow Republicans without presenting proposals of their own.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:30 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reid: Reminds me of a toothless barking bloodhound.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Was looking for a Scrappleface disclaimer. ..
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 0:38 Comments || Top||

#3  DNC Stratagy in a single word: DHIMMITUDE
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/30/2006 0:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Democrats offer national security strategy

House Democrats said "we will provided a fresh national security strategy - one that will make use of strong Steely Dans and will communicate with smart Vagina Monologues".
Posted by: Katrina vanden Heuvel || 03/30/2006 1:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Saw title and now I can't stop grinning in amusement. you can tell elections are coming up when Democrats start talking about National Security.
Posted by: Charles || 03/30/2006 5:00 Comments || Top||

#6  The Democratic plan. Or "How to loose a war in 30 days"

And how the hell are they gonna reduce our dependance on oil when they are the ones blocking new drilling in the US?
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/30/2006 8:10 Comments || Top||

#7  Simple. They will ban your use of a private vehicle. There will be exemptions for special needs, such as Babs' private jet, etc.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/30/2006 8:22 Comments || Top||

#8  Same as republican plan, but all credit goes to deminocrats and all criticism to republicans. Plan name will change to "Security for All Americans, not Just the Wealthy".
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 9:18 Comments || Top||

#9  Pander here, pander there, pander everywhere. These stratergeries sound very pie-in-the-sky if you ask me. Do they want to claim that Bush wouldn’t capture Bin Laden if he could? And other than putting more boots on the ground, what’s their plan? FYI the number of people on the ground is in direct proportion to the casualties (injured/dead). Also I don’t think (correct me if I misspeak) that you can simply double the number of special forces (Delta, Seals, etc). They are a select group among select people. Further, I don’t remember any Democrat ever saying we need more spies. Sound to me that their plan is simply to throw more $$$$$ at a problem and hope it will work out. Reid/Pelosi/Kerry: “Axis of stupidity.”
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 03/30/2006 10:39 Comments || Top||

#10  A plan that's "tough and smart" (Reid) and "strong and smart" (Pelosi). Almost sounds as if they're campaigning for Repubs doesn't it? Too bad they'll lose again, in my estimation.

*snicker*

Of course, maybe they could insert Pelosi, with her whip, into Waziristan and capture binny and crew. Or, insert the dimlight from Searchlight (Reid) there with her to help capture binny. CS nails it...it's their same song and dance, as always...just throw $$$ at it and that'll "fix" the problems. No details, just more money, folks. And, the whole Spec Ops thing is probably lunacy. It takes a lot of time, money and investment to get those guys where they are...not exactly something that'll happen overnight, even with unlimited $ thrown at it. Paint me skeptical on what they'd really do once in office too (to the military).
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:56 Comments || Top||

#11  The Democrats are behind a strong and smart plan for national security. Maybe. And maybe I'm a Chinese jet pilot.
Posted by: DMFD || 03/30/2006 23:41 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
Chertoff sez Japan is a target for al-Qaeda
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told a news conference in Tokyo that the al-Qaida terrorist network eyes Japan as a possible target.

"We know that bin Laden has talked about Japan as an enemy, a country that he wants to punish. We could never assume that something won't happen," he said, Kyodo News reported Wednesday.

Speaking to the press at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo Tuesday, Chertoff, who oversees the anti-terrorism measures of the U.S. government, emphasized the importance of strengthening bilateral relations between Japan and the United States to fight terrorism by enhancing such means as nuclear radiation detection at ports for cargo as well as immigration controls.

His visit to Japan is part of an Asian tour that includes China and Singapore and is meant to win support for new anti-terrorism efforts.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:27 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mr. Killjoy strikes again. Watch that sushi.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:34 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Hassan Hattab calls on GSPC to accept amnesty
One of Algeria’s most prominent militant has criticised an Al Qaeda-linked guerrilla group for continuing its fight for an Islamic state, according to a statement faxed to journalists yesterday.

Hassan Hattab, a founder of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), called on its members to accept a government amnesty under which they can lay down their guns in return for immunity from prosecution.

Hattab, also known as Abu Hamza, said in the statement that he no longer regarded those guerrillas still fighting to be members of the organisation he founded, because their actions would harm Muslims.

“The GSPC dissociates itself from this small group ... a group that still refuses to lay down arms ... Any statement that is not signed by Hassan Hattab should not be taken into consideration,” the statement said. There was no way of confirming the authenticity of the statement. But the wording and method of distribution was similar to Hattab’s previous messages.

Algeria plunged into conflict when militants unleashed a holy war or jihad after the army cancelled elections in 1992, which the radical Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was set to win. Authorities then feared an Iranian style revolution and an estimated 200,000 people were killed during the Islamic uprising.

It is not known whether Hattab himself has accepted amnesty. But speculation he had reached some sort of accommodation with the government arose last year when he gave an interview in Algeria to the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper supporting the amnesty.

The GSPC was formed in 1998 when Hattab broke away from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) in protest at its many massacres of civilians. He said the GSPC would focus its attacks on police and soldiers. Algeria has already freed hundreds of jailed Islamist fighters including a founder of the GIA, Abdelhak Layada.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:25 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
IMU leader met with MMA cabinet officials
The violence anticipated in the Khyber Agency for the last year and a half has broken out into a war. Two armies have clashed and left behind 24 dead in Bara, while the federal government, which looks after the area, has practically looked on to see which brand of Islam wins in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Supporters of one faction have been attacking the supporters of their rival, putting everything to sack and killing anyone who resists. Both the armies are led by “outsiders”, one from Afghanistan and the other from sectarian Hangu in the NWFP. Several Afghans too have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting. There has also been Taliban-fashion hostage taking.

The NWFP governor, Khalil ur Rehman, who is in charge of the area on behalf of the federal government, has finally sent in security forces numbering 8,000 to restore order. Was the government waiting for the two warring factions to kill each other before it would act to mop up the debris? If that was the strategy it has been at the cost of the average citizen. Like anywhere else in Pakistan’s “buffer areas”, the population of Bara has been fleeing in the face of escalating violence in the last five months. During this “waiting” period the factions have built their militias and armed and entrenched themselves in castle-like strongholds. There is even an FM radio rousing the population to sectarian passions.

Everybody knew what was happening. As one tribesman put it: “The government did not take the rivalry between the two groups seriously. The leaders of both groups held big public meetings to rally support.” The two men at the heart of the problem are Pir Saif ur Rehman”who arrived in the area some time ago to set up his “mystical” order among the predominantly Deobandi local population”and Mufti Munir Shakir, a tough Deobandi who hates the Shias and raised hell in Hangu before he was made to flee from there. Some people say the war in Bara is a Deobandi-Barelvi war. Even if the two orders are not directly involved, it is clearly a conflict between two approaches to Islam. That Peshawar and Islamabad took so long to grasp this fact is quite shocking.

What did the government do when Mufti Shakir set up his FM radio and organised his Lashkar-e-Islami? Nothing. What did it do when “foreigner” Pir Saif ur Rehman began converting the local population and becoming rich with the gold ornaments that the believing women of Bara gave him in return for his “miracles”? Nothing. Now Bara is divided between the two warring men of God. They have set up their opposed jurisdictions in the area. Mufti Shakir is pursuing a system of punishments on the order of the Taliban under the doctrine of amr and nahi and enjoys the support of the majority. If the government takes “needful” action now, it is going to come up against the obstacles created by its negligence over the past months.

The “Taliban” have already set up government in some areas of Waziristan and are handing out arbitrary “Islamic” punishments because the government has been absent from FATA (along the 2,400 kilometre Afghan border) under the fig leaf of the special Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). Pakistan inherited the “badlands” from the British Raj, called the “buffer” region against invasion from the west. Today there is disorder in the seven “agencies” (Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan). And it is catching on in other parts of Pakistan too. Shockingly, only 30 percent of Pakistan appears to be under normal law and order, if you add Balochistan, where only five percent of the province is policed, and the “katcha” of Sindh, stretching for 850 kilometres from Kashmore to the sea, where dacoits rule.

The “outsiders” problem is related directly to the question of jurisdiction of state. For far too long the state has allowed a vast territory to remain in a kind of administrative limbo. There is a whole series of negative fallouts from this “extraterritoriality”. Pakistan’s industry cannot survive because of smuggling in these areas: the custom duty alone thus lost comes to $5 billion annually, almost equal to Pakistan’s trade gap in recent years.

The people in these areas have become dependent on sources of income outside Pakistan that the state law doesn’t recognise. Unsatisfied by the FCR administered on the basis of jirgas of dubious reputation, the people have looked to the Taliban-like Muslim puritans to give them reprieve from crime through a savage system of reprisals. The government says it wants to re-establish the state’s jurisdiction in these areas. But the bitter truth is that the lawlessness of Pakistan’s “badlands” has spread to the settled areas and people in urban Pakistan are increasingly resorting to violence while the police and the lower courts, allowed to deteriorate in performance, simply stand aside and watch.

The bomb explosion in Khyber Bazaar, Peshawar, on Tuesday killed one person and injured 16. The bomb, fixed to a motorbike, was big enough to indicate that its source was no amateur bomb-maker. It has actually been identified as being of the same make as those found in North Waziristan after the “foreigners” fled from there. Awami National Party (ANP) leader Lateef Afridi, who narrowly escaped death, has registered an FIR against two of his known enemies.

Mr Afridi should consider another angle. He is the only leader in his party who has been outspoken about the presence of “foreign” terrorists in the tribal areas. In some of his statements he has been more revealing than might be considered “healthy” by anyone living in the NWFP. (Consider this: Uzbek Al Qaeda leader Tahir Yuldashev held a meeting in a forest in North Waziristan which was attended by some cabinet members of the MMA government from Peshawar.) The bomb incident should be looked at from all possible angles because it could be the beginning of another desperate period of “assertion” from elements that have made Pakistan their home.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:22 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is it really true that only 30% of the country is under 'normal law and order?" We all know about Waziristan, the NWF Province, Azad Kashmir, and Baluchistan -- but even much of Sind? Pakistan sounds like a failing state -- Congo on the Indus -- but with nukes. And its another one of our supposed alllies -- even though the vast majority of its people want to kill us. What options do we have here? I would love to hear the considered opinions of the Rantburg community.
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 10:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Pakistan sounds like a failing state

When was it ever passing?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 10:13 Comments || Top||

#3  "Was the government waiting for the two warring factions to kill each other before it would act to mop up the debris?"

sounds like a plan, to me.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/30/2006 13:07 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi commander backs US on details of raid
The Iraqi commander during a controversial raid by American and Iraq forces is backing the U.S. version of a battle that left 16 Iraqis dead, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports.

In an exclusive interview with CBS News, the Iraqi commander says accusations that U.S. forces killed innocent civilians in Sunday's raid on a mosque in Baghdad were "not true."

Accounts of the Baghdad raid varied. Aides to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said 18 men were killed in the joint U.S.-Iraqi raid on a mosque. Police said 22 people were killed in the incident at the al-Mustafa mosque. The Americans said Iraqi special forces backed by U.S. troops killed 16 "insurgents" in a raid on a community meeting hall after gunmen opened fire on approaching troops.

The commander insisted his Iraqi Special Operations troops had to fight their way into the target building where they killed gunmen guarding a hostage and found various weapons including rocket launchers and heavy machine guns.

"We know this, the building, is used for to capture the civilians, the civilian people, by bad guys and they need money," the commander tells Logan.

A man who claims he was held hostage in the mosque, says of his captors, "They beat me, they kicked me and they used an electric drill on me. I thought I was going to die."

At one point during the emotional interview, he broke down and had to be comforted, Logan notes. When asked about the militia men who were holding him, he said he was too terrified to say anything about them.

"If you go to the streets and see all the people who have left their houses and if you go to the morgue and see all the bodies then you will understand," he says.

For security reasons, neither the Iraqi commander or alleged hostage would reveal their names or if they were Sunni or Shiite.

• President George W. Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government. In his third speech this month to bolster public support for the war, Mr. Bush worked to counter critics who say the U.S. presence in the war-torn nation is fueling the insurgency.

• Another mass abduction took place Tuesday, when masked gunmen, many in military uniform, stormed into a currency exchange and two electronic stores in broad daylight, seized 24 Iraqis and took tens of thousands of dollars. The kidnappings occurred within a half-hour, and police were investigating whether they were linked.

• Elsewhere, gunmen killed three staffers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad, Abdul-Razzaq said. A mortar round struck just outside al-Sadr's home in the holy city of Najaf earlier in the week. The firebrand anti-American leader, who holds great sway among poor Shiites in Baghdad, was at home but not hurt in the Sunday attack, according to an aide.

• Nearly 20 others, including a 6-year-old girl, were wounded in the capital in roadside bombings, mortar attacks, gunfire and an explosion on a minibus, police said. Gunmen also wounded an official from the Iraqi Central Bank, then later chased a car carrying five of the official's guards and wounded them as well, police said.

• There were several attacks Wednesday in Diyala province north of Baghdad. Gunmen killed two civilians and wounded another in a drive-by shooting in the town of Khalis, 50 miles north of the capital, police said. A roadside bomb in front of an Iraqi soldier's home outside the provincial capital of Baqouba wounded the soldier's 7-year-old son, and another bomb targeted the house of a tribal sheik in Baqouba but caused no casualties, police said.

Also Wednesday, gunmen lined up 14 employees of an electronics trading company in Baghdad on Wednesday and shot them all, killing eight and wounding six, police said.

Politicians working on forming a national unity government postponed talks scheduled for Wednesday, saying they needed more time to consult their political blocs about what the security powers of the prime minister should be.

The motive of the attack at the al-Ibtikar trading company in the upscale Mansour neighborhood was not immediately clear. According to survivors' accounts to police, the assailants first asked for the company's manager, who was not there, before shooting.

