One of five British hostages captured in Iraq last year has committed suicide, the kidnappers said in a videotape obtained by The Sunday Times.
A written statement displayed on the videotape says the hostage, identified as Jason, died May 25, four days before the first anniversary of his abduction, the London, England-based newspaper reported.
The video was received in Baghdad last week, the newspaper said.
The British government confirmed the videotape but said it could not independently verify the claims in the video, including the hostage's "purported death," a Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
"As in the case of previous messages from the hostage takers, the Government emphasizes the humanitarian appeal of the families for the men's release," a statement from the Foreign Office said.
The video is titled "Intihar" -- or "suicide" -- and opens with a photograph of the hostage wearing a football shirt, the newspaper reported.
He is identified as Jason in a statement signed "The Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq" that appears on screen.
#1
no reason not to pursue and eliminate his kidnappers, regardless. They deserve no less
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 21:38
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#2
"We didn't intend for him to die." Sort of a Lindberg kidnapper defense. Hopefully taken about as seriously...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/19/2008 22:21
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#3
The newspaper reported that the captors said say they regret the hostage's death "but hold the British government responsible for the hostages' fate."
Err, no. You kidnapped him. You would not take care of him properly. By my logic you assumed full responsibility twice over. Now unless you are an HMO, you are going to have to deal with the consequences of your (in)action.
#3
Fascinating. Candidate Obama only seemed interested in the African-American troops. He hugged that first black, female with enthusiasm, but shook the white, man's hand with noticeable restraint. The poses with the troops as well: almost entirely blacks, with a few token whites. I noticed no others at all.
#2
Look how proud the young man working there is, and rightfully so. The place looked clean, he washed his hands after breading the raw chicken, and the shop was doing gangbusters business just outside the base gate. A smart move by both the Iraqi investor and KFC.
#4
Also notice that when the American soldiers (or Marines) went in, they were armed, but they PAID for their food - not that I would expect anything less from the American military. If we were the conquering, raping, marauding monsters that the MSM, Jack Murtha, et al. claim, the guys would have just taken what they wanted.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 22:41
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The attack was no surprise. For many weeks, an increasing number of Berbers had been arriving in Spain from Tangiers under the command of Emir Musa. Tarik Ibn Ziyad, Governor of Tangiers, had landed a few weeks earlier in the Bay of Algeciras with around 8,000 men on the Rock of Calpe. Later, the rock was called Tarik Mountain after Djabal Tarik. Today, it is called Gibraltar.
The Visigoths, with their King Roderich also being Spains sovereign, were already embroiled in a domestic dispute. So they did not respond to the impending invasion. The first bloody battle between the Arabs and the Visigoths took place on July 19, 711. It turned out to make history.
Some 12,000 Arab men squared up against 100,000 Goths, who were led by King Roderich. They met at Laguna de la Janda and the battle lasted for many days. Yet even though the Goths outnumbered the Arabs, they had no chance. The Kings generals were more concerned about their personal struggles than the Arab enemy. The Visigoth era came to an end. The few thousand Arab soldiers advanced into the empire, which was already in a state of internal collapse.
Historian Michael Borgholte of Humboldt University in Berlin says that the Visigoths simply did not perceive the danger that the Arabs posed. "We know that the invasion in 716 advanced almost as far as the Pyrenees," Borgholte explains. "This means that the Arabs had moved at an incredibly fast pace. They had already proven their battle skills in the Middle East during the seventh century. The 716 advance came to an abrupt halt only when the Christians had recovered somewhat and were in a position to take countermeasures."
In only seven years, the Arabs managed to march from the South to the North and to establish themselves as the new rulers. The Caliph Empire now extended from Damascus in Syria to the Coimbra and Pamplona in Spain. The battle against Islam in Europe began with the Arabs' crossing of the Pyrenees in 718. Although they established base camps in Toulouse and Narbonne, they were not able to repeat their initial prompt victory in Spain.
In 732, the advance of the Arabs to the north-west frontier near Poitiers and Tours was brought to a decisive halt by Karl Martell, and the Moors retreated to Spain.
A culture emerged in Spain that enriched Europe with gold-woven fabrics, glass, porcelain, carpets, silk and magnificent ornamental architecture. It was a culture which brought forgotten European knowledge back to Europe. For the Jews in particular, the Muslim age was the "Golden Diaspora."
"We know about Jewish physicians who worked at the Caliph court, not only as physicians, but also as advisors to the Caliphs," Borgholte says. "We also know about Jewish translators, who translated Greek philosophers, such as Aristotle and Euclid, from Arabic into the national language. This enabled Christian authors to translate the texts into Latin."
Numerous academics from England, France and Germany came to Toledo. In this "City of Knowledge," they studied the translations of ancient works.
"It was, in fact, the beginning of the late Medieval period in the western world, based on the acceptance of ancient philosophy and science rendered by the translations from Arabic," Borgholte explains.
Yet the cultural climax is associated with the "Reconquista" that was slowly beginning to take shape, the re-conquering of Spain by the Christians. The Muslims withdrew from the regions they inhabited after battles in which many lives were lost. In 1493, they were finally conquered and the country was radically converted to Catholicism.
Nevertheless, the palaces in Granada and churches that were once mosques in Cordoba and Seville bear witness to the Arab age in Spain, which started on July 19, 711.
#1
What a load of crock. EVERY prominent Muslim scientist was persecuted at some time during the so-called "golden era." As for a revival of learning, academies were active during the dark ages. Avicenna and Averroes both corresponded with Greek and Roman scholars. And, in order to write on pure science, Averroes was coerced to write on Islamic subjects, one being his "Book of Jihad." So-called "islamic science" was unknown to the general public. The "ornamental" culture is only indicative of elite centrism. Peasants constructed elaborate housing and mosques for earlier day Donald Trumps. Today, Wahabis prohibit ornament on their mosques. After Clinton allowed formation of the Bosnia terror base, the Sauds shelled out $30 million for demolition of the Ottoman mosques. A recent survey of specialization in products, found that the only thing claimable in the entire Muslim cess pool, was: Persian carpets. Muslims are now and have always been global parasites. They need to be colonized and civilized, that is: excised of their numerous malignancies.
Barack Obama seems set to speak next to Berlin's famous Victory Column when he visits next week. The speech is expected to draw thousands and has put Obama's view on trade in the spotlight.
In what is viewed as a compromise, Obama, the presumptive US Democratic presidential candidate, will not speak directly at the Brandenburg Gate as originally proposed.
Expect this scene
Instead, Obama will speak next to a 67-meter column topped with the golden image of the Roman goddess Victory. The Brandenburg Gate, an iconic symbol of Berlin's reunification, will be 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) at the opposite end of a tree-lined boulevard.
Obama is expected to addresses a large crowd in Berlin on Thursday, July 24. Some have estimated that more than 10,000 Berliners could show up for the event. A recent poll shows that 72 percent of Germans would vote for Obama if given the opportunity.
With President George W. Bush deeply unpopular in Germany, many are rooting for an Obama win.
"People here see him almost as a political redeemer after seven years of Bush," political analyst Jan Techau of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) told DPA news agency, although he warns that sustaining the euphoria will be difficult.
The candidate's visit will also include a meeting with Merkel in the chancellery, her spokesman confirmed.
Spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm says the meeting is expected to take place on Thursday morning.
Berlin will come at the end of a trip Obama is taking that will start with visits to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
#2
Obama is running as an Internationalist Marxist, not as an American leader. Blogger Atlas Shrugs is looking at those sending in private money and much of it is coming from abroad. So it is all about screw you America when he dicided to use "private" funding and to break his promise of only using election funding. He will run America in a way that appeases everyone outside the country but Americans.
Hopefully a story of this subject line comes up as a story somewhere so that we can put a post up about it here rather than this comment buried in the comment sections about what another blogger is finding.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/19/2008 17:37
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#3
#1 - actually Das Horst Wessel Lied has been outlawed in Germany for 63 years.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 18:02
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#5
Right idea, Besoeker, but wrong song. It'll be more like this! Complete with nifty posters for the adoring throngs of Eurotwits...just make sure to swap out ol' Vladimir Ilyich's face before they're printed up & distributed.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/19/2008 19:17
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#6
A yankee - not that I doubt what you're saying, but I believe it's illegal for American presidential (and I think other federal) candidates to receive funding from foreign sources.
He must have a very good way of hiding washing it....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/19/2008 20:14
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IF you think the US markets have problems, look at the value of al Qaeda shares throughout the Muslim world: A high-flying political equity just a few years ago, its stock has tanked. It made the wrong strategic investments and squandered its moral capital.
In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Osama bin Laden was the darling of the Arab street, seen as the most successful Muslim in centuries. The Saudi royal family paid him protection money, while individual princes handed over cash willingly: Al Qaeda seemed like the greatest thing since the right to abuse multiple wives.
Osama appeared on T-shirts and his taped utterances were awaited with fervent excitement. Recruits flocked to al Qaeda not because of "American aggression," but because, after countless failures, it looked like the Arabs had finally produced a winner.
What a difference a war makes.
Yes, al Qaeda had little or no connection to Saddam Hussein's Iraq - but the terrorists chose to declare that country the main front in their struggle with the Great Satan. Bad investment: Their behavior there was so breathtakingly brutal that they alienated their fellow Muslims in record time.
Fighting enthusiastically beside the once-hated Americans, Iraq's Sunni Muslims turned on the terrorists with a vengeance. Al Qaeda's response? It kept on butchering innocent Muslims, Sunni and Shia alike. Iraq exposed al Qaeda as a fraud.
Where do Osama & Co. stand today? They're not welcome in a single Arab country. The Saudi royals not only cut off their funding, but cracked down hard within the kingdom. A few countries, such as Yemen, tolerate radicals out in the boonies - but they won't let al Qaeda in. Osama's reps couldn't even get extended-stay rooms in Somalia, beyond the borders of the Arab world.
And the Arab in the (dirty) street is chastened. Instead of delivering a triumph, al Qaeda brought disaster, killing far more Arabs through violence and strife than Israel has killed in all its wars. Nobody in the Arab world's buying al Qaeda shares at yesterday's premium - and only a last few suckers are buying at all.
Guess what? We won.
The partisan hacks who insisted that Iraq was a distraction from fighting al Qaeda have missed the situation's irony: Things are getting worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan not because our attention was elsewhere, but because al Qaeda has been driven from the Arab world, with nowhere else to go.
Al Qaeda isn't fighting to revive the Caliphate these days. It's fighting for its life.
Unwelcome even in Sudan or Syria, the Islamist fanatics have retreated to remote mountain villages and compounds on the Pakistani side of the Afghan border. That means Afghanistan's going to remain a difficult challenge for years to come - not a mission-impossible, but an aggravating one.
But we all need to stand back and consider how much we've achieved: A terrorist organization that less than a decade ago had global appeal and reach has been discredited in the eyes of most of the world's billion-plus Muslims.
No one of consequence in the Arab world sees al Qaeda as a winner anymore. Even fundamentalist clerics denounce it. For all of our missteps, Iraq's been worth it.
How is it that the media missed this stunning victory? Will they start to admit it after Nov. 4?
Yes, al Qaeda remains dangerous. It's a wounded hog still grunting down in the canebrake: More innocent people will be gored - and it's going to take a lot of pig-sticking to finish it off.
But I'm proud of one call I made last year: The prediction that the "Sunni flip" in Iraq's Anbar Province marked the high-water mark for al Qaeda. Increasingly, that call looks correct.
Democrats make a great fuss over the Bush administration's failure to capture Osama (although they themselves have no idea how to do so). But it now looks like the judgment of history - after the political rancor has settled into the graves of today's demagogues - will be that the administration of George W. Bush defeated al Qaeda.
There's plenty of work still to be done. Al Qaeda will behave viciously in its death throes. Other terrorist groups await their turn to appall the world.
But the second-greatest irony of our time is that, fumbling all the way, the Bush administration did what it set out to do after 9/11: It exacted vengeance on those who attacked us and toppled their towers - al Qaeda's fantastic dreams of global jihad.
So what's the greatest irony? The president's oft-mocked declaration of "Mission Accomplished" wasn't wrong, after all - just premature.
