Five senior Taliban fighters held at Guantanamo Bay have agreed to be moved to custody in Qatar as part of a peace plan, Afghan government officials say.
The US administration has not approved the transfer but is considering it as an incentive for the militants to enter negotiations in Afghanistan.
None of the five inmates is accused of directly killing Americans.
The deployment will be the ship's 22nd. Following its return to Virginia in the fall, tens of thousands are expected to be on hand for a deactivation ceremony Dec. 1 that President Barack Obama has been invited to attend.
The following summer, Enterprise will be towed to the shipyard where it was built in nearby Newport News so its nuclear fuel can be removed, a process that will take until 2015. What remains of the ship after that will then be taken to Washington state so it can be scrapped.
The ship, among the first to respond after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won't be turned into a museum like some other carriers. Crews have to cut large holes in the vessel to remove the nuclear fuel, and it would be too expensive to repair, said Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, the Enterprise's public affairs officer.
The deployment will be the ship's 22nd. Following its return to Virginia in the fall, tens of thousands are expected to be on hand for a deactivation ceremony Dec. 1 that President Barack Obama has been invited to attend.
The following summer, Enterprise will be towed to the shipyard where it was built in nearby Newport News so its nuclear fuel can be removed, a process that will take until 2015. What remains of the ship after that will then be taken to Washington state so it can be scrapped.
The ship, among the first to respond after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, won't be turned into a museum like some other carriers. Crews have to cut large holes in the vessel to remove the nuclear fuel, and it would be too expensive to repair, said Lt. Cmdr. Sarah Self-Kyler, the Enterprise's public affairs officer.
The imbroglio over Rush Limbaugh, his unfortunate remarks about a student activist, and his advertisers took a bizarre turn when one advertiser who publicly denounced Limbaugh last week and pulled its ads, begged to be taken back.
The advertiser in question is Sleep Train, a mattress company. According to the Los Angeles Times, Limbaugh has turned down its request to be reinstated as a voiced advertiser, which involved the host himself endorsing the company. The reason was that Sleep Train's action had angered Limbaugh's many millions of listeners so the show could not in good conscience accept the company back.
Meanwhile, a new startup by conservative media personality Michelle Malkin, Twitchy.com, has announced that it is a new advertiser on the Rush Limbaugh program. Twitchy.com is a service that groups messages on Twitter by subject. The buying of ad space on the radio talk show is as much a political statement in support of Limbaugh as it is a play to advertise for more subscribers.
The dust up over Sleep Train, along with the blowback suffered by Carbonite over that company's public denunciation of Limbaugh, demonstrates that the iconic radio talk show host is dealing from a position of strength in the campaign to deprive him of advertisers. One tends to prosper when one advertises on Limbaugh's show. But cross him, and one will suffer.
The one overwhelming fact is that Limbaugh commands many millions of listeners. There is no evidence that any of them have stopped listening because of the kerfuffle with Sandra Fluke. Indeed, one suspects that Limbaugh has gained listeners, curious about what the fuss is all about. As long as the show maintains its listener base, it does not matter if any advertisers bail on Limbaugh for political reasons. There will always be others who will want to take their place, because it is good business to advertise on the most listened to radio talk show on the planet.
The situation demonstrates the power of the marketplace over politically inspired efforts to drive an iconic conservative radio voice off the air. Once again Limbaugh has defeated his enemies and has humbled them into the dust.
#1
Citrix and Carbonite who dropped advertising with the Rush are heavily used by the Feds. I would bet the Obama regime threatened to stop business with these two if they didn't stop advertising with Rush. The Carbonite stock value plummeted in the private sector immediately.
QUESTION: I have seen the Windows Remote PC (free with Windows 7 and XP) used like a thin client from any network PC to a Network server just like Citrix. Why is Citrix still in business then?
Posted by: George Ebbeamp4828 ||
03/10/2012 15:25
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#2
Media set up back fired. There will be more attempts. They will never learn. Shows how stong Tea Party really is. Basic Americans wanting whats best for all people. Yes, I see more of a connection between Rush and the Tea Party conservatism than Republicans. Democratic party has been hijacked by these elites. Should conservatism begin to grow in the Democratic party the regresive left will lose their lease. Then it will be time to bring in a good bug man.
The reason Obama talks looking up is to give the impression he is above us all. That he is taller than he actually is.
#9
Raj, I believe "commands" here is meant in the same sense as "commanding their attention" or "having command of the English language."
Bias is identifying pundits with conservative political views as "conservative media personality Joe Blow," while identifying pundits with leftist political views as "media personality Joe Blow." As if leftist/liberal is normal, right, and good, and thus can be omitted, while deviations from it must be pointed out.
Mark Steyn at his best. From TFA:
All of us are born with the unalienable right to life, liberty, and a lifetime supply of premium ribbed silky-smooth ultrasensitive spermicidal lubricant condoms. No taxation without rubberization, as the Minutemen said. The shot heard round the world, and all that. RTWT
#11
That depends Zorba: are you male? Because, for all her talk about contraception, Ms. Fluke honestly looks like the kind of gal who likes other gals.
#12
So true, Secret Master. But chicks like that actually have boyfriends. One told me he couldn't understand how any woman could be a Republican. I told him he'd probably get more blow jobs if he wasn't such a bigot.
#1
When they offer up ending military welfare to first world countries in Europe and Asia, let me know. It took a volcano to finally get the Air Force out of the 'strategically vital' airfield in the Philippines. Somehow we've survived without that critical strategic asset. The brass has dragged its feet like that for generations.
#1
So this justifies them thugs blowing that kid away? This was malfeasance and nothing they can say will ever change my mind on this. Your Gubmint in action.
Posted by: Past Master of the Obvious ||
03/10/2012 8:56
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#2
Comes across as life imitating art. The beginning of the Godfather where the one clean kid in the family, a returning war hero, is beaten by the police chief.
#3
and it just took them how mnay months too come up with this info. Why weren't the others arrested right after the raid if evidence was found linking them too all this. Sounds like alot of ass covering too me. They must be taking lessons from Georgias' police trainers.
Posted by: chris ||
03/10/2012 10:04
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#4
I used to be against legalizing pot, but seeing all the crazy police thugs acting as assassination squads against citizens, and the horrible prison system guards, I have to agree with Pat Robertson. Time to legalize it.
And way past time to stop the IDF type training of our cops. You can't even call the police for minor things anymore without getting the assassination squad in full attack mode. It's disgusting that we as citizens are putting up with it.
#5
So the sister-in-law is a druggie and a dealer. How is it that the SWAT team is allowed to blow the guy away?
Law and order starts with the police obeying the law. See Robert Peel for details.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2012 10:38
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#6
making the police swat team leaders criminally and civilly liable if negligence is proved would go some ways to making sure they hit the right address and use appropriate measures
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2012 11:13
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#7
The SWAT guys should hire the Pizza Hut guys. You ever get a pizza delivered to your door without ordering one?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
03/10/2012 22:16
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h/t Gates of Vienna
Six U.S. military men have been murdered by Afghan security forces seized by what may be labeled Quran-Burning Rage.
These murders are an outrage in and of themselves, but it's crucial we don't see them as isolated. They fit into a pattern that above all spreads "dhimmitude",
#1
Accusations of blasphemy, heresy, apostasy, of being the wrong kind of Muslim and/or of being an uppity woman are all tools of JIHAD & have been for many centuries.
#4
Islamic rage is of extremely short range, only affecting the nearest Christians, Jews, and Americans. Further out, it is totally impotent.
It gets its power in the West from the Alinsky Amplification Effect: it is the "crisis" not allowed to be wasted by politicians and activists. They rush in as the "Peacemakers" who demand concessions as a precondition of them going to mollify The Offended and The Enraged.
At all other times, these intermediates treat these people like children, so would regard any rage against any policy of theirs as being a temper tantrum that deserves being ignored. No world-destroying crisis ensues from doing so.
Perhaps us ignoring the tantrums would equally result in no similar crises arising.
#5
The topic is Russian expansionism and British response in the mid 19th century stretching theatres from Egypt to India, into the Caucasus and Khanates (including Afghanistan). Many locations are in the news today, such as Kabul and Khandahar.
It has the accounts of both Russians and British men of action and keen eye as they scout and survey, and report as some of the first westerners to enter these areas as the two empires attempt to outmaneuver each other. Their observations and opinions are (not going to spoil) interesting.
In my opinion, it is a history book which reads like a spy novel, and the author does a fantastic job keeping reigns on so many characters and events, with gentle reminders and forshadowing without spoiling.
#6
Mr. Hopkirk has ten books offered by amazon.com, swksvolFF. Unfortunately, The Great Game is not one of those offered on Kindle, which means I can't download a free sample? Do you have thoughts on any of his others, or should I just go mad and download samples of all available?
#7
I wish I had an answer, The Great Game is my first experience with Mr. Hopkirk; this particular book has been passed across my family and is usually read within a couple days, it just does not sit down easily.
I looked at the list, and unfamiliar with kindle is this link an offer for kindle Great Game? Also, I am told Trespassers on the Roof of the World is a good one.
Four civilians were reported killed and one more injured by a NATO air strike in the northeastern Kapisa province overnight, according to local officials. A spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was looking into reports civilians had been killed, adding that their initial findings show the strike killed two terrorists insurgents and injured three.
Meanwhile, Afghan and foreign troops killed two terrorists insurgents and detained 27 more during joint operations in several parts of the country, according to the Ministry of Interior.
Shootings linked to the long-running jihad sectarian tensions in southern Thailand claimed two more lives on Saturday.
In Pattani province, a member of the Plonghoi Tambon Administration Organisation was gunned down in Kapaw district. Witnesses said that Doloh Dengla, 50, was siting and talking with his wife and relatives on chairs in front of his house when two gunmen emerged from a car and approached him. They fired at Doloh with a 9 mm handgun and an M16 assault rifle, then fled in the waiting car. The victim was hit several times and died at the scene.
In Narathiwat province, a former assistant village leader was killed in a shooting at a roadside pavilion in Yingor district on Saturday morning. Asha Tayeh, 29, was sitting with his two friends at the pavilion on a local road when a gunman in a pickup truck fired at him twice with a shotgun. The attackers then fled. Asha was hit twice and taken to hospital, where he was later pronounced dead.
A violent flare-up that began when Israel killed a leading militant commander in the Gaza Strip has so far killed 12 militants, said a Palestinian health spokesman Saturday.
The killing also unleashed a barrage of rockets by furious Palestinian militants from the coastal territory toward Israel's southern border communities. One of those rockets seriously wounded an Israeli civilian and sent families scattering into bomb shelters.
The Palestinian militants were killed in seven airstrikes overnight and on Saturday morning, said Gaza health spokesman Adham Abu Salmiya. He said some 20 more civilians were wounded by flying shrapnel from the exploding missiles, some of which targeted militants deep in civilian areas of the crowded territory.
The flare-up began midmorning Friday, when an Israeli airstrike targeted the commander of one of the militant groups behind the abduction of an Israeli soldier five years ago.
Zuhair Al-Qaissi's killing prompted Palestinian militants in Gaza to fire over 50 rockets at Israel so far, according to a count by Israel's military.
As militants sought to fire rockets, they were targeted by Israeli airstrikes. One militant was killed on Gaza City's main upscale boulevard. Another was hit while driving a car in the central Gaza City town of Deir al-Balah.
The Israeli military said it initially targeted al-Qaissi, the commander of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committee, a militant group closely aligned with Gaza's Hamas rulers.
Members of several other Palestinian groups joined the fray. The majority of those killed overnight belonged to the Islamic Jihad, a militant group that has sought to build up its arsenal over the past few months.
The Friday strike was the highest profile killing Israel has undertaken against militants in the coastal strip in several months.
The military said al-Qaissi was plotting an infiltration attack into Israel similar to the raid from Egypt's Sinai peninsula that they claim he orchestrated in August, which killed eight Israelis and injured 40 more.
The militant group has never taken responsibility for the attack.
The explosion tore apart al-Qaissi's blue sedan and killed his son-in-law, Mahmoud Hanini himself a top PRC field commander. Another low ranking Gaza militant also died.
Palestinian witnesses said Israeli drones were seen hovering above just moments before al-Qaissi's vehicle burst into flames. They said the blast was so fierce that al-Qaissi's head was torn off.
Overnight air strikes that residents said were carried out by US warplanes killed 23 suspected Al-Qaeda militants in mountains south of the Yemeni capital, security sources said on Saturday.
"Twenty-three Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in air raids launched late on Friday against their positions," one security source told AFP.
A police source gave the same death toll from the air strikes in a mountainous area of Al-Bayda province.
The sources said the raids hit three villages west of the provincial capital, also called Al-Bayda -- Al-Makhnaq, Al-Dooqi and Al-Mamdud.
Residents said the raids were carried out by US aircraft, but those accounts could not be immediately verified.
Yemen is the ancestral homeland of slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and the jihadist network took advantage of a protracted anti-government uprising last year to seize large swathes of the south and east.
Washington has long made the country a major focus of its "war on terror".
Two of the raids, launched from around 9:00 pm (1800 GMT) and lasting around three hours in total, struck the homes of Ahmed and Ali al-Humaiqani, two residents of Wadi al-Makhnaq, witnesses said.
"An Al-Qaeda training camp can be found in Wadi al-Makhnaq," one local resident told AFP.
"Several armed men arrived in multiple vehicles, along with two trucks loaded with weapons and ammunition boxes, and attended Friday prayers in Wadi al-Makhnaq," said the resident, who declined to be identified.
#1
Lets not mince words. The MEK are terrorists. Moreover, they have American blood on their hands. However, Rendell is so well connected that this type of activity is not only tolerated but accepted as practice by his fellow global interventionists. Not to mention, ole Ed endorsed Billary for president. Expect Holder to shepard this through the motions and then quietly dismiss.
#2
I have to side with Rendell on this one. There are entities with more American blood on their hands with which we've made peace, including Cambodia, China, Russia and Vietnam. And that's leaving out the Axis powers. Heck, we made peace with the PLO (and are now shoveling 100's of millions in aid at them), Mookie al Sadr's Jaish al Mahdi and are in the process of making peace with the Taliban. It's impractical - and peace-making is all about practicality - to get hung up over the handful of US military advisers killed during the Shah's reign, when each of the three guerrilla movements has killed many more Americans under less defensible circumstances, especially when it's clear that the MEK isn't fundamentally anti-American. In fact, it is reputedly, in the here and now, the most effective anti-mullah movement extant, in terms of the stack of Iranian regime capos killed.