The survivors said the assailants, some of whom wore police uniforms, identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Interior Ministry.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence and by death squads operating inside the Shiite-dominated ministry since the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine in Samarra set off a wave of revenge attacks. Usually, the victims are killed in secret, their bodies discovered hours or days later.

The assault Wednesday was the second to target a trading company in Mansour this week. On Monday, gunmen wearing military uniforms and masks kidnapped 16 employees from the headquarters of the Saeed Import and Export Co. Police said the assailants went through papers and computer files before leaving with their captives.

In Wednesday's attack, the gunmen arrived at the al-Ibtikar offices in five black BMWs about 8:15 a.m., police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. They burned parts of the facility, but didn't appear to have taken any money, he said. The dead included five men and three women.

"All these operations have one aim: to freeze life in Iraq and sabotage the democratic process. They want to take us back to the dictatorship," said Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Khafaji, a deputy interior minister. He blamed al Qaeda and said, "We will work day and night to arrest them.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:19 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sadr? A sucking liar? Whoda thunk it?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 0:26 Comments || Top||

#2  gunmen killed three staffers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad, Abdul-Razzaq said. A mortar round struck just outside al-Sadr's home in the holy city of Najaf earlier in the week

Now there's a good idea. Tater next?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:30 Comments || Top||

#3  cBS headline: Iraq Soldier Backs U.S. On Mosque Raid..NOT

*It was an annex, being used as a kidnap/torture/slaughter room, and Taters Fuckwit Tots fired up the Iraqi Special FGorces & American advisors from the annex* ]

cBS) The Iraqi commander during a controversial raid by American and Iraq forces is backing the U.S. version of a battle that left 16 Iraqis dead, CBS News correspondent Lara Logan reports.

fuck you cBS, but i repeat myself!
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 1:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Note to MSM: If you really want to know why I wouldn't piss in your mouth if you were dying in the desert..it's things like this. US forces are tainted at best, and guilty at worst as typified by the spin on the interview.

Did it not ever occur to you, Lara, that Tater and his iranian puppetmasters are using you like a two-bit whore? Did it never occur to you that what the US said was true?

A reason I never watch the broadcast news...ever.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 1:58 Comments || Top||

#5  No, no mouse. The MSM never ever questions the stories or reports or actions of the enemy. They'll devote five nights of the talking heads in NY or Washington and pages and pages of verbage anal-izing and monday morning quarterbacking of any US action. However, any criticism of the the 'enemy' is never to be done. Cause they're on the same side. Have to be. If they were unbiased they'd have similar coverage of their allies.
Posted by: Elmeter Slans6241 || 03/30/2006 7:32 Comments || Top||

#6  Aye ! The democrats and Hollyweird too. We know who they are.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 9:03 Comments || Top||

#7  Ah, democracy at work! And no, I'm not being sarcastic. They'll figure it out -- eventually.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:13 Comments || Top||

#8  perfesser: I agree with you. I just hope it's sooner than later.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 10:21 Comments || Top||

#9  Of course the MSM would never bring themselves to address one simple question. Mosque or no mosque, wasn't the place was an insurgent stronghold full of weapons and torturing hostiles that needed cleaning out worse than a bus station toilet? If these f&ckwits bring weapons and materiel into their places of worship, those locations immediately become enemy territory and deserve only to be treated as such.

Shiite or Sunni it matters not, they all think they can have it both ways. Their religion must be respected by outsiders regardless of how badly they desecrate it themselves. This is exactly like the cartoons. We are not allowed to poke even a smidgen of fun at the least part of their belief structure while they malign any and all comers with the most abusive and derogatory filth.

So often, Islam involves such a brute force combination of cognitive dissonance and moral hypocrisy that there is ever-diminishing hope for any sort of peaceful coexistence. Toss in a few more of their typical Islamist atrocities and any hope for peaceful coexistence will shift over to a desire for hostile confrontation in all parts.

I have never seen a culture so actively harvest the benefits of gobal religious tolerance while simultaneously taxing the patience of all whom their continued existence depends upon.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Zenster, that's what happens when politicians follow instead of lead. Where is our next Lincoln ?
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 12:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Where is our next Lincoln ?

Like a Phoenix, such a leader will probably arise from the ashes of a nuclear atrocity wreaked upon our shores. And as before, with unrelenting determination, our nation will be forced to subjugate yet another threat to democracy, and likely it will be with a redeux of Sherman's march. Only this time, the swath of destruction shall be through the Middle East and all Islam will put paid to price of terrorism.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 12:33 Comments || Top||

#12  Zenster, please, enough already.

All this from the man who last week was calling for the indiscriminate bombing of children in "kiddieswarms..."

In even extreme circles, that makes you an extremist, no?

Since you are so desperate for death and destruction Why dont you go to Iraq and kill as many muslims as you can. Maybe that will get it out your system.... Then you can come back and tell us all about it. ;-)

Another point. Just because there are bad muslims does not make all muslims bad. Just the same as a few bad US soldiers does not mean all US soldiers are bad. I think you are getting a little mixed up.
Posted by: Bravo7 || 03/30/2006 15:59 Comments || Top||

#13  Bravo...I think the point is unless the Arabic and Persian speaking countries clean up their collective islamo-cesspools quickly, somebody else is going to do it for them. And like Sherman's march through Georgia there will innocent bloodshed and collateral damage.

The sad part is that though the number of actual murdering, terrorists is small...the number who secretly and actively sympathize with them is quite large. I do not think it is absurd to believe that maybe 20% of the islamic world fall in this catagory. That's ballpark 200 million people. They are almost as dangerous as the bomb throwers because they provide support and money for the killers.

I say again...unless someone in the islamic world steps to plate and reigns this group into "the mainstream"...there will be massive bloodshed...and it's going to be disproportionately non-Western.
Posted by: anymouse || 03/30/2006 16:31 Comments || Top||

#14  In even extreme circles, that makes you an extremist, no?


Ever consider the fact that maybe you are extremely stuck on stupid?

You neglect to observe how in that particular thread your @ss was thoroughly kicked by other people, including someone who actually has fought in Iraq.

Quite obviously, you also neglect to read any of my other posts. Otherwise, you would note how often I have to take issue with those who advocate first use of nuclear weapons against Iran and other Muslim countries. If you read my posts you would also understand that I do not relish any blind slaughtering of the Muslim world.

However, I also happen to be sufficiently schooled in world politics to know that Islam, in its current state, is positioned for a head-to-head confrontation with the West. Due to the incessant perfidy that Islam so readily employs, the outcome of this confrontation is less than optimistic.

I would prefer that Islam make a genuine and authentic rejection of violent jihad. To date, there has been absolutely ZERO indication of this happening. That being the case, what awaits is the West reaching a tipping point whereby the cost of coexisting with Muslims outweighs the moral or financial cost of simply exterminating them.

I do not relish or hungrily await such a catastrophe. I also happen to have the wits to know that such a tipping point is the most likely scenario. Peaceful coexistence is a ridiculous longshot, or did you get some other message from the cartoon jihad?

On the other side of that tipping point is blowing away car swarms that seek to disfigure the remains of our soldiers. Other measures might include taking possession of the shrines at Mecca and Medina and holding them hostage or simply making a list of rogue nations and informing them that they all will be subject to immediate annihilation if there is a single nuclear terrorist attack on American soil.

Sooner or later, the gloves will have to come off in the fight against Islamism. The very nature of Islam demands it. If you are sufficiently blind to where you cannot foresee this, that is your problem and not mine.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 17:07 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Taylor's capture is a blow to despot impunity
Advocates and analysts welcomed former Liberian strongman Charles Taylor's capture as a blow against impunity for war crimes but braced for political fallout from U.S. involvement in the affair.

Taylor, an ex-warlord and president, is to stand trial nearly three years after a U.N.-backed court indicted him on 17 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his alleged role in West African massacres.

Many observers said Taylor's capture could aid peace and stability in Liberia as it claws its way back from more than two decades of civil war.

However, some also decried the timing, saying Washington had bullied the fledgling government of Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf into pressing Nigeria to extradite Taylor, and had held the Liberian people hostage by threatening to withhold economic life support if Johnson-Sirleaf did not push the issue.

Johnson-Sirleaf's government, in power since January, had sought to bring Taylor to justice after tackling the country's moribund basic services, 85 percent unemployment rate, and crushing HIV/AIDS crisis. Pushing it to deal with Taylor first could wrinkle the country's fragile peace, they said.

Taylor spent nearly three years in Nigerian exile and became the world's highest-profile fugitive Monday night, when he disappeared from his seaside mansion. Nigerian officials said border guards detained him Tuesday night as he attempted to steal into neighbouring Cameroon.

Taylor was repatriated Wednesday and then flown to the U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown, according to U.N. news sources.

"The wall of impunity has been washed away," said David Crane who, as the special court's chief prosecutor, wrote Taylor's 2003 indictment.

Crane, now a law professor at Syracuse University, brushed aside concerns that Taylor's extradition could undermine the power of exile as an inducement for dictators to relinquish power.

Taylor agreed to quit Liberia in 2003 because he received an offer of safe haven from Nigeria, Crane acknowledged in a radio interview here. But once Taylor was indicted as a war criminal, Crane added, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was obliged under international law to hand him over.

Some also saw Taylor's capture as averting a potential new crisis in Liberia, saying that he would have ramped up efforts to destabilise the country and discredit Johnson-Sirleaf had he given Nigerian authorities the slip and established a new base of operations.

Taylor maintained a small army of fighters in the countryside and supporters in key public offices -- including his wife, a legislator. He and some of these supporters had admitted they were in frequent touch. Thus, the former ruler remained a destabilising influence over Liberian politics even from exile, said Suliman Baldo, New York-based Africa programme director at the International Crisis Group.

The ex-warlord's "being put away means that his ability to manipulate and agitate for his own sake would be very seriously curtailed," Baldo said.

Taylor's handover came after Johnson-Sirleaf asked Obasanjo to extradite him. Relief at the successful extradition was tempered by what some saw as unreasonable U.S. pressure on Monrovia, however.

"Clearly, a hammer was being used on the Liberian government," said Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington think tank. "There was a clear link between development assistance for the people of Liberia and actual extradition."

Several political and media analysts described U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as single-minded in her pursuit of Taylor, adding that some lawmakers also had trained their sights on him.

U.S. impatience over Taylor appeared to be driven in part by disgust at his reputation and in part by allegations he had harboured al Qaeda suicide bombers.

Perhaps more significantly, the Bush administration has been eager to see a major despot brought to swift justice by a judicial panel other than the Netherlands-based International Criminal Court, to which it stands firmly opposed, the Christian Science Monitor newspaper quoted Ayesha Kajee of the South African Institute of International Affairs as saying.

When it looked like Obasanjo might be dragging his heels -- and especially when it emerged that Taylor had gone missing Monday night -- the Bush administration brought its diplomatic cudgels to bear on Abuja, including threatening to cancel Obasanjo's long-awaited trip to Washington.

Taylor's extradition cleared the way for the visit to go forward as scheduled on Wednesday. Obasanjo thus dodged a political bullet he could ill afford amid opposition to constitutional amendments that would allow him a third term in office. Additionally, he is confronted with an insurgency that has cut off one-fourth of oil production in the country's Niger Delta region, a major U.S. supplier.

Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa's much-trumpeted first female head of state, might not prove quite so lucky.

Her government won election last November on the strength of promises to improve the economy, health, and education services before turning to Taylor.

By catapulting Taylor to the top of the list, Washington appears to have exposed Johnson-Sirleaf to the political fallout of a Taylor trial without giving her time to make good on campaign promises and establish her own credentials as a provider of government services.

This when the country lacks an army following disarmament and demobilisation that have spawned new misgivings among old enemies, and even as Liberians pin their hopes of justice on a nascent, homegrown truth and reconciliation commission.

Instead of allowing the new Liberian government to tackle its problems and consolidate peace on its own terms, "the Bush administration, kind of like a bull in a china shop, said, 'Well, you do this and do this now according to our timeframe'," Woods said..

Even so, Bush told Obasanjo before reporters at the White House Wednesday that "the fact that Charles Taylor will be brought to justice in a court of law will help Liberia".
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:18 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This was so screwy I could have placed that bet in the Strategy Page Prediction Market.
(Slow Motion Capture)
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 12:16 Comments || Top||


Iraq
More on the Baghdad violence
Gunmen attacked the offices of a construction company in western Baghdad on Wednesday, killing eight people, the third consecutive day a private business has been assaulted. Separately, police said they found the bodies of 17 men, who had been blindfolded, bound and shot, at two locations in the capital.

In all, at least 41 people were reported killed in violence throughout the country.

A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said a group of masked gunmen in civilian clothes came to the Al Ibtikar Construction Co. in western Baghdad's Dawoodi neighborhood at about noon. According to witness accounts, he said, guards at the company opened fire on the men, who responded with a furious barrage, killing eight of the company's employees, including three women.

Five other employees were injured in the attack, according to the spokesman, who declined to be quoted by name. He said the manager was abducted by the attackers, who fled in two sedans and a pickup truck.

The Associated Press, quoting unnamed police sources, said some of the attackers wore police uniforms and identified themselves as intelligence agents from the Interior Ministry. By this account, the assailants asked for the manager of the firm, and when told he was not there, lined up 14 employees and shot them, killing eight, the AP reported.

The different versions of events could not be reconciled late Wednesday.

The attack followed three assaults on businesses in the capital on Tuesday. Gunmen, many of them in military uniforms and wearing masks and helmets, kidnapped 24 people from two electronics stores and a currency exchange. They also reportedly fled with thousands of dollars.

On Monday, gunmen in military uniforms and masks abducted 16 people from the Saeed Import and Export Co. in central Baghdad.

The incidents were reminiscent of a March 8 attack on a Baghdad security company in which 50 people were abducted.