A WOMAN was saved by her son's dog when she was attacked by a huge male kangaroo on a farm. Rosemary Neal, 65, suffered facial cuts and other injuries when she was attacked yesterday afternoon while checking on horses in a paddock in Mudgee, central-western New South Wales.
Her son Darren said she was lucky to be alive after being attacked by the male kangaroo - which he estimated as up to 2m tall and weighing 100kg. "The kangaroo has just jumped up and launched straight at her. He hit her once and she just dropped and rolled. My dog heard her screaming and bolted down and chased him off.
"If it wasn't for the dog she'd probably be dead."
Mr Neal said his mother was in a "bad way", but was discharged from hospital late last night. "My mum is 65 years old and about five and a half foot," he said. "Her face has been ripped apart, her hand has been mauled, and she's got scratches all over her back and concussion.
"Her whole body is sore where she has dropped to the ground."
He said Mudgee was overrun by kangaroos. "There would be a couple of hundred kangaroos within a hundred metres of the house, and last night she was just walking down the paddock to check on the horses before it was dark," he said. "A lot of kangaroos have just bolted, but the males don't care, they just stay laying down, they're not scared."
#1
I wouldn't call a 2 meter kangaroo 'huge'. 2 meters is the norm for adult male Grey Kangaroos here in the West. I once had one charge right of the bush at me when I was horse riding. It wasn't much shorter than the horse.
FORMER immigration minister Kevin Andrews instructed his department to lift the intake of Christian refugees from the Middle East in response to what he saw as a pro-Muslim bias created by corrupt local case officers.
The Weekend Australian says Mr Andrews was so concerned about the extent of corruption in Middle Eastern posts - despite the allegations being investigated and dismissed by his own department - that he wrote to then prime minister John Howard advocating a $200 million plan to replace local employees with Australian staff in 10 "sensitive" countries, including Jordan, Iran and Egypt.
Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said yesterday this remains Coalition policy. "We do not want discrimination or bias occurring ... and that's why I believe it is appropriate that our sensitive overseas posts, such as those in the Middle East, are staffed by Australians," Senator Ellison said.
A Department of Immigration spokesman said there were no substantiated cases of anti-Christian discrimination in Australian embassies and no plans to replace "Islamic locally engaged staff" with Australian officials.
Just handed the keys over to the locals and walked away ...
An investigation by The Weekend Australian has discovered Mr Andrews was petitioned by the Australian Christian Lobby to address alleged religious discrimination against Iraqis. Before losing office in the November 2007 election, he ordered the number of Christian Iraqi refugees to be increased by 1400 for 2007-08, almost doubling the previous year's Iraqi total of 1639. "Put it this way, it was made very clear to the immigration department that more Christian refugees were wanted," a Howard government source said.
In his letter to Mr Howard in August last year, Mr Andrews, a devout Catholic, proposed significant changes to the refugee selection process. In the letter, seen by The Weekend Australian, Mr Andrews accused the case workers in Australian embassies of fraud and bribery when processing migration applications.
Such posts are predominantly staffed by local workers. He said this raised "considerable security risks".
Mr Andrews named 10 countries - Pakistan, India, United Arab Emirates, China, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kenya, Russia and Egypt - in which the posts should be staffed exclusively with Australian departmental officers. The non-Muslim countries named by Mr Andrews are understood to be less riddled by religious discrimination and more so by corruption, a source told The Weekend Australian. Not a unique problem.
LOUD music makes people drink more quickly and in fewer gulps, French researchers say. Their study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, found that turning up the music spurred drinkers to down a glass of beer about three minutes more quickly.
To gauge the effect of sound levels on drinking, the team spent three Saturday nights visiting two bars, where they observed 40 men aged between 18 and 25 drinking beer.
"We have shown that environmental music played in a bar is associated with an increase in drinking," Nicolas Gueguen, a behavioral sciences researcher at the University of Southern Brittany in France, who led the study, said in a statement.
With help from the bars' owners, the team turned the music up and down and then recorded how much and how fast people drank. The men did not know they were being observed. Louder music spurred more consumption, with the average number of drinks ordered by patrons rising to 3.4 drinks from 2.6 drinks, Gueguen found. The time taken to drink a beer fell to an average 11.45 minutes from 14.51 minutes.
The researchers acknowledged some limitations to their study, for example that the experiment was on a small scale and could not be applied to every bar. They said it was not clear why louder music appeared to increase alcohol consumption but said it might make conversation more difficult, forcing people to drink more and talk less.
#2
A million years ago, in college, I read a survey of bar owners who reported on which audiences drank most. IIRC, R&B/Blues audiences drank most while Jazz fans tended to nurse drinks. Rock, folk, etc., all fell in between.
The problem is controlling for so many variables such as age, price, clientle's regular drinking habits, etc.
"We serve hard drinks here for guys who wanna get drunk fast and we don't need no characters to give the joint atmosphere!"
--Nick, owner/operator of Nicks, Pottersville, NY.
Nine army troopers were killed and 14 wounded when a massive roadside bomb took out a bus carrying troopers at Narbal, 15 km from Srinagar [Images] on the Srinagar-Uri highway on Saturday afternoon. The bus was part of an army convoy moving from the frontier Chowkibal area in the north Kashmir Kupwara district to capital Srinagar.
A defence spokesman in Srinagar said nine army troopers died on the spot, while more than 14 injured were shifted to hospital. The army had to press into service helicopters to lift the injured to the army base hospital in the high-security Badamibagh cantonment area.
Helicopters were seen making sorties between the blast site and the base hospital to make medical aid available immediately to the injured, some of whom are stated to be in critical condition.
Police sources in Srinagar said the bus was ripped apart in the massive explosion, turning it into a mangled mass of metal and on its side. Witnesses said the blast shook the entire area, leading to disruption of traffic on the strategic highway that leads to the border areas in north Kashmir.
No outfit has yet claimed responsibility for the blast.
The entire area was surrounded by army and paramilitary for searches. Senior army and police officers are already at the spot.
The blast comes close on the heels of the recent Sopore encounter, where a cop was killed and 13 securitymen were wounded. Two terrorists were also killed in 24-hour-long gun battle.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/19/2008
11:59 ||
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#1
proving again the complete bs of the left that if the israel/palestine problem was settled(i.e.-israel destroyed) then muslims would stop their murdering of infidels all around the rest of the world!
#2
If only the damn Hindus would know their place and accept Muslim rule over India, there would be peace...
Posted by: john frum ||
07/19/2008 15:25
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#3
islam would consume itself, like a pike in a pike-infested lake. After all of the various infidels are "converted" or killed, the various islamic sects would turn on themselves until only a handful of true believers was left on Earth.
In South Africa, a total of 90 A(H1N1) viruses have been isolated during the 2008 influenza season to date, and all of the 23 influenza A(H1N1) viruses tested by the WHO collaborating Centres in London and Melbourne were found to have resistance to oseltamivir by neuraminidase enzyme-inhibition assay.
We knew this was coming.
None of these patients were receiving oseltamivir at the time of sampling, and no unusual clinical feature or underlying conditions have been found.
To date, preliminary test results show that the viruses carry the specific neuraminidase mutation (H274Y) that confers oseltamivir resistance in N1
From Chile, three of the 24 A(H1N1) viruses tested showed the specific neuraminidase mutation (H274Y).
The above comments from the WHO update on oseltamivir (Tamiflu) resistance indicate the frequency has now reached 100% in South Africa (based on the first 23 H1N1 samples tested). In the southern hemisphere, the 2008 flu season is ongoing. Consequently, Chile is also reporting H274Y in the current season. These isolates are almost certainly Brisbane/59 (clade 2B), which has been linked to the vast majority of Tamiflu resistant isolates from the 2007/2008 season.
Earlier positives from last season were on New Caledonia (clade 1) genetic backgrounds in the United States and Hong Kong (clade 2C) backgrounds in China. This season there have been multiple introductions of H274Y onto the Brisbane (clade 2B).
The expansion of H274Y has been facilitated by the vaccine mismatch, which targeted Solomon Islands (clade 2A) this season. There is no evidence for any clade 2A in circulation this season.
The expansion of H274Y via the Brisbane strain is cause for concern. It has now reached 100% in South Africa, which represents a growing reservoir of H274Y, which can clearly jump from one H1N1 clade to another, which is most easily explained by homologous recombination.
This polymorphism is identical to the H274Y on H5N1, suggesting that oseltamivir will have limited value for blunting an H5N1 pandmic.
#1
Granted, I only know enough about this kind of thing to be dangerous, but would that also mean that Relenza would be ineffective against the virus? Or is it just different enough that it may still offer some resistance?
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/19/2008 23:03
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#2
I have a degree in genetics and I'd say rapid resistance is something that will happen to most if not all anti-viral agents, since all they do is suppress viral loads. I can't say if Tamiflu resistance transfers to Relenza.
Blondy, look up their chemical structure in wikipedia. If they have a different chemical structure then resistance transfer is unlikely. If they are similar, then it's likely.
Iraq's main Sunni Arab bloc has ended an almost year-long boycott of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government, in a major boost for the country's reconciliation program.
Parliament overwhelmingly endorsed the appointment of six Sunni ministers from the country's main Sunni bloc, the National Concord Front, in a session attended by 190 MPs of the 275-member assembly. The MPs also approved the appointment of four independents to replace ministers from the political bloc of radical Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr, which has boycotted the government since April last year.
One of the six Sunni ministers, Rafie al-Issawi, was voted in as a deputy prime minister to Mr Maliki.
The Sunni bloc, which has 44 MPs in the parliament, withdrew its ministers in August last year in protest at what it viewed as the monopolisation of power by the other factions in government - the Shiites and Kurds. One of the six later rejoined the cabinet and was expelled from the Sunni bloc.
Sunni leaders had been insisting that the Iraqi security forces release many Sunni prisoners they believed had been unjustifiably detained. The National Concord Front also wanted a general amnesty declared as well as greater Sunni participation in the decision-making of a government dominated by Shiites.
It is unclear whether the conditions put forward by the Sunnis for their return to government have been met, but in recent months relations between Maliki and Sunni Arab leaders have warmed following his decision to target Shiite militiamen.
The tapes tell the story. And the story is about an al-Qaeda-inspired, although not directed, plot to attack Fort Dix and murder American soldiers. That was the gist of a series of pretrial motions filed yesterday by federal prosecutors for the forthcoming Fort Dix Five terrorist trial. The motions, backed by repeated references to secretly recorded conversations, provide a detailed look at how the government intends to present its case.
The trial of suspected terrorists Mohamad Shnewer, 23; Serdar Tatar, 24; and brothers Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir Duka, 24, is scheduled to begin in U.S. District Court in Camden in late September.
"The heart of the United States' case is the dozens of conspiratorial conversations involving the defendants," prosecutors wrote in one of four lengthy motions filed in opposition to defense motions filed last month. "Those conversations included plans to attack Fort Dix and to kill American soldiers, discussions of the supposed justifications for such attacks rooted in radical jihadist ideology," and plans for training sessions and weapons acquisitions, prosecutors wrote. The tapes were made by two cooperating witnesses who allegedly infiltrated the group. Both are expected to testify for the prosecution.
One of the motions filed yesterday was in opposition to a defense motion seeking to have many of those conversations suppressed. The government also opposed defense motions seeking a change of venue, seeking the dismissal of several counts of the indictment, and asking that references to "al-Qaeda and jihadist ideology" be stricken from the indictment and not presented to the jury. Prosecutors argued that those references were "highly relevant to prove the defendants' motivations" and to prove "the fact that the defendants' plot, although disturbing and audacious, was one that they intended to carry out and not, as they have suggested in their pretrial papers, merely loose talk."
The government filings referred again and again to recorded conversations in which the defendants allegedly talked about jihad and referred to al-Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden. One motion cited an Aug. 5, 2006, conversation in which Shnewer, a U.S. citizen who was born in Jordan, praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers as "19 brothers who changed the whole world, changed the face of this Earth" by following the lead of bin Laden. Prosecutors returned to the terrorist inspiration for the plot again when they cited a March 9, 2007, conversation in which Dritan Duka encouraged the others to come to his house to listen to a lecture, "Constants on the Path of Jihad," by an associate of al-Qaeda.
Duka and his brothers, ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, are illegal aliens who came to the United States and settled in the Cherry Hill area, where they attended high school. Tatar is a legal U.S. resident who immigrated from Turkey in 1998.