[Dawn] Five deaths in three hours raised the toll to eight on Friday in the renewed incidents of violence in the city, DawnNews reported.
A man was bumped off in Mujahidabad, Orangi Town followed by the assassination of a former member of a banned outfit in Meraj Nabi Colony, a nearby locality.
Worker of a political party was murdered in New Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... area and a civilian was killed near Pakistain Chowk locality.
A police official succumbed to his wounds after being injured during a clash with the outlaws.
A police informer and a common man got injured after being attacked near Sohrab Goth. Both shuffled off the mortal coil before reaching the hospital.
Another worker of a political party died in a hospital after being shot on Thursday in Surjani Town area.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. has ordered the IG Sindh Police for an inquiry into the incidents on priority basis.
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[Dawn] Pakistain Foreign Office reminded those countries, who have given asylums to Baloch separatists, to discourage anti-Pakistain secessionist activities within their territories.
Why? What motivation do those other countries have to do as Pakistan desires?
Foreign Office Spokesman Abdul Basit while giving weekly briefing to the media representatives said that Pakistain has been handling the situation politically in accordance with its own laws, priorities and constitution.
Replying to a question, about providing shelter to some of the elements who are involved in the disturbance of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , the front man said Pakistain has raised this question with the concerned countries adding that demarche was issued to ambassador of Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... in Islamabad.
Talking on the issue of activities of estranged Baloch leaders taking refuge in England and Switzerland, Basit said Islamabad has made demarches to the relevant countries and have been assured by them that their territories will not be allowed to be used against Pakistain.
"We are cognizant of the developments in Balochistan and necessary steps have also been taken," he added.
The front man said Pakistain is trying to handle the situation in the province politically adding "it is our internal issue and will be dealt with in accordance with the constitution and our own preferences".
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Investigators probing violations during Libya's conflict said Friday they are giving the U.N.'s human rights ...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty... chief a list of people who should face international or national justice.
The commission of inquiry also called for further probes into NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A single organization with differing goals, equipment, language, doctrine, and organization.... air strikes on Libya, saying it was unable to tell if the alliance took adequate precautions to protect civilians in some of its attacks.
The commission "has gathered information linking individuals to human rights violations or crimes," lead investigator Philip Kirsch said.
"It will hand over a confidential list containing that information to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights."
Asked for details on the list, Kirsch told journalists: "The principle of a confidential envelope is that you don't talk about what's in it."
Investigators had decided to keep the list confidential to "prevent risk of harm to those who are held in jug and to avoid jeopardizing the fair trial rights of any persons who may be brought to trial in the future."
In their 220-page report presented Monday to the U.N. Human Rights Council, the commission appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council accused both Muammar Qadaffy ... who is now cavorting happily with Himmler and Heydrich... 's forces and anti-regime troops of serious crimes.
Qadaffy's troops committed crimes against humanity and war crimes including murder, forced disappearances and torture, it said.
Anti-regime troops, the thuwar, also committed "serious violations including war crimes and breaches of international human rights law" such as unlawful killing, arbitrary arrest and torture, said the report.
"The commission further found that the thuwar also perpetrated torture and ill-treatment, and continued to do so even during the commission's visit," said Kirsch.
"These acts are violations of international human rights law and, when committed during armed conflict, constitute war crimes," he said.
While calling for these individuals to be brought to justice, Sherlocks also asked for further probes into NATO air strikes on Libya.
After examining 20 strikes by the campaign by Britannia, La Belle France, the United States and their allies, the commission found five in which 60 non-combatants were killed and 55 maimed.
NATO claimed to have taken "all feasible precautions" to minimize casualties, Kirsch told the Human Rights Council.
But "the commission was not provided with sufficient information to verify this independently, as it has done with other areas.
"The commission recommends further investigations," he added.
Nevertheless, the inquiry found that overall, NATO "did not deliberately target civilians".
Addressing the council after Kirsch's report, Cuba's envoy charged that "NATO assassinated civilians in Libya ... these crimes must be investigated".
Reacting to the commission's report, NATO said it welcomed the finding that the alliance conducted a "highly precise campaign with a demonstrable determination to avoid civilian casualties."
It stressed it did "everything possible to minimize the risk to civilians, but in a complex military campaign, that risk cannot be reduced to zero."
"We deeply regret any instance of civilian casualties for which NATO could have been responsible and we support the Libyan authorities' efforts to review incidents from the conflict which affected civilians."
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03/10/2012
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#1
It stressed it did "everything possible to minimize the risk to civilians, but in a complex military campaign...
[An Nahar] Tens of thousands demonstrated across Syria on Friday after the main weekly Mohammedan prayers, notably in northern Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... , with security forces opening fire on protesters in various regions, killing at least 82 people, activists said.
"There are 15 demonstrations taking place in the city of Aleppo and about 40 across the province," local activist Mohammed Halabi told Agence La Belle France Presse by telephone.
"Security forces have shot up most of the demonstrations to disperse the crowds," he added. "In Aleppo city, there is a heavy security presence and arrests taking place."
He said the protests in Aleppo marked the largest turnout since the revolt against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Supressor of the Damascenes... regime broke out one year ago.
Demonstrators called for Assad to be executed and for the rebel Free Syrian Army to be given weapons, he said.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britannia-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said up to 15,000 people demonstrated in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising.
Demonstrations were also taking place in the coastal city of Latakia, in central Homs and Hama, as well as Deir al-Zour in the east.
Abdel Rahman said one demonstrator was killed and five maimed in Jarablos, in Aleppo province, when troops opened fire on protesters.
Fifteen other non-combatants were killed in violence across the country, the Observatory said.
But the Local Coordination Committees, the main activist group spurring protests on the ground, reported a much higher corpse count.
Twenty-six people were killed in the central province of Homs, 33 in the northern province of Idlib, five in the southern province of Daraa, four in the central province of Hama, nine in Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... province, six in the southern province of Daraa, two in the coastal province of Latakia, one in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour and one in Aleppo province, the LCC said.
And the Observatory said at least 11 people were killed in the central province of Homs, including eight in shelling and gunfire in various neighborhoods of the city itself.
Two were killed elsewhere in the province when security forces met the demonstrators with hot lead and one woman was killed by sniper fire, it said.
In the capital Damascus, one man was killed in shooting overnight, according to the Observatory.
Opposition activists called for Friday's protests, which have become a weekly event since the uprising began, to be held in solidarity with the country's Kurdish minority, as they prepare to celebrate their New Year festival Nowruz.
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A female jacket wallah who was the widow of a slain Islamist krazed killer has killed five coppers when she blew herself up at a checkpoint in Russia's volatile Caucasus region of Dagestan, officials said on Wednesday.
The attack on Tuesday night was the most deadly incident in a upsurge of violence in mainly Mohammedan Dagestan since Vladimir Putin ...Second President of the Russian Federation and the first to remain sober. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits he is the current Prime Minister of Russia. His sock puppet, Dmitry Medvedev, was installed in the 2008 presidential elections. Putin is credited with bringing political stability and re-establishing something like the rule of law. During his eight years in office Russia's economy bounced back from crisis, seeing GDP increase, poverty decrease and average monthly salaries increase. During his presidency Putin passed into law a series of fundamental reforms, including a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced profits tax, and new land and legal codes. Under Putin, a new group of business magnates controlling significant swathes of Russia's economy has emerged, all of whom have close personal ties to Putin. The old bunch, without close personal ties to Putin, are in jail or in exile... was elected president, highlighting the problems he faces containing gunnies in Russia's south.
"A woman set off a bomb with 2kg of TNT on her body at the checkpoint in Karabudakhent village," said a statement on the Dagestani police website.
The suicide bomber's severed head was found tens of metres from the blast on Tuesday night, ITAR-TASS news agency reported.
Investigators said relatives had identified her as the widow of a Dagestan rebel leader who was killed in a police operation against cut-throats last month.
"She was Aminat Ibrahimova, the widow of a leader of a bandit group from [the town of] Kaspiysk, the former interior ministry official Zaur Zagirov" an unnamed police source told ITAR-TASS.
Islamic krazed killer plague
The five victims were low-ranking coppers aged 22 to 34, the ministry said. Two more officers were hospitalised.
The regional interior ministry blamed the recent violence on what it described as an Islamic krazed killer "plague".
"Using Islam as a cover, they are doing evil on the territory of Dagestan," the ministry said on its website.
Russian officials have long been concerned by the activities of the widows of slain rebels and several attacks in Moscow in the last decade have been blamed on so called "Black Widows" who came to the capital.
A police officer and a local resident were also rubbed out by unidentified gunnies in a raid on Tuesday evening on a cop shoppe in Kaspiysk on Dagestan's Caspian Sea coast.
Frequent shootings
The violence came after Putin triumphed in the Russian presidential polls, scoring especially highly in the Caucasus region where official results indicated that he polled over 90%.
Election day in Dagestan however was also marred by an attack on a polling station that killed three coppers.
A mostly Mohammedan region known for its ancient culture and tapestry of ethnic groups, Dagestan is fighting an insurgency by cut-throats seeking to establish an Islamic state across the Russian Caucasus.
The region experiences frequent shootings and bombings that officials blame on small-time Mister Bigs and Islamists with links to neighbouring Chechnya.
"A radical Islamic underground is operating in Dagestan, which for a long time has used suicide bombers to carry out terror attacks. In the Moscow metro [attack in 2010], suicide bombers from Dagestan also blew themselves up," Alexander Cherkasov of the Russian rights group Memorial said.
Analysts suggested that the authorities had been able to calm the situation in Chechnya somewhat in recent years by giving local strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov free reign to rule with an iron fist, but had been unable to do the same in Dagestan.
"That's why a significant part of the terrorist underground has appeared in Dagestan," independent analyst Alexander Golts said. He added that "deep-seated corruption, unemployment and feelings of despair among young people" were helping to fuel militancy.
For a map, click here For a map of Tamaulipas, click here. To see the original Rantburg report on the Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas firefight, click here
By Chris Covert
A total of eight armed suspects were killed by Mexican Army riflemen in a pursuit and firefight in Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas Wednesday, while another four armed suspects were killed in a town near Matamoros, according to news posted at the website of the Mexican Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army.
Earlier Twitter accounts Wednesday put the death toll in the Miguel Aleman pursuit and gunfight at between 10 and 12 armed suspects, if SEDENA is reporting about the same firefight.
Two unidentified armed suspects were also detained following the gunfight.
Earlier reports also said the exchange of gunfire took place at a residence in Gomez colony, but SEDENA reports the firefight took place in San Pedro colony. Twitter reports say the gunfire and pursuit began at about 1400 from an attempted traffic stop near the intersection of calles Insurgentes and 10th, while SEDENA reports nothing about a pursuit.
Following the gunfight, soldiers seized 13 rifles, one handgun, 16 grenades, 36 weapons magazines, 7,692 rounds of ammunition, USD $6,240 (MP $78,989.04) and MP $163,200.00 (USD $12892.52) in cash, and three vehicles.
Meanwhile, at the rural village of Sabinito near Matamoros, a Mexican Army patrol came under small arms fire by an unknown number of armed suspects. Army return fire killed four.
Apparently the armed group had been holding five unidentified hostages, who were released following the gunfight.
In the aftermath, soldiers seized four rifles, one hand grenade, 61 weapons magazines, 1,335 rounds of ammunition, containers with armor plating, weapons accessories and three vehicles.
Iran is ready to invest in the construction of an oil refinery in Port Varna on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, Iranian Ambassador to Bulgaria Golamreza Bageri Mogadam told Sofia News Agency in an interview. During a visit in Bulgaria's Varna in the fall of 2011 Iran's diplomat said his country wanted to build an oil refinery there.
"As far as Iran is concerned there is no problem for realizing this project - whether from the point of view of science, technology, capital, or management. Iran has the needed capabilities. Keeping in mind the historic friendship between our nations, we are ready, in the framework of our mutual interests, to set this project on the table," His Excellency declared stressing that the Bulgarian authorities should decide on how to utilize Iran's offer.
"Now it is up to the Bulgarian authorities to use this capacity. If the Bulgarian statesmen demonstrate a desire, we are ready to discuss with them this cooperation," he added.
Mogadam also stated that Iran could be ready to throw its weight behind the Nabucco gas transit pipeline project as a natural gas supplier if the European Union reconsiders its policies towards Iran.
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SIRKIN SPECIAL FORCES BASE, Israel -- Fearing a surge in tunnel and bunker construction by Leb's Hezbullies and Paleostinian myrmidons, Israel is training its troops to hunt below ground with robot probes and sniffer dogs.
Such preparations reflect concerns that should Israel or the United States carry out attacks on Iran's disputed nuclear program, Tehran may retaliate through its allies on Israel's borders.
"You can see a growing threat," said a major from the Israeli engineering corps' Yahalom ("Diamond") commando unit.
"We're gathering the information, studying it and building training facilities to train our soldiers," the officer, whose name was withheld under secrecy regulations, told Rooters Television during an exercise put on for the foreign media at Sirkin special forces base in central Israel.
The Yahalom men were armed with pistols and snub-barreled assault rifles to ease movement through narrow passages. Oxygen masks are an option, should ventilation prove problematic.
After the soldiers blew up the door of a mock tunnel, a camera-carrying robot was pulled out of a backpack and tossed inside. A "battle" -- with blanks fired -- ensued against comrades playing Hezbullies fighters.
The Israelis use dogs to sniff out booby-traps in the tunnels and, if needed, to tackle the defenders.
Outgunned and outnumbered, Hezbullies dug tunnels to hold off Israeli ground forces during the 2006 Leb war. Israel suspects the Iranian-backed militia has since built underground networks to carry out ambushes in any future conflict.
"Israeli troops were completely taken by surprise at the extent and sophistication of these underground systems," said Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based Jane's analyst and author of "Warriors of God: Inside Hezbullies's Thirty-Year Struggle Against Israel".