Although the rash of kidnappings had the hallmarks of an extortion racket or abductions for ransom, police said they did not know the assailants' motives. Police say as many as 30 people a day are reported kidnapped in Iraq, although they believe that figure to be lower than the actual number of people abducted because many families prefer to pay for the release of their loved ones rather than contact police.

The Interior Ministry spokesman said the attacks were straining resources because "the ministry cannot place police units at each and every shop or company." But he said the ministry was developing "a new security plan" for commercial establishments. He did not elaborate.

Military uniforms are easy to purchase in the capital's markets. But there have been allegations for months that the Interior Ministry is harboring members of Shiite Muslim militias or units acting as Shiite death squads that attack Sunni mosques and kill Sunni Arabs execution-style.

The number of such attacks has surged since the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of Baghdad. In some analysts' view, the resulting cycle of sectarian revenge killings is pushing Iraq toward civil war.

The government, which is controlled by Shiites, denies that the Interior Ministry is behind any of the killings.

The epidemic of execution-like killings continued Wednesday with the discovery of 17 male bodies, 14 of them in one location and three in another. All of the victims appeared to be between the ages of 20 and 40. Many bore signs of torture, the Interior Ministry spokesman said, and all had been bound, blindfolded and shot.

Seventeen bodies were found in a similar state on Tuesday.

Interior Ministry forces conducting a raid Wednesday in Baghdad's mixed Shiite-Sunni neighborhood of Hai al-Amil fired on a Sunni mosque, injuring a guard and smashing windows and doors, according to a statement from the Muslim Scholars Association, an influential Sunni group.

The group blamed the government and U.S. forces for the attack on the Madina Monawara mosque, saying that "even though they are claiming to build the so-called New Iraq," such incidents had never occurred before.

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reported that three people employed by Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric and militia leader, were killed Wednesday in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad.

Elsewhere, the U.S. military said, three insurgents were killed when an unmanned Predator drone shot a Hellfire missile at them while they were planting a roadside bomb near the Balad air base north of Baghdad.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed Tuesday, one by small-arms fire south of Baghdad, the other when his Humvee struck a roadside bomb near Habbaniyah, 50 miles west of Baghdad, in a region that is considered a stronghold for Sunni Arab insurgents from al-Qaeda in Iraq, the military said in a statement. Three soldiers were injured in the blast, which hit a convoy that was returning to Baghdad.

Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and one was wounded when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Hawijah, about 30 miles southwest of the northern town of Kirkuk, according to Capt. Emad Mohammed of the local police. He said the soldiers were traveling in a convoy that included U.S. troops, none of whom was injured in the blast.

The U.S. military was investigating the death of a 25-year-old Iraqi detainee Sunday at the military's Camp Bucca prison in southern Iraq, according to the Reuters news agency. The man died of apparent head injuries inflicted during a fight with another inmate, the report said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:13 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  three insurgents were killed when an unmanned Predator drone shot a Hellfire missile at them while they were planting a roadside bomb near the Balad air base north of Baghdad

What fun!
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:27 Comments || Top||

#2  BAM!
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 1:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Wish we could do a better job at tracking down people who attack the Iraqi's like this. Too bad they are probably hiding in Sadr City or we might have already tracked down and killed them.
Posted by: Charles || 03/30/2006 4:24 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Rehman Khalil admitted to hospital, in "very serious" condition
The leader of a Pakistan-based terror outfit active in Jammu and Kashmir was battling for life in a hopsital today after unidentified men severely tortured and dumped him near a mosque, the group's spokesperson said.

Harkat-ul- Mujahideen's leader Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil was kidnapped yesterday by a group of men after he offered prayers in a mosque here, Sultan Zia told reporters here.

He was thrown outside the same mosque in the night after being subjected to "severe torture", Zia said.

Khalil was battling for life in a hospital and doctors described his condition as "very serious", Zia said adding he had no idea about the identity of the assailants.

Khalil's group had very close ties with Taliban and Al-Qaeda, and is actively involved in militancy in Kashmir.

Many of his supporters also crossed into Afghanistan to support Taliban when the US-led forces launched attacks in Afghanistan in late 2001.

Khalil was earlier leading 'Harkat-ul-Ansar' group but changed its name after the US State Department put the group on the list of terrorist outfits in 1994.

President Musharraf outlawed the group in 2000 and it has been working with a new name 'Jamiat-ul-Ansar' since then.

He was detained on several occasions by the security agencies since 2001 after the government changed its Afghan policy but was freed later.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:11 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting indeed.

Now who would do a thing like that?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/30/2006 11:43 Comments || Top||

#2  shoulda just killed im
Posted by: ShepUK || 03/30/2006 12:20 Comments || Top||

#3  He was thrown outside the same mosque in the night after being subjected to "severe torture", Zia said.

What you have here is called a warning. . .
Posted by: GORT || 03/30/2006 12:25 Comments || Top||

#4  Must have said something during his prayers that upset them. Seems even islamists may have a tipping point.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 18:17 Comments || Top||


Iraq
8 killed by Baghdad hard boyz
For the third time in as many days, gunmen stormed a Baghdad business Wednesday, this time lining 14 employees against the wall and shooting them all. Eight were killed, and at least 26 others were reported dead in violence elsewhere.

The attack on the al-Ibtikar electronics trading company began when gunmen drove up in five black BMWs shortly after 8 a.m., said police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq. The attackers set a fire in the office but took no money.

Survivors told police some of the attackers wore police uniforms and said they were intelligence agents of the Interior Ministry, which oversees police. Survivors said the gunmen asked for the company manager, who wasn't there, and then opened fire on the 14 workers. Six were wounded but survived.

The motive for the attack, the second on a firm in the upscale Mansour neighborhood this week, was unclear. A key lawmaker blamed militants.

"These are concentrated efforts to paralyze the country. They are either from al Qaeda or the remnants of Saddam's regime. They want to tell the people that there is no government," said Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.

Politicians working to form a new Iraqi government, meanwhile, canceled their multiparty talks for the day, saying they needed time to consult with their political blocs over the critical issue of what powers the next prime minister would have over security issues.

It was the second time this week political leaders shunned a session meant to overcome a stalemate that is in its sixth week. The Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular blocs in the parliament oppose the main Shiite bloc's push for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to remain prime minister. Shiite politicians said that U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has told the leader of the Shiite bloc that President Bush doesn't want Jaafari as prime minister.

Jaafari on Wednesday asserted his right to stay in office and warned the Americans against undue interference in Iraq's political process. "Some American figures have made statements that interfere with the results of the democratic process," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:09 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Soddy arrests thwarted another attack on Abqaiq
Saudi security forces have thwarted a terrorist attack on Saudi Arabia's largest oil refinery Abqaiq, the second in two months, according to media reports. The Kuwaiti news agency KUNA and the Iraqi Radio Nawa report that police discovered two car bombs in the area. Local daily al-Riyadh reports that Saudi police on Tuesday carried out house searches in the al-Mantar area of Abqaib, where some employees of Saudi oil giant Aramco live, arms and explosive were discovered in one of the homes and one man was arrested. Reports say that the vehicles to be used in the attack bore the company logo.

On 24 February Saudi Arabian security forces opened fire on at least two cars apparently commandeered by would-be suicide bombers, thwarting an attack on the Abqaiq oil processing plant in the east of the country. The cars exploded near gates leading to the facility, Saudi officials said.

The oil output at the plant, the largest of its kind in the world, was not affected by the incident, Saudi state television reported.

Saudi security adviser Nawaf Obaid was quoted as saying that Saudi security forces fired on three cars packed with explosives as they rammed the outer gates of the facility, 1.5 kilometres from the main entrance. He said the three cars exploded.

"Three cars rammed the first of the three sets of gates protecting Abqaiq, and when security shot at them, all three cars exploded," Obaid said.

Pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Arabiya said the attackers had been killed. It added the cars they used had the logo of Saudi state-owned oil company Aramco.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:07 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm still saving popcorn for the princeling on rinceling civil war
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 0:17 Comments || Top||


Britain
Al-Qaeda wanted simultaneous attacks in UK
A wave of simultaneous blasts in Britain was called for by a senior group figure, a court is told A SENIOR al-Qaeda figure told Islamist terrorists to unleash a wave of multiple, simultaneous bombings in Britain, the Old Bailey was told yesterday. One associate also allegedly suggested using a remote-controlled model aeroplane packed with explosives.

Mohammed Babar, an American terrorist with links to al-Qaeda, is giving evidence against his alleged former accomplices. The seven men, all from southeast England, are charged with conspiring to attack a British target.

Babar told the court that one defendant, Omar Khyam, 24, travelled with another man to a remote tribal area of Pakistan to meet Abu Munthir, who reported directly to al-Qaeda’s No 3. Babar said that Mr Khyam “wanted to discuss with him [Abu Munthir] what they were planning in the UK”.

Babar alleged that the men said that Abu Munthir “wanted them to do multiple bombings . . . either simultaneously or one after the other on the same day”.

Abu Munthir was said to have wanted to meet everyone who would be involved in the plot, asking in particular for another defendant, Anthony Garcia, 24, who had left Pakistan for Britain hours before the message came through.

Momin Khawaja, a Canadian facing trial in his own country, acted as a mule for al-Qaeda, returning to Pakistan in October 2003, via Britain, and allegedly bringing supplies for the terror group from Mr Khyam. These included a medical kit, money and invisible-ink pens. They were for another defendant, Salahuddin Amin, 31, to give to Abu Munthir.

Babar told the court that Mr Amin wanted to ask Mr Khawaja, a computer expert, “how to send a computer virus”.

He added: “Momin Khawaja and his brother were working on a GPS-navigated model aeroplane which could be fitted with explosives.” David Waters, QC, for the prosecution, read out an e-mail in which Mr Khawaja said that he could obtain remote-controlled detonation devices, with a range of about 2km, for £4 each.

Mr Khawaja also mentioned “Imran”, a London Underground worker allegedly asked by Mr Khyam to carry out a suicide mission.

Babar said that he arranged a bribe for immigration services so that Mr Garcia, whose visa had expired, could leave Pakistan and return to Britain.

He claimed that a senior al-Qaeda operative known as Q, who lived in Luton and also reported directly to Abdul Hadi, No 3 in the terrorist organisation, also visited Pakistan in August 2003.

Babar successfully tested an explosive substance in his back garden in Lahore, allegedly on the instruction of Mr Khyam. They hid behind a wall while the device was detonated.

Babar also said that he met Mr Amin, who gave him detonators to transport to Europe, and asked him for equipment allegedly used by some of the defendants at a terrorist training camp, allegedly to send over the border to al-Qaeda.

Mr Amin, of Luton; Waheed Mahmood, 34, Mr Khyam, Shujah Mahmood, 18, and Jawad Akbar, 22, all from Crawley, West Sussex; Mr Garcia, from Ilford, East London; and Nabeel Hussain, 20, from Horley, Surrey, deny conspiring to cause an explosion likely to endanger life between October 2003 and March 2004.

Mr Khyam, Mr Garcia and Mr Hussain deny possessing 600kg (1,320lb) of fertiliser for the purposes of terrorism.

Mr Khyam and Shujah Mahmood deny possessing aluminium powder, also for the purposes of terrorism. The trial continues.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 00:05 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm awfully glad the British police caught these youths, but the plans mentioned in the article feel a bit like airy fairy daydreams rather than actionable plans in the hand of competent executors. Am I being overly optimistic in this case?
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/30/2006 7:25 Comments || Top||

#2  That's why actionable intel is so hard to come by...the jihadis deliberately fill their websites and phone calls with these 'plans' to obscure which ones are being implemented.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 8:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Hmm, sorta like the principle behind chaff...
Posted by: Ptah || 03/30/2006 11:54 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm sure that Ken Livingston and George Galloway will tell us how the difficulty of sifting that "chaff" makes it permissable for us to ignore whatever kernels it actually may contain.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 17:46 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Non-students vie for central posts
At least two-thirds of the candidates for the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) central committee office-bearers to be elected by the April 3-4 national council are near 40 in age and left behind their student life long ago. The student wing of Awami League (AL) has held only three national councils in the last 12 years, saturating itself with a huge number of aged and non-student 'student leaders', sources said. As a result, there is now a severe leadership crisis at all levels, from the centre down to the grassroots units, of the country's leading student body.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Saudi forces discover two booby trapped cars in Bafeeq
Saudi Arabian security forces discovered and disarmed two explosive devices planted in two separate vehicles Tuesday in the province of Bafeeq east Saudi Arabia, Al-Riyadh newspaper reported Wednesday. Security forces broke into a house in Al-Muntaar town where Saudi Arabian Oil Company Aramco employees live, to find two booby trapped cars with the company's logo on them. The daily said that several bombs, machine guns and explosive materials were found, adding that the owner of the house was arrested and is currently being interrogated.

Security forces were able to stop a terrorist attack Feb 24th that targeted an Aramco oil site in Bafeeq province, considered one of the major oil refinery facilities in the country.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Turkish army besieges mainly-Kurdish city in southeastern Turkey
Tank-armed Turkish Army troops besieged the southeastern provincial city of Diyarbakr on Wednesday where streets turned into battle zones in escalating violent clashes between the Turkish government troops and Kurdish activists, Anatolia news agency reported. -- The news agency said 70 people have been arrested since the clashes erupted two days ago, adding that the Kurdish activists set buildings afire in the city.