"Allegations that the defendants were inspired by al-Qaeda, the pre-eminent jihadist organization in the world, which has successfully launched terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of Americans at home and abroad, are relevant to prove that the defendants intended to enter into the charged conspiracy and were not engaged merely in 'idle chatter,' " prosecutors wrote.
U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler, who is presiding over the case, is expected to rule on the motions within the next two months. A status conference in the case has been scheduled for next week.
And just what does Princess Madeleine have to do with this? Nothing at all, except that commies don't approve of royalty (and I will post her image at the slightest excuse.)
The Olympics were supposed to be a showcase for China's progressive socialist society. Sure enough, the Chicoms have managed to showcase not only their pollution, their oppression, and their general incompetence, but now their racism as well.
For "reasons of safety", bars are forbidden to serve "blacks"" and Mongolians or place tables in the street. Street musicians are being banned, and so is buying medicines containing "stimulants" without a prescription. Starbucks coffee perhaps? A broken clock....
Prohibitions are on the rise for the Olympic capital, while the first leaks reveal a grandiose fireworks display for the inauguration.
Bar owners around the Workers' Stadium in downtown Beijing say that public security officials are telling them not to let in "blacks" and Mongolians, and many of them have even had to sign a pledge. The official reason is the fight against drugs and prostitution, dominated in the past by Mongolians and persons of colour. Perhaps the Chicom bigwigs fear that too many new faces will make it harder to collect their usual percentage of the take. Moreover, public places must close by 2 a.m., for security reasons, and the bar owners are being asked to remind their clients that they must always have an identification document with them. What are the black and Mongolian equivalents of a yellow Star of David?
There is even doubt over whether the bars within a radius of two kilometres from the Olympic buildings will be able operate, or whether they will have to shut down for the entire period. In some areas, tables are not permitted outside, because "the presence of too many foreigners gathered outside could create problems". Probably for fear of what a combined mob of blacks and Mongolians might do after they are denied admission.
There is also an attempt to shut down outdoor musical concerts, to prevent disorder. Now if they would just ban karaoke and promise to shoot violators on sight, I might cut them some slack.
Reporting this would present quite a conundrum for the MSM: Offend blacks or offend commies. You might as well put the media beasts in a round room and tell them to piss in a corner. I predict it will get the full 1984 Ministry of Truth treatment.
#4
I'm reminded of the South Park episode where the Chinese owner of City Wok builds a "Great Wall" around South Park to keep out the Mongolians. Classic.
#5
The vast majority of Mongolians don't live in the country of Mongolia (which in the old days was the part called "Outer Mongolia.") They live in the northern edge of China that they conquered from the Mongolians.
Violence in the deep South continues as suspected insurgents shot a villager when he was riding a motorcycle back home Saturday. The Buddhist man, was shot and critically injured in the southern province of Yala. He was rushed to Yala Central Hospital.
#7
He'll be too busy meeting with the 'elites' of Iraq and Afghanistan (who will fawn over him just to hedge their bets in case he wins) to visit much with the troops (except for a few photo-ops with hand-picked people of course).
I wonder if he'll cut directly to the head of the line in the mess hall like Hillary.
#8
"I wonder if he'll cut directly to the head of the line in the mess hall like Hillary."
I doubt he'll even eat at the mess hall, CF.
Unless they're serving arugula....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/19/2008 14:05
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#9
Barb - Heh. I have no idea what "arugula" is (and I'm pretty sure I don't want to know) but it sounds like it goes right next to the "tofu surprise" on the plate.
#12
PBMcL - it's an overpriced lettuce (also called rocket). It's often described as "peppery." I like it OK in those bagged salad mixes (which I won't buy unless they're on sale), but by itself it sucks rocks.
Apparently he complained about the price of arugula to some voters at a campaign meeting in Iowa, in another of his many out-of-touch-with-normal-people-and-reality moments.
By the way, Claviling, I'm with you, but I don't think we can make the Afghans keep him. We're actually trying to get along with them. (And thanks for protecting the Lichtensteiners - I had a great time when I was there. ;-p)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/19/2008 18:33
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Barb - thanks for the info. Romaine is about as fancy as I get. I like the bagged mixes too, but some of 'em are enormous rip-offs, like 3 bucks for 4 or 6 ounces of veggies. They make steak seem cheap by comparison - so I get the steak!
Local Taliban on Friday broke windows and punctured the tyres of 22-wheeler trucks loaded with goods for NATO forces in Afghanistan, witnesses said.
According to details, armed squads of the local Taliban stopped a convoy of trailers carrying goods for NATO forces at the Landikotal bypass and smashed their windows using guns and punctured their tyres with iron bars.
The incident scared the truck drivers and some of them drove their vehicles toward the Torkham border while some took shelter in the nearby hujras (outhouse/compound) of the local tribesmen.
The local administration has not taken action against the militants so far. Unknown militants had earlier distributed pamphlets warning transporters against taking any goods to NATO forces in Afghanistan. The transporters were threatened that they would be killed and their villages and vehicles set on fire if they ignored the warning.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
We have a major resupply problem RE NATO forces in Afghanistan. Either we, or Pakistan, need to do something about it. If Pakistan won't, we should create a safe route for trucks carrying supplies, including armed compounds to guard them overnight, and security vehicles (Bradleys) to guard them on their routes. Make any further military aid to Pakistan contingent upon such a deal. Might want to include a covering force of an Apache aircraft or two. If phakestan won't go along with the deal, maybe it's time to eliminate phakestan.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 15:34
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The supply line should go through Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (including all the fuel produced locally). It is not as efficient but it won't supply billions of dollars to Pakistan. Because the money flow is the only thing propping up Pakistan's economy, it is in Pakistan's interest to keep the Afghan war boiling and the flow of supplies ever increasing.
This should have been done a few years ago when the extent of Pakistani involvement in the Sept 11 atrocity started to become known. Better to help the economies of the 3 nations get on their feet than to keep enriching Pakistan, the sponsor of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and just about every terrorist attack on the west.
Posted by: ed ||
07/19/2008 15:52
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The United States and Iraq have agreed to set a "general time horizon" for the "further reduction of U.S. combat forces in Iraq" following the improvement in security conditions in the country, the White House said Friday.
The breakthrough, which was reached between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki in discussions via video link on Thursday, could lead to the successful completion of a long-term security agreement covering American operations in Iraq -- from combat missions to detaining Iraqis -- by the end of this month, a White House official said.
"We're converging on an agreement," the official said, referring to ongoing negotiations between Iraq and the United States on the deal.
The long-term agreement had been held up by differences over issues like the extent of Iraqi control over American military operations, the right of American soldiers to detain suspects without the approval of Iraqi authorities and Iraqi demands for a timetable for withdrawal.
But in a statement, the White House said Mr. Bush and Mr. Maliki had agreed "that improving conditions should allow for the agreements now under negotiation to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals -- such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq."
The White House offered no specific dates for troop cuts, but the inclusion of even just a reference to a time horizon is a significant concession by the Bush administration, which has long resisted setting a timetable for cuts in combat forces. It is a tacit admission that the United States' military presence in Iraq is not endless.
The administration on Friday insisted that it had not shifted its position. It said that the move was simply a reflection of the changing nature of conditions in Iraq.
"These are aspirational goals, not artificial timetables based on political expediency," said Scott Stanzel, a White House spokesman, who was traveling with Mr. Bush in Tucson, Ariz., where Mr. Bush was attending a fund raiser.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
What is the quality of the Iraqi troops at present? Do the Iraqis have sufficient numbers of good quality disciplined troops? What is the leadership like of the Iraqi troops?
#2
just a reference to a time horizon is a significant concession by the Bush administration, which has long resisted setting a timetable for cuts in combat forces. It is a tacit admission that the United States' military presence in Iraq is not endless.
I can't tell if they're excited, because Bush compromised, or sad, because the (Rethuglican)war may not be endless.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/19/2008 13:11
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More outright distortion. The language as reported is nothing like a timetable. It's general, and conditions-dependent. Uh - like things have always been. Don't see no compromise here. Besides, the souk is open and the Iraqis will make every move from here on out to get exactly the sort of "endless" US troop presence and security cooperation they desire. No problem with that - but I'm sick of people pretending not to understand that's what's going on.
A militant group in the Mohmand Agency has surrendered to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in the Khoezai area of the agency, a TTP spokesman said on Friday. TTP spokesman Dr Asad told Daily Times that Shah Sahib and 120 members of his group surrendered before TTP following a siege. Fifteen men of the group were killed in the fighting that broke out after a jirga had managed a ceasefire and exchange of prisoners on Wednesday. Local sources confirmed the surrender of the group, however, the number of the casualties could not be confirmed independently.
TTP also claimed that they had captured two fort-like houses, close to the stronghold of the rival group. The clashes between the two groups restarted on Wednesday after the TTP militants besieged Meezrena centre of Shah Sahib group in the Lakaro area of the agency violating the truce. The TTP militants also arrested men of the Shah group at Qandharo, and the rival group besieged a TTP centre in the Khalodag area in retaliation. In the clashes 11 militants of TTP were abducted, while the Taliban captured 12 men belonging to Shah group.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A jury of military officers is traveling to Guantanamo Bay this weekend as part of final preparations for the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.
The panel members have been hand-picked by the Pentagon to hear the case of Salim Hamdan, a former driver and alleged bodyguard for Osama bin Laden whose trial is scheduled to begin Monday inside a hilltop courthouse overlooking an abandoned airstrip.
The judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, is still sorting through a thicket of unresolved legal issues. The case cleared a major hurdle this week when a U.S. federal court refused to halt the trial, and Allred showed little patience as he tackled the last remaining obstacles at a hearing Friday on this U.S. base.
At one point, he threatened to postpone the trial unless the government allows defense lawyers to interview "high-value" detainees at Guantanamo whom they intend to call as witnesses. "I think we've come to the point where the government needs to move," Allred told prosecutors. The chief prosecutor later said the government will comply with the order.
The Pentagon official who oversees the tribunal system, Susan Crawford, selected the 13 potential jurors from the various armed forces branches. At least five will be seated for the trial.
Here's hoping all 13 have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan ...
Hamdan, a Yemeni, was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001 and accused of helping bin Laden to escape U.S. retaliation following the Sept. 11 attacks. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy and supporting terrorism.
His defense attorneys asked the judge Friday to throw out statements Hamdan made to interrogators, arguing they were tainted by "coercive" tactics such as sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation. The chief prosecutor, Army Col. Lawrence Morris, denied the abuse allegations and said his team is prepared for trial regardless of how the judge rules.
Prosecutors have said they plan to introduce 22 witnesses for a trial that is expected to last about three weeks. Hamdan's Pentagon-appointed attorney, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, is seeking access this weekend to three senior al-Qaida suspects including Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as potential witnesses. He says their testimony will prove Hamdan was merely a low-level member of bin Laden's motor pool. Prosecutors have objected to any testimony from the high-level Guantanamo detainees, arguing they could reveal details of CIA interrogations that are considered top national security secrets. But Allred has made clear their input will be allowed in some form.
We'll see if these tribunals work or are just another excuse for waging law ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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#1
His defense attorneys asked the judge Friday to throw out statements Hamdan made to interrogators, arguing they were tainted by "coercive" tactics such as sleep deprivation and sexual humiliation.
"Sleep deprivation is not torture?" Most mothers with newborns are sleep-deprived. Sexual humiliation? So, did we separate him from his goat?
Not a typical AP hit piece: read what the Iraqi people actually say.
BAGHDAD (AP) -- There is a Baghdad that Sen. Barack Obama probably won't see. It's places like the dirt strip that crosses under a highway and leads to a small home -- and a couple and their six grown children seeking to move forward in a city where violence has eased but life for many remains mired in economic miseries and few opportunities.
"I want to believe that the future for Baghdad is now better, that we've turned a corner," said Abdul-Karim Sami, a reed-thin 60-year-old who once hobnobbed with Baghdad's elite as a tennis coach. "I truly want to believe that."
Then he ticks off the family's list of woes: food costs so high they have cut back on all but essentials; jobs so scarce his oldest son peddles trinkets on the street despite a university degree in economics; not enough money left over for a doctor visit or any emergency. "I pray every day that nobody gets sick," Sami said.