Blanford said the tunnels enabled Hezbullies to launch rockets into Israel in 2006. "Seeing as they had some bunkers extremely close to the border, it would not surprise me at all if they had burrowed under the border for use at a later date," he added.
Resistance
Militants in the Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-ruled Gazoo Strip used a cross-border tunnel to capture Gilad Shalit, a soldier for whose return, after more than five years in captivity, Israel last year freed more than 1,000 incarcerated Paleostinians.
"We are ready to confront them above ground and underground, and such propaganda and drills do not frighten us," said Abu Attaya, front man for the Popular Resistance Committees faction, of the Israeli media exercise.
He called Gazoo's tunnels "tools of the resistance".
Paleostinians also use the underground networks to smuggle building materials and energy supplies into Gazoo from Egypt, which cooperates with an Israeli blockade on the enclave.
Demolition is among Yahalom's specialties, and its major said destroying tunnels and bunkers with explosives was a "good solution".
"But there are cases where the real mission of the force is getting in the tunnel, exploring it, maybe taking out high-value intelligence or releasing a kidnapped soldier," he said.
"We prefer not to get in, but if we have to, we know how to do it."
#3
Dump seawater or raw sewage into the tunnels. Oh, better yet, send in sniffer-pigs strapped with explosives.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/10/2012 1:43
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#4
Pump in propane, ignite the mixture, then inspect the tunnels. Of course, your guys need to wear oxygen masks since the fuel air mixture will have exhausted all of the oxygen in the tunnel.
#7
HTA = Heavier Than Air. I would suggest CO2, but it would give the Glow-bull warming crowd ammunition ("see we told you it would kill people"). Propane is a great idea. Israel can play it as "we were offering them free fuel as a humanitarian gesture" ;)
Posted by: abu do you love ||
03/10/2012 9:22
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#8
after further thinking, seems there should be some sort of psychotropic substance that is both HTA and encourages extreme paranoia and let the 'activists' take care of one another.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
03/10/2012 9:24
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#9
hose too tail pipe problem solved.
Posted by: chris ||
03/10/2012 9:58
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#10
Would a simple line charge along the border collapse the tunnels? I understand they aren't built very well, and aren't that deep.
#13
Actually, HTA gases are almost certainly out, not as WMD (they are not per se) but because they are chemical weapons. No can do. Fill it up with water? - yes. Flame throwers - possible, although some may wince at the excessive injury aspect.
#14
Upon rereading this -wait a minute -they are smuggling in building materials and energy supplies. Not one word of weapons. Why is this tunnel deemed to be a military target again?? Just because Israel claims a blockade doesnt mean you can do jack to these tunnels. And isnt that what we called the people from Sarajevo heros for -by supplying themselves for over a year by a single tunnel? Think again. If your country was blockaded for years -what would you do??
#15
"If your country was blockaded for years -what would you do??"
1. Give up trying to murder the inhabitants of the other country, for starters. Particularly give it up as a tenent of my country's very existance.
2. You must have missed the part at the beginning about "tunnel and bunker construction," so they can smuggle in and hide weapons to be used to murder Israelis. (And the Hezzies don't care if the murderees are Jewish Israelis or Arab Israelis.) I doubt the Israelis would care if they were just building homes, business buildings, and especially sewage treatment plants.
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/10/2012 15:19
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#16
The country has been blockaded for years because they are smuggling in weapons, dear Northern Cousin. At one point they did some smoke tests, and discovered that some of the Gaza tunnels came up in Egyptian army camps. Also, they've been smuggling in missiles from Iran for years; the locally made Kassems aren't capable of reaching very far, yet somehow recently Gaza has been sending missiles winging toward the big cities, a neat proof of the accusations.
#20
please provide sources for this if possible, thanks
I can't off the top of my head, Kojak, although I'm sure it's somewhere in the Rantburg archives. However, I did find this, about the scale and impact of the tunnel economy, which mentions in passing the smuggling of weapons. Interesting, if not helpful.
[An Nahar] U.N. humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said on Friday that Syria had agreed to allow a preliminary assessment of the relief needs in areas hard hit by the year-old conflict.
Amos, who has toured the battered city of Homs and refugee camps in Turkey this week, also said Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... must allow aid groups "unhindered access to evacuate the maimed and deliver desperately needed supplies".
The regime of Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... has cracked down on protesters and rebel fighters over the past year in a brutal military campaign that, according to the opposition, has claimed nearly 8,500 lives.
Amos, the U.N. Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told news hounds in Ankara that "we have agreed on a joint preliminary humanitarian assessment mission to areas where people urgently need assistance".
She said a proposal had been submitted to the Syrian government for delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid, and that she had asked for an urgent consideration of the matter.
Currently, no U.N. aid agencies are allowed into Syria, and information is scarce on the details of the civilians' needs.
In Geneva, a U.N. spokeswoman said that 1.5 million people might be in need of food aid in Syria, according to latest available data, but that the real number would need to be evaluated from inside the country.
"We have an estimated figure of 1.5 million people potentially in need of food assistance," the spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Elisabeth Byrs, told a press briefing.
On Wednesday, Amos visited the battered Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which was left "totally destroyed" after the former rebel stronghold was bombarded for a month and then stormed by Syrian troops on March 1.
"There were hardly any people left there," Amos said.
Amos saluted three of Syria's neighboring countries for allowing in refugees who continue to escape amid the escalating violence.
"I would like to thank all three countries for continuing to keep their borders open for Syrians who are crossing because they are fleeing conflict," said Amos, referring to Turkey, Jordan and Leb.
Following the Homs crackdown, more Syrians have started crossing into Turkey, fearing a similar crackdown in their towns closer to the border.
Turkey's border province of Hatay now houses more than 12,000 Syrians, according to a Turkish official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
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03/10/2012
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[An Nahar] Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Wally Jumblat ... Druze politician, head of the Progressive Socialist Party, who's been on every side in Leb at least four times. He'll sell you his friends for a dollar, but family comes higher because of shipping and handling... has slammed what he called the alleged "myth" that Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... is a reformist, urging the Lebanese authorities not to hand over Syrian activists to the regime of the neighboring country.
Jumblat told An Nahar daily following talks with French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe in Gay Paree on Thursday, that the minister is among the rare "westerners who didn't believe the myth that Bashir al-Assad is a reformist."
The PSP chief said in his remarks published Friday that he discussed with Juppe the repercussions of the neighboring country's crisis on Leb, stressing that they agreed on the "need to protect Syrian refugees escaping to Leb from the violence of the Syrian authorities."
They also discussed the duty of Lebanese authorities to respect the stance of the international community from the refugees and provide them with the necessary assistance.
"Some Lebanese circles with close ties to the Syrian regime are hesitating in assisting them," Jumblat told An Nahar.
He also said that he agreed with Juppe on their rejection for Lebanese authorities to hand over members of the Free Syrian Army and other Syrian activists to the authorities in Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... "The fate of those previously handed over to the regime's apparatuses has been the death penalty," he warned.
Jumblat and Juppe also agreed to urge the Lebanese authorities to respect the international sanctions imposed on the Assad regime.
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03/10/2012
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[Dawn] Talibs armed with guns and rockets ambushed a Pak military convoy Friday, killing seven soldiers in the bully boy stronghold of North Wazoo, officials said.
The attack took place at Khar Qamar, 30 kilometres west of Miranshah ... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas... , the main town in the district.
The Pak security officials said nine Islamic fascistiwere also killed in the attack, but there was no independent confirmation of the toll.
"At least seven soldiers were martyred when Islamic fascistifired machine guns and rockets on a military convoy," a security bigshot told AFP.
Other security officials in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, the biggest city in northwest Pakistain, confirmed the attack and that the toll had risen from four to seven.
"After the ambush, Pak military helicopters and troops retaliated and there were reports of deaths of nine bully boys," an intelligence official said.
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03/10/2012
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[Bangla Daily Star] Home Minister Shahara Khatun yesterday said the main opposition BNP is trying to carry out subversive acts centring its March 12 rally.
"A vested quarter is out to sabotage in the name of March 12 rally designed to hinder the trial process of the war criminals, who committed crimes against humanity during the Liberation War in 1971," she said while addressing a discussion as the chief guest.
Ghas Ful, an organization for children and teenagers, arranged the programme at Mirpur marking the Independence Day.
"The law enforcement agencies have taken enough preparation to avert anarchy in the name of political programmes," said the minister, also a presidium member of the ruling Awami League.
She also called upon the leaders and workers of AL to remain alert so that none could carry out any subversive acts.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
The fear rising in places like Bangladesh when an armed group is threatening anarchy is in direct relation to ratio of unarmed citizens. Does anyone have a link to the cheapest 12 gauge shotgun in the world? Preferrably one that breaks down easily.
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A cyber attack on the Paleostinian internet network on Saturday evening originated in Italia, the PA minister of communication and information technology Mashour Abu Daqqa told Ma'an.
The poor darlings. What do the Italians have against them, that they would do such a thing?
Paleostinian servers and websites have been disabled by a series of cyber attacks in recent months. Abu Daqqa said internet communications had been disturbed by hackers for three months, but the attacks on Paleostinian internet providers since Wednesday used new tactics to shut down servers.
Earlier, presidential communications adviser Sabri Saidam said huge quantities of emails are being sent in order to disable Paleostinian servers.
Abu Qaqqa said his ministry will ask Paleostinian security services to coordinate with Italian security to combat the attack.
While the server is being hacked from abroad, recent attacks on Paleostinian websites are from local cyber activists, he said.
Last week, hackers shut down Wafa, the Paleostinian Authority's official news agency, and several websites affiliated with Ma'an Network, including its news page.
The ministry of communication and information technology have called the national team for information security to convene Sunday morning, he said.
Due to Israel's occupation, Paleostine does not have its own connection to the internet but hires lines from international companies, increasing the country's vulnerability to foreign cyber attack, he added.
[Ynet News] Eight people were maimed Friday, one of them seriously, following heavy rocket fire at southern Israel by Gazoo terrorists.
Over 40 rockets and mortar shells were launched at Israel throughout the day.
According to Magen David Adom emergency services, three people sustained rocket moderate shrapnel wounds, three others were lightly hurt while running for cover, and two others were involved in a car accident as result of the panic.
Earlier, the Iron Dome rocket defense system intercepted at least three Grad rockets ...Soviet-developed 122-mm rockets, usually launched from trucks. Newer versions are reported to have a range of up to 30 km.... fired at the southern communities of Ashdod and Gan Yavne, as Gazooforces of Evil continued to pound Israel's south throughout Friday night.
The Color Red alert sounded in the Ashdod region immediately after the long-range rockets were fired, prompting residents to rush into bomb shelters and secured rooms. At least one rocket landed in an open area in the city's vicinity.
Late Friday, the Color Red alert sounded in Beersheba, southern Israel's largest city. The Iron Dome system engaged and several kabooms were reported in the area. Officials later said several rockets went kaboom! near the city.
The Air Force targeted several rocket cells in Gazoo during the evening, killing at least three Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... terrorists.
Update from the Jerusalem Post: A total of ten terrorists were killed by IDF air strikes in Gaza on Friday.
An IDF security assessment prompted the Home Front Command to bar mass gatherings within a 40km radius of the Gazoo border, as well as order more public bomb sheltered opened.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
More from JPost:The barrage of rockets followed an IAF air strike that killed the secretary general of the Popular Resistance Committees, Zuhair Qaisi.
The Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) swiftly called for retaliation following the first IAF strike that killed Qaisi, as well as senior PRC member Ahmad Hanini. A third man was also injured in the attack. The IAF struck a vehicle in a move to thwart a large-scale terror attack that was in its last stages of preparation, according to the IDF spokesperson.
#3
I thought that Israelis were better at math. Don't they realize that it's the fifth or sixth digit that is significant in counting terrorist bodies?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2012 10:40
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#5
Targeting a Hamas weapons factory, as seen in YouTube here. And it's up to around 100 rockets, missiles and things. It seems the Gazans are blowing off steam, while Israel is clearing the decks for action elsewhere.
I dunno, Frank. Are you sure it's not that Allen wanted the IAF missiles to strike their target because he's pissed at the Hezzies, et al., who keep misinterpreting what he really wants?
After all, Islam is the religion of peace, right?
Right?
What's that noise? Sounds like some crickets got into the house....
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/10/2012 15:24
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[An Nahar] Saudi authorities have ordered a probe after more than 50 women students were hurt when security forces dispersed a campus protest this week, media and a local official said on Friday.
Teach 'em to think and they start getting ideas.
On Wednesday members of the inquisitors religious police and law enforcement officers used water cannons to break up a sit-in by women students at the Abha University in the south of Soddy Arabia, the Sebaq news website reported.
The students had staged a sit-in to protest against what they said was a pile-up or rubbish on the campus and a break down in hygienic conditions, Sebaq said.
The inquisitors religious police, in a statement carried by the Al-Watan newspaper, confirmed that it had intervened at the university but denied that its men had attacked the women.
The university meanwhile issued a statement saying it had asked police to intervene on Wednesday after "female students gathered on the campus and began shouting in a way that contradicts" campus regulations.
It also accused one of the students' parents of having triggered the problem by sacking a refuse collectors, which caused the rubbish to pile up.
The sexes are strictly segregated outside the home in ultra-conservative Soddy Arabia.
Prince Faisal bin Khaled, emir of the Assir region where Abha University is located, has ordered an investigation into the incident, media reported.
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[An Nahar] Tens of thousands of Bahrainis flooded the streets of the capital Manama on Friday demanding political reforms, a year after authorities crushed an uprising, an activist said.
Policemen fired tear gas at a group of protesters but the rallies were largely peaceful and no one was tossed in the clink, said Nabil Rajab, an activist who heads the Bahraini Center for Human Rights.
"It is one of the largest protests in recent years," Rajab told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Rajab said demonstrators erupted into the streets in response to calls by several groups, including Bahrain's powerful Al-Wefaq main Shiite opposition formation, as well as Shiite holy mans.
"A small group of protesters tried to converge on the former Pearl Square but they were dispersed by coppers who fired tear gas canisters," said Rajab in reference to the rallying point of last year's protests.
Protesters called for political reforms in Bahrain, which is ruled by the minority Sunni al-Khalifa family, and for an elected government, Rajab said.