According to initial reports from the city, several journalists and policemen were wounded in the clashes that inflicted damage, estimated at million of dollars. Facades of many stores have been damaged or destroyed and a four-storey building housing a bank has been set ablaze. Buildings housing security forces have been attacked with stones by the agitated demonstrators. A demonstrator who attempted to raise a picture of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned chief of the outlawed Workers Part of Kurdistan (PKK), was shot dead in a town near the city.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  which are the bad guys?
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 0:22 Comments || Top||

#2  If there are PKK in Diyarbakr (as implied by the guy trying to raise a portrait of dear Apo), they are definitely bad guys. Here is a pretty good primer on the PKK, what they want, and how nasty they are.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 03/30/2006 1:22 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
ATC orders seizure of Bugtis' property
Karachi Anti Terrorism Court Judge Haq Nawaz Baloch on Wednesday ordered the property of two proclaimed offenders forfeited in the Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation bombing case. Brahamdagh Bugti and Abdul Hameed Bugti were declared proclaimed offenders in the PIDC blast that killed three people, injured dozens and destroyed a large number of vehicles. MR Syed, counsel of arrested co-accused Aziz Khan and Mengla Khan, was present when the court put off proceedings till April 11 and ordered the prosecution to produce witnesses.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is that a bust of Foster Brooks Bugti in his younger days?
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 13:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Tiberius, who was fond of proscriptions.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 14:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like he had cataract issues, too...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 14:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Tiberius, who was fond of proscriptions.

For others, anyway. For himself in his latter years, he was fond of swimming naked with little slave boys... but the Romans were odd like that. Another reason why Judaism, and later Christianity, were appealing to so many in those years. ;-)
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/30/2006 16:42 Comments || Top||


Europe
Chirac pressed as protests mount
The French president is facing growing pressure to intervene in the spiralling dispute over his government's youth jobs law. A day after more than a million people joined one of the biggest protests of recent French history, union leaders urged Jacques Chirac to use his powers to stop the controversial measure, which was voted through parliament two weeks ago and is waiting to pass into law. They called on Chirac to send legislation back to parliament stripped of the First Employment Contract, CPE.

In a letter to Chirac, France's five biggest unions urged him to order a fresh reading of the law, without youth job contract measures which allow employers to sack at will workers under 26 at any stage in a two-year trial period. "We ask you, Mr President, to appreciate how much the current crisis is a source of exasperation and tensions in the country," they wrote.

Aides said Chirac, who cancelled a trip to Le Havre planned for Thursday to stay in Paris and monitor the crisis, would speak out in the coming days. An announcement from the Elysee Palace early on Wednesday said that Chirac will speak publicly on the CPE soon, but it did not say when or give any indication of which way he is leaning.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You spend years attacking "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism as the planet's greatest evil. Then you implement a mildly Anglo-Saxon reform. What the hell did Chiraq and de Villepin think was going to happen? It's like the permissive parents I knew as a kid. At some point they always decided that they had to discipline their little monsters. Then all hell broke loose.
Posted by: 11A5S || 03/30/2006 10:13 Comments || Top||

#2  ...to stay in Paris and monitor the crisis...


It wouldn't be like Chirac to actually do something.
Posted by: DoDo || 03/30/2006 12:53 Comments || Top||


Algerian jailed for Paris metro blasts
A French court has convicted an Algerian man for his role in a series of deadly terror attacks in Paris in 1995, sentencing him to the maximum 10 years in prison. Rachid Ramda, 36, was convicted on Wednesday for his role as the banker for Algerian fighters who carried out bombings of the Paris metro system that claimed eight lives and injured hundreds. Ramda was found guilty of giving logistical support to the attackers. The bombings were the worst seen in France since the second world war.

At the start of the trial last month, Ramda proclaimed his innocence and expressed sympathy for victims of the attacks. Originally arrested by British detectives in November 1995 on a French warrant, Ramda was the subject of a 10-year extradition battle with Britain, which finally handed him over in December. Relatives of victims attended the trial in Paris He was convicted for "criminal association in connection with a terrorist enterprise" for three of the attacks. The charges related only to the preparation of the attacks, which were blamed on the Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA).
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Smoking Gun in Hariri Murder Inquest?
Informed sources have revealed told Asharq al-Awsat that the international commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri received the transcript of a phone call conversation between a Lebanese official and his Syrian counterpart in which the former confirmed to the latter that the assassination had taken place.
Sounds like a smoking gun, if it's true, though intel's not judicial evidence in most cases...
The sources alluded to what was mentioned in commission chief Judge Serge Brammertz's report on achieving a major breakthrough, and cited sources in the international commission that "the breakthrough came about by finding solid proof that periodic meetings were held between Lebanese and Syrian security officials and officials in a Lebanese group known for its allegiance to Syria, in addition to analyzing scores of phone calls held between security officials in that group, the Syrian intelligence center in Beirut, and an important official head office which German Judge Detlev Mehlis referred to in his first report.
Wonder which Leb group that could be that's "known for its allegiance to Syria"?
The sources confirmed that "analysis of the phone calls, which began on the evening of Sunday 13 February 2005 and continued until 4 pm the following day--in other words, four hours after the crime took place--showed that most of the conversation revolved around the crime. In addition, the commission received the text of a very important phone call held between a high-ranking Lebanese official and his Syrian counterpart in which the former confirmed to the latter that the assassination had taken place and Al-Hariri had in fact been killed."
Cheeze. Not only murderers, but dumbass murderers.
The same sources pointed out that the international commission received the transcript of the phone call held between the two high-ranking officials from the British intelligence and that the content was the reason behind British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's statements one week after the crime that he believed Syrian sides are involved in Al-Hariri's assassination. The Lebanese sources noted that the commission stepped up its activities upon the return of its chief Brammertz from New York after he presented his report to the Security Council.
I was wondering why Mehlis made such rapid progress. That kind of investigation is usually pretty slow and painstaking. I'd guess he knew where to start, and which direction to go.
They explained that Brammertz is trying to complete the biggest part of the investigations on the Lebanese level before setting a date for his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Vice President Farooq al-Shara in Damascus. The sources foresaw difficulties in Brammertz's ability to complete the investigation before mid-June. The sources cited members of the international investigations commission saying that Brammertz does not want to extend his mission. The sources did not rule out the return of former commission chief Judge Detlev Mehlis to resume the investigations, particularly since the latter praised Brammertz's report, describing it as professional and noting that it was on the same track and did not ignore any of the existing evidence in the file.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [31 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like Echelon recorded the call. So they will have the call itself as well as a transcript.
Posted by: phil_b || 03/30/2006 0:11 Comments || Top||

#2  It seems the intercept has been known for at least six months, I remember reading about it before.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:19 Comments || Top||

#3  We know who is culpable, the question is, will anyone have the balls to take action against the Syrian regime?
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Can't use those transcripts. Civil Rights violation. No warrant. Slippery slope...
Posted by: Danking70 || 03/30/2006 0:32 Comments || Top||

#5  Informed sources have revealed told Asharq al-Awsat that the international commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri received the transcript of a phone call conversation between a Lebanese official and his Syrian counterpart in which the former confirmed to the latter that the assassination had taken place.

2 sudden medical developments either unreported or 'bout to happen.
Posted by: RD || 03/30/2006 3:51 Comments || Top||

#6  "I told you before, NEVER call me at the office!"
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:11 Comments || Top||


Roed-Larsen to ask for new UN resolution on Lebanon
United Nations special envoy Terje Roed-Larsen reportedly told the French foreign minister this week that his report to be submitted to Secretary General Kofi Annan on April 19 on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1559 should be followed by the issuing of a new resolution concerning Lebanon. According to sources quoted in Wednesday's issue of Sada Al-Balad, Roed-Larsen said during a Monday meeting with Philippe Douste-Blazy that he hoped his report was "strongly supported by the members of the Security Council and would result in drafting a new resolution."

The sources added that the envoy suggested the resolution should cover three points: "demarcation of the Syrian-Lebanese borders, the establishment of diplomatic relations between both countries, and the disarmament of Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias." Roed-Larsen was also said to have noted "international and regional agreement on the three points," in addition to asking France to set all the details related to deliniating the borders, establishing embassies and disarming the militias. According to the sources, Larsen proposed three possible solutions to the Shebaa Farms dispute: a Lebanese-Syrian agreement, international arbitration, or an Israeli withdrawal. The sources said the envoy was "pessimistic about disarming the Palestinian factions," which he said "would take some time."

The sources further quoted Roed-Larsen as having said the campaign to topple President Emile Lahoud should be dropped "due to the opposition voiced by China, Russia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt." Roed-Larsen said he did not visit Damascus during his recent tour of the Middle East on "the advice of the U.S. administration, which told him not to meet with Syrian officials before the issuing of the new resolution."
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Bangla Bhai trained Tarikul, Rahman ordered bombing
Jamaatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB) ehsar (full-time) member Tarikul Islam in his confessional statement before a First Class Magistrate in Sirajganj yesterday said he along with six other cadres took part in the August 17 bomb blasts in the town. The six are Shahi, Rashid, Bashir, Manik, Ahsan and Jewel. He gave the statement before Magistrate Monira Begum under Section 164, police said. Tarikul was placed on three days fresh remand when he was produced before the court on expiry of his seven day's remand.

In Gaibandha, JMB commander Lutfur Rahman, arrested on Tuesday, was placed on seven days' remand. Lutfur was arrested by Shaghata police from Barokora village. According to our Sirajganj Correspondent, Tarikul, son of Abu Bakkar of Jamua village in Kamar Kanda upazila, was arrested by Detective Branch police from Shial Khol bus stand in Sirajganj town on March 19. Tarikul said he was recruited by JMJB chief Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai and become an Ehsar member when he was a student of Rani Bazar Qwami Madrasa in Rajshahi. Earlier, he studied at Koyra Fazil Senior Madrasa. Three years ago, he took part in three days' arms training conducted by Bangla Bhai in Comilla, he told the magistrate. The August 17 bombing in Sirajganj was ordered by JMB chief Abdur Rahman, he said.

Prior to the bombing, JMB cadres held a secret meeting at his house in Jamua village, where JMB chief Abdur Rahman's son-in-law Abdul Awal and JMB 'operations commander' Ataur Rahman Sunny were also present, Tarikul said. The bombs used on August 17 in Sirajganj town were made at Abdul Awal's house in Bogra and brought to Sirajganj by JMB cadre Jewel in a bus. Police said they will soon submit charge sheet in the August 17 incident, in which Abdur Rahman and Bangla Bhai will be included.

Our Gaibandha Correspondent reports: Police said Lutfur Rahman's younger brother Mamunur Rashid Mamun, an alleged JMB commander, is also wanted by police for his involvement in the August 17 serial bomb blast in Gaibandha. He is also accused in several cases filed against him in Bogra and Sherpur. Lutfar was hiding since the August 17 bomb blasts.

Meanwhile, according to reports received from Naogaon, a team of army explosives expert led by Capt. Tanveer Tuesday defused seven grenades recovered from the house of JMB cadre Sekander Ali at Parkasurida village in Atrai upazila is the district last month. Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) recovered the grenades during a raid but Sekander managed to flee. Rab filed a case against Sekander and another JMB cadre in Gaibandha, but the two are yet to be arrested.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [16 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder if it's tough getting henna in the joint?
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 11:28 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
Annan says UNSC needs IAEA expertise on Iran case
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Tuesday that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is the specialized agency for dealing with technical aspects of Iran's nuclear program. He told reporters at United Nations Headquarters here that there ought to be no competition between the Security Council and the IAEA because as far as technical matters are concerned since the agency has the necessary expertise and should have the final decision on these matters and not be restricted in its authority by the Security Council.

"I hope that the Iranian nuclear program has not reached a dead end as apparently both Iran and the negotiating parties are willing to come to negotiations. Iran should heed recommendations of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to do more to persuade the international community that the country's nuclear program is for civilian purposes," Annan said.

Annan said that foreign ministers of four Western states will discuss the Iranian nuclear program in Berlin on Wednesday. The issue that is at stake is whether the authority to decide Iran's nuclear case should rightly rest with the Security Council or the IAEA.

Asked about his preference, Annan said that the Security Council has the right to study the case as it has been brought to its attention but that technical matters need the expertise of the IAEA for resolution.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One could argue that had the IAEA done their job, it wouldn't require the UNSC. And, since the UNSC is equally worthless,....
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:44 Comments || Top||

#2  "I hope that the Iranian nuclear program has not reached a dead end..."

Interesting choice of words.

As for the rest, it's not about technical expertise, as if the IAEA has more than the US, it's purely political will - and has been for about 2 years. As for "rights", what fantasy does he inhabot? -- he has no say in the matter, never did, and never will.

Incompetent kleptocrat.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 2:54 Comments || Top||

#3  inhabit.
Posted by: Grotle Gliting3445 || 03/30/2006 2:55 Comments || Top||

#4  "...Annan said..."
yawn
Posted by: Darrell || 03/30/2006 10:38 Comments || Top||

#5  Iran should heed recommendations of IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to do more to persuade the international community that the country's nuclear program is for civilian purposes," Annan said.

Last time Iran's "civilian" side stated it's intent as to why it's pursuing nukes, it sounded like a Hitler rally. Makes me shudder to think what the "military" side thinks.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Man, I'll bet Kofi's just hoping he can sweat this out until December. Then it's, put in his papers, 100,000 grand a speech on the lecture curcuit, and a million dollar deal to write his self-serving biography of lies... an even better gig then he has now.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 11:53 Comments || Top||

#7  I trust we have Anon's phone tapped. Any idea this ass comes up with has been paid for in full. It would be prudent to know who is paying him, and why.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/30/2006 12:09 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Abbas urges Olmert to alter course
The Palestinian president has called on Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima party won Israel's general elections on Tuesday, to negotiate with Palestinians and not opt for unilateral solutions if peace is to be given a chance. "The result [of the vote] was expected. But what is more important now is that Olmert changes his agenda and abandon his unilateral plans to fix the borders," Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday on the sidelines of an Arab summit in Sudan's capital.