Obama's visit to Iraq -- the timing is being kept secret for security reasons -- is expected to be brief and dominated by meetings with Iraqi officials and U.S. military commanders in the heavily guarded Green Zone. Discussions about future U.S. troop withdrawals and the transition to Iraqi security control should be high on the agenda.
So Obama is going to do the one thing he's criticized Bush & Co. for doing: huddling in the Green Zone.
There likely will be less attention to other long-term challenges facing whoever next occupies the White House: how to help rebuild Iraq and lift an economy flattened by sanctions and war, but holding oil riches and potential paydirt for investors willing to gamble that security gains will stick. Both Washington and Iraqi officials have shifted more resources toward reconstruction and development projects of all kinds. The U.S. military announced Friday the completion of a water pumping station south of Baghdad and an elementary school in eastern Baghdad. On Saturday, a groundbreaking ceremony was planned for a new hotel in the Green Zone.
Like many Iraqis, Sami and his family are impatient for some direct benefits to come their way.
Sami's family, too, represents the questions many Iraqis have about Obama's views. The family strongly backed last year's U.S. troop "surge" that is now credited with halting much of the insurgency attacks and sectarian killings in and around the capital.
Obama, who criticized the reinforcements at the time, has lauded the military successes, but argues that sending 30,000 additional soldiers to Iraq pulled away focus from the widening battles against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan and border regions of Pakistan.
Now he says that; before he said he didn't support the surge, didn't laud the success, and wanted us to come home with our tails between our legs.
Sami also supports the idea of a slow pullback by U.S. forces -- not the rapid withdrawal that Obama has suggested.
Some past visits by American politicians, including Obama's main presidential rival, Sen. John McCain, have included tours of public markets or other sites in Baghdad. Obama's specific plans once in Iraq have not been made public. It's unlikely, though, that he will have time to fully inspect areas like Sami's Wahda district in eastern Baghdad. The mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhood is dotted with police checkpoints, barriers of concrete and razor wire, and rows of government posters denouncing insurgents and armed factions.
Barack has the time if he wants to make it. Why not tour some of the neighborhoods -- can't be any worse than the ones he grew up in while in Indonesia. Talk with some locals. Even if it's staged a little, get away from the Green Zone and see what the neighborhoods really look like.
Sami's home gets about four hours of electricity a day. Even that little bit of juice is better than last summer, when the family could go for days at a time without power. Sami's wife, Mediha, sweeps the previous night's collection of wind-blown dust into their garden: a tiny patch of grass, a few sunflowers and a single date palm. "Will Obama see firsthand how real Baghdad families struggle?" she asks.
No, because he'd see the grit and determination of Sami and Mediha and begin to wonder if his own beliefs were correct. And you just can't have a Messiah questioning himself. It wouldn't do.
Her husband says he doesn't think so. But he hopes Obama will come away with an understanding that military gains and reconstruction progress are twin blows to insurgents and other armed groups. "Yes, maybe the big war is finally over. Yes, maybe the violence and killings in Baghdad are mostly something of the past," said Sami, who is now retired and gets by with a pension and part-time tennis classes that bring in about $800 a month. "But now comes another fight, I think. It's about how to rebuild the country and our lives."
This point is not missed by Iraq's leadership and U.S. strategists. The Iraqi government is using the downturn in violence to court foreign investors, especially from the wealthy Persian Gulf states that have begun pouring money into neighboring Jordan. U.S. diplomats also are pressing hard for Iraqi leaders to clear the way for provincial elections this fall. The voting would shift more powers to regions and -- more important -- give a greater political stake to Sunnis, whose support is considered key in stamping out al-Qaida in Iraq and remaining insurgent cells.
Inside Sami's parlor, decorated with a few tennis medals and trophies, he and his wife discussed the future of the family. They both strongly urge their six children, ranging in age from 17 to 35, not to follow their friends who went to Jordan or Syria for jobs and an escape from Baghdad's grinding stress. They realize, however, the pull may be too strong. Their youngest son is studying hotel management and tourism. Their next youngest is interesting in becoming a professional tennis instructor. At the moment, both career paths seem to lead out of Iraq. "This would be a tragedy if young people cannot stay in Iraq," Sami said. "We need some kind of future. We need jobs and a good economy along with the security."
A few blocks from Sami's home, Iraqi soldiers man a checkpoint. Last year, it was in American hands. The change reflects a wider -- and fast-moving -- trend in which Iraqi security forces are increasingly taking the lead as U.S. troops move into support roles.
But few Iraqis appear to support a full-scale American withdrawal under current conditions. Many fear that could undercut recent security gains and open the door to greater influence by Iran with Shiite militias -- a charge that Tehran denies. "A pullout would create a vacuum that could be used by many sides," said Salah al-Rubaie, a Shiite vegetable vendor in Kut, about 90 miles southeast of Baghdad. "Sectarian and militia killings would return as well as looting and robbing. Public life could come to a halt again. That would be a catastrophe."
Smart man, Salah. He's literally at street level and understands far better than any politician what life is like. As long as men like Salah want us to stay, we should stay.
Hamid Alwan Jassim finds ample evidence against a U.S. withdraw in his home city of Baqouba, the hub of Diyala province where Sunni insurgents are trying to regroup. On Tuesday, double suicide bombings killed at least 28 army recruits. "Iraq should be stable first, because any early pullout would allow extremists to emerge again and more fiercely," he said.
The AP finds and quotes three families in Iraq that endorse completely what the Bush administration has been saying and doing. What are the odds of that? Think Obama will recognize that even the MSM is beginning to pivot on the war?
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Nice find, Steve. Did someone have to hold a gun on the AP guy to get him to write it? I'd have thought you'd have actually had to shoot him to get a story like that. You'd certainly have to put several bullets into a NYT reporter to obtain anything close to this pro-American copy.
Posted by: Ho Chi Whimp8387 ||
07/19/2008 1:31
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#2
There are some honest reporters, even at the New York Times. See here and here.
#3
Partially agree with you, TW. Whenever I read a NYT story, I always use the presence of a John Burns byline to assess whether or not it's a truthful, unbiased representation of what's going on. No John Burns = almost certain bullshit.
Damien Cave, on the other hand, has always struck me as the more typical Timesman who's preaching to his choir of fashionably-progressive, Chardonnay-sippng Manhattanites.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/19/2008 14:19
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#4
If you ask Malaki, who runs the country, he agrees that 16 months (which Obama proposes) is what they want.
If you ask some poor Iraqi, they'll ask for protection and hand outs forever.
The NWFP government will not resign, nor become hostage to any militant group, Chief Minister (CM) Ameer Haider Khan Hoti and Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour said on Friday. Both were, in separate statements to the media, responding to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud who issued on Thursday a five-day ultimatum for the provincial government to resign or "face dire consequences". CM Hoti said the provincial government had "sent the army to Hangu as a precautionary measure", and not to target any particular group. "Supremacy of law shall be ensured at all costs, and no one will be allowed to kill security forces," said Bilour, who is also the key government negotiator in the peace talks with Swat militants.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is willing to share with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and other groups the leadership of Bangsamoro Juridical Entity the group is negotiating with the Philippine government, a rebel official said on Friday.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the group is open to a leadership sharing not just with its main rival Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) but to whoever shares the MILF's ideals.
"The MILF is not selfish enough to reject whoever wants to become part of the juridical entity so long as it will redound to the interest of our people," Kabalu said in an interview.
He said the initial expression of agreement by MNLF leaders to the "projected" territory of the juridical entity is an indication that accommodation is possible for the MNLF and other groups "for the sake of bringing peace and bringing development in the area."
He said the MILF and MNLF will be holding a solidarity conference soon to talk about unity of purpose for the sake of bringing peace and development in the area.
He said the conference does not necessarily mean merging the two groups. In the first place, he said, the MNLF has "ceased to exist as a revolutionary organization" since it signed a final peace agreement with Manila.
"Hindi na pupwede yung unification nang dalawang organization (a merger of the two groups is not possible) but unity of purpose can be done because it is more of an arrangement between the leaders of the organizations," said Kabalu, who is also the MILF's civil-military operations chief.
Kabalu confirmed a statement of retired general Hermogenes Esperon Jr., presidential adviser on the peace process, that the MILF had agreed to subject the projected coverage of the juridical entity to a plebiscite.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
10 seconds after these swine get legal power, I bet they will institute Taliban like Sharia Law.
The United Nations said on Friday food shipments to Somalia were grinding to a halt as few vessels were willing to hazard the country's pirate-infested waters, and it called on governments to provide naval escorts.
Peter Goossens, Somalia director for the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), said the agency had received no offers of naval protection since late June, when a Dutch frigate brought a WFP vessel safely into Mogadishu.
"I have 80,000 tonnes (of food) sitting in South Africa to urgently go into Somalia and so far I've only been able to find one ship of 8,000 tonnes that is willing to do this," he told a news conference. "When you speak to shipping operators or agents, the first question you get is: 'Are there escorts?'"
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Criticize the holy crap out of Uncle Sam until you need his help. Typical UN.
#2
Tell the Brits, French and Germans to send a ship full of diplomats and social workers. They can talk to the pirates to see how they feel, and maybe get at the root cause of why they are pirates.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 3:00
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Exactly: getthe Germans and other bums to do it. The US is tired of doing the heavy lifting for the resto fo the world's lazy asses, especially when all we ever get is criticism and slander.
#9
Well, Peter, you're approaching this matter bass-ackwards.
Until they learn some basic manners (like don't shoot at people who are trying to help you or killing aid workers tends to make them want to leave, not help you), I think they're pretty much screwed.
And no one gives a damn about how that just doesn't fly in their "culture", or if they weren't so jacked up on khat they would be gentle as lambs, either.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/19/2008 13:54
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#10
It WOULD be nice if South Africa agreed to escort a couple of ships of foodstuffs to Mogadischu, with a US carrier battle group just over the horizon, obeying strict communications silence. Let the pirates attack (I doubt the SA Navy would stop them), then let the US do some damage both to their mother-ship and their little toy boats. Too bad you can't operate A-10s from carriers - or can you?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 16:10
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#11
Somalia is a failed state. Aid should be channeled through Ethiopia.
Posted by: Claviling Protector of the Lichtensteiners9205 ||
07/19/2008 17:29
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#12
Attn: World.
This is what your life will look like if the US Navy pretty much disappeared from the high seas. Not just food ships, but oil and other major commodities would become 'hit and miss' as enterprising individuals would quickly take advantage of your inability to float something just as effective and far reaching as the Americans. You think the world economy is jeopardized by sub-prime paper, you ain't seen nothing yet.
#13
OP; never heard of any A-10 on a boat, but the characteristice of the bird lend itself to that, if you ran into the wind at max knots. Deck launch is the only option so that first guy off ( like Doolittles B-25 raid on Japan in WWII) needs bo have big brass ones. I would not expect any recoveries aboard the CV however.
US soldiers shot and wounded a suspected female bomber as they took over custody of her from Afghan police, Ghazni police chief alleged on Friday.
Police had arrested the woman and a 13-year-old child they alleged were suicide bombers planning to kill a provincial governor in central Afghanistan, officials said on Friday. The police chief initially said the police argued with the Americans over giving up custody. But he later said there was no argument and that the woman lunged at one of the US soldiers, sparking the gunshot. US military officials had no immediate comment.
The pair were arrested late on Thursday as they were fixing explosives to themselves behind the governor's residence in Ghazni, provincial government spokesman Ismail Jahangir told AFP. Jahangir said the woman and the child could not speak either of Afghanistan's main languages, Dari and Pashtu, but spoke Urdu and Arabic. The pair were presented to the media several hours after their arrest.
The deputy police chief of Ghazni, Abdul Ghani, told reporters that the woman had allegedly confessed she was from Multan, Pakistan, and had come to the city to carry out a suicide attack. She claimed to have entered the country with three associates who had not been arrested, Ghani said. The police chief did not confirm whether the boy was also meant to be involved in the bombing.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Good. As soon as he heals, bring out the water board.
(PTI) At least 10 militants were killed by Pakistani security forces during an operation to flush out the Taliban fighters from the restive Hangu region in the country's northwest, a military spokesman said today.