The Shiite-led opposition demands constitutional changes that would reduce the power of the dynasty.
Tensions have remained high in Bahrain since a deadly crackdown last year after a month of Manama street protests.
According to an independent probe 35 people were killed in last year's unrest, including five security personnel and five detainees tortured to death while in jug.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
More Iranian agitators to stir up the local Shiites.
#2
Are these like the OWS protestors over here? Every report I see about this Bahrainey baloney I can't find the list of reform demands that they want. Do they want to be more like Iran? More like Saudi Arabia? What? Most likely they're just bored Arabs looking for a little rock-slinging fun and they're already chased all the Jews out so now there left with only locals to harrass.
#3
SenatorMark4, Bahrain is ruled by a small Sunni elite, while the citizenry are mostly Shiites. Like Saudi Arabia, the Sunni rulers oppress theIr Shiites in order to discourage rebellious thoughts and acts. Unlike SA, the Bahraini rulers are carpetbaggers, having invaded in 1783.
Naturally, the Arab Spring idea would drive the local oppressed citizens to demand equal rights and some inclusion in the political life of their country. Equally naturally, the current Al Khalifa scion on the throne could not possibly allow any such thing -- the example of King Louis XVI of France every before his eyes. ;-). Wikipedia has useful articles on the subject, or a quick google search will provide helpful links.
Harking to tactics of their Los Zetas rivals, armed suspects with the Jalisco Nuevo Generacion drug cartel spent several hours Friday afternoon blocking roads and setting vehicles alight in Jalisco state as two of their top leaders were arrested, according to Mexican news accounts.
Erick Valencia Salazar, AKA El 85, was detained along with another top leader of the Jalisco Nuevo Generacion drug cartel, Nemesio Oseguera, AKA El Mencho, in an operation involving Mexican Army troops and about 1,700 state as well as local police agents Friday.
Soldiers also seized about 30 rifles and undisclosed quantities of munitions following the arrests.
According to news reports 25 vehicles and several roadblocks were reported in and around Guadalajara following the arrest of Valencia Salazar. Most of the blocks involved vehicles which were hijacked and torched to block the roads. Some reports say as many as 13 roadblocks were put up in Guadalajara.
Locations that were blocked included calles Miguel Blanco and Rayon in Zona Centro and Calle Enrique Díaz de León and Avenida. Maestro.
Los Zetas operatives in Monterrey in early 2010 used blocked roads whenever they had a sharp reverse, such a a capture of a top operative, to prevent security forces from intervening in gunfights, or to prevent security forces from intervening in other drug gang operations. In confrontations with Gulf cartel operatives, Los Zetas also made use of roadblocks later that summer in Reynosa and Matamoros in Tamaulipas state.
La Familia operatives blocked roads in a similar fashion in early 2011, when several of their top leaders were captured or killed in Michoacan state by Policia Federal agents.
According to press accounts, Partido Accion Nacional governor of Jalisco, Emilio Gonzalez Marquez, said that as of 1800 hrs most of the blocks had been cleared. Local media, however said that ten roads were still blocked. A local TV news station said that one unidentified truck driver had been killed in a hijacking to make a roadblock.
Army troops and cartel shooters exchanged gunfire at about 1400 hrs in a remote area of Zapopan municipality in Lomas Altas near the intersection of calles Leo and Cancer, but no reports have emerged concerning the outcome of that firefight. It is presumed that that gunfight ended with the capture of the two Jalisco Nuevo Generacion leaders. Reports say gunfire was heard for two or three minutes.
Roads were also blocked in neighboring Michoacan state, in San Jose de Gracia, where three vehicles were set afire to block a road. No injuries were reported in the Michoacan state roadblock.
News reports say Valencia Salazar was responsible for the formation of the Matazetas group, which at first tried to pass itself off to the Mexican press as a vigilante group. It was later learned the Matazetas were in fact a criminal group. Valencia Salazar allegedly masterminded the murder of 35 Los Zetas operatives in Veracruz state last fall. To read the Rantburg report on the murder of 35 Los Zetas operatives and subsequent hits, click here and here
[An Nahar] Nine people have been charged with smuggling arms to Syria, announced the National News Agency on Friday.
State commissioner to the military court Judge Saqr Saqr also charged them for the possession of arms and smuggling and trafficking weapons to Syria.
Two of the suspects are in police custody, while the rest remain on the lam.
Saqr also charged six individuals for forming an gang aimed at carrying out terrorist acts.
They have been found guilty of conducting trainings aimed at attacking military institutions, added NNA.
None of the nationalities of the accused have been disclosed.
In February, Lebanese authorities jugged two Lebanese nationals on charges of smuggling weapons into Syria through the eastern border town of Arsal.
The examining magistrate issued arrest warrants against them on charges of smuggling weapons to Syria.
Earlier that month, the army had searched northern villages bordering Syria following information it received about the presence of gangs that allegedly belong to the Free Syrian Army.
According to media reports, the army had jugged a number of suspects and is conducting investigations with them.
The poorly-demarcated Syrian-Lebanese border has witnessed a number of violations since the revolt against Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Supressor of the Damascenes... began in mid-March.
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[Dawn] The leader of Syria's main opposition group rejected calls Friday by U.N. envoy Kofi Annan for dialogue with Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's The Scourge of Hama... government, saying they were pointless and unrealistic as the regime massacres its own people.
As the prospects for diplomacy faltered, Turkey's state-run television TRT said two Syrian generals and a colonel defected to Turkey on Thursday.
If confirmed, the military defections would be significant as most army defectors so far have been low-level conscripts. On Thursday, Syria's deputy oil minister announced his defection, making him the highest-ranking civilian official to join the opposition.
In a telephone interview from Gay Paree, Burhan Ghalioun, who heads the opposition Syrian National Council, told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named that Annan already has disappointed the Syrian people.
Annan, who has been appointed joint U.N.-Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... envoy to Syria, has said his mission was to start a "political process" to resolve the conflict in the country. He is due this weekend in Syria where he will meet with Assad.
In comments made in Cairo on Thursday after talks with Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, Annan warned against further militarization of the Syrian conflict and urged the opposition to come together with the government to find a political solution.
"I hope that no one is thinking very seriously of using force in this situation," Annan said. "I believe any further militarization would make the situation worse."
Annan also said he would be making "realistic" proposals to resolve the conflict. He did not elaborate.
But Ghalioun blasted such statements as unrealistic.
"These kind of comments are disappointing and do not give a lot of hope for people in Syria being massacred every day," Ghalioun said. "It feels like we are watching the same movie being repeated over and over again."
"My fear is that, like other international envoys before him, the aim is to waste a month or two of pointless mediation efforts," he added.
Syrian activists also rejected Annan's call for dialogue.
"It seems he lives on Mars," said Mohammad Saeed, an activist in the Damascus ...Home to a staggering array of terrorist organizations... suburb of Douma.
"Between us and Bashir al-Assad are the bodies of 5,000 deaders. We can't hear each other even if we wanted to," he said. "What dialogue are they talking?"
Syria's opposition is fragmented and suffers from infighting, but most factions reject talks with the government while the military crackdown continues.
The U.N. says more than 7,500 people have been killed in the past year since the revolt against Assad erupted in the country's south and engulfed the country. Activists put the corpse count at more than 8,000.
The uprising began with largely peaceful protests, but faced with a vicious regime crackdown, it has become increasingly militarized.
The SNC is openly calling for outside military intervention, but the subject is controversial and divisive ...politicians call things divisive when when the other side sez something they don't like. Their own statements are never divisive, they're principled... "Any political solution will not succeed if it is not accompanied by military pressure on the regime," Ghalioun said.
Ghalioun faulted Annan for "avoiding" any references to the essence of the problem, which is the regime's use of extreme military force to crush the protests.
"As an international envoy, we hope he will have a mechanism for ending the violence," Ghalioun said.
Ghalioun also welcomed the defection by deputy oil minister Abdo Husameddine and called on other high-ranking government employees "and all those with a conscience" to do the same.
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[An Nahar] South Sudan accused former foe Sudan on Friday of holding 35,000 Southerners as "slaves," stalling talks to resolve to furious oil dispute as tensions remain high between the two neighbors.
"There is unfortunately a disagreement, because the government of Sudan refused the inclusion of the freedom of about 35,000 South Sudanese enslaved citizens," South Sudan's chief negotiator Pagan Amum told Agence La Belle France Presse.
Amum said the abductees were taken hostage during Sudan's bloody 1983-2005 north-south civil war which ended in a peace deal that paved the way for South Sudan's formal independence in July.
Thousands of South Sudanese were allegedly kidnapped by pro-government militia forces during the war and forced to work in the north, claims rejected by the government in Khartoum.
The rivals are in the Ethiopian capital holding the latest round of dragging African-Union led talks. The two countries have been at loggerheads since the South broke away, threatening to reignite conflict between the two former bitter enemies.
Oil has been a major sticking point in the talks, since Juba took 75 percent of Sudanese oil at independence but Khartoum controls processing and export facilities.
But deals must also be made on contentious nationality issues, as well as border demarcation and the future of the contested Abyei region, claimed by both sides but occupied by Khartoum's army.
Juba took the drastic decision to halt crude production in January, despite oil making up 98 percent of its revenue, after Sudan started seizing its shipments in lieu of a deal on transit fees.
Khartoum said the approach from South Sudan was "not constructive" and proposed the creation of a separate high level committee to deal with the sticking points on nationality issues.
However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... Sudanese negotiator Sabir Mohamed al-Hassan said the talks were stalled because the South insisted on hammering out details about the proposed committee, including how citizens would be repatriated.
"They insisted to go into detail and we refused to go into detail, and the meeting broke down," he said.
Some 500,000 South Sudanese remain in Sudan, and Khartoum has given them until April 8 to leave or regularize their status. However, those who apply themselves too closely to little things often become incapable of great things... the United Nations ...boodling on the grand scale... has said it is logistically impossible to repatriate all within the timeframe.
Under South Sudanese law any Southern ethnic group member, or with ancestors born in the south, is eligible for nationality.
"That is why we thought it would be important to set up this committee as soon as possible because on the 8th ... if there is not agreement, definitely there will be complications," Hassan added.
Hassan admitted a deal is unlikely to be reached before this round of negotiations close on March 16.
"It takes two to tango. Personally, me ... I'm not really optimistic," he said.
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#1
only 35,000 - that sounds conservative
Posted by: Water Modem ||
03/10/2012 13:54
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[Yemen Post] Yemen witnesses active moves by politicians and foreign ambassadors to carry out the most important provisiions of the GCC deal power transfer deal; the military reconstruction and holding an inclusive dialogue conference.
Aljazeer Net Website quoted sources as saying that ambassadors of the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and the Gulf States invited the exiled opposition leaders to take part in the conference that will set to be held lately of the current March under international supervision.
Well-informed sources affirmed that leaders of the southern opposition will come back Yemen to participate, pointing out that they provided to put clear visions and create proper conditions to their return.
According to the front man of the major political coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties, the exiled opposition leaders as well as leaders of the Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates.... group welcomed any serious dialogue, and expressed their willingness to participate.
He affirmed that a committee was formed by the JMP had visited Saada and met representatives of the Houthi group that said it has visions and proposals to be offered in dialogue.
A big shot of the Southern Movement, Nasser Al-Taweel, told Aljazeera Net that they do not refuse any dialogue that could lead to lead the southern case.
The Yemeni President Abdu-Rabo Mansour Hadi had said in a meeting with British Member of Parliament, Alistair Burt, that the dialogue will start lately of the current month simultaneously with the military shake-up.
These intensive moves come amid insecurity and escalation of the terrorist acts carried out by groups connected to Al-Qaeda in the southern part of the state.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... a ten-minister commission was formed to engage in negotiations with the Yemeni youth camped at change squares in most Yemeni governorates.
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03/10/2012
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The Beautiful Downtown Peshawar High Court on Thursday directed the federal government to produce a notification through which security forces were called in aid of civil power in Swat ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat... and to inform whether the period of their stay was extended or not.
A two-member bench comprising Chief Justice Dost Mohammad Khan and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth directed a deputy attorney general, Mohammad Iqbal Mohmand, to produce the notification to ascertain as to when the government had requested the armed forces to come in aid of civil power in Swat and for how much time they were called.
Hearing several cases of missing persons, the bench directed Mr Mohmand to inform whether the period for which the security forces were called in Swat had expired or not and whether the said period was extended by the government.
The bench also put forward a suggestion to Mr Mohmand that details of those detainees, who were considered not hardened snuffies and put in categories 'B' and 'C', should be provided to the court. They would be set free on bail by attaching strict conditions to their release, the bench observed.
The chief justice observed that the said categories of suspects would be made liable to report to the local cop shoppe each month and would be ordered not to leave their respective districts without permission of police. It was added that heavy bail bonds would be sought from those suspects.
The chief justice observed that it would help in reducing burden on the security agencies to a great extent.
Mr Mohmand said that he would be having meeting with security high-ups in the afternoon and would convey the suggestion to them.
In one of the cases pertaining to two missing minor brothers from Bara, Khyber Agency, the bench summoned Fata additional chief secretary, directing him to produce record of the case.
The bench fixed Apr 12 for next hearing directing the official to explain why proceedings should not be taken against political administration and all authorities managing and controlling Fata on civil side when they were unable to protect life and liberty of people of that area.
The two boys, Syed Nazeem and Ijaz, who were aged about 11 and 12 years, respectively, were allegedly taken from their school by security forces on Jan 7, 2010, and since then their whereabouts were not known. The petition was filed through their mother, Shan Bibi.
Advocate Auranzeb Khan appeared for the petitioner and stated that the agency education officer and principal of the said school had appeared and informed the court on Oct 13, 2011, that the two boys were taken away by security forces.
The counsel said that a recently released detainee had told them that the two boys were in a detention facility in Peshawar. However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... the bench observed that this information was not enough as the released detainee had not been appearing before the court.
The bench disposed of another petition filed by wife of an alleged detainee with the direction to officials of Mingora cop shoppe to register an FIR regarding his disappearance.
The petitioner, Anwer Begum, and her sister-in-law Nek Amala had sent an application to the chief justice last year wherein they had stated that their husbands, Akhter Ali and Sher Ali, who are brothers, were picked on May 24, 2009, by security forces in Swat following which there whereabouts were not known.