Olmert ran on a platform that advocated annexing the largest settlement blocs from the West Bank and unilaterally withdrawing from those beyond the separation wall Israel is building in the occupied territory. He also wants to fix the Jewish state's hitherto undefined borders by 2010. In separate comments made just before his departure from Khartoum, Abbas repeated his rejection of any unilateral Israeli actions. "We want negotiations and not to dictate unilateral solutions," he said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Please let us explode a few more bombs in Tel Aviv next time before you pull back unilaterally. You're making us look bad."
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 12:07 Comments || Top||

#2  It's as unilateral as Paleo's "eliminate Israel and found an islamic state" solution. What's to 'negotiate'?
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 19:26 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Mugabe Pleads With Equatorial Guinea President For Fuel
President Robert Mugabe won a vague pledge from the Equatorial Guinea President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo last night to supply US$200 million worth of fuel to combat Zimbabwe's worsening shortages. Mbasogo arrived in Zimbabwe yesterday afternoon on a three-day state visit for negotiations on the deal that was entered in November 2004, following the capture of 62 mercenaries in Harare, who were on a mission to topple the government of Mbasogo.

Mugabe is said to have pleaded for desperately needed supplies that have spawned renewed threats to his 26 year old rule. The invitation to Mbasogo, official sources say, is a measure of Mugabe's desperation. Fuel supplies in Harare are in chaos. The international oil companies that distribute fuel to petrol stations have not received deliveries for more than a month from the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim), the state-owned fuel company with a monopoly on importation. Noczim is bankrupt after more than two decades of a policy, directed by Mugabe, of selling fuel for a fraction of its international market price.

Thanks to the black market there is no visible reduction in the volume of traffic on the capital's streets. The Government tried to shut down the black market this week by banning motorists from carrying fuel in containers. Expectations were not high that Mugabe would succeed in sealing a long time deal, and the statement issued at the end of last night's talk left the extent of Guinea "co-operation" deliberately vague.

Mike Nyambuya, Energy Minister, recently announced that Noczim owed foreign oil companies more than US$135 million, and was paying off the debt at the rate of $5 million a month. Zimdaily heard that Mugabe was offering to pay Mbasongo with tobacco, cattle and tea. But with the mass expropriation of white-owned farms, the Zimbabwe tobacco industry has fallen from being the world's biggest exporter to producing only a third of its normal output last year. President Mbasogo was shown Zimbabwe’s prime producer of milk and related products, Dairiboard yesterday, raising speculation about government's intentions.

Mugabe's scourge of commercial agriculture has decimated the beef industry. Zimdaily heard that Mugabe had offered to pay the fuel partly with an unspecified shareholding in Zimbabwe's fuel pipeline system, storage facilities and petrol stations, only some of which are state-owned. Mugabe has also offered a selection of farms seized by the government. Mbasogo is accompanied by his wife Constancia Mangue, Equatorial Guinea’s First Lady. Zimdaily heard Mbasogo was set to address the Zanu PF central committee on Friday.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I read yesterday that they'd ran out of BC pills as well.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 7:54 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm sure the royal presidential motor pool gets dibs on the fuel anyway.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 8:54 Comments || Top||

#3  I have mixed emotions about this
First, I expect the neighboring country will renege, no need to provide free fuel (They won't get paid)
Second, he's doing WHAT? Providing fuel under your own cost is a bribe, it'll shortly become impossible, and that just shortens his expected lifespan considerably.
Third, obviously there's fuel available if you pay the black market price, so it would seem it's just another failed ploy to buy loyalty.

I noticed the resounding silence from Mugabe's last ploy, to beg the farmers to return and lease their own land back from the state (You'd have to be a moron)

Tick, tick, tick, I give Mugabe less than 6 months, if that long.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 23:24 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Govt attacks radio station in Khyber Agency
Paramilitary forces on Wednesday launched an operation against cleric Mufti Munir Shakir's supporters in Khyber Agency after a tribal jirga (council) failed to convince the latter to shut down an illegal FM radio station, security sources told Daily Times. Soldiers fired mortar shells on the radio station to shut it down, sources added.
"Hey, Mo!"
"Quiet, knucklehead! I'm broadcastin'!"
Earlier, more than 50 families left Khyber Agency on Wednesday after the government warned that action against Shakir was imminent. Bara Administrator Shafirullah served notice asking 750 families to leave their homes for safer places because "action against the renegade cleric will take place soon". A security official told Daily Times that the government had identified two sites to attack. However, he declined to say whether Shakir or his rival cleric Shafiullah Rehman's group would be targeted first.

Nala and Makik Deenkhel residents said that more than 50 families had left the area after the government warning. "Women and children were sent to safer places because the artillery might bomb residences," said resident Lal Muhammad.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "This is Khyber Pirate Radio , coming up next after traffic and weather, the Ramones, with "Beat on the jirga brat"
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 19:41 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Albanian Muslims object to city's statue of Mother Teresa
But hey, George Mason is demonstrating his solidarity with the Paleos, so let's call it even... (photo hat tip LGF)
Muslims in Albania's northern city of Shkoder are opposing plans to erect a statue to Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Catholic nun in line for elevation to sainthood by the Vatican. The dispute is unusual for Albania,
But not at all unusual for Dar-al-Islam,
where religion was banned for 27 years under the dictator Enver Hoxha, and "mixed" marriages are the norm. Seventy per cent of the population are moderate liberal Muslims,
who are ever so tolerant and inclusive...
the rest are Christian Orthodox and Catholic. But Muslim groups in Shkoder rejected the local council plan for a statue, saying it "would offend the feelings of Muslims".

"We do not want this statue to be erected in a public place, because we see her as a religious figure," said Bashkim Bajraktari, Shkoder's mufti, a Muslim religious leader. Several residents said they felt there was an underground effort to treat Shkoder as a Catholic town, ignoring its majority Muslim community. Shkoder's Muslims recently protested against crosses being erected on prominent hilltops around the city.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The fact she was a chick is probably most offensive of all.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 03/30/2006 7:46 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
Arab summit ends on note of apathy
The 18th Arab summit has ended with the usual pledges of solidarity with Palestinians and Iraqis and a surprise announcement from Saudi Arabia that it will not host the 2007 gathering. Addressing the final session of the two-day Arab League summit in Khartoum on Wednesday, Ghazi al-Gusaibi, the Saudi labour minister, said the next meeting should instead be held in Egypt although he gave no reason for his country's refusal to act as host. The Saudi move is being seen by some as indicative of a growing impatience with the Arab League's lack of executive power.

The annual meetings of the 22-member league regularly focus on challenging regional issues, but are often criticised for concluding with resolutions that are long on rhetoric and short on concrete action. This year key states Saudi Arabia and Egypt were among 10 countries not to send heads of state to the meeting. Announcing the Saudi decision, al-Gusaibi cited an Arab League resolution stipulating that Egypt, home to the league's headquarters, should host the 2007 summit if the chair country did not want to.

Amr Moussa, the Arab League secretary-general whose term was extended for five years at the summit, sought to play down the Saudi decision, saying Saudi Arabia and Egypt had jointly agreed to have the next summit in Cairo. He said he saw no problem "as long as everyone was satisfied" with the decision.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:


Emile sucks up to Syria, Hezbollah in summit address
In a speech sure to exacerbate divisions back home, pro-Syrian Lebanese President Emile Lahoud on Wednesday praised the roles that Syria and the militant Hezbollah guerrilla group play in his country. Addressing heads of state and ministers on the second day of an Arab League summit in Khartoum, Sudan, Lahoud said he was certain that fellow Arabs supported ongoing national dialogue talks between Lebanon's leaders. "Lebanon...is confident that its current quest for consensus and unity will be embraced and supported by Arabs, starting by its neighbor Syria, the country that has always stood by (Lebanon's) its side," Lahoud said. "This would strengthen choices expressed freely by the Lebanese, foremost among those is Lebanon's commitment to its right to recover its remaining occupied territory in the south, notably the Shebaa Farms," he added, speaking of an Israeli-occupied territory on the border of Lebanon, Syria and Israel.

Lahoud also spoke of the need to protect the national resistance, a reference to the militant Hezbollah guerrilla group, which he described as "a symbol for steadfastness and dignity." The final declaration of the Arab summit expressed support for Lebanon's resistance, or the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah. "The summit affirmed Lebanon's right to maintain the resistance against Israeli occupation, using all means," he said. But Lahoud's comments were sure to anger the anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon, which has been calling on Lahoud, a close Syrian ally, to resign. He has refused.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You know, I'm beginning to think that the word "dignity" is doublespeak for "idiocy."
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Schools Apparently Need To Teach More Statistics
More than a quarter of U.S. schools are failing under terms of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law, according to preliminary state-by-state statistics reported to the U.S. Department of Education.

At least 24,470 U.S. public schools, or 27 percent of the national total, did not meet the federal requirement for "adequate yearly progress" in 2004-2005. The percentage of failing schools rose by one point from the previous school year...

..."Most people thought that at this point in the law, we'd be seeing these numbers go way, way up" as standards toughen, said Petrilli, a former Education Department official who helped implement the law in 2002...
Seems to me that if a school is already doing well, it is a lot harder to improve than if a school is doing poorly, so insisting that everybody improve doesn't make much sense. Second, why would student scores be going up if the standards keep getting tougher? They should be going down. Is 1% change in the margin for error?
The WaPo reporter is apparently a graduate of Lake Wobegon High, where all the kids are above average.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One point does not a statistic make.

How many data points are there? What's the actual ratio above:below? What is the curve? Can you fit a line to the data points? What is the mean point?

All of this information is missing from the data set and only after you have a data set can you actually make a statistical analysis of the data.

"There's lies, damn lies, and statistics" (M Twain as I recall)
Posted by: FOTSGreg || 03/30/2006 0:15 Comments || Top||

#2  THIS should be required reading in the required statistics course, heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 2:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Seems to me that if a school is already doing well, it is a lot harder to improve than if a school is doing poorly, so insisting that everybody improve doesn't make much sense.

Counterintuitive, but true. "Good schools" are generally good because they get good students. Teachers don't have to work hard (and don't) because students know the material already or have parents who will see that they learn. "Poor schools" are those where the teacher's primary concern is personal saftey and the students' is getting out. Out of which do you think would be easier to get improvement?
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 7:46 Comments || Top||

#4  Paint me as a skeptic. I still remember High School and my fellow classmates. There were those with aptitude and those without. Even those with aptitude didn’t necessarily have the motivation to actually work. No amount of government funding as amply demonstrated by various welfare programs will succeed in anything but the lowest common denominator when you leave out the critical factor that the individual has to actively participate in the program. Why do so many children from Asian and Jewish background consistently score higher on testing? Maybe its because the culture for literally thousands of years has impress the value of education as a means to survive if not advance in life. Look at the discrete groups in the lower scoring category and check whether their ’culture’ stresses education to the extent the aforementioned groups have done?

No child left behind? Bullhockey. You don’t screw over 80 percent in the name of 20 percent. Make it plain and simple. Don’t participate, don’t advance. There’s a lot of difference between removing obstacles and just hand carrying people through life. Poverty sucks. Low life expectancy and less than enjoyable conditions. Your choice. Work in school or work the ditches or, in most cases, the corner moving unregulated pharmaceuticals. A short mean brutish lifestyle awaits. Time for that message to be sent into the classrooms.
Posted by: Glailing Clomble9233 || 03/30/2006 9:23 Comments || Top||

#5  http://www.despair.com/potential.html

Sez it all.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/30/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Asian and Jewish families are also usually two-parent and non-violent. Our teachers are put in untenable positions trying to teach such disparate and diverse students as are in the classroom today. We have had nearly an entire town pull their children out of public school to home educate after a huge influx of non-English speakers came north to work and flooded the classroom. Our local community schools also allow students to go as far as they can, allowing sixth graders to take calculus at the high school level if they have the aptitude so no one is drug down by others. If the school doesn't offer the course at a secondary level, the student may take it at the college level on the district. Tracking and segregating slower students is often criticized as discrininatory but you simply can't teach if you have 100+ languages in a school district! Many special needs kids are hands-on learners and don't do well with current clasroom teaching styles. Those without the aptitude to do college prep coursework really need apprenticeships to learn job skills. I'm thinking we need to rethink the public school system as one size doesn't fit all and failing schools serve no one well.
Posted by: Danielle || 03/30/2006 12:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Parents are a much bigger factor in children's education than are schools. There are bad schools when local parents accept them. There are good schools when local parents demand them.

The children of involved parents do better in good schools and in bad schools.

When good parents are stuck in bad districts they force home learning or find private alternatives.

Vouchers are a threat to school establishments because they give good parents options and force school districts to pay attention to people who would otherwise simply be gadflies.
Posted by: DoDo || 03/30/2006 12:43 Comments || Top||

#8  No school administrator left behind.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 15:18 Comments || Top||

#9  All the money for the kids who can't perform. Keep the special needs kids in regular classes where they can't get the one-on-one they need and allow the disruptions to hinder everyone else.

Too many "special" kids in the wrong setting. Too many bright kids being ignored and not taught with attention because they are not "special".

The idea of sugar-loaded dummies with no parental concern for education or desire taking all the focus, bucks and attention is annoying.

I don't know about the US experience, but the Canadian one is as I've stated.

Three teacher assistants for a wheelchair student with the mentality of a 4 year old in a Grade 6 class. The school says there is no money for books for the library.

but they do have to fund the 3 assisants for this child. Who screams and lashes out for the entire school day, despite the 3 assistants. The rest of the class - who can understand when they can hear through the noise,have a frustrated and exhausted teacher. And they learn that the gorp has more rights than them.

The teacher, though, is on the side of the gorp. Can't check the effectiveness of teaching in this class. Job safe forever.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 19:57 Comments || Top||

#10  My father used to say
"Be very careful with statistics and averages. Think of a man with one foot on a block of ice, and the other foot on a hot stove, on the average, he's comfortable."
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 23:33 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Siniora, Assad shake hands, 'agree' to hold meeting
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Syrian President Bashar Assad decided Tuesday to meet in Damascus in the near future, after the two officials held a meeting on the sidelines of the Arab League summit in Khartoum. "I told President Assad I want to schedule a meeting with him and Syrian officials in Damascus to discuss demarcating the borders and establishing diplomatic relations," Siniora told reporters.