The army launched the crackdown on the local Taliban after 16 paramilitary personnel were gunned down by militants at Zargari in Hangu district on July 12. About 1,500 troops backed by gunship helicopters, tanks and artillery have been mobilised for the operation.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told reporters that 10 militants were killed and five soldiers injured in clashes since Wednesday.
However, local Taliban spokesman Maulvi Haider claimed the militants had killed 30 troops in fighting last night. He also said the militants were still present in Zargari but his claims could not be independently confirmed.
Reports from Hangu said an army helicopter killed at least five Taliban fighters and injured several more in a strike in an area close to the Aurakzai tribal region.
Abbas said the operation would continue till the Hangu area is cleared of militants. The army was called in by the NWFP government to aid the civil administration "to control the deteriorating law and order situation", he said.
The army yesterday took control of Zargari town, a stronghold of the Taliban, after fierce gun battles. The troops sealed off the area and launched a house-to-house search for militants. They also strengthened their positions and blew up the homes of several suspected militants.
Local residents said the security forces and militants had also clashed at Shinawarai area in Hangu district and that both sides had suffered casualties.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Two French humanitarian workers were kidnapped at gunpoint Friday in Afghanistan and spirited out of the house they were sleeping in, the aid group Action Against Hunger and the French Foreign Ministry said. The two are believed to be alive, the Paris-based group said in a statement.
The two French aid workers were abducted when kidnappers burst into their house in Nili, in the central Afghan province of Day Kundi, and bundled them into waiting vehicles, Action Against Hunger said. The kidnappers, who struck at about 1 a.m., had tied up guards posted outside the house. Action Against Hunger said it was working to win the workers' release as soon as possible.
The aid group said it had suspended its activities in Afghanistan in response to the kidnapping. The group has been working in Afghanistan since 1979 and has 10 foreign staffers and about 150 locals working in the country, according to its Web site.
France's Foreign Ministry confirmed the kidnappings and said a crisis unit would be set up to help win the hostages' liberation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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#7
LOL Bon - check out the Live at Donington DVD - they had a giant inflatable Rosie atop the stage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elxyP4yYh4A&feature=related
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 18:07
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#8
Time for someone to stand up to Frank and his... gawd amighty! You can't put that on the interwebs!
A man died in a bomb blast in Khyber Agency's Bara tehsil on Friday, sources told Daily Times. But unconfirmed reports put the death toll at over five. The bomb went off in a cave in the Tindi area, 18 kilometres from Bara. The sources said the bomb was kept in a store of the banned militant outfit Lashkar-e-Islam. Separately, locals alleged that a drone flew over the area during the night.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Two government officials have been convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with an alleged plot to carry out terror attacks and overthrow the Tunisian government, according to their lawyer and court documents. The documents were the first public information about the case against national security official Souhail Guezdah, deputy prison chief Sami Belhaj Aissa and three other defendants.
Guezdah, a local chief of Tunisia's national security force, and Hicham Barrak, a sports teacher, were sentenced Wednesday to nine years in prison on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization and of having provided information to help plot terrorist attacks. Hedhili Djait, a cell phone vendor, was sentenced to eight years on similar charges and for having provided the group with its secret lair hideout.
Aissa, deputy chief of the Borj El Amri prison near Tunis, and Faouzi Ayachi Alimi, whose profession was not identified on the court documents, were handed four-year sentences for not having warned authorities that terrorist attacks were being planned.
The court in the capital, Tunis, said the men, who belonged to the Salafist strain of Islam, had rented a house as a secret lair hideout in the central Tunisia town of Kairouan, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the capital, Tunis. Kairouan is considered one of Islam's 17,985th holiest cities.
The defendants denied all the accusations and defense lawyer Samir Ben Amor said he intended to appeal.
"Lies! All lies!"
"Their file is empty," Ben Amor told The Associated Press, saying that no documents or other material evidence had been produced to back the accusations. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, say that Tunisian court proceedings often fail to meet their impossibly high international standards.
Ben Amor said that about 1,000 people have been sentenced or indicted in Tunisia under a tough new law passed in 2003 to boost anti-terrorism efforts. The government has not confirmed that figure.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) Director IA Rehman on Friday said counter-terrorism had become terrorism in Pakistan.
Addressing the launch of two Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) books, he said that reading these books would help the civil society and social activists understand the issues confronting the nation.
HRCP Vice Chairwoman Hina Jilani alleged that the government was witch-hunting its opponents by manipulating anti-terrorism laws. She said that laws were made to curb terrorists, but the people had been stripped of their basic rights instead. She said that the government should ensure safety of the people, but not at the cost of their rights.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Liberty and security should be co-dependent. However, Pakis could hardly understand that.
#2
Freedom can only be established when those that want it are willing to fight harder than those that are willing to take it away from them. That hasn't happened in any muslim country, ever. The HRCP doesn't understand that, nor does the government of Pakistan, nor does the average Mahmoud in the street. Until they do, there will be no true freedom in Pakistan or any other country.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 18:29
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Ma'an -- The Israeli intelligence are repeatedly telephoning a Palestinian activist from the West Bank city of Jenin, threatening to kill him, his family said on Friday.
Faris At-Tayeh, the brother of the 'wanted' Palestinian, Yousef At-Tayeh, told Ma'an, "an Israeli intelligence officer has called my brother many times and ordered him to give himself up and that the Israeli army will get him and kill him and send his dead body to his family."
"During last week Israeli soldiers invaded the Jenin refugee camp three times, searched our home and arrested my brother Fadi," he said. "The Israeli soldiers are breaking into our house continuously subjecting the members of the family to long interrogations about the whereabouts of Yousef," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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I doubt it's Israeli intelligence. Usually if they're after you, the phone doesn't ring, it explodes.
It's prolly just Achmed, trying to call his boss again;)
#2
Agreed : if it was the Israelis, he would have gotten an "Israeli earache", 1 ounce of plastique detonating in the handset next to his ear when they had identified his voice.
(VOI) - The popular committees spokesman in Diala escaped an assassination attempt in the volatile province on Friday, an anti-Qaeda group commander said. "A roadside bomb went off targeting a vehicle driven by the spokesman for popular committees Laith Salih in Buhriz district, 5 km south Baquba, leaving his brother wounded,"An anti-Qaeda council commander, who preferred to be on condition of anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq.
The popular committee or Sahwa councils are anti-Qaeda fighters working in coordination with the Multi-National Force (MNF) and the Iraqi government. These councils were set up in a number of Iraqi provinces such as Anbar, Diala, Ninewa, and Salah al-Din with the aim of bolstering political and local tribal powers to fight armed groups, particularly al-Qaeda network, in those areas. These councils are usually led by tribal chiefs or notables in the provinces. Earlier, a security source said a roadside bombing went off in Buhriz district, leaving four civilians wounded.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Thousands in Lebanon have attended the funerals of eight Hezbollah militants whose bodies were returned by Israel as part of a prisoner swap two days ago. Grieving relatives and supporters of the Shia movement attended the service in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Under the deal, Hezbollah returned the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, whom it said were captured alive in an ambush in 2006, but were fatally wounded. The incident sparked a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The remains of the Israeli reservists - Sgt Eldad Regev and Sgt Ehud Goldwasser - were buried on Thursday. Their funerals were broadcast live on national television.
Thousands of mourners
In Beirut, the eight coffins were decorated with Hezbollah's yellow flags, floral wreaths and a picture of each of the men.
Opening the memorial service, the head of Hezbollah's executive council paid tribute to the men. "These martyrs have defeated the enemy... our enemy who was humiliated yesterday will remain so, by the grace of God," said Hashem Safieddine. "The brothers of these martyrs will confront the enemy [Israel] if it ever thinks of making the mistake" of attacking Lebanon, he added.
The coffins were then carried through the Hezbollah stronghold of southern Beirut, as thousands of people followed. The bodies were then given to their families for burial.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Israel should have clusterbombed the funeral parades. Cost these c*cksuckers 100 for each Israeli and they'll soon stop. Unfortunately, the Israelis no longer have the guts for that.
Israel is doomed because they don't have the courage to fight for themselves any longer.
Posted by: Ho Chi Whimp8387 ||
07/19/2008 1:34
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Yes, we've learnt what to expect from UN troops in that part of the world, not to mention the other garden spots they've been posted to around the world.
#4
When I see 5 murdering terrorists go free for a trade of two dead Israeli soldiers, I almost feel physically sick. You don't negotiate with terrorists. It gives them credibility and legitimacy. How far the government of Israel has fallen since the Entebbe hostage rescue. It breaks ones heart.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/19/2008 22:13
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SRINAGAR - At least, 32 people, mostly commuters, were injured when suspected militants tossed a hand grenade at a stationary police vehicle at Banihal, a township along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, yesterday. Police officials in capital Srinagar said that the four members of India's Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and two local policemen besides 26 civilians including 15 schoolchildren and six women sustained splinter injuries in the powerful blast. Four of the seriously injured persons have been brought to Srinagar for specialised treatment, they added.
However, independent reports from Banihal put the number of injured as 34 and said that the victims of the blast included an assistant commandant and a sub-inspector of the CRPF.
The bloody incident led to commotion in the town's bazaars and the vehicular traffic on the highway, the only road-link between the Kashmir Valley and rest of India, remained suspended for several hours as the police and paramilitary reinforcements carried out a massive search operation for assailants.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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(VOI) -- Joint U.S.-Iraqi forces arrested ten followers of Imam al-Rabani, leader of a religious group, in Diala province, a security source said on Friday. "The joint forces waged a crackdown operation in Jizani al-Joul village in Khales district, north of Baaquba, targeting followers of Imam al-Rabani," the source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The forces arrested ten followers of the group, led by Fadel al-Marsoumi," he added. "The Shiite group was founded in 2004. It calls citizens to abandon top Shiite clerics and to resort to al-Marsoumi, who claims he has a science from god," the source also said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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An alleged member of the Abu Sayyaf Group (AGS) and a possible suspect in the kidnapping of an ABS-CBN news team last month was arrested in Sulu Friday.
A certain Abu Kudama, an alleged ASG member, was reportedly arrested by the military in Sulu.
Abu Kudama was allegedly part of the group that kidnapped ABS-CBN senior correspondent Ces Oreña-Drilon, cameraman Jimmy Encarnacion and Angelo Valderama, and Mindanao State University (MSU) professor Octavio Dinampo last June.
Allegedly in his possession when nabbed was a wallet owned by Encarnacion. He was reportedly also seen in the video secretly taken by Encarnacion while in captivity.
The suspect is currently undergoing questioning by Task Force "Ces" at the 3rd Marine Brigade in Sulu.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned that al-Qaeda will step up terrorist attacks in Iraq leading up to October provincial elections there. ``Al-Qaeda is on their heels but not defeated,'' McCain said today at a town hall meeting with General Motors workers in Warren, Michigan. ``I also predict that they will make an attempt, as we get into election season, to make more of these spectacular kinds of attacks'' by suicide bombers to destabilize the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
McCain, an Arizona senator, has spent much of this week touting his foreign policy and war experience while Democratic rival Barack Obama prepared for a trip to the Middle East. McCain has criticized Obama, an Illinois senator, for vowing to withdraw troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. McCain said the deployment of extra U.S. troops to Iraq last year has worked. ``Senator Obama said the surge would fail. He still fails to admit that it has succeeded,'' McCain said in response to a question from the audience. ``I am confident we will win.''
Earlier this year, McCain adviser Charlie Black caused a controversy when he was quoted in a Fortune magazine interview that the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto before the New Hampshire primary ``helped us'' by highlighting that McCain ``is the guy who's ready to be commander in chief.'' Black added that a ``fresh terrorist attack certainly would be a big advantage'' politically. Black later said he ``deeply'' regretted making the statement and McCain distanced himself from the comments.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
The 3-11 pre-election bombings in Spain, reversed prospective election results. We need to deport or detain 100% of Muslim militants. And as I write, extremist Wahabi tracts are still sold in mosques. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. This termite feeding has to stop.
#3
Black added that a ``fresh terrorist attack certainly would be a big advantage'' politically.
Why does anyone have to stoop to this level?
Posted by: Caesar Elmeatch9593 ||
07/19/2008 7:32
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He's not "stooping", he's stating the obvious.