While the petition was pending the detainee Sher Ali was set free whereas Akhter Ali was still been missing. Sher Ali appeared on Thursday and stated that he was kept at Pak Austrian Institute for Tourism and Hotel Management at Swat. "Sergeant, keep him changed in the dungeon until he passes the Room Service Exam!"
"Yes, Your Immensity! Come along, you!"
"No! No! Not the Room Service Exam! Mercy!" However, some men learn by reading. A few learn by observation. The rest have to pee on the electric fence for themselves... he added he was not sure where his brother was kept.
In another petition the DAG said that the detainee Mohammad Jamil had been shifted to internment centre. The petition in this regard is filed by mother of the detainee, Gul Ikhtiara, stating that his son was taken into custody on May 13, 2011, at Zareef Korona area in Charsadda.
The bench directed the DAG to verify in which of the internment centre he had now been kept and convey the same to the petitioner so that they could adopt future legal course in that regard.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... in another petition the bench directed provincial home secretary to produce copy of the minutes of an apex committee meeting held last month on the order of the high court for discussing the issue of missing persons.
The petition is filed by a resident of Shabqadar, Izzat Khan, claiming that his 15-year-old son Arab Gul, whose right leg was paralysed, was taken into custody by officials of Frontier Corps around 10 months ago when he was going to the residence of his brother near Warsak area.
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03/10/2012
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Differing Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, stances on Iran reflect a power struggle in the organization resulting from the upheavals of the Arab Spring.
This week, leading Gazoo- Hamas activist Salah al-Bardawil told The Guardian newspaper that in the event of a war between Iran and Israel, Hamas would not back Teheran. Hamas Foreign Minister in Gazoo Mahmoud Zahar later appeared to refute Bardawil's stance, saying that Hamas would respond "with utmost power" to any "Zionist war on Iran."
These statements reflect confusion and divisions in the main Paleostinian- Islamist movement. The confusion derives from the variety of options which the Arab upheavals of 2011 have placed before Hamas.
The divisions also reflect the resultant opening of separate and competing power structures in the movement, with the leaders of the Gazoo statelet opposing the overall leadership, and also quarreling among themselves.
The Teheran-led "resistance axis," with which Hamas was aligned, is one of the main victims of the Arab upheavals of the last year. Meanwhile, ...back at the cheese factory, all the pieces finally fell together in Fluffy's mind... the clear winner from the upheavals so far is the ideological trend of which Hamas is a representative -- namely, Sunni Islamism.
Revolt in Iran-aligned Syria has left the Iranians exposed as a narrow, sectarian force. Their claim to represent a general Mohammedan interest against the West and Israel is in disarray. In Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, Sunni Islamist elements are moving to benefit from the fall of authoritarian leaders.
Hamas's close relationship with Iran is of long standing, dating back to the mid 1990s. Iranian help formed a vital factor in turning the Paleostinian Islamist movement into a formidable terrorist force in the second intifada of 2000-2004. Following Hamas's takeover of the Gazoo Strip in 2007, Iranian aid increased in both volume and importance for Hamas.
Yet with all this, the alliance between Iran and Hamas always had the nature of a marriage of convenience. Unlike Hezbullies, the Sunni Hamas was not a creation of the Iranians, and did not subscribe to the Shia-derived Iranian-ruling ideology of Wilayat al-Faqih (leadership of the jurisprudent).
Hamas still has a deep connection to Paleostinian politics. It emerged from the Paleostinian branch of the Moslem Brüderbund, and inherited the extensive social and educational network and the ideological outlook of the Brotherhood.
There are also those within the movement -- particularly within its armed wing -- who adhere to the radically anti-Shia Salafi trend within Sunni Islamism.
Hamas's relationship with Iran derived from the somewhat binary nature of regional politics prior to 2011. The US-led and Iran-led regional blocs were facing off against one another. As Hamas PLC member Musehir al-Masri put it in 2007, Hamas and Iran had their differences, yet alliance with Iran was "a thousand times more preferable than relying on the Americans and Zionists."
Implicitly, there were only two choices, and Hamas's preference was obvious. As a result of the events of 2011, there are no longer only two choices. Hamas is split regarding which path to take.
The situation in Syria was the immediate spark for Hamas's move away from the "resistance axis." The movement was placed in an impossible situation, in which its host, the Assad regime, was engaged in the wholesale slaughter of a largely Sunni-Arab uprising.
The signs of discomfort have been apparent for months.
Hamas's Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... offices are empty and Khaled Masha'al left the Syrian capital for Doha. The movement's key leaders are now in Qatar, Cairo, or its Gazoo fiefdom.
The move has left Mashaal weakened. A power struggle is consequently under way between the Gazoo-based leaders Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... and Mahmoud Zahar, on the one hand, and Masha'al and the formerly Damascus-based element, on the other. Attitudes toward Iran are one of the elements in this disagreement.
The distancing from Iran appears to imply a move away from a focus on military methods and toward an emphasis on anti- Israel propaganda and popular agitation. But there is no overall agreement regarding the extent of the shift, and attitudes toward it have become enveloped in the larger power struggle under way.
Important elements among the Gazoo leadership do not wish to stray too far from the Iranians. Hamas, to maintain its Gazoo fiefdom, still needs Iran's expertise and its weaponry. There is no obvious Qatari or Saudi substitute for this.
The latest reports suggest that a new terrorist body, the "Aqsa Defenders" is emerging from within Hamas in Gazoo. Like Fatah's Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, this body may be used for deniable paramilitary activity, even as Hamas pursues other avenues of activity.
Haniyeh's visit to Iran and Zahar's latest statement suggest that in the period ahead, Hamas will seek to maintain some level of Iranian support, while at the same time developing relations with the authorities in Egypt and Qatar. Being in the midst of an internal contest, Hamas lacks the consensus necessary for a hard "either-or" decision with regard to its alliances.
Therefore Hamas's move away from the resistance axis should not be seen in terms of a clean break, and a clean break with political violence is equally unlikely.
Still, the distancing by Hamas from the Iran-led bloc, and its move back in the direction of the Sunni-Arabs, is reason for some quiet satisfaction in Israel. It represents a considerable setback for the regional alliance, which still constitutes by far the most serious strategic threat to Jerusalem.
A Hamas aligned more closely with Qatar would be equally politically intransigent, and if the Qatar and Egypt-sponsored reconciliation with Fatah succeeds, this will end any realistic hopes for a diplomatic process between Israelis and Paleostinians in the foreseeable future. Nor will Hamas entirely eschew violence.
The Qataris and their ilk deal in a politics of gesture and propaganda vis-a-vis Israel, but remain dependent on the West for protection against the real menace of Iran. They lack the genuine ideological fervor, seriousness and readiness for real war of the Iran-led regional alliance.
Hamas's move in the direction of Doha and Cairo, and subsequent internal squabbling, means the weakening of the most important alliance arrayed against Israel -- and the beginning of a period of flux and division for the main Paleostinian Islamist movement.
Continued on Page 49
[Dawn] The Pakistain Taliban will attack government, police and military officials if three of the late al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden's ... who is currently taking a long nap in the dirt... urm... water... widows are not released from Pak custody, a front man for the thug group said on Friday.
Pakistain's government has charged bin Laden's three widows with illegally entering and staying in the country, Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. said on Thursday.
"If the family of Osama bin Laden is not released as soon as possible, we will attack the judges, the lawyers and the security officials involved in their trial," Ehsanullah Ehsan of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) told Rooters.
"We will carry out suicide kabooms against security forces and the government across the country."
Malik did not specify which court was dealing with the case.
The three women will have to stand trial, but it was not clear what punishment they face if convicted.
Bin Laden was killed in a secret US raid in the northern Pak garrison town of Abbottabad ... A pleasant city located only 30 convenient miles from Islamabad. The city is noted for its nice weather and good schools. It is the site of Pakistain's military academy, which was within comfortable walking distance of the residence of the late Osama bin Laden.... in May last year.
The al Qaeda leader's body was flown out by American special forces, but his three wives and an undisclosed number of children were among the 16 people jugged by Pak authorities after the raid.
Two of the wives are Saudi nationals, and one is from Yemen, according to the Pak foreign ministry.
Pakistain had previously said that it would repatriate the women after a government commission probing the bin Laden raid had completed its questioning.
The commission has interviewed the family members for clues about how the al-Qaeda chief managed to stay in the country undetected.
The TTP vowed Dire Revenge™ after bin Laden's death last year, and carried out high-profile attacks across Pakistain. It bombed an American consulate convoy, laid siege to a naval base and killed paramilitary cadets.
Formed in 2007, the TTP is an umbrella group of various Pak thug factions operating in Pakistain's unruly northwestern tribal areas along the mostly non-existent border with Afghanistan.
TTP's front man also threatened attacks against Shad Begum, a women's rights activist based in the northwestern city of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar.
The US State Department honoured Begum with the 2012 International Women of Courage award at a ceremony in Washington on Thursday.
"She works for a secular and infidel system in Pakistain," Ehsan said. "That is why America has given her this prize."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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Threatening to attack isn't very threatening when they are already attacking in every way they can.
[Dawn] Two television journalists' attempt to snoop on a Baloch leader and a US diplomat meeting privately in a hotel here on Thursday ended in a fracas and detention of four Punjab police personnel.
Islamabad police said they were also looking for seven bodyguards of Jamhoori Watan Party leader Shazain Bugti.
They, together with the Punjab coppers, allegedly beat up a private TV channel crew when they started filming Mr Bugti and US Embassy's political counsellor Jonathan Pratt, despite his protests that the journalists had barged in their private meeting uninvited.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik Pak politician, current Interior Minister under the Gilani administration. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. He later joined the Pak Peoples Party and was chief security officer to Bhutto. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. arrived at the hotel to enquire after the commotion had ended. His sudden appearance gave rise to questions, if not suspicions, among the witnesses of the incident that lasted about 20 minutes.
Police was interrogating the Punjab coppers at the Secretariat cop shoppe but no charges had been pressed till late night.
Local administration and the police were said to be negotiating with Mr Bugti to settle the issue quietly and return the journalist's cellphone.
Witnesses to the fracas in the heavily protected Serena Hotel blamed both sides -- the journalists for intruding into the privacy of two individuals, and the coppers and Mr Bugti's bodyguards for thrashing them.
One of the TV crew members said Mr Bugti flared up when they started recording the scene on his mobile phone. Mr Bugti snatched the phone and ordered his guards, mainly the police escort provided to him by the Punjab government, to push them out.
He said he decamped the scene but Mr Bugti's private guards caught up with him in the basement of the hotel and beat him up.
He said he freed himself and ran back to the lobby at the upper level where more bodyguards had appeared but did not act because other mediapersons had arrived there meanwhile.
Towards the end of the ugly row, he said, the bodyguards were seen putting their weapons in a Land Cruiser which sped away.
It bore registration number LC-22 and belonged to Punjab Chief Minister's escort squad, he said.
At no point did the hotel's security came to the rescue of the journalists under attack, he added.
A guard of Mr Bugti told news hounds on condition of anonymity that the journalists asked Mr Pratt about "the agenda" of his meeting with the Baloch leader, a grandson of late Nawab Akbar Bugti, but the US diplomat declined to comment.
"Sardar sahib and the American told the news hounds that media was not invited to their meeting and it was a private meeting. But since you are here, enjoy tea in the hotel restaurant," the guard said.
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03/10/2012
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#1
the journalists asked Mr Pratt about "the agenda" of his meeting with the Baloch leader, a grandson of late Nawab Akbar Bugti, but the US diplomat declined to comment, other than: "I've always been a big fan of Foster Brooks' work".
that would've puzzled the shit out of the "Pak journalsts"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2012 10:55
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[Magharebia] The National Movement for the Liberation of Azaouad (MNLA), Mali and Mauritania on Sunday (March 4th) started talks to put an end to the months-long armed conflict between Touareg rebels and the Malian government, Aray Almostenir reported on Monday.
The tripartite consultations aim to find a "cease-fire mechanism and the return of displaced people", the Mauritanian website reported. The goal is to launch "multilateral negotiations in northern Mali under regional and international auspices with the subject of Azaouad self-determination on the agenda".
"The two parties to the conflict are moving slowing in deepening consultations," according to Aray Almostenir.
The move came two days after the MNLA declared readiness for a peaceful solution to the confrontation. In a March 2nd statement, the Touareg rebel coalition insisted that the solution be based on "the choice of the Azaouad people and fulfil the legitimate aspiration of their right to self-determination".
The MNLA demanded that the international community assume its moral, humanitarian and legal responsibilities toward the Azaouad people and work to stop what it termed massacres against unarmed civilians.
The statement stems from "the principles set by the MNLA since its declaration on November 1st, 2010, adopting peaceful resolution and political dialogue as an optimal means for resolving the conflict between the Azaouad and Mali for more than fifty years", according to their statement.
In addition, the Touareg coalition praised "regional and international endeavours to find a final solution to the issue".
The push for negotiations came "with direct pressure from the French government on both parties", according to Abou Bakr Sadiq Ogh Ham Hadi, a Touareg professor at the University of Bamako who sought refuge outside Mali.
The talks are "in the interest of all parties because the Malian government seeks all means to end the armed conflict in preparation for holding the next presidential election", he added. "Meanwhile, ...back at the Council of Boskone, Helmuth had turned a paler shade of blue. Star-A-Star had struck again... the French government has found itself compelled to stop the war in the region of northern Mali, where it has hostages held by al-Qaeda, and therefore they want the Malian government to exert maximum efforts to liberate those hostages."
The professor, however, did not pin much hope on the outcome of negotiations, saying that "the previous agreements were not respected".
"In fact, secret negotiations are currently taking place between the two parties to the conflict under Mauritanian -- Algerian -- Burkinabe auspices, but settlement in them will be in favour of granting the wilayas of northern Mali, home to the Touaregs and Arabs, self-rule rather than the demand for independence," said Sidi Mohamed Ould Khalifa, a journalist who specialises in Sahel security.
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[An Nahar] Around 100 protesters calling for an end to military rule in Egypt clashed with soldiers near the U.S. embassy in Cairo, an Agence La Belle France Presse correspondent reported.