Assad, whose relations with the anti-Syrian coalition dominating the Lebanese Cabinet are strained over the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, welcomed the idea, according to the premier. Siniora quoted the Syrian president as having responded: "we should carefully prepare our agenda before we meet."

However, Syrian sources in Khartoum denied any such agreement, saying Assad and Siniora "simply shook hands" in their first encounter since July 2005. Siniora said upon his arrival in Khartoum Monday night that he would seek a meeting with Assad after Lebanon's leading politicians decided the premier should follow up on recent decisions made during an ongoing national dialogue in Beirut.

The relevant agreements pertained to demarcating the borders and the occupied Shebaa Farms. Siniora, who attended the summit despite the presence of President Emile Lahoud "for more adequate Lebanese representation," did not participate in the opening session. The premier had said the night before that he would attend the event.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [17 views] Top|| File under:


Iran: Reformists Fear Ahmadinejad's Policies
Getting a little urge toward self-preservation, are we?
Several Iranian reformists have sent a message to Iran’s supreme spiritual fearless leader Ali Khamenei warning against the damage that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies are causing their country Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal. The group includes former lawmakers and ministers in the government of the reform-minded president Muhammad Khatami, who was succeeded by Ahmadinejad in August 2005. One of the signatories of the message told Asharq Al-Awsat that hardliner Ahmadinejad’s statements and policies are dragging the country to a destructive confrontation. He added that this confrontation will not be with the United States alone, but also with NATO, since America will not hit Iran single-handedly.
Actually, America will hit Iran virtually single-handedly. The NATO countries just won't raise a stink about it, since they're starting to develop their own urge toward self-preservation, however slowly.
The former lawmaker said a senior European official who has good connections with the reform movement in Iran, sent a letter to former Iranian president and head of Iran's Expediency Council Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, warning of the negative implications the president’s policies will have in Washington and other European capitals. He said that the Iranian leadership should take quick and decisive steps to silence Ahmadinejad and change the current course of foreign policies.
It's the curse of the "plain-talkin' populist." So often, that "plain talk" is just plain stoopid. It's what happens when you don't recognize the constraints that the rest of the world has saddled itself with.
The signatories requested a meeting with decision makers and experts to discuss the crisis in Iran. They also asked Khamenei to release political prisoners and to allow freedom of media. “Iran is going through one of the most severe periods in its history,” the message concluded. “And you, as the country’s supreme leader…the life or death of Iran is in your hands.”
Problem there is that Mahmoud is Fearless Leader's pet boy.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Your last inserted comment says it all, Fred. Ahmadinejad is the mouthpiece of the M²s. The so-called Iranian reformists are feeling the pucker factor go up exponentially, as they come to realize that the M²s really believe their own tripe they put out for public consumption.

"We don't want to die because of these nutjobs!" They are actually saying. Messkit, meet $h*t.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/30/2006 2:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Give it another month and there will be no more reformist left in Iran.
Posted by: bgrebel9 || 03/30/2006 12:45 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
Summit backs Lebanon's right to resistance
The Arab summit's final statement issued Wednesday stressed Arab "support for Lebanon's natural right to resistance and right to free all its occupied territories." The statement also identified the Shebaa Farms and Kfar Shouba Heights as occupied Lebanese territories, and expressed the support of the Arab states for "the Lebanese government's calls to confirm the Lebanese identity of Shebaa Farms and demarcate it according to acceptable UN procedures."

The regional backing came on the heels of an argument between Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud and Premier Fouad Siniora over Hizbullah's military wing. The argument reportedly erupted after Siniora, who participated in the Khartoum meeting independently of the Lebanese delegation headed by Lahoud, demanded the removal of a clause pledging support to the armed "Lebanese resistance." Lahoud protested Siniora's request, which led to an argument between the two leaders, according to one diplomat who requested anonymity. "I am president of the official delegation, and I speak in the name of Lebanon," Lahoud reportedly said. The president also accused Siniora of trying to destroy any Lebanese consensus on the resistance.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday from the Sudanese capital before returning to Beirut, Lahoud said: "The way Siniora spoke before Arab leaders gave the impression that the Lebanese people disagreed on the natural right of the Lebanese resistance to carry on its struggle until the rest of Lebanon's occupied land is freed, and this is not the case." In a separate news conference, Siniora said his words had been intentionally misinterpreted by Lahoud in order to achieve "imaginary goals."
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Of course, no one important participated in the conference. No Soddies, no Egyptians, etc.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:46 Comments || Top||

#2  "Hizbullah's military wing"

I always love that one.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/30/2006 8:29 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Hamas cabinet sworn in
Hamas has formally taken power, with the Palestinian president swearing in its 24-member cabinet, including 14 ministers who served time in Israeli prisons. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president who is a moderate from the defeated Fatah movement, administered the oath to some of the cabinet ministers in a brief ceremony at Gaza City's parliament building on Wednesday. With Israel banning the travel of Hamas leaders between the West Bank and Gaza, the remainder of the ministers held a separate ceremony in the West Bank. The two settings were hooked up by videoconference.
Now they're officially in charge. If they hold true to form, they'll now proceed to screw things up even worse than they are, if that's possible.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Goons in suits.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 10:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Officially in Charge. First agression and it's war. I give 'em about 40 hours.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 19:28 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Pakistan rejects report on N-help to Saudis
Pakistan on Wednesday rejected as "fabricated" a German magazine report that said Saudi Arabia was working secretly on a nuclear programme with help from Pakistani experts. "It is a fabricated story and motivated by vicious intentions," Foreign Office Spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [14 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Come on, you guys, Israel's a sitting duck. Launch a few their way, nothing will happen.
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 15:26 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Three Iraqi soldiers killed, 12 wounded in blasts in Kirkuk
Three Iraqi soldiers were killed, 12 others wounded, on Wednesday in a number of blasts in the province of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. A Kirkuk Police source told Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) that three Iraqi soliders were killed when an explosive device targeted a joint US-Iraqi military patrol on a road nearby Nasser town west of Kirkuk.

A similar attack took place on a road between Riyadh and Baiji, wounding six Iraqi soldiers, including one officer. Another bomb went off late Tuesday night, wounding five oil facility guards in southern Kirkuk.

Meanwhile, a sound bomb went off outside a store on a road leading to Baghdad in Kirkuk, wounding one of the workers in the store. The police source said another timed bomb exploded nearby the residence of Chief of Police Rahim Awah, but no property or life losses were recorded in the attack. Meanwhile, a Katyusha rocket landed in a vacant area nearby the Kirkuk Police Academy in southern Kirkuk. No property damages were recorded in the blast. In a separate incident, unknown gunmen opened fire on Iraqi citizen Arfan Ali Rostom while in his store in Kirkuk, killing him instantly.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:


Bangladesh
Rab ready to crack down on outlaws
The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) will soon start a combing operation in four outlaw- infested southwestern districts to mop up the extremists. "The operation may start anytime, may be even tonight," said a Rab official yesterday evening, seeking anonymity. As part of the operation, the anticrime force will intensify their vigil in the border areas, he added.

Sources said Rab has taken the decision as killings and extortion are going on rampantly in Chuadanga, Meherpur, Jhenidah and Kushtia districts. The elite force has already set up camps at different places in these districts. Some 61 people including BNP and Awami League activists, outlaws and other people have been killed since January this year in these districts. The increase in murders has created a sense of insecurity among people in the trouble-torn region.

Rab Director General MA Aziz Sarkar yesterday held a closed-door meeting with the superintendents of police (SPs) of the four districts at Chuadanga to discuss the operation. Sources said the meeting discussed the latest positions of the outlawed groups, especially the four factions of Purba Banglar Communist Party (BPCP), which are more active than others. The SPs briefed the Rab DG on the extremists' activities in their districts.

The meeting also discussed the drive against Islamist militants in the four districts. The SPs of Chuadanga and Meherpur were asked to intensify their drive against banned Islamist outfit Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) as police are yet to submit charge sheets in the cases filed for the August 17 serial blasts in the two districts. A dozen of underground parties are carrying out extremism in the region and they have around 4,000 armed cadres, according to police.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  REQUISITION 39274

Items required:
Shutter gun 1 ea
Country gun 1 ea
Rounds of bullet 4 ea

Date required:
March 31, 0100-0500

Justification:
Arrest of extremist, seizure of weapons cache, encounter of henchmen.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/30/2006 8:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Lather, rinse, repeat.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 9:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Infested-Miscreants Surrender Before the Combing Operation Begins! The "we never sleep" RAB has you surrounded!
Posted by: Inspector Clueso || 03/30/2006 11:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Boy, oh boy....I've been out a while, but looks like I've come back for some (soon) new adventures in the Tales of the Crossfire Gazette.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Fazlur Rehman Khalil, driver, beaten up
Damn. Yesterday he was at death's door...
Six people on Tuesday evening picked up Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, the former chief of banned militant group Harkatul Mujahideen, from Tarnol, thrashed him and dumped him on Fateh Jang road. They also severely beat up Abdur Rehman, Khalil’s driver, said Sultan Zia, the information secretary of the banned organisation.
I like the idea of a hearty thumping, but really, they should have done him in...
Golra police have registered an FIR against unidentified men. “Six unidentified people badly thrashed Maulana Khalil and his driver with rifle butts inflicting serious head injuries to them, Zia said.
Rifle butts... Serious head injuries... Be still, my beating heart!
Maulana Kahlil left his residence along with his driver on Tuesday evening to attend a congregation at Tarnol, sources said. He made a stopover to offer Maghrib prayers near Tarnol railway crossing, where unidentified men put cloth over the heads of Khalil and his driver, tied them up with rope and took them to Fateh Jang road in a vehicle. Later, the men started beating them. Khalil was severely injured and received wounds on his head and other parts of his body, the sources added. They said at midnight on Tuesday, when Khalil returned to his senses, he made a phone call to his home.
Pray for aneurism.
With a nice deep vein thrombosis, after which a clot works its way loose, gets stuck in the brain, and he drops dead in mid-Friday sermon. Insh'allah.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Heh - he said butts...
Posted by: Beavis || 03/30/2006 7:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Seeing how he was beaten with rifle butts, why didn't they just shoot the bastard?
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 8:41 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly discusses anti-terrorism law
Iraqi Kurdistan National Assembly (IKNA) discussed Wednesday a draft law for counter-terrorism in Iraq's Kurdistan region. Speaking to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), IKNA's Information Adviser Tareq Jowhar said the anti-terrorism law has 15 articles that go in accordance with Iraq's law and other regulations. He added that the law was proposed by Kurdistan Regional Government's President Masoud Barzani and was prepared by IKNA's legal committee within the past two months.

He explained that the law includes a definition for terrorism and detailed punishment for terrorists and persons assisting initiators of terrorist activities. While the council approved three of the law's articles after thorough deliberations, the remaining articles will be discussed on Thursday.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [10 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
UN paves way toward trial of Hariri assassins
The United Nations Security Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted a French-drafted resolution to commence formal negotiations between UN chief Kofi Annan and the Lebanese government on the establishment of a tribunal to try the killers of former Premier Rafik Hariri.

In a closed-door session, the 15-member panel voted to take the final step toward establishing the hybrid court; it will now be up to Lebanese authorities and Kofi Annan to determine the final details of the tribunal. A draft resolution sponsored by the U.S., the U.K., and France was circulated to the Security Council this week. It affirmed the international community's desire to establish a hybrid tribunal along the lines drafted by Lebanese and UN authorities.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:


Rana Qoleilat claims innocence in TV interview
Rana Qoleilat, the Al-Madina Bank executive wanted on suspicion of involvement in a banking scandal, said she was innocent of all allegations in her first media appearance Tuesday. The fugitive alleged from her Brazilian prison cell that her ex-husband Adnan Abu Ayyash paid Syria's former intelligence chief in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh to have her thrown in jail. In an interview with Brazil's Globo Television, Qoleilat said: "Rustom Ghazaleh was extorting money from rich and influential Lebanese like me."

A transcript of the interview was published in Lebanese daily Al-Mustaqbal Tuesday. "I was jailed because I didn't pay Ghazaleh. It was my ex-husband who paid him to put me in jail," she added.

Qoleilat blamed Al-Madina's collapse on Ayyash, who she claims withdrew $490 million to invest in the stock market. "That is when all the troubles began," she said. The couple were married for 10 years from 1992. When Ayyash was unable to return the money, Qoleilat and her family "rushed to his aid" so that he could reimburse the bank's depositors, she added. "When the scandal broke, they started accusing me, when I didn't steal anything. I didn't need to steal because [Ayyash] gave me complete freedom over his private accounts," she said. "He is using his influence to keep me in prison to humiliate me," she said, adding "he threw me in a pit full of rats and garbage."
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
Sanaa court sentences kidnappers to 20 years
Four Yemenis accused of kidnapping five Italian tourists in a lawless area of Yemen in January were each sentenced to 20 years in jail Wednesday. The men, from the Al-Zaidi clan, were jailed by a Sanaa court for planning and carrying out the kidnapping. Two others, from the Al-Ameri clan, received five- and 10- year sentences for abetting the crime. The Italians, three women and two men, were freed after a five-day ordeal in the Maarib region following a standoff between security forces and the kidnappers.
That was the incident where the babe went back into durance vile because the hillbillies wouldn't let her sweety go.
One defense lawyer said the court ruling was unfair and vowed to press ahead with an appeal. "It is an unjust ruling and did not take into account the defense case which is that the defendants did not kidnap the tourists with the intent to hurt them but to pressure the government to release relatives imprisoned by authorities without a trial," said Mohammad Tuaiman.
Interesting line of defense. They said they were going to kill them. What else were they gonna do? Put them up in the guest room for the next 60 years?
The heavily guarded courtroom was packed with the defendants' relatives, most of them in traditional tribal dress.
... alternating between making faces and uttering threats and chewing qat...
"Kidnapping is a peaceful way of diffusing the tension between tribesmen and the army," said the brother of Merai al-Ameri, who received the 10-year prison term.
Ummm... Right. I love the incisive reasoning of the Arab mind.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [20 views] Top|| File under:


India-Pakistan
Militant killed in landmine explosion
Unidentified militants attacked security force check-posts at various places in Balochistan and one was killed in a landmine explosion near Dera Murad Jamali on Wednesday. The militants attacked security check-posts in Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Machh and Dera Murad Jamali with sophisticated weapons. They managed to escape while one was killed in the landmine explosion.
... so he didn't quite make his escape. But the rest did.
Meanwhile, security agencies recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from various cells of the abandoned Bugti Fort in Dera Bugti and from a militant den in Pirkoh. Security officials said on Wednesday that the illegal arms and ammunition were seized in recent search operations. The recovered arms and ammunition include anti-tank rockets, missiles and missile launchers, bombs, rockets, recoil-less launchers, rocket propelled grenades, detonators, rifles, machine guns, Kalashnikovs, sniper rifles and thousands of bullets. Security agencies also seized 47 stolen vehicles, 70 motorcycles and machinery to tamper with the original engine and chassis numbers of stolen vehicles.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:


International-UN-NGOs
Arabs offer Israelis olive branch
Arab leaders meeting in Sudan have promoted a land-for-peace offer to Israel, even as Israelis voted in polls that could give their next government a mandate to impose permanent borders with the Palestinians. The annual Arab League summit demanded the opposite approach - a return to Middle East peace talks sponsored by international mediators - and leaders criticised threats to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas takes office. The leaders also reached a summit deal to provide funding for cash-strapped African Union troops in Sudan's Darfur region amid international pressure to accept the dispatch of a UN force.