Face it, Obambi is such a lightweight that any exposure of his Jimmy-Carter style cluelessness will hurt him. And a terr attack emphasizes the need for experienced leadership, and prevents the press from covering for Obama-messiah for a while, thus exposing the weakness.
Its the ruth. Not hoping for one, just stating the obvious impact of one were it to occur.
(VOI) -- The Multi-National Force (MNF) in southern Iraq said on Friday that it will start joint operations with Iraqi forces to "track down extremists and deny them chances to attack Iraqi civilians and security personnel". "The joint operations will take place on Friday in the area of al-Latif, (15 km) north of Basra, and were planned to continue for a week," the media spokesman for the MNF in southern Iraq, Cap. Chris Ford, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI). "The MNF troops will be backing Iraqi security forces and help them maintain security in Basra," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 13:31
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#11
He's gotcha there, tw. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/19/2008 14:08
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#12
There's no place like home, there's no place like home, . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
07/19/2008 14:10
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"Pride" weekend, huh. I didn't know. Now that I do know, I wish I didn't. Still, let these self-destroying idiots do their thing - hopefully many, many miles from wherever I am.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 14:40
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Regardless of the bath lover fans of Dorothy, gal could sing.
As - presumably - the only Rantburger who's ever attended one of these events (in SF no less!), I can say that Frank also wouldn't have liked the pierced faces nor the duct tape over the nipples of, er, Rubenesque bare breasts. ;-P
Although I must say that in a better alternate universe, we'd put the cream of the biker dyke crop in charge of Taliban interrogations in Gitmo.
ZHUKOVKA, Russia (AP) - Russia's foreign minister on Friday called for an internationally developed "road map" to resolve the hot tensions over separatist Abkhazia, but raised serious objections to a plan devised by major countries. Sergey Lavrov's comments underlined the deep divisions in the dispute, which many have feared will boil into war. Lavrov met Friday with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is pushing the three-step plan that was rejected by Abkhazia's president earlier in the day.
Abkhazia split from Georgia in a separatist war in the 1990s and its status has since been in stasis. This year, however, Russia and Abkhazia have alleged Georgia was preparing to retake the region by force, while Georgia claimed Russia intended to annex it.
Georgians should let it go. The Abkhazians don't want to be part of them.
Russia sent additional troops into Abkhazia this spring to bolster peacekeeping forces that Georgia alleges support the separatists.
An unmanned Georgian spy plane was shot down over Abkhazia and U.N. investigators blamed Russia, a charge that Moscow denies. A series of bomb explosions in and near Abkhazia this month further raised tensions, with each side accusing the other of provocations.
"The escalation over the past days and weeks, in which there have been victims, obliges the sides to find a way out of the spiraling violence," Steinmeier said after meeting Lavrov in a Moscow suburb.
Before visiting Russia, Steinmeier made stops in Georgia and Abkhazia to promote the plan, which was developed by the so-called U.N. Secretary-General's Group of Friends of Georgia - which includes Germany, Britain, France, the United States and Russia. "We should intensify our cooperation in the framework of the Group of Friends and the United Nations to form such a three-stage road map ... that will allow us to persuade the sides to start negotiation as soon as possible," Lavrov said.
But he said the plan brought by Steinmeier was flawed because it called for the return of Georgian refugees as part of the first phase instead of at the end of the process. Both Lavrov and Abkhazian separatist president Sergei Bagapsh said a first step must be Georgia withdrawing troops from the disputed Kodori Gorge. Abkhazian and Russian officials have said they believe Georgia intends to launch an offensive from there to retake Abkhazia.
Steinmeier also met Friday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who "underlined that the only way out of the current situation is the acceptance of a joint document with obligation to not use force and guaranteeing security and the withdrawal of Georgian forces from the upper part of the Kodori Gorge," according to a Kremlin statement.
The Steinmeier plan also calls for negotiations to determine Abkhazia's final status, but Bagapsh insisted Abkhazia's status is not open to question. "Abkhazia is an independent republic, and this point is not subject to any negotiations," he said after the meeting at a U.N. mission office in Gali, a town in Abkhazia. Abkhazia's claim of independence is not recognized by any nation or international organization.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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"Georgians should let it go. The Abkhazians don't want to be part of them"
Most residents of Abkhazia were ethnic Georgians until the Abkhazians ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of them with Russian support.
The situation is a bit like the expulsion of Greek Cypriots from Northern Cyprus by the Turks -- except that the Turks actually had an excuse back then, and the Russians didn't even have that.
Plus -- the Abkhazians themselves under Georgia were a hundred times more free than they are under Russia. I'm all in favour of the self-determination of regions (free the Basques if they want to, free Scotland, free Quebec, free Northern Ireland, free Tibet), but not when they are merely cover stories for a neighbouring nation's imperialism (Russian imperialism in the case of Abkhazia, Transnistria, Crimea, Southern Ossetia. Albanian imperialism in the case of Kosovo. Serb imperialism in the case of Republika Srpska) -- in those cases they're merely new Sudetenlands.
To surrender Georgia to the Russians will one day be considered like the surrender of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany.
Posted by: Ar is ||
07/19/2008 9:13
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#2
like a herpetic troll, you return where you're unwanted.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 9:20
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"like a herpetic troll, you return where you're unwanted."
...As Wormtongue said to Gandalf.
Posted by: Ar is ||
07/19/2008 11:08
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Aris tries to return. We dump him.
At some point he'll get it into his pointy, small Greek noggin that he's not welcome to comment at the Burg.
AoS.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008 11:22
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heh, but I do enjoy saying "herpetic troll"
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 12:04
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Hai ghost geek! I hears you is have a job. Good for you. Work long and perspire, remember you brother is English.
VIENNA - Ahead of briefing the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors and representatives of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon yesterday met IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and discussed the text of an India-specific safeguards agreement. Menon told ElBaradei, a strong advocate of the India-US civil nuclear deal, about the finer aspects of the safeguards pact and sought to know from him the perception among the IAEA board about the pact. ElBaradei also met US Under-Secretary of State William Burns, who is in Vienna to push the nuclear deal with the IAEA board and the NSG countries.
Later yesterday, Menon was scheduled to meet the IAEA board and delegates of the NSG countries to allay their concerns about the implications of the pact on the global non-proliferation architecture. The special briefing, coinciding with the third anniversary of the July 18, 2005 India-US civil nuclear understanding, will he held at a place outside the premises of the IAEA secretariat.
Menon is leading an Indian team comprising senior officials of the external affairs ministry and the Department of Atomic Energy that includes R.B. Grover, the chief negotiator of the India-US safeguards agreement and DAE's director (Strategic Planning). Of the 35 nations in the IAEA board, 26 are NSG members. The remaining 19 NSG countries have also been invited for the briefing in the run up to the board's scheduled meeting in Vienna on August 1.
The IAEA board will have to approve the India-specific safeguards pact before the 45-nation NSG decides on amending its guidelines to resume global nuclear trade with India after a gap of more than 30 years.
Menon is likely to underline India's impeccable non-proliferation record despite not having signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and stress that the country's burgeoning economy needs environmentally clean fuel like nuclear energy. The safeguards agreement that was unveiled last week, meets three of New Delhi's key concerns: uninterrupted fuel supplies for its safeguarded reactors, a strategic fuel reserve, and the right to take corrective action in case fuel supplies are disrupted. -
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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(VOI) -- Three Iraqi soldiers were killed and seven others wounded on Friday when a suicide bomber blew up his explosive vehicle near their patrol north of Mosul, an official Iraqi army source said. "A suicide bomber in a pickup truck targeted an Iraqi army patrol on Friday afternoon at the Talkeef intersection, near the Falafeel village, north of Mosul, killing three patrol soldiers and wounding seven others," the source, who asked for anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI).
"The powerful explosion also destroyed two military vehicles of the patrol and damaged 10 nearby civilian vehicles," the source said, adding the wounded soldiers were rushed to the Military Hospital in downtown Mosul for treatment. Meanwhile, a security source in Ninewa province said the final count of casualties from Wednesday's Talafar suicide bombing is 25 deaths and 72 others injured. "Several of the wounded people were taken to the Duhuk and Sinjar hospital for treatment," the source said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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In the aftermath of Wednesday's prisoner swap between Israel and Hizbullah, there are increasing calls in Hamas to replace the Egyptian mediators with German intermediaries in the talks on abducted IDF soldier St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit.
Several Hamas officials have been quoted over the past 24 hours as expressing deep disappointment with the way the Egyptians have been handling the Schalit mediation effort. "The Egyptians have proved that they are unable to put enough pressure on Israel to accept our demands," one Hamas official reportedly said. Another Hamas official said his movement was under the impression that the Egyptians "were on Israel's side more than on our side."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Germany will get a better deal? Can I get a Brooklyn Bridge with that promise?
(VOI) -- Iraqi army forces on Friday arrested nine wanted men during two separate operations in western Mosul, the official spokesman for the Ninewa operations command said. "The forces arrested three gunmen, believed to be members of the Islamic State in Iraq, in 17 Tammuz and al-Islah al-Zeraei regions in western Mosul," Brigadier Khaled Abdul Sattar told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The operation was based on intelligence information," he noted. "Another army force arrested six wanted men during a security raid in al-Tenk neighborhood in western Mosul," Abdul Sattar added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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A farmer has been detained by southern Philippines police after he confessed to shooting and eating one of the world's largest and rarest eagles, wildlife officials told AFP on Friday.
Who the hell eats eagles, fergawdsake?
The July 10 attack on the two-year-old, four-kilogram (8.8-pound) male eagle on the slopes of Mount Kitanglad on Mindanao island was deemed a major setback in attempts to save the critically endangered species from extinction.
Owls, I can understand. Bustards, maybe...
The bird, nicknamed "Kagsabua", had only been released back into the wild four months earlier after it was shot and wounded with a lead pellet by game hunters in the Kitanglad range.
"There! Over there! What's that?"
"Man! That's a big chicken!"
"That ain't no chicken! It's a... a... ummm... a bustard!"
"Quick! Kill it!"
A radio tracking device attached to the eagle and later buried by the 20-year-old suspect led to the arrest on Wednesday, officials said.
"Whatja do with the radio tracking device, Narcisso?"
"I buried it under my bed."
Killing endangered species is punishable by a 12-year prison term and stiff fines. Fewer than 250 adult Pithecophaga jefferyi, with a two-metre (6.6-foot) wingspan and magnificent mantle of feathers on its nape, are estimated to be left in the Philippines, and are found nowhere else, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
"Hey! Check this out!"
"Wow! Three foot buffalo wings!"
"He was worth more than a brother to me," said a devastated Philippine Eagle Foundation biologist Giovanni Tampus, part of a four-member team who had tracked the bird daily after its release back into the wild.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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'They all steal your chickens', classic line from an old Indiana Jones tv episode.
This is the savior of the magnificent Philippine Eagles
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/19/2008 7:21
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Judge: young man, it says here you shot and killed a Califorina Condor. How do you plead? Defendant: Well guilty your honor. Judge: GUILTY!? Don't you know how endangered these condors are? There are hardly any left at all. Defendant: No sir, But my family was hungry...I had to feed my family, we're so poor, yeah thats it were so poor... Judge: Well, That's no excuse. But OK I'll only sentence you 30 days in jail. Defendant: Oh thank you sir, I can do that standing on my head! Judge: By the way, what does California Condor taste like? Defendant: It's real good, kinda like a cross between Bald Eagle and Spotted Owl!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/19/2008 7:31
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KABUL, Afghanistan: American Special Forces troops and Afghan commandos killed two influential tribal leaders and a number of their followers in western Afghanistan in a joint airborne operation on Wednesday night, military officials said Thursday.
Just sitting around minding their own business when they got clobbered. Many thanks to Mahmoud the Weasel for making it all possible.
But as with some previous operations, there were differing accounts over whether the strike also killed Afghan civilians. NATO and the Afghan Ministry of Defense declared that the tribal leaders were high-priority Taliban targets and that the operation against them was successful. In a statement from its press office in Kabul, NATO said there was no evidence of civilian casualties.
Villagers, however, gave a different account, saying houses had been bombed and civilians had been killed and wounded as they fled. Local officials confirmed the bombardment and damage to houses but did not say whether civilians had been killed or wounded.