Shouting "Down with military power!" the protesters lobbed stones at the soldiers, who responded by throwing them back and trying to disperse the crowd.
The soldiers then returned to their position, where they were joined by a group of civilians, who also threw stones at the protesters.
Earlier, two civilian groups, one of them demanding the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador, had clashed in front of the embassy, hurling stones at each other.
After months of pressure from Washington, 13 foreign defendants accused of receiving illicit foreign funds to operate unlicensed NGOs, including six Americans, were allowed to leave the country after posting bail last week, sparking outrage in Egypt.
A travel ban was lifted after the trial judges recused themselves in the face of what they said was intervention by the authorities.
During the day, around 200 people marched in nearby Tahrir Square, the epicenter of last year's uprising that toppled president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... and saw the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces take power.
The protesters there marked the day, one year ago, when the army dispersed a crowd in Tahrir Square by force and set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock a group of women protesters.
After being beaten, the jugged activists were forced to undergo "virginity tests," a practice classified as torture and sexual violence by Egyptian and international rights groups, including Amnesia Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch ... dedicated to bitching about human rights violations around the world... Amnesty said the verdict, due on Sunday, in the trial of a military doctor accused of carrying out the tests, "will show if Egypt's military courts are prepared to offer any redress for female victims of violence by the army."
Egypt's judiciary last year ordered the army to halt the practice.
The London-based rights group also called on Friday for "thorough, impartial and independent investigations" to be carried out into all complaints by women who were subjected to violence by Egypt's army and security forces over the past year.
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[Yemen Post] A high-ranking military commander was killed on Thursday evening along with six of his bodyguards by Houthi ...a Zaidi Shia insurgent group operating in Yemen. They have also been referred to as the Believing Youth. Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi is said to be the spiritual leader of the group and most of the military leaders are his relatives. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of having ties to the Iranian government, which wouldn't suprise most of us. The group has managed to gain control over all of Saada Governorate and parts of Amran, Al Jawf and Hajjah Governorates.... gunnies in the northern Yemeni province of Amran, Rooters reported.
Houthis mainly control the far northern province of Saddah but recently they have expanded their grip over some parts of Hajjah, Al-Jawf, and Amran provinces.
Some of the Shiite gunnies have opened fire on the officer's car when they refused to stop at a checkpoint set up by the rebels in Haraf Suffian area of Amran, killing him along with six of his bodyguards.
Some of the officer's bodyguards have fired back, leaving three Houthis killed, said Rooters.
Abdu Malak al-Houthi, the bully boy group leader, has confirmed that two of his men had been killed and the third is still missing.
"This brutal, unjustified aggression reveals the barbarity of this officer and those who stand behind him and their disregard for the blood of the people and their hatred for the sons of the northern provinces," Rooters has quoted him as saying.
Saddah, a province neglected by the government in terms of public projects , services and infrastructure, has witnessed six war within the the span of 6 years between Houthi gunnies and army troops, leaving thousands killed and others injured, and triggering a catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the area as more than 200000 people were forced to flee their homes due to the armed conflict.
The Houthis, who are accused of being an agent of Tehran, expanded their territory towards neighboring Hajjah, where they alledgedly aiming to take control of Midi port. The port, according to the rustics, would make it easy for Iran to smuggle more weapons for them.
Sectarian festivities break out every now and then between Shiite Houthis and Sunni local rustics n the northern province of Hajjah.
Soddy Arabia, the regional power that has the most sway in Yemen, has voiced its concerns over Houthi's control of Saddah, a city nearby its southern borders, calling on the interim government to reestablish central government rule over the province.
The top oil exporter, which many allege that it has the last say in any internal matter in Yemen, was involved in the war against Houthis alongside the government forces, using it's advanced jet fighters. However, there's no worse danger than telling a mother her baby is ugly... the Houthi gunnies managed to infiltrate the borders, killing some borders guards, and capturing some others.
Newly-elected President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi confirmed on Monday that he had received letters from Houthi leaders, indicating that they would take part in the upcoming national dialogue.
Shiite insurgency in the north, Southern Movement- calling for the separation of the south -and Al-Qaeda increasingly dangerous threat in the south, and revolutionary youth across the country who refuse to remove their camping sit-ins even after former president President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, but he didn't invite Donna Summer to the inauguration and Blondie couldn't make it... was being eased out of power in exchange for immunity from prosecution.
These challenges and many others underscore the enormity of challenges facing Hadi and the Interim government.
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U.S. drones raided several hideouts of the Yemen-based al-Qaida wing in the southeast restive province of al-Bayda on Friday night, killing at least 20 al-Qaida militants, a local security official told Xinhua.
"Two U.S. drones fired several missiles on a number of al-Qaida hideouts in Jabra area of al-Zahir district in al-Bayda province, killing at least 20 al-Qaida members," the official told Xinhua by phone on condition of anonymity. "The casualties among the militants were based on an initial security report from the targeted area right now," he added without elaborating further details. A spokesman of al-Qaida group told Xinhua that "more than two U. S. drones are still striking several posts of al-Qaida in three villages outside al-Bayda's central city, and we do not have yet confirmed information on casualties."
He said that they will release initial information in a statement late on Friday night.
Al-Bayda province, some 170 km southeast of the capital Sanaa, has witnessed in the past two months a remarkable progress by the Yemeni government against Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of the Islamic Law), a local arm of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ( AQAP).
Earlier this week, AQAP militants launched a string of suicide attacks against the government troops in the southern province of Abyan, killing at least 200 soldiers and capturing 73 others.
The Yemeni newly-elected President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced on Monday that his government is determined to confront terrorism with full force, saying "whatever it will take, we will continue to hunt terrorists down to their final hideout."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2012
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#1
I was just looking at Abyan, and, particularly Zinjibar on Google Earth, and it is extremely close to Aden. I hope the international shipping security firms are aware of how close they are to hardcare crazies. Zinjibar is right up the street.
[An Nahar] Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's veteran internal security czar, arrived in the U.S. city of Cleveland on Friday for scheduled medical tests, the royal palace announced in Riyadh.
"The crown prince, (who is also) deputy prime minister and interior minister, arrived in Cleveland from Morocco for medical examinations that had been previously scheduled," the palace said in a brief statement carried by the official SPA news agency.
It did not elaborate on what the tests were for.
Prince Nayef -- who has served as interior minister for nearly four decades and led the kingdom's post-September 11, 2001 crackdown on al-Qaeda -- was named crown prince in October last year at the age of 78, following the death of his brother, Prince Sultan.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
Does anyone know who is next in line, or will that be determined after he dies?
[Dawn] Unidentified gunnies kidnapped three Fata Sustainable Plains Development Programme officials and a Levies soldier in the frontier tribal region of Lakki on Wednesday night.
Sources said Jehanzeb, Awal Khan and Kachkol Khan guarded by Naseer Khan of Levies were in Ghundi Hasankhel area to inspect work on SPDP projects.
They said after the incident, the political administration began an operation in the area for safe recovery of captives and arrest of their kidnappers.
Also in the day, Lakki Marwat district police officer Gulzar Ali Khan directed local SDPOs and SHOs to speed up action against gamblers and narcos.
During a meeting at his office, he said police were responsible for cracking down on criminals without discrimination and therefore, such actions should be initiated without delay.
The DPO said complaint boxes had been placed outside the district and sub-divisional police offices for early resolution of people's problems.
He urged police to keep a close liaison with elders and residents of their respective areas and said it would help restore public confidence in the force. It, he said, will also improve law and order situation in the area.
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Either the terms are good or the Libyans got an 'or else' from Vlad...
In an interview with the ITAR-TASS news agency Friday, interim Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Rahim Al-Keeb assured Russia that his country would honour all the contracts that it signed with Russian companies in the era of Muammar Gaddafi. He said Libya would welcome the return of Russian companies, Voice of Russia reported.
On the ground, meanwhile, there are growing signs of national disintegration. Earlier this week, the oil-rich eastern region of Cyrenaica with the seat in Benghazi declared itself semi-autonomous, and Libya's third biggest city Misurata in the west imposed restrictions on the entry of Libyans from elsewhere in the country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/10/2012
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#2
Remember, something like 95% of the Libyan military hardware is Soviet/Russian, as is a lot of their heavy equipment. This is simply facing the facts that until the oil fields are fully producing and even expanding, Libya will be dependent to a great extent on Russian parts and goodwill.
[An Nahar] Thousands of Iraqis erupted into the streets of Storied Baghdad ...located along the Tigris River, founded in the 8th century, home of the Abbasid Caliphate... and cities in the Shiite-majority south of the country on Friday to condemn Bahrain for crushing an uprising a year ago.
A bit late to be effective, not that the rulers of Bahrain care what a mob of Iraqi peasants -- or even Iraqi bon pensants -- might say or do.
The protests, organized by Shiite holy manMoqtada Tater al-Sadr ... the Iranian catspaw holy man who was 22 years old in 2003 and was nearing 40 in 2010. He spends most of his time in Iran, safely out of the line of fire, where he's learning to be an ayatollah... , took place in a half-dozen cities in south Iraq with attendance ranging from dozens to several thousand, Agence La Belle France Presse news hounds said.
"Pay attention to meeeeeeee!" cries Little Tater, recently promoted to something or other terribly impressive by the mullahs of Qom. One hopes they also arranged for the repair of his teeth -- so hard to be taken seriously as an intellectual when one's teeth are visibly rotting in one's head. Such things denote a certain lack of gravitas in a way that, say, uncombed hair does not.
"The Bahraini king is a king only to himself, not for the oppressed people of Bahrain," Sadrist official Ibrahim al-Jabari said in a speech to thousands of demonstrators in the movement's Sadr City bastion in north Storied Baghdad.
Jabari also criticized the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... for barring Syria from attending an upcoming summit in Storied Baghdad, but allowing Bahrain to join.
Protesters shouted, "Bahrain! Free, Free Bahrain!" and held banners condemning Soddy Arabia's "interference" in the Gulf monarchy.
Rallies were also held in Sadr's headquarters town of Najaf, the southern port city of Basra, and the towns of Nasiriyah, Hilla, Amara and Diwaniyah.
AFP journalists said thousands of demonstrators attended the Najaf and Amara protests, while hundreds took part in the Basra, Nasiriyah and Hilla rallies. Diwaniyah, however, only say a few dozen protesters.
"All of these protesters have come to say to the Bahraini leaders, 'Stop what you are doing to the people of Bahrain'," said Mohaned al-Gharawi, a Sadrist official taking part in the Najaf demonstration.
Bahrain has complained to Iraq previously of Sadr's "irresponsible statements" about the uprising, summoning Storied Baghdad's envoy to Manama in January.
The Shiite-led opposition in Bahrain demands constitutional changes that would reduce the power of the ruling Sunni dynasty. Tensions have remained high in Bahrain since a deadly crackdown last year after a month of street protests in the capital Manama.
Tensions between Iraq and the six Gulf Arab states have risen sharply since Bahrain secured military support from fellow Gulf Cooperation Council members to smash the month of pro-democracy protests.
In the aftermath of the crackdown, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ... Prime Minister of Iraq and the secretary-general of the Islamic Dawa Party.... warned that the military intervention risked stoking sectarian conflict across the region.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
So Iran, using Tater as proxy, are protesting in Baghdad about the crackdown in Bahrain of Iranian backed agitators seeking to overthrow the government.
#2
I beleive I would worry about my own problems for the near future. Like say a car blowing up while demonstrating.
Posted by: Jack Barnsmell7643 ||
03/10/2012 9:47
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#3
No protests against Iran's handling of the protests a couple of years ago. Oh that's right, I guess there weren't more than a few disgruntled folks according to Iranian spokesmen.
[Magharebia] Secularism does not conflict with the principles of Islam, according to Ennahda leader Rachid Ghannouchi.
"Secularism appears to be a philosophy that contradicts religious perceptions, but things are not as has been posed," he explained in a March 2nd lecture, hosted by the Centre for the Study of Islam and Democracy in Tunis. "Secularism emerged in the West and evolved as solutions and measures for problems between church and state posed in central Europe within the framework of churches in the Protestant state."
"So secularism is only procedures and not atheist philosophy," he added.
Ikram Koubàa, a Tunisian citizen, considered Ghannouchi's statements positive and reassuring, indicating a new development in the Ennahda Movement's discourse, and a higher level of intellectual awareness among Tunisia's Islamists.
But others saw ambiguity in Ghannouchi's concept of secularism.
"We call for a secularism separating politics from religion and respecting our identity and our religious minorities, in which religion does not interfere with politics," Achref Smairi said.
Ghannouchi stressed that the troubling interactions between the Islamist and secular intellectual elites stemmed from confusion about the concepts of secularism and Islam.
On the other hand, he also noted that if religion and state were completely separated, it would become easier to abuse both.
He added, "Islam grew up combining religion and politics and religion and state, and Mohammedans were constantly influenced by religion and they should seek inspiration from the values of Islam and its teachings to face their civilian lives."
Ghannouchi also stressed that Islam is a civilised religion and does not contradict with civil society.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
This is an important part of Islamic 'reformation', which is getting momentum among intellectuals in traditionally more moderate Islamic countries.
A lot of Muslims crave a 'modern' Islam, that (hypocritically) dispenses with the primitivism, barbarism, ignorance and violence of its current form. This means deemphasizing the nasty parts and emphasizing the "nicer" bits to be preeminent in their doctrines.
Christianity went through this painful process a long time ago.
[Dawn] THOSE Paks who think beyond the caricature of India as a scheming bully out to swallow us whole will have keenly followed the recently concluded elections in five states of that country, including the huge and extremely influential Uttar Pradesh (UP).
The elections were touted as Rahul Gandhi's christening as the next leader of the Congress Party. That the party and its new star have emerged from the exercise battered, bruised and comprehensively defeated signals the latest mini-crisis for both the powerful Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and the party with which it is so closely identified.
Congress ceased to occupy a truly dominant role in the Indian polity as long ago as the 1970s when Rahul's grandmother Indira was the party's undisputed leader. It was Nehru's ambitious daughter who imposed the infamous emergency that transformed India's political landscape and definitively banished Congress hegemony.