A draft final communique, which is not expected to undergo substantial changes, reaffirms an Arab initiative of 2002 which offers Israel peace in exchange for withdrawal from land occupied in the Middle East war of 1967. Israel rejects the offer. The statement calls on donor countries to respect the electoral choice of the Palestinians, who gave Hamas a sweeping victory in January, and fulfil commitments to give them aid.

Foreign ministers meeting at the weekend recommended their governments maintain aid to the Palestinian Authority at $55 million a month and waive Iraqi debt worth billions of dollars. Nasser al-Kidwa, the Palestinian foreign minister, said: "It is basically to continue with the funding as it has been."
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You don't get funding. Democratically electing terrorists and declaring your national imperative is genocide makes you terrorists and enemy combatants.

Electing terrorists democractically does not magically turn them into anything else. It simply shows the choice of Palestinians to join with terrorists - by majority vote.

We respect your electoral choice to become dead. fools.

"land for peace" - you lost the damn war. It's a chance you take when you attack a country. Piss off. Couldn't do it the first time around - or the next or the next or the next or....

Did you notice the Arab meeting voted no more funds for you either. You're screwed, people. Wanna change your minds - democratically that is - throw 'em out - and vote to live?

No? Didn't think so. You know your role in the muslim world. Eliminate Israel or you don't exist in the minds of any other muslim.
Posted by: Thinemp Whimble2412 || 03/30/2006 19:18 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Fresh clash widens Jamaat-BNP rift in Satkhira
The BNP-Jamaat rift has widened in the district following renewed clash between the leaders and activists of the two parties. The clash erupted as the district unit of Madrasa Shikhhak Parishad, a front organisation of Jamaat-e-Islami, yesterday brought out a procession and held a meeting at Shaheed Abdur Razzak Park accusing BNP of attacking the major coalition partner.

District unit general secretary of Madrasa Shikhhak Parishad Maulana Abdul Bari presided the meeting. In the meeting, the speakers demanded arrest and punishment to BNP leader Abdur Rouf, also chairman of Alipur Union Parishad (UP) for criticising Jamaat Ameer Maulana Matiur Rahman Nizami and beating madrasa teacher Maulana Abu Sayeed. Terming Rouf as 'Kafir' and godfather of criminals, they demanded his arrest and punishment. They threatened to launch a tougher agitation if the authorities failed to take action against him.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [9 views] Top|| File under:


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Cat terrorizes Blue State town
At first, I thought this had been released to the wire services 3 days early, but it appears to be legit.
Residents of the neighborhood of Sunset Circle
which probably went for Kerry, what, 60-40?
say they have been terrorized by a crazy cat named Lewis. Lewis for his part has been uniquely cited, personally issued a restraining order by the town's animal control officer. "He looks like Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw," Janet Kettman, a neighbor said Monday. "They are formidable weapons."
And when he reaches into his bag of tricks...
The neighbors said those weapons, along with catlike stealth, have allowed Lewis to attack at least a half dozen people and ambush the Avon lady as she was getting out of her car. Some of those who were bitten and scratched ended up seeking treatment at area hospitals.
I could understand an Amway person, but Avon?
Animal Control Officer Rachel Solveira placed a restraining order on him. It was the first time such an action was taken against a cat in Fairfield. In effect, Lewis is under house arrest, forbidden to leave his home.
This should prove as effective as UN sanctions.
Solveira also arrested the cat's owner, Ruth Cisero, charging her with failing to comply with the restraining order and reckless endangerment.
Has anyone asked why does he hate us?
Posted by: Greremble Thearong9675 || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [21 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Video Here
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  wow! House arrest for cats and we let hate-spewing Imams roam free....
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 0:30 Comments || Top||

#3  The solution to the problem is simple and requires 3 things:
1. A canvas sack.
2. A bunch of rocks.
3. A bridge to throw it off of.
All they need to do is figure out which sissy has the stones go grab an 8 pound cat.
Hint: grab it by the throat.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 03/30/2006 6:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Obviously we need a law banning the growing of claws and fangs!

Approprate graphic.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/30/2006 8:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Somehow I can't get the scene of the rabbit from The Holy Grail out of my mind on this one. They forgot the "big pointy teeth," lol! Great pic, BTW!
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:24 Comments || Top||

#6  What a bunch of pussies.
Posted by: DoDo || 03/30/2006 12:47 Comments || Top||

#7  Easy for you to say Do. But I understand that Lewis "will stare you down" and "you never know how he'll react".

Back away slowly, don't make eye contact and even think about a tree.
Posted by: 6 || 03/30/2006 14:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Felix the Cat and has six toes on each foot, each with a long claw," Janet Kettman, a neighbor said Monday. "They are formidable weapons."

So's my foot vs. a friggin cat. They aren't just pussies, they're stupid pussies...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 14:15 Comments || Top||

#9  I run a hall gamut each morning. I've only needed stitches once, what a bunch a wimps. Fight yur cats! They'll R E S P E C T you.
Posted by: 6 || 03/30/2006 18:03 Comments || Top||

#10  There's no need to resort to violence.

They just need to do an exchange program.

Somewhere in Texas there's probably a toy poodle that'll be perfectly suited for Massachussets...
Posted by: Phil || 03/30/2006 18:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Macavity's not there!
Posted by: Korora || 03/30/2006 18:18 Comments || Top||

#12  Having been owned by many cats over the years I can tell you this is entirely normal cat behavior.

When a cat rubs against your leg, he's actually marking you with "His" scent, (Scent glands are above the eyes in front of the ears) making sure that you're marked as "His" private property.
We humans can't smell it, but other cats can.

Obviously Lewis is smelling other cats scents. That's as plain a "Fight" signal as the middle finger at a NASCAR versus Biker rally.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 22:01 Comments || Top||

#13  Quote from the article.
"Everyone who is complaining has a cat.
End Quote.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/30/2006 23:05 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Several die in Baghdad store attack
Attackers wearing Iraqi police commando uniforms have killed at least eight people and wounded three in a raid on an electronics store in western Baghdad, police sources say. A hospital source put the toll at nine - three women and six men - from Wednesday's raid on al-Ibtikar Trade Contracting Company in the relatively affluent Mansour neighbourhood.

The attackers arrived at the store in five black BMWs in the morning, police Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said. The motive of the attack was not known. The assailants burned part of the building and appeared to have taken no money, Abdul-Razzaq said. The past week has seen a spate of attacks and robberies by uniformed raiders on electronics stores and other businesses in the city. On Monday and Tuesday, 35 people were abducted in four attacks, two of them on electronics dealers. The fate of those kidnapped is unknown.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Iran's Ambassador: Tehran and Moscow agree on enrichment proposal
Iran's Ambassador to Moscow said here on Wednesday that the high ranking Iranian and Russian officials are agreed on the basics of establishing a center in Russian soil to enrich uranium for Iran. Gholam-Reza Ansari told Russia's Itar-Tass news agency that all the same, the time and place of the next round of talks on the matter are not decided yet.
We've agreed to agree on the concept...

The Iranian envoy referred to the existence of certain pressure lobbies abroad that "create obstacles in the way for smooth proceeding of the negotiations on the issue," setting example of the remarks made by the Director of the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs John Sawyers on the issue. Ansari evaluated the previous rounds of bilateral talks on the matter as "positive and constructive, expressing hope that Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor would become operational at the scheduled date.

Calling Russia "Iran's trustworthy partner" he said, "The Iranians view Bushehr plant as the symbol of good and close cooperation between our countries."
Stressing that the newly emerged conditions should not affect making operational the Bushehr Nuclear Reactor, the Iranian diplomat said, "Our bilateral cooperation in construction of new nuclear reactors, too, should not be affected by the prevailing Western hue and cry." Ansari reiterated, "The contract for construction of Bushehr plant was signed many years ago, in full accordance with the international rules and regulations." He concluded his remarks expressing hope that the Russians would respect their commitments in this respect 'this time'.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [13 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Like the hokey pokey, put your right foot in, put your right foot out.....

but to no available, the Moolahs have a date with MOAB.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Ok, so when will the seals be put back, and the cameras turned on Mr. Ansari?
Posted by: smn || 03/30/2006 0:23 Comments || Top||

#3  With emphasis on the word "enrichment".
Posted by: Perfesser || 03/30/2006 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  The Iranians somehow think that kissing up to the Russians will protect them from the UN Security Council. They don't seem to recognize that it's not the UN Security Council that is going to smack them soon.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/30/2006 10:35 Comments || Top||

#5  They're not kissing up to the Russians because they're hoping the UNSC will go easy. That's more the Russians' objective.

This is more a matter of wanting Russian reactors, getting pressure from Moscow to play along, and bending a bit, however unwillingly. Don't think it'll change anything in Iran one iota.
Posted by: Pappy || 03/30/2006 12:03 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Wounded U.N. refugee official dies two weeks after attack in southern Sudan
A U.N. official wounded in a raid two weeks ago on a United Nations compound in southern Sudan has died, the world body's refugee agency said Wednesday. Nabil Bahjat Abdulla, a 48-year-old Iraqi, died Tuesday night in a hospital in Nairobi, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said. Abdulla was shot three times in the stomach when gunmen attacked the UNHCR compound in the town of Yei on March 15, also killing a Sudanese guard.

"Once again, the humanitarian community is mourning a friend and colleague who died trying to help others in a place that has already seen far too much sadness and violence," U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. "All of us at UNHCR mourn Nabil's death and we extend our deepest condolences to his family. We pay tribute to his life, and his sacrifice will never be forgotten."
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [15 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What a hell hole.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:10 Comments || Top||

#2  condolences - a waste for a wasteful cause/institution, but done for all the right reasons. A bombing raid of Khartoum would've done more good and saved this poor man's life
Posted by: Frank G || 03/30/2006 0:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Agreed, frank. However, I do find it interesting that an Iraqi would go there to try and work on humanitarian issues. I'd like to know a lil' more about his background and his reasons for doing so. Could be because he got a taste of freedom post-Saddam and decided to spread the word. Or, just a convenient UN position. Either way, I applaud him as an individual. The corporate body of the UN on the other hand is a waste. We could do more arming and training the southern Sudanese to rise up against the janjaweed than any UN Humanitarian "mission" could do.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 12:08 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Cynthia McKinney punches police officer
According to sources on Capitol Hill, U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-emented) punched a Capitol police officer on Wednesday afternoon after he mistakenly pursued her for failing to pass through a metal detector.

Members of Congress are not required to pass through metal detectors. Sources say that the officer was at a position in the Longworth House Office Building, and did not recognize McKinney, nor saw her credentials as she went around the metal detector. The officer called out, “Ma’am, Ma’am,” and walked after her in an attempt to stop her. When he caught McKinney, he grabbed her by the arm. Witnesses say McKinney pulled her arm away, and with her cell phone in hand, punched the officer in the chest. McKinney’s office has not responded to requests for comment.
First time she's ever shut up.
According to the Drudge Report, the entire incident is on tape. Drudge continues, "The cop is pressing charges, and the USCP (United States Capitol Police) are waiting until Congress adjurns to arrest her, a source claims.
The House has the power to expell her. Of course, she'll be reelected in the Fall.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Fighting for us" indeed
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:57 Comments || Top||

#2  "Do I have to contact the police every time I change my hairstyle? How do we account for the fact that when I wore my braids every day for 11 years, I still faced this problem, primarily from certain white police officers," the statement says.

Stop hairstyle profiling now!
Posted by: ryuge || 03/30/2006 6:00 Comments || Top||

#3  No cornrows, no peace!
Posted by: Ulitch Chump2393 || 03/30/2006 7:01 Comments || Top||

#4  From what I've read, she refuses to wear the badge that identifies her as a Congressthing. It has less to do with racism than with her own sense of superiority.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 7:45 Comments || Top||

#5  I don't agree with the punching part (and technically I don't agree with the "Congresscritters don't have to go thru the metal detector" part), but she has been her district's elected (and now re-elected) representative for many years, and the security staff ought to recognize her.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 7:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Nonsense, Seafarious. New people get hired all the time. They can't be expected to know all the Royal Family immediately. It sounds like what the guard did was reasonable and what she did was unreasonable. If she doesn't like the security arragements she should change them or stay away. That's why I don't fly any more. Screw the TSA.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 7:57 Comments || Top||

#7  and the security staff ought to recognize her.