Bunny fur and duck feathers scattered all over the place ...
The operation took place in the Zerkoh Valley near Shindand in Herat, a western province where United States Special Forces clashed with the same tribe in April 2007.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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civilians had been killed and wounded as they fled
Is that the best they can come up with? Cause I don't think anyone outside S.F. gives a crap anymore.
Arab foreign ministers are expected to discuss a proposal Saturday calling on Sudan's president to hand over two Darfur war crimes suspects to an international tribunal in an effort to fend off the longtime leader's own prosecution on genocide charges, Arab diplomats said.
But it wasn't clear if the proposal would receive support during an emergency meeting Saturday of Arab League foreign ministers in Cairo. Sudan also has shrugged off any deal that would send its citizens to the International Criminal Court.
"There will be no direct cooperation with the International Criminal Court, and the two Sudanese citizens will not be sent to The Hague," Sudanese presidential adviser Mustafa Osman Ismail said in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, late Thursday, according to the state-run Egyptian news agency. Phone calls to Ismail and other Sudanese officials on Friday went unanswered.
The meeting Saturday was called after the Netherlands-based tribunal's chief prosecutor on Monday announced genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity charges against Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, accusing him of waging a campaign of extermination against three Darfur tribes that claimed up to 300,000 lives and drove 2.5 million people from their homes. A three-judge panel from the ICC is expected to take two to three months to decide whether to issue an arrest warrant.
The charges against al-Bashir came a year after the court indicted Sudan's humanitarian affairs minister, Ahmed Harun, who was formerly in charge of security in Darfur, and suspected militia leader Ali Kushayb on crimes against humanity.
During Saturday's meeting, Arab foreign ministers are expected to consider the proposal urging al-Bashir to surrender Harun and Kushayb to the ICC in return for asking the U.N. Security Council, which asked the court to investigate the Darfur conflict, to defer prosecution of al-Bashir for at least year, the Arab diplomats said. The diplomats, who were familiar with the discussions ahead of the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Deferring prosecution would allow time to build up the understaffed U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur to its full strength of 26,000. The court's statutes allow its judges to provide such leeway.
But the League's secretary-general, Amr Moussa, also said any Arab response would also take into consideration the view that al-Bashir should be out of the court's reach because Sudan does not recognize its authority.
The 22-nation Arab League is loathe to see what it regards as the humiliation of an Arab leader, and many Arab countries, including Syria, have reacted strongly to the court action.
"Sudan already has too many problems. New ones will only further complicate the situation and neither peace will be achieved nor justice will be done," said Lebanese columnist Abdel Wahab Badrkhan in an interview.
But key regional powerhouses such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt have made no firm commitment to support al-Bashir since the prosecutor's announcement. This could be an indication that heavyweight Arab governments might be fed up with al-Bashir, who has been ruling the war-stricken African nation for about 20 years.
Many also question the ability of a fractious Arab League to do anything to help Sudan in its confrontation with the ICC, especially since only three Arab League countries are signatories to the court -- Jordan, Djibouti and Comoros.
"All they can do is to issue a statement of condemnation to console the Sudanese president," wrote Abdel-Rahman al-Rashid, a leading Saudi columnist for the Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper on Monday. "We must remember that the Arab League did not care about extermination of 300,000 Darfuris. It even refused to stand a moment of silence to the killings, displacements and burning."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Nuke Kartoum. It'll end a lot of unpleasantness in that part of the world, from Darfur to the Sudan/Kenya border, to Chad, to the Central African Republic, to Eritrea, to Somalia. It'll also give Egypt enough to have to handle they won't be able to interfere when Israel "clears" Gaza and the West Bank. It'll also send a clear message to Pencil-Neck and Nastyfeller in Syria/Lebanon that their days may be numbered, also.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 16:07
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(VOI) -- Sahwa fighters on Friday arrested al-Qaeda leader who was wearing women's clothes and seized explosive belts and weapons in east of Samarra, a police source said. "Sahwa fighters in al-Jabieriya region, east of Samarra, arrested this afternoon Ahmed al-Sameraei, al-Qaeda leader, who was wearing women's clothes," the source, who asked to be unnamed, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The detainee is wanted for killing several army and police elements as well as many civilians," he also said. "The fighters found also explosive belts and medium and light weapons," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Terrorism is an international issue and there should be a global agreement to address the root causes, said the document issued by the World Inter-faith Conference on Dialogue that ended here on Friday. "Terrorism is a universal phenomenon that requires international efforts to combat it in a serious, responsible and just way," said the document called the Madrid Declaration.
The Islamic, Christian and Jewish leaders also appealed for a United Nations special session to promote dialogue and prevent "a clash of civilisations".
The declaration said the main objective of all religions and cultures should be efforts for achieving peace, honouring agreements and respecting traditions of people and their right to security, freedom and self determination.
The conference also called for more "ways of enhancing understanding and co-operation among people despite differences in their origin, colour and language", and a "rejection of extremism and terrorism".
The statement was read to the closing session by Muslim World League Deputy Secretary General Abdul Rahman al-Zaid, which had organised the conference through an initiative by Saudi King Abdullah.
More than 300 delegates attended the gathering in Madrid, aimed at bringing the world's great monotheistic faiths closer together.
Among them were World Jewish Congress Secretary General Michael Schneider, and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, who is responsible for the dialogue between the Vatican and Muslims.
The participants called on the UN General Assembly to call a special session to support the recommendations of the conference "in enhancing dialogue among the followers of religions, civilisations and cultures".
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
I don't think the Saudis would really like to address the root cause of terrorism - Islam, especially Wahabism. (The Shiites in Iran are a close second).
Yes, I realize that not all Muslims are terrorists. However, the vast, vast majority of terrorists are Muslims.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 20:36
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When I caught up with Al Gore at his home in Nashville last December, the former Vice President--turned-green-guru was in a pensive mood. I was surprised -- he was just finishing his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, which he was due to give in Stockholm a few days later. For a man who had lost the Presidency in the most agonizing way possible, winning the Nobel should have offered some consolation. But when I asked Gore if he felt vindicated, he shook his head. "It's hard to celebrate recognition of an effort that has thus far failed," he said. He was referring to his work not only to awaken the world to the danger of climate change, but to get us to really do something about it. "I'm not finished, but thus far, I have failed. We have all failed."
I'm mighty daggone glad the 2000 election came out the way it did. This guy's weird.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under:
#1
I know what Gore is really talking about. It all makes total and complete sense if you replace word planet with the words "Gore's Ego."
#2
Someone should tell AL that many people were personal witnesses to the so-called SIRIUS EVENT(S) > ISN'T IT KINDA DIFFICULT, AL, TO ARGUE THAT MAN IS THE CAUSE OF GLOBAL WARMING AFTER ONE WITNESSES SOLAR EXPLOSIONS AND AFTEREFFECTS???
#3
and the hypocrite's home energy consumption (astronomical by anyone's definition) is actually UP 10% this year
http://www.tennesseepolicy.org/main/article.php?article_id=764
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 7:54
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#4
Poor supid bastard, the planet doesn't need saving. Its simply natural cycles, between the sun (whcih is why the other plantts warmed as well) and deep ocean currents.
#7
Gore is an eco hustler just as sharpton and jackson are race hustlers. As long as he gets his swag, it does not matter to him or his followers that he not only gets no results, but actually stands in the way of progress for the cause he claims to espouse...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/19/2008 13:26
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#8
Gore's Bold, Un>/del>realistic Plan to Save the Planet his finances
#11
“The idea that we can drill our way out of this is just so absurd,” he said, comparing the push for offshore oil drilling — which has gained popularity and put environmentalists on the defense — to dealing with a hangover by having another drink.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/19/2008 22:18
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#12
I bet he's secretly happy about his "failure". If he does it right, he can be securely employed for years, if not decades.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/19/2008 22:55
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#13
Gore's only plan is to make another $30 million bucks.
Far more than that. He owns big chunks of firms that trade carbon credits. Pass a cap-and-trade law and Al Gore becomes the next George Soros but without having to average 30% returns for 30+ years to do it the way Soros did.
NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan have begun moving back to their compounds after massing on the border with Pakistan to locate attacking Taliban militants inside Pakistan, eyewitnesses here told Daily Times on Friday.
"US and NATO troops are not to be seen outside their compounds now and have also moved tanks, artillery and heavy weapons inside their bases," Afghan locals said. US-led coalition forces amassed on the Pak-Afghan border on Tuesday, threatening to strike militant posts inside Pakistan. They (US-led forces) have stepped back from our border after they saw that the tribal people have joined hands with Taliban to safeguard the country's border," said tribal elders in Miranshah bazaar.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Taliban
#1
(US-led forces) have stepped back from our border after they saw that the tribal people have joined hands with Taliban to safeguard the country's border.
couple stories up a couple tribal leaders are whacked in a meeting.
what if the move to the border was entirely conceived for the sole purpose of watching the reaction and to make the bad guys scramble together to meet up and plan...
we followed the ones we had tabs on to see who they meet with. we whack a couple and follow the rest waiting for the right big fish...
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
07/19/2008 12:51
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(VOI) -- Three civilians were wounded in a bomb explosion on Friday in eastern Baghdad, a police source said. "An improvised explosive charge went off targeting a U.S. vehicle patrol in al-Habibiya region in eastern Baghdad, injuring three civilians," the source, told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq (VOI) on condition of anonymity. The source gave nor more details.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency
Ma'an -- Egyptian security forces discovered a cache of weapons and ammunition on Friday in the town of Sheikh Zwayid in the north of the Sinai peninsula, near the border with the Gaza Strip.
An Egyptian security official said that the cache consisted of large amounts of ammunition and twenty anti-tank mines and automatic rifles.
Meanwhile, Egyptian police discovered two tunnels on the Egyptian- Palestinian border on Thursday night and confiscated large amounts of food stuffs and spare car parts.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Hamas
#1
Is that the same weapons cache they "discover" every third week?
THAT smirking Bali bomber Amrozi woke this morning and prayed to his god. It's a good thing that his god won't be able to stop Indonesian justice wiping the smile from that face.
Amrozi today is on an ever-thinning precipice of life. One morning soon, a dozen Indonesian marksmen will march him, his bother Ali and their mate Imam Samudra, into the jungle, place targets over their hearts, and fire into their upper bodies. They will die quickly, but not soon enough.
You can already hear the wailing - unquestionably sincere - of those in Australia opposed to capital punishment. But the Bali bombers' deaths will be a long way from the judicial executions that create so much debate here. You cannot compare extinguishing the lives of Amrozi and co with, say, hanging Melbourne's jailed serial killers Peter Dupas or Paul Denyer.
While killing the Bali bombers will hardly be a deterrent to other Islamist extremists - those who boast they love death as much as we in the West love life - it will be an insurance policy of sorts.
Indonesia is the only living proof that free thought - the administrative expression of which is democracy - and Islam can cohabit.
And although its pluralist society, with 200 million Muslims, the greatest number living anywhere on earth, can call itself a qualified democracy, its strained economy and fractured Islamic groupings don't guarantee a stable future. The illiterate poor of Indonesia - like everything in a nation of 250 million, there are plenty - are hardly beyond the grasp of locally grown Islamist fanatics whose beliefs are probably being shaped by Arab language classes funded by harder-line and monied Middle East states.
Jemaah Islamiyah survives and its many members are sure to be taking heart from that malevolent cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who described us non-Muslims on March 24 as "worms, snakes and maggots", and justifiable targets for extermination. Bashir is insane and his high profile since being linked to the Bali bombs cramps his style. But he's not alone.
The balance of the oil equation for Indonesia recently slipped into the red, which is why it quit OPEC - that "E" standing for "exporting".
And with its huge population spread across many of the archipelago's 17,000 islands, and the logistical expenses involved in transport, communications and power generation, Indonesia does not have the growth potential of China or India. Indonesia remains an unsettled democracy, stricken by corruption, with many tens of millions of its inhabitants earning less than $2 a day, fertile ground for resentful Islamists pushing for it to become a theocracy. And should that ever happen, the Bali bombers would be liberated, hailed as heroes, and given positions of influence to spread their black agenda.