Congress remains India's most visible political force, with the Nehru-Gandhi clan still its heart and soul. Yet Indian political life has changed, and will continue to do so in the years and decades to come. It is no longer enough to simply invoke the proud
Nehruvian legacy and expect that an adoring public will keep voting grandsons and granddaughters back into office.
This is an important, if banal, fact. It also raises questions about one of the most enduring themes in scholarship on South Asian societies, namely that dynasties dominate politics. Nehru-Gandhi in India, Bhutto in Pakistain, and Mujib-Hasina in Bangladesh are only the most prominent names that come to mind. A detailed investigation into who holds public office in many of the region's states confirms that many a son, daughter, brother, sister, husband or wife has assumed a position of power and influence immediately or soon after their kin has vacated the proverbial throne.
So what is the more accurate depiction of reality? Are hereditary sources of power still as enduring as they ever were or have the rules of the game changed definitively? The short answer is that historical change is not to be measured in terms of discrete breaks from one system or pattern to the next. Yes, clans and kinship groups with a history of power and influence will not just disappear one day to be displaced by impersonal representatives of the public interest, but it is also becoming increasingly clear that the stereotype of ordinary citizen-subjects remaining perennially subservient to certain individuals or families is also very misleading.
The trajectory of change in each polity is, of course, unique. So it would appear reasonable to argue that Indians -- including those who are victims of generations of systematic exploitation -- are more likely to be able to exercise political choice than Paks, on account of the fact that an uninterrupted democratic process has ensured more political freedoms.
Having said this, meaningful political choice remains a pipe dream as long as class, caste, gender and other structures remain intact. In other words, India's poor are able to exercise only limited political choice in the face of deeply rooted social hierarchies. They are still likely to vote a powerful patron into office not on the basis of the latter's policy commitments but because a patron will mediate with the thana, the katcheri and the vagaries of the capitalist market.
In this sense all South Asian polities are similar, and will continue to remain so until the structures that frame the wider practice of politics are overhauled. The point I want to assert, however, is that the Indian political experience is instructive for those armchair analysts in Pakistain who lament the dynastic trends in our political life. As already noted, such trends remain pronounced in Indian political life, but our neighbours are much further along in terms of reducing the influence of clans and dynasties in the political sphere, because the sustained exercise of political choice has been privileged as a key value within the polity.
If politics in Pakistain is to move beyond larger-than-life personalities, then it is necessary to recognise that change takes time and, arguably more importantly, continuity in the political process. The centrality of the Bhutto clan and the Pakistain People's Party (PPP) to Pak political life is not only to be explained as a cult of personality or the enduring ideology of roti, kapra aur makan.
Literally translated as food, clothing, and shelter, the Hindi phrase refers to the bare necessities of life, a fave topic of dear Indira Ghandi, and was subsequently used as the title of a famous Bollywood film.
Just as important, if not more so, has been the military establishment's refusal to tolerate an uninterrupted political process. Since the PPP has, more often than not, been perceived to suffer grievously at the establishment's hands, the notion that the Bhutto clan and the PPP is the only genuinely anti-establishment political force in Pakistain has been reinforced.
In recent times the relatively pro-establishment historical posture of other parties has appeared to undergo some measure of change, and this has already had an impact on the practice and perception of politics in Pakistain, even if the trends are not irreversible. If even a couple of elected governments complete their terms -- PPP-majority or otherwise -- the change in practice and perception of politics might actually be institutionalised.
In particular dynasties and personalities will become less important, even if not entirely irrelevant. In any case, generations of families have played and will continue to play significant roles in the political life of many countries, which reflects the resilience of the ruling class rather than a society's cultural proclivity. The most obvious and recent example is that of George W. Bush becoming the president of the US only eight years after his father vacated the White House.
It is important to flag another important point here, one that is almost always underspecified. Many positions of state power in Pakistain, India, or any other society for that matter, are not adjudicated upon by ordinary people. The permanent state apparatus -- which includes the civil service, police, judiciary and the military -- exercises more power, in this country at least, than elected governments have historically exercised.
Surely we should pay more attention to the highly exclusive and personalised manner in which power is concentrated within these unelected institutions of the state. The general, judge and secretary remains hard at work trying to maintain that their powerful dynasties remain unchecked. It is these dynasties of rule -- amongst the most egregious legacies of colonialism -- that remain the primary impediment to the exercise of real political choice.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[An Nahar] Syrian authorities demanded Leb officially on Friday to hand over the armed Syrian nationals that sought refuge in the eastern Bekaa area over the weekend, As Safir newspaper reported.
The Syrian Justice Ministry sent an official request to the Lebanese authorities demanding them to "hand over the gangs that were jugged in Leb," informed sources told the daily.
They noted that the memorandum was sent to General Prosecutor Saeed Mirza, who in turn sent a copy to Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi.
On Sunday, media reports said the Lebanese army jugged 35 armed Syrians, who allegedly belong to the Free Syrian Army, and had crossed to the Bekaa region with refugees escaping the crackdown of the Assad regime on protestors.
According to the bilateral judicial agreement signed between the two countries in 1951, which was amended in 1991, and in addition to the defense agreement inked in 1991, the Lebanese authorities are obliged to hand over to Syria the detainees.
"The gunnies, according to the Syrian authorities, are outlaws," sources noted.
Media reports said on Tuesday that the army released 28 out of the 35 armed Syrians, after investigations revealed that they haven't used their arms in Lebanese territories or Syria, while the other 7 were referred to the competent judiciary for using their weapons inside Leb and allegedly injuring a Lebanese soldier.
However, there's more than one way to skin a cat... the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat reported on Thursday that the army released the 7 gunnies, who were classified among the refugees entering into Leb from Syria's Homs province.
"The gunnies who were jugged by the army were referred to the competent judiciary in order to take the necessary measures against them," a member who participated in Thursday's Higher Defense Council meeting told As Safir.
President Michel Suleiman ...before assuming office as President, he held the position of commander of the Leb Armed Forces. That was after the previous commander, the loathesome Emile Lahoud, took office as president in November of 1998. Likely the next president of Leb will be whoever's commander of the armed forces, too... headed an "extraordinary" meeting for the HDC at the Baabda Palace amid warnings by U.S. Ambassador to Leb Maura Connelly against handing over to Syrian authorities the refugees or dissidents, including members of the FSA, who crossed into Leb fleeing the turmoil in their country.
"A number of the refugees returned to their country," a source told the daily.
The source noted that the measures along the Lebanese-Syrian border were boosted as the security forces are tightening their grip according to the requirements.
An Nahar reported that the decisions taken by the council remained confidential although the daily said that the gatherers stressed the importance of controlling the arms smuggling along the border.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told al-Joumhouria newspaper that security is under control along the Lebanese-Syrian border to halt the infiltration of gunnies and smugglers in the two directions.
The Higher Defense Council expressed in a statement "relief" over the security situation in the country.
According to An Nahar, the Lebanese and Syrian army boosted their measures along the border amid conflicting reports on the developments.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A monumental wooden chair erected in Ramallah to symbolize the Paleostinians' sought-after United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... seat collapsed this week after months of wind and rain. Bulldozers quietly took away the shattered remains by night. Honest, we don't make this stuff up...
It's collapse and stealthy removal could well serve as an emblem of Paleostinian hopes for statehood. ... or as an ode to inshallah maintenance...
For the first time in years, meetings this week between US and Israeli leaders were largely silent on the long-stalled grinding of the peace processor. Debate between Israel and Washington over a military strike on Iran knocked Israel-Paleostinian peace talks to the bottom of Barack Obama Republicans can come along for the ride, but they've got to sit in the back... and Benjamin Netanyahu's agenda.
"The Israeli government has a strategy: to maintain the status quo... We say that we won't accept the rules of this game," said chief Paleostinian negotiator Saeb Erekat ...negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel. He has been chief Paleostinian negotiator since 1995. He is currently negotiating with Israel to establish a de jure Paleostinian state... But to the frustration of many ordinary Paleostinians, there is no other game. Riven by internal quarrels, the Paleostinians are struggling to make their voice heard. World attention has shifted to the US presidential elections, the escalating violence in Syria and Iran's nuclear program.
PLO officials have said for weeks they are drafting a formal ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stating longstanding grievances and repeating demands for a halt to all Jewish settlement building in the occupied West Bank as a precondition for a resumption of talks that broke down in 2010.
The Israelis will certainly reject the demands, if they ever arrive, and will face no international pressure to back down, with world attention fixed firmly on the Iranian nuclear row.
Facing this eventuality, the Paleostinians have suggested reviving a 2011 campaign to transcend direct negotiations and again petition the United Nations for statehood recognition.
"We will go to the General Assembly at a time the Paleostinian leadership chooses, in coordination with the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... . This is just one of the options," said Nabil Abu Rudaineh, front man to President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... Aimless strategy
A growing number of Paleostinian commentators have criticized such a strategy as aimless. Full statehood status can only come from the UN Security Council and the United States has made clear on numerous occasions that it will veto any such move.
Citing the repeated delays in issuing what he has derided as the "mother of all letters" former cabinet minister Hassan Asfour wrote in the Amad online journal this week that Paleostinian leaders were unwilling to push the issue for fear of upsetting long-standing security and economic ties with Israel.
Further taxing Paleostinian efforts for international recognition, Abbas has invested heavily in reconciliation talks with Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, a rival faction that seized control of the Gazoo Strip in 2007 and does not recognize Israel.
After almost a year of negotiations, brokered by both Egypt and Qatar, Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, has got little to show for his efforts, drawing more fire from the Paleostinian public, which sees him as a remote and indecisive leader.
"The Paleostinian strategy has been hampered by the rather limited diplomatic capacity of Abu Mazen and those around him," said Rami Khouri, a researcher at the American University of Beirut. "In the absence of a more effective leadership, these internal problems have made the Paleostinians vulnerable to being sidelined," he said.
Hamas also faces unprecedented internal divisions over the listless push for reconciliation, shrouding the entire Paleostinian political class in gloom.
"We're now hearing of a reconciliation 'process'," said Hany al-Masri, a Paleostinian political analyst. "There's more process than actual progress in ending the divisions. It's becoming just like the 'grinding of the peace processor.'"
Popular discontent
Financial woes may further dim the appetite of West Bank officials to disturb the status quo, as eroding support from international donors wreaks a punishing slowdown on the economy and stokes popular frustration.
In retaliation for the Paleostinian's UN drive, the United States froze $150 million in aid last year, while payments from wealthy Arab nations have also fallen far short of expectations.
The reversals, coupled with the global downturn, have driven growth rates from 9 percent in 2010 to under six percent last year, according to unofficial projections.
In an effort to plug a growing budget deficit, Ramallah-based Prime Minister Salam Fayyad ...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either... tried to introduce tax hikes at the start of 2012, but had to backtrack in the face of public anger.
Israeli politicians show little concern but army officers, tasked with patrolling the West Bank, fear violence may fill the vacuum.
"Without a viable grinding of the peace processor, the situation here risks getting progressively frayed," said one Israeli officer, not authorized to speak on the record about security concerns.
Stone-throwing youths and Israeli security forces have repeatedly clashed on the outskirts of Jerusalem and in West Bank towns this year, killing one Paleostinian last month. The violence has come and gone, but tensions are edging higher.
The government in Ramallah, lacking any democratic mandate since 2006, appears stuck in a rut. But it looks unwilling to provoke any profound crisis with the Israelis - such as dissolving their administration - for fear of the backlash.
"There is a lack of legitimacy, but they can continue on this path if they want to," said analyst al-Masri. "They don't want to pay the price to their status, their powers and authority."
#3
Hey, paleos - you're just expendable tools in Iran's/Syria's/pick-any-other-islamic-nation's personal "let's kill the Joooz" agenda.
Are you having fun yet?
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/10/2012 15:35
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#4
While all their brothers are beating each other up, it provides a fine opportunity to your neighbors to render on to you what you've been rendering on to them for so long without much a peep from the usual suspects crowd. Should make you nervous.
For a map, click here For a map of Tamaulipas, click here. To see the original Rantburg report on the Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas firefight, click here
By Chris Covert
A total of 15 dead were found in three incidents in Tamaulipas state since last Thursday, according to Mexican news accounts.
Friday morning a Mexican Army unit found seven unidentified individuals in Valle Hermoso municipality in northern Tamaulipas. Five victims had been beheaded.
The find was made on a road leading to the village of Las Yescas. A message was also left with the bodies, but its contents were not disclosed.
In San Fernando municipality two more unidentified individuals were found beheaded Friday.
Last Thursday six unidentified victims were found in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital of Tamaulipas. The find was made just a few kilometers from the Ciudad Victoria to San Luis Potosi highway.
As with the find in Valle Hermoso, all six had been beheaded and a message was left at the scene but its content was not disclosed.
With the two finds Thursday and Friday, and the gunfight in Miguel Aleman last Wednesday, the death toll from drug and gang related activity rises to 27.
Recent kabooms on railway tracks across the Sindh province indicate the rise of a separatist movement that takes inspiration and strength from the freedom movement in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , political analysts say.
At least 16 bombs targeted railway tracks in various parts of Sindh on February 25, stopping all train traffic. Low-intensity explosives were planted on railway tracks in Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , Hyderabad, Benazirabad, Mirpur Mathilo, Pud Eaidan, Khairpur and Ghotki, damaging tracks in the entire province, according to a senior Pakistain Railways official. There were no trains close to the sites of kaboom, he said, therefore there was no major damage and no casualties.
"The police found leaflets from the bombing sites in which Sindhu Desh Liberation Army (SDLA), an underground separatist outfit, grabbed credit for the attacks," said Muzaffar Sheikh, a Railway Police officer. He said the group had bombed railway tracks in the past.
Denouncing alleged atrocities against the Sindhi people and vowing to continue its struggle until Sindh's freedom, SDLA's chief commander Darya Khan Marri asks other Sindhis, in the leaflet, to take up arms and join the movement. The SLDA says Sindhi separatists must get the same worldwide recognition as the separatists in Balochistan, and asks people to stand up against the "opportunist" People's Party government, the army, and the ISI.