I don't know about congressional security folks, but everyone outside of Fulton County Ga. damn sure recognizes the radical, leftest, giveaway bitch.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 7:57 Comments || Top||

#8 
HON. CYNTHIA A. McKINNEY
of georgia
in the house of representatives

Monday, September 30, 2002

Ms. McKINNEY. Mr. Speaker, as you know, I recently suffered a setback in my bid for reelection. I am beginning to get over the disappointment that I will no longer be able to serve the people of Georgia in the next Congress. I will miss serving. However, there were some alarming things about the campaign to defeat me that I think my colleagues of both parties should look out for. I am not talking about the Republicans who crossed over to vote for my opponent, but the heavy involvement of Indians in the primary. I am one of the Members of Congress who has tried to get out the truth about South Asia, and I am proud of that. Earlier this year, I was one of 42 Members of Congress who wrote to President Bush to urge the release of Sikh and other political prisoners in India. Apparently, this irritated the Indians because the newspaper article I am inserting in the Record along with this statement shows that they admitted that they invested heavily in the effort to defeat me. To my colleagues of both parties who have also been involved in the effort to expose India's brutal record, I say: Watch out; they are coming after you, too.
Posted by: john || 03/30/2006 8:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Damn! I didn't even get time to put a stopwatch on when the "racism" charge would show up! She's even quicker then I thought...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 8:50 Comments || Top||

#10  I recall an anecdotal story about Admiral Rickover.

The Officer-of-the-Deck (OOD) of an in-port nuclear ship was standing watch when someone dressed in an Admiral’s uniform came aboard. The visitor saluted the flag and the officer of the deck (in accordance with custom) and proceeded to walk forward towards the Captain’s in-port cabin. The OOD said, “Sir, please identify yourself.” The visitor paused for a moment, looked at the OOD in disbelief, and resumed walking. The OOD said, “Sir, please stop and identify yourself.” The visitor did not stop. The OOD said to his fellow watch-stander, “Petty Officer So-and-so, draw your weapon and chamber a round.” To the departing visitor he said, “Sir, you will stop and identify yourself.”

The visitor was, of course, Admiral Rickover visiting one of “his” nuclear ships. The OOD received a letter of commendation from the Admiral, commending his performance of duties. The Commanding Officer received a picture of the Admiral, to keep on the Quarterdeck for all OODs to use for reference.

Moral: While the Admiral was in a clearly identifiable uniform, he recognized that the watch-standers were making no assumptions and were performing their duties properly.
Posted by: Sailor_Man || 03/30/2006 8:57 Comments || Top||

#11  Captain's Quarters comment:

I just need to make sure we have this correct. The new Democratic effort on national security, therefore, is to defy identification procedures, ignore common-sense safeguards, pretend not to hear warnings, and then assault the people protecting us.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 9:42 Comments || Top||

#12  I love the spokesman for Dennis Hastert's comment: "On a day when the Democrats unveil their national security agenda, it's probably not a good idea to allegedly strike a police officer."

Hat Tip: Gwinnett Daily Post (suburban County of Atlanta just north of McKinney's district). And, their story follows what RC said. That Congressmen/women get to bypass the metal detectors if they are wearing a certain pin on their lapel. She has refused from day one (according to this article) to wear it. I assume it must have the American flag on it, or something for her to be so disgusted by a lil' pin not to wear it. Sometimes, it's just better to not (politically) attack, and just sit back and watch the Demos dig their own ditches, lol!
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:21 Comments || Top||

#13  This reminds me of when I was a consultant working at an NCR building. The security was oddly tight (maybe because of bomb threats from unbalanced former employees, maybe because one floor had a bunch of half-assembled ATMs for testing), and the guards would *NOT* let anyone past the lobby without either an ID or the signature of an employee.

I saw the same guards every day for a year and a half; they recognized me, I know they did, but they still wouldn't let me pass without an ID or an employee vouching for me.

McKinney's a bint, and blaming racism is just her the default state of her "mind".
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||

#14  Seafarious: She doesn't have her cornrows anymore. She had a "BIG FLUFFY" hairstyle. Doesn't look much like her photo below with it.

Its a good argument for retinal scanners in Congress Land.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/30/2006 12:36 Comments || Top||

#15  For some reason, she reminds me of Sadr. Holds her power through nothing but brazen chutzpah and for reasons unclear manages to hang on to it.
Posted by: 2b || 03/30/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Grampaw Munster sez Congress, US public opinion major challenges to Soddiland
Words right from the camel's mouth. Parse as necessary.
Saudi Ambassador in Washington Prince Turki Al-Faisal said on Wednesday not the US Administration, but rather the Congress and the American public opinion are the two major challenges the Kingdom has to deal with to improve its image. "Our relationships with the US Administration are graded at very good when it comes to cooperation on issues of interest to both nations," Prince Turki told a small group of Arab journalists based in Washington. But the relationship with the Senate and the House of Representatives, which both speak sometimes negatively about Saudi Arabia, is something of paramount challenge to Saudi Arabia.
Bush is in the position of having to maintain a semblence of cordial relations with the princes, due to a lot of factors, including oil and the desire to avoid open confrontation with the entire Muslim world. Not being given to hasty actions, he's taking the WoT one piece at a time, with Soddy Arabia and Pakland down the list, after the way has been prepared. Congress, a beast with 565 bellies and probably half that number of brains, doesn't feel the same constraints. The public, even the public that's not paying close attention, sees where the impetus toward holy war is coming from and feels an instinctive dislike for the Arab Master Race.
Saudi Arabia, a strategic ally to the United States, has come under a barrage of criticisms since the September 11 attacks by US some lawmakers, accusing the Kingdom of supporting Islamic radicalism and inability to take concrete actions of reform.
Most such criticisms have been well-justified.
Such accusations, categorically denied by the Saudi Government, have badly tarnished Saudi Arabias image in the United States despite the fact that the US Administration maintained close contacts with the Kingdom, praising it for its leading role in the fight on terrorism.
The denials of the obvious have made the Tragic Kingdom look stupid and duplicitous. That's why the public doesn't like them.
The Saudi diplomat said the September attacks, engineered by a number of Arab nationals with close link to Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network among whom 15 of 19 some were identified as Saudi nationals, have doubled the responsibility of Saudi Arabia to prove its innocence to the growing number of Americans whom he described as "lacking basic knowledge of Saudi Arabia."
Some of the rest of us have acquired that basic knowledge of Soddy Arabia. We really don't like them.
Prince Turki, who has been traveling to a number of cities in America within efforts to improve his country's image, said many of the people he met with had negative picture about Saudi Arabia.
Crawling with holy men, chopping people's heads off, exporting jihad to the rest of the world, spittle-spewing, xenophobic sermons at Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque... Shucks. I can't see why anybody's got a negative opinion of them.
"These two issues are the major challenges to us. We need not to focus our efforts in Washington, we need to travel to real America if we want to establish good picture of our countries," he said in reference to small and big cities in the United States.
Cut a few holy men's heads off and opinion might start to change.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [18 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Words right from the camel's mouth, indeed.
Posted by: Captain America || 03/30/2006 0:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Crawling with holy men, chopping people's heads off, exporting jihad to the rest of the world, spittle-spewing, xenophobic sermons at Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque... Shucks. I can't see why anybody's got a negative opinion of them.

You forgot the secret nuclear program, and the secret ballistic missile program.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 7:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I'll disagree a bit in that I care very little what goes on in Soddiland. I hardly care how many hands they cut off as long as they don't try to export their sewer of a political, social systems and religion outside their borders. That's where the rub comes. But then I don't think much of the French either. The major difference being the French don't generally fly our airplanes into our buildings.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/30/2006 7:54 Comments || Top||

#4  Saudi Arabian funding has globally transformed Islam, allowing the triumph of a rabid version of the faith that is dedicated to world domination. With the recent spike in the price of oil, such funding has only increased. I see no evidence that anyone in the US government is taking this particular "root cause" of terrorism seriously. We need -- above all else -- an American leader who understands this. Increasingly, the people do. Will our leadership follow?
Posted by: pagan infidel || 03/30/2006 10:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Crawling with holy men, chopping people's heads off, exporting jihad to the rest of the world, spittle-spewing, xenophobic sermons at Friday prayers at the Grand Mosque... Shucks. I can't see why anybody's got a negative opinion of them.

You forgot the secret nuclear program, and the secret ballistic missile program.

And, RC, you must add the lovely sands of the desert, and the 120+ degree temps in the shade. Makes for a lovely getaway. Not to mention that ali baba and the 4,000 princes live in royalty while the rest pursue their miserable lives in squalor. Quite the lovely stop, if you like the Middle Ages, lol.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:39 Comments || Top||

#6  The major difference being the French don't generally fly our airplanes into our buildings.

Well, no; but the way things are looking, they'll be using their nuclear missiles on us in 20 years.
Posted by: Secret Master || 03/30/2006 18:18 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
'Holocaust is a concocted story'
DERA GHAZI KHAN: Syed Nazeer Naveed Shah, intellectual, social activist and vice chairman Biatul Maal, said the killing of six million Jews by Hitler is a concocted story. The vice chairman said denying the holocaust in Europe is an offence, while defaming the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is considered freedom of expression. He said one gets ten years imprisonment if he expresses a different view on the holocaust, while publishing of caricatures satirising the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was considered freedom of expression. He said Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinazad divulged the secret of the Jews, adding that the killing of six million Jews during the Second World War was a made-up story. He said Jews concocted the story to prove themselves aggrieved and victimised.
Posted by: Fred || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [19 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sure enough. And once we're done expunging this world of Islam I'll work double hard to make sure no one ever allows it to be called a "holocaust."
Posted by: Zenster || 03/30/2006 11:40 Comments || Top||

#2  The vice chairman said denying the holocaust in Europe is an offence, while defaming the Holy Prophet (PBUH) is considered freedom of expression.

Six million dead vs. some goofy cartoon of Mr. PBUH. Yeah, I can see his point.
Well, maybe not...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 11:49 Comments || Top||

#3  "He said Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinazad divulged the secret of the Jews"
Let's see, do I want to believe the deranged, scumbag, nutcase President of Iran, or do I want to believe the benevolent old man I worked with about 15 years ago who was an American soldier who saw the Nazi's handiwork up close and personal? I'll take American for six million, Alex.
Posted by: Darrell || 03/30/2006 17:18 Comments || Top||


Africa Subsaharan
Zim: Sabotage probe at army barraks
Military unrest is reported to have rocked the headquarters of 2 Brigade in Harare last week when soldiers went on the rampage and sabotaged the brigade’s fleet of vehicles in protest at poor service conditions, The Standard understands. As a result of the sabotage, operations were partially grounded and would have left the country exposed in the event of an attack from hostile forces, said military sources. According to the sources, the underpaid soldiers allegedly removed batteries from the brigade’s vehicles including a bus and some Dong Feng trucks imported from China. The deputy commander of 2 Brigade, Lieutenant Colonel Kalisto Gwanetsa, requested The Standard to submit a list of written questions to the brigade’s offices in Cranborne. "Usapinde mukati, ukapinda ndokugura musoro, (Leave your questions at the gate. If you get inside the camp I will cut your head off)," said Gwanetsa who claimed he was also a journalist. Gwanetsa later said: "There is no story. I am training my soldiers. I cannot divulge the nature of my training to you. Some of the questions that you have asked are very sensitive. That is what the enemy is waiting to hear ..."

Senior officers allegedly accused junior soldiers of stealing the batteries, The Standard was told. They immediately ordered that no juniors should leave the camp until all the batteries had been recovered or replaced. "The senior officers claim that if the junior soldiers leave camp, this will give them an opportunity to go and cash in on the allegedly stolen batteries," one source said. Other reports indicate that the soldiers have been asked to undertake menial tasks while the Special Investigations Branch of the Military Police conducts investigations. But junior soldiers have hit back saying only senior officers had the means to remove batteries from the fleet. "It is very simple. The senior officers are the ones who have A2 farms and those big batteries are ideal for use on many vehicles used on farms," said one of the soldiers who spoke on condition of anonymity. "No ordinary soldier would be able to carry those big batteries out of the camp that easily. But it would be very simple for a senior officer to drive out of the camp with the battery in his car."

The soldiers said they were also angry that while the brigade was not able to conduct normal military business because of an alleged fuel shortage, senior army officers were able to attend to personal business, including visiting their farms. Over the years, soldiers have watched as their conditions of service have continued to deteriorate. Wages have been whittled down by inflation with security guards last year earning more than some uniformed officers. Soldiers say the army has been hit by desertions with several deserters preferring to work as security guards in neighbouring countries like Botswana and South Africa. They claim they are now subjected to a miserable diet of beans as the army cannot supply them with meat on a regular basis. Some of them have resorted to armed robberies to make ends meet. The army has also denied reports that soldiers have been sent on forced leave because it cannot feed them.

From The Standard, 26 March
By Foster Dongozi

Source: WWW.ZwNews.Com
Posted by: Glotle Grolump6647 || 03/30/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || E-Mail|| [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Farmin B. Hard without batteries.
Posted by: Besoeker || 03/30/2006 7:53 Comments || Top||

#2  "Usapinde mukati, ukapinda ndokugura musoro, (Leave your questions at the gate. If you get inside the camp I will cut your head off),"

Gotta keep that one in my phrase book.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 03/30/2006 8:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey, Bob, sounds like ya got a pissed off army there? My bet is that can't be good.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/30/2006 10:34 Comments || Top||

#4  lol, RC! One for the ages. Goes down easy with other worldwide known quotes, eh? (like "Ask not what your country can do for you..." or "The buck stops here...."), lol.
Posted by: BA || 03/30/2006 11:12 Comments || Top||

#5  ...Suspect that this will be the pretext for a purge of the middle and lower ranks. Popcorn please...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/30/2006 13:23 Comments || Top||



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