Sindhi separatist groups, which have never been popular in the province, have taken strength from recent move by a group of US Congressmen calling for the right of self-determination for the Baloch people. "Because of bad governance, nepotism, corruption and incompetence of the politicians, there is a lot of frustration and disappointment among Sindhi people, especially the young," according to Imdad Soomro, a senior journalist who studies Sindh's ethnic politics. Some of them might be involved in subversive activities, he says, but a majority of them believe in a peaceful political and democratic struggle.
The PPP seems to have taken the threat seriously. "The kabooms on railway tracks in Sindh could be due to a sense of deprivation among the Sindhi people, a sentiment that is also prevalent in the province of Balochistan. This sense of deprivation has been created after the liquidation of PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto ... 11th Prime Minister of Pakistain in two non-consecutive terms from 1988 until 1990 and 1993 until 1996. She was the daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founder of the Pakistain People's Party, who was murdered at the instigation of General Ayub Khan. She was murdered in her turn by person or persons unknown while campaigning in late 2007. Suspects include, to note just a few, Baitullah Mehsud, General Pervez Musharraf, the ISI, al-Qaeda in Pakistain, and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who shows remarkably little curiosity about who done her in... ," Sindh home minister Manzoor Wasan told news hounds. The government, he said, had been trying to tackle the problem by creating jobs.
The demand for the separation of Sindh from Pakistain has been made time and again, but the separatist movement has not posed a serious threat to the state so far. Low-scale thug attacks from the SDLA have been reported intermittently in recent years.
The SDLA is believed to be an offshoot of the Jeay Sindh Muttahida Mahaz (JSMM), a Sindhi nationalist political party headed by Shafi Muhammad Burfat. Some of its members also broke away from various factions of the Jeay Sindh Tehrik (JST), founded by prominent Sindhi ethnic leader GM Syed. The Crime Investigation Department (CID) of Sindh police has added Burfat to its Red Book, Sindh IG Ghulam Shabbit Sheikh told news hounds on February 27, and was gathering information on him. Yaqoob Jatt, a senior officer in Hyderabad, said police believed the attacks were orchestrated by SDLA leader Lala Aslam Pathan, and carried out by suspects he identified as Shahnawaz Bhutto, Ramzan Jamali, Bashir Malah, and Faqir Najeeb Qureshi.
Sindhis are predominantly represented in parliament by the PPP, but Sindhi ethnic parties that follow the political ideology of GM Syed also have a strong influence on provincial politics. After the demise of GM Syed, his JST split into at least 11 political groups: Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz (JSQM) Bashir Qureshi Group, Burfat's JSSM, JST led by Dr Safdar Sarki, JSQM-Arisar Group, Jeay Sindh Mahaz Riaz Chandio Group, Jeay Sindh Qaumparast Party led by Qamar Bhatti, Sindh United Party led by GM Syed's grandson Jalal Mehmood Shah, Jeay Sindh Mahaz (JSM) led by Abdul Khaliq Junejo, JSM Rasool Bux Thebo Group, JSM Sufi Hazoor Bux Group, and JST Shafi Karnani Group. Dr Qadir Magsi's Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party, Rasool Bukhsh Paleejo's Awami Tehrik, and Amir Bhambaro's Sindh National Party were not aligned with GM Syed's ideology.
Burfat belongs to Tehni, a small village of Taluka Sehwan in Jamshoro district. He was a close associate of Dr Qadir Magsi in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and was accused along with Dr Magsi of orchestrating the September 30, 1988 carnage.
"Pakistain's intelligence agencies are targeting our leaders and activists only because we are demanding our fundamental political rights," said a JSMM leader in Hyderabad. He said the party's secretary general Muzaffar Bhutto had been picked up several months ago and its vice chairman Serai Qurban Khuhawar, leader Rooplo Choliani and central committee member Noorullah Tunio were killed in Sanghar on April 21, 2011. He accused intelligence agencies of creating "a Balochistan-like situation" in Sindh.
The SDLA emerged as a serious threat in February last year when it bombed several railway tracks, a CID official said. A suspected terrorist died on March 2 apparently trying to plant a bomb on a railway line near Jumma Goth in Bloody Karachi. After an accidental kaboom in a house that killed SDLA-linked Zulfiqar Kulachi and injured Ismail Abubakr and Sardaruddin Allahdino when they were trying to make a bomb on March 7 2011, police seized SDLA literature and other evidence. Information gathered from the literature and questioning of the injured men led to a crackdown in which all key members of the group were tossed in the calaboose. Eleven months later, the group has resurged with new attacks, apparently after being inspired by Baloch separatists, according to CID officials. But the SDLA is not as popular as the Baloch separatists, and that is why law-enforcement officials believe they can bust the group before it becomes a major threat.
Continued on Page 49
[An Nahar] Four generals who had defected from the Syrian army arrived in Turkey Friday, Anatolia news agency reported, citing local Turkish sources.
No doubt they're not anything as good as the Turkish officers sitting in Turkish jails on Erdogan's trumped up charges, but they'll do as substitutes in a pinch.
The four were among some 10 high-ranking army officers stationed in cities including Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... , Homs and Latakia, who crossed the border into Turkey's southern province of Hatay to join the Syrian rebels, the state-run Turkish agency said.
The number of Syrians crossing into Turkey in one single day reached 234, it added, citing Yusuf Guler, the district governor of Hatay's Reyhanli village.
The arriving refugees are being placed in tent camps in Hatay, where members of the rebel Free Syrian Army, made up of deserters from the Syrian security forces, are also based.
Recent weeks have seen an influx in the numbers of civilians fleeing the country as Bashir al-Assad's regime intensified its crackdown on opposition neighborhoods.
Around 800 Syrians crossed into Turkey over the last week, upping the figure for the past month to 2,500, officials told Agence La Belle France Presse on Thursday.
The total number since the unrest began a year ago stands at almost 12,000, but these are only the Syrians who have been registered by the authorities as they entered Turkey.
Turkish authorities are readying for a scenario involving the mass arrival of refugees and establishing a container city in Kilis, some 150 kilometers from the Hatay camps.
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Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Sara Maldonado aka Paulina Cervantes-Bravo in "Mundo de fieras (World of beasts)(TV Series 20062007)" aka Verónica Cortez 'Guadalupe Romero' in "La reina del sur (The Queen of the South)(TV Series 2011)" aka Lorena 'Lore' Álvarez in "El juego de la vida (The game of life)(TV Series 20012002)" aka Diana Antillón De La Reguera in "Corazones al límite (Hearts to the limit)(TV Series 2004)" aka Grandes Ojos Marrones (age 32)
[An Nahar] Employment in Canada was mostly unchanged in February, but a decline in the number of people looking for work pushed the jobless rate down slightly to 7.4 percent, a government agency said Friday.
Analysts had predicted that 15,000 new jobs would be created in the month, while the unemployment rate would remain at the previous month's level of 7.6 percent.
But employment declined in retail and wholesale trade; transportation and warehousing; health care and social assistance; and public administration, Statistics Canada announced.
Those declines were offset by increases in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing; educational services; and business, building and other support services, the agency said.
Regionally, only New Brunswick province in easternmost Canada saw a notable decline in jobs. Elsewhere job numbers were flat.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
Yes, things are not that rosy. Those I've talked to have said they have their problems also. I think Obama should tell them to do a stimulus plan like here. Let me explain:
#3
Thanks for the Abbott and Costello! Sitting in Western Canada, I think its our discussion with the East in a nutshell.
If you look at the stats, actually Western Canada (from Manitoba west) is sitting around 5.5% unemploynent.-With Alberta around 4.9%.Sounds good? - Let me add this. The ONLY country in all of the Americas with a triple A rating is Canada. Number of Banks that went under due to the resession - none and not one was "stimulated". Housing slowed but did not crash. - All this with our largest trading partner (the USA at over 75%)going through a sh##storm. More interesting point -Iceland is considering adopting, not the Euro, not the US dollar, but the Canadian Dollar.
Yep we have some problems, no country is perfect, but I would rather have ours. Funny how in the USA election year,NOONE is saying - you know --how did Canada do it? Simple - we slashed waste, cut the civil service and raised taxes to the painpoint - but it put us back again in the black for about 10 years until the 08 resession, but we should be in the black again in 2 years.
Without us, US oil would be at 10$ a gallon, let anong 4 bucks. Oh yes -we have been paying 5$ for years -and we drill the stuff. Be glad we are your neighbours. Actually I am pretty glad you are ours.
#4
Of course they aren't saying anything about it, Northern Cousin -- the Democrats don't want to be sensible about spending. And while the Republicans do, since most Americans don't know the wonderful things PM Harper's government has done, citing the example doesn't advance the discussion.
But we do appreciate you being our neighbour, my dear. Mexicos on both sides would be entirely too much of a good thing. ;-)
[The Hindu] Ending weeks of speculation, the government on Friday announced the appointment of Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... Corps Commander Zaheer-ul Islam as the ISI Director-General. He will replace Ahmad Shuja Pasha who is due to retire on March 18 after a three-and-a-half-year stint at what is regarded as one of the most powerful offices in the country, second only to that of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS).
The announcement was made in the evening with a brief statement from the Prime Minister's Secretariat. There was no word on Lieutenant-General Pasha's future assignment though there has been speculation of the outgoing DG -- who is on extension -- being made head of the Strategic Plans Division, which is in charge of the management and administration of the country's nuclear weapons stockpile.
Lieutenant-General Islam is also an infantry man like COAS Ashfaq Parvez Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... and Lieutenant-General Pasha. He has served in the ISI in the past as a two-star general in the post of Deputy Director General and had then apparently dealt with domestic and counter-intelligence issues.
The change of guard takes place at a time when the role of the ISI in Pakistain's domestic politics is under the scanner with the Supreme Court hearing a 1996-vintage petition. In the petition, a former Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistain Air Force, Asghar Khan, accused the ISI of financing several politicians -- including former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif ... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf... -- during the 1990 elections to form the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad and prevent the Pakistain People's Party from winning the polls.
The ongoing hearings have disclosed that Rs.340 million was distributed to various politicians and journalists by then ISI DG Asad Durrani on the instructions of the then President and COAS, Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Mirza Aslam Baig respectively.
Since the U.S. raid to take out al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden ... who has made the transition back to dust... on May 2, 2012, the ISI -- primarily a much feared organization that is referred to in hush-hush terms -- has been openly questioned for successive intelligence failures and attempts to manipulate Pakistain's politics besides the growing number of disappearances of people from Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... and Sindh.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
There doesn't seem to much info available about this guy. As noted, his previous ISI stint was on the domestic side of the house. President Zardari seems to trust him and he is no stranger to the US military. I would say that Lt Gen Zaheer-ul Islam has a historic opportunity to improve relations with the US. Let's see what he does with it.
Posted by: Mike Ramsey ||
03/10/2012 18:23
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[An Nahar] Fatah al-Islam A Syrian-incubated al-Qaeda work-alike that they think can be turned off if no longer needed to keep the Leb pot stirred. inmates in Roumieh prison have gone on a hunger strike on Thursday to protest an assault against a fellow prisoner, reported the National News Agency on Friday.
It explained that the prisoner was assaulted when he was standing trial at the Military Tribunal.
No further details were given on the incident.
The Fatah al-Islam inmates demanded that the prison administration hold the assailants accountable for their actions in order for them to end their strike.
The prison administration has since tightened security in the bloc B of the jail, where the Fatah al-Islam prisoners are jugged, as a precaution should the strike turn into a riot.
Roumieh inmates frequently stage hunger strikes in protest against the conditions in the jail.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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#1
a suggestion? Cut off food to ALL inmates while these drama queens do their hunger strike. Collective punishment. Perhaps their fellow (involuntary) hunger strikers might have a word with them?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/10/2012 10:45
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#2
So let 'em starve.
Posted by: Barbara ||
03/10/2012 13:29
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[Dawn] A turbanrubbed out the head of a local pro-government militia in the Kalaya area of the northwestern Orakzai Agency ... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers... , near the Afghanistan border, security officials said.
Officials added that the attacker was killed in a firefight after being surrounded by Pak forces patrolling the area.
The Pakistain military is conducting operations against turban groups in Orakzai, and dozens have been killed in fierce fighting in recent weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/10/2012
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Five deaths in three hours raised the toll to eight on Friday in the renewed incidents of violence in the city, DawnNews reported.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
A female 
SIRKIN SPECIAL FORCES BASE, Israel -- Fearing a surge in tunnel and bunker construction by 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
Wazoo
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A cyber attack on the Paleostinian internet network on Saturday evening originated in 
...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...
U.S. drones raided several hideouts of the Yemen-based al-Qaida wing in the southeast restive province of al-Bayda on Friday night, killing at least 20 al-Qaida militants, a local security official told Xinhua. 
Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's veteran internal security czar, arrived in the U.S. city of Cleveland on Friday for scheduled medical tests, the royal palace announced in Riyadh.
Moqtada 
Nouri al-Maliki
[Dawn] THOSE Paks who think beyond the caricature of India as a scheming bully out to swallow us whole will have keenly followed the recently concluded elections in five states of that country, including the huge and extremely influential Uttar Pradesh (UP).
This is an important, if banal, fact. It also raises questions about one of the most enduring themes in scholarship on South Asian societies, namely that dynasties dominate politics. Nehru-Gandhi in India, Bhutto in Pakistain, and Mujib-Hasina in Bangladesh are only the most prominent names that come to mind. A detailed investigation into who holds public office in many of the region's states confirms that many a son, daughter, brother, sister, husband or wife has assumed a position of power and influence immediately or soon after their kin has vacated the proverbial throne.
The trajectory of change in each polity is, of course, unique. So it would appear reasonable to argue that Indians -- including those who are victims of generations of systematic exploitation -- are more likely to be able to exercise political choice than Paks, on account of the fact that an uninterrupted democratic process has ensured more political freedoms.
If politics in Pakistain is to move beyond larger-than-life personalities, then it is necessary to recognise that change takes time and, arguably more importantly, continuity in the political process. The centrality of the Bhutto clan and the Pakistain People's Party (PPP) to Pak political life is not only to be explained as a cult of personality or the enduring ideology of roti, kapra aur makan. 
A monumental wooden chair erected in Ramallah to symbolize the Paleostinians' sought-after 
[The Hindu] Ending weeks of speculation, the government on Friday announced the appointment of 
Nawaz Sharif
Orakzai Agency