Just look at the reception in Lebanon on Thursday for returned terrorist Samir Kantar. He shot Israeli Danny Haran in front of his daughter so that it would be the last thing she'd see. Then he smashed her skull against a rock with his rifle butt. His countrymen lined the streets waving banners, flying flags and singing to welcome him home. A national holiday was declared.
Killing the Bali bombers is not so much capital punishment, as a strategic, surgical strike against Jemaah Islamiyah. Alan Howe is HWT executive editor
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
#1
DAMN FOOLS, Do NOT "March them into the jungle"
You do and you'll find a couple of hundred killers waiing for you
Execute them right there in the compound, give them NO chance to escape.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/19/2008 18:27
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#2
kill em in their cells
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 18:34
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freedom fighter Sheikh Mohammad Ali Aman by Jamaat-Shibir cadres at a programme of 'Jatiya Muktijoddha Parishad' in the capital.
Freedom fighters at a meeting at Jhowdanga in Satkhiura Sadar upazila yesterday demanded immediate arrest and punishment of those who assaulted freedom fighter Aman, reports our Satkhira Correspondent.
Jhowdanga unit command of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad arranged the meeting.
Demanding immediate ban on so-called Jatiya Muktijoddha Parishad backed by Jamaat, they said the war criminals formed the organisation with fake freedom fighters only to divert the nation's demand for trial of the war criminals.
They demanded trial of the war criminals belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami who were involved in murder, loot, rape and arson by forming Rajakars, Al- Badr and Al-Shams.
They urged unity of the freedom fighters to fight anti-liberation forces.
Freedom fighter Dr Abul Hossain presided over the meeting.
About 300 freedom fighters of Dinajpur at press conference on Thursday demanded stern action against the Jamaat-Shibir men who assaulted freedom fighter Sheikh Mohammad Ali Aman, reports our Dinajpur correspondent.
Expressing concern over the government's failure to take any action against the attackers several days into the incident, they urged the government to cancel the registration of so-called Muktijoddha Parishad formed by the war criminals with fake freedom fighters.
The freedom fighters also called on the government to initiate the process for the trial of war criminals immediately.
Md Moksed Ali, commander of Dinajpur unit of Muktijoddha Command, read out the key-note at the press conference.
Chapainawabganj district unit command of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangsad formed a human chain and held a protest meeting on Thursday demanding punishment of Jamaat-shibir men who assaulted a freedom fighter and made derogatory comments about the principals of Liberation War, reports a correspondent from Chapainawabganj.
Anti-liberation forces have raised their heads again as war criminals were not tried, said speakers at the meeting held at Shahid Satu Hall in the town.
Jamaat has formed so-called Jatiya Muktijoddha Parishad with fake freedom fighters to gain politically by befooling the people, they said, adding that people are united on the demand for punishment of the war criminals.
Convener of Chapainawabganj district unit command of Muktijoddha Parishad, Md Alauddin chaired the protest meeting.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Lashkar-e-Islami
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch court punched a hole in toughened immigration restrictions, ruling an illiterate Moroccan woman cannot be required to pass a Dutch language test to join her husband in the Netherlands. The order dismayed politicians who have sought to curb immigration from non-Western countries and they vowed Friday to fix the law to cover the loophole exposed by the Amsterdam District Court.
Faced with public outrage over Islamic radicalization and the religion-motivated murder of a Dutch filmmaker, parliament enacted a tough law in 2005 requiring immigrants to pass an exam on the Dutch language and culture before they are granted a visa.
The Amsterdam court, however, found the test requirement was omitted from a clause referring to family reunification and ruled in favor of an unidentified North African woman who had been rejected for a visa.
Even with the ruling, the law will require her to pass another integration test within 3 1/2 years to maintain residency in the Netherlands.
The Christian Democrat Alliance, the largest party in the governing coalition, said it was determined to overturn the ruling, either through a judicial appeal or new legislation. "We think that when you start here, you have to know something about the values over here," said Chantal van den Berg, a party spokeswoman.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under:
#1
Muslims cannot integrate. Every interaction with the despised disbeliever, is viewed by them as a step to an Islamic Republic. They are fighting a war of attrition, through immigration, excessive births and receipt of privileges. When they have the numbers, open warfare will commence. Fortunately, we have Europe to serve as a lab for stimulated jihad rats.
While the world looks elsewhere, Somalia is in flames. The nation just topped a list of the world's most unstable countries by Foreign Policy magazine, and the United Nations has declared the humanitarian situation there "worse than Darfur."
In the next three months the number of people requiring immediate food aid will reach 3.5 million. Over one million refugees have fled their homes. Due to a raging insurgency against the current transitional government -- which has support from both the West and Ethiopia -- Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, has earned the nickname, "Baghdad on the sea."
In Somalia, there are no diplomatic superstars like Condoleezza Rice or Kofi Annan, who rushed to Kenya to settle its election crisis; there are no celebrities like Mia Farrow or Jim Carrey to urge international action and awareness as they did in Sudan and Burma.
Instead, Somalia's crisis has elicited a collective yawn of indifference. Just mentioning the country's name is enough to cause even the most dedicated diplomat or aid worker to throw up their hands in desperation.
Or indifference. What exactly have the Somalis done to earn any help?
Ironically, unlike the above conflicts, the current crisis in Somalia has developed in part due to America's "war on terror" and failure to grasp some of the nuances of Islam.
The Muslim world is not a monolith; there is an ongoing struggle among Muslims with differing interpretations of the religion. Somalia is a traditionally Sufi country -- the mystic, open form of Islam distinct from more conservative interpretations as those seen in places like Saudi Arabia.
But in Somalia, a more conservative movement developed under the secular dictatorship of President Siad Barre and during the anarchy that followed his ouster in 1991. The resulting Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) implemented Shari'a law, and although its stricter tenants were opposed by many Somalis, the grassroots movement gained strength because people sought order and justice in a country marred by starvation, warlord violence, and tribal conflict. Despite internal differences in the interpretation of Islam, the UIC created a state of relative stability that led to the return of Somali businesses, united conflicting tribes and ended piracy off Somalia's perilous shores.
But the ascension of the UIC worried the United States, which believed the group was sheltering Al-Qaeda members seeking a safe haven in Somalia. The United States intervened by backing secular warlords -- reportedly some of the same individuals it had fought during 1993's "Black Hawk Down" incident -- against the UIC, strengthening, rather than isolating, extremism in Somalia. Despite their ample firepower, the warlords were defeated by the UIC in mid-2006.
In December 2006, UIC extremists threatened Somalia's traditional archrival Ethiopia, which they accused of intervening in Somali affairs. Already concerned the UIC would support a domestic ethnic Somali insurgency, Ethiopia invaded. The United States backed Ethiopia's invasion and its ensuing occupation with intelligence, air strikes, Special Forces, and rendition of terror suspects to Guantanamo Bay.
An Iraq-style insurgency soon began inside Somalia, mainly drawn from UIC elements but also members of the Hawiye clan, the tribal base of the UIC. These tribesmen believe the United States and Ethiopians are attacking them by supporting the Somali transitional government, run largely by tribal rivals the Daarood. Because they are Muslim, they believe Islam is under attack and seek to defend it.
Somalia faces many profound challenges, but a recent ceasefire -- which calls for an end to the insurgency ahead of an eventual Ethiopian troop withdrawal in favor of U.N. troops -- has brought some hope.
Ceasefire has worked well, except for the kidnapped aid workers ... the piracy ... the shooting at the Aethiops ... the clan warfare ...
The recent momentum in Somalia for a shift to religious conservatism -- and sometimes militant extremism -- mirrors similar shifts around the Muslim world. However, with quick and responsible action, the United States can still help shift it back.
The United States should first pressure Ethiopia to withdraw and bring all Somali factions to the negotiating table.
Oh sure, that's going to work. Negotiating is what Somalis do best ...
It can also work within traditional tribal structures to reach out to Somalia's people, effect political change and distribute aid. By reaching out to Somali moderates who would be happy to challenge the extremists themselves, and funding development programs that show a renewed respect for local customs and religion, the United States can help swing the pendulum away from extremists who preach that Islam is under attack from the West.
Anybody at Newsweek read 'Blackhawk Down'?
To do this, the United States must immediately change a failed policy. Instead of effectively fighting those individuals who wish America harm, it has taken on the Somali people. The United States should learn from its disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan that using force to myopically crush "terrorists" at the expense of entire populations only strengthens extremists.
It's just too bad that the Newsweek editors and university perfessors don't run for President and the Senator. Think how much better off we'd be if only we listened to our betters in the MSM and academia ...
These days any attention given to Somalia is encouraging. But to create a stable society that would alleviate the suffering of Somalis and address Western security concerns, something more is required: a true understanding of what has gone wrong and the will to effect positive change.
Frankie Martin is Ibn Khaldun Chair Research Fellow at American University's School of International Service in Washington, DC. He did field work among Somalis in Kenya for the book Journey into Islam: The Crisis of Globalization by Akbar Ahmed (Brookings, 2007). This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Islamic Courts
#1
"its disasters in Iraq, "
Hmm completely crushing Al Qaeda after drawing them in, inflicting massive casualties, demoralizing their organzition, and ultimately destroying their credibility....
#2
I still think the best take on Somalia was done years ago in the Onion.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/19/2008 13:46
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#3
Time to cut off aid. I think the USA provides 2/3 of the food aid for Somalia. By stealing a portion of that aid, that allows the support of a few hundred thousand gunmen. Cut off aid and the support those gunmen will evaporate. Let them use their bayonets and now idle time to turn the earth and raise their own food.
Posted by: ed ||
07/19/2008 16:16
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#4
The nation just topped a list of the world's most unstable countries
WoW! Who was the previous winner?
Otherwise this is agenda driven trash. There is no mention of the 2 de facto functioning and largely peaceful states occupying twothirds of what used to be Somalia. This is a description of the south where the UN is f%%king things up per usual.
Among the many challenges facing the United States in an election year is the issue of arms sales to Taiwan. Before he leaves office, President Bush must decide whether or not to approve various major sales to the island, including 60 additional F-16s, Patriot PAC III missiles and Apache and Blackhawk helicopters. At present, the Department of State and the National Security Council are holding up these sales. This is an issue which deserves President Bush's immediate attention.
A little history helps illuminate what's going on. In 2001, shortly after President Bush took office, he approved in principle several billion dollars in new arms sales to Taiwan. This decision reflected the President's concern for China's military build-up and a continuing U.S. commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act, which obligates the U.S. to provide the island with weapons to defend itself.
During the eight-year tenure of former Taiwan president Chen Shui-bian, political infighting between the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the opposition Kuomintang stalled the funding for these weapons purchases. At the same time, Mr. Chen's independence-leaning policies angered China's leaders. Washington was displeased by Mr. Chen's inability to push through the arms purchases, and because his actions and outspokenness interfered with improving U.S.-China relations.
The damage those eight years did to U.S.-Taiwan relations was considerable. Taiwan's relative air, missile defense and antisubmarine warfare capabilities fell further behind as important Taiwan military acquisitions were postponed. China, however, purchased advanced weapons from the Soviet Union and increased funding for its own military research and development programs.
Equally important, mutual confidence between Taipei and Washington may have been permanently weakened. U.S. leaders lost confidence in Taiwan's leaders at a time when the U.S. was becoming increasingly dependent on improved U.S.-China relations. In Taiwan, more than ever, domestic political considerations took precedence over national security issues. And although last year the Kuomintang-dominated legislature in Taipei finally passed a defense budget funding many new arms purchases, the damage to U.S.-Taiwan relations already had been done. The U.S. had become increasingly reluctant to take the heat from China over weapons sales it was not confident Taiwan would follow through on.
Until Beijing removes short- and medium-range ballistic missiles targeting Taiwan and reduces the number of combat aircraft and troops on its side of the Taiwan Strait, why should the U.S. delay in responding to Taiwan's requests for arms purchases? It will take months for the next administration to sort out its China/Taiwan policies, only delaying important decisions further. In the meantime, China's pressure on the U.S. will only increase as it continues to finance U.S. debt and leaves Washington worried that it won't cooperate with it in the international arena if the U.S. proceeds with major arms sales.
Spook86 at In From the Cold points out that for the first time, China has a qualitative edge on Taiwan in the arms race, largely because of the eight-year hold on arms purchases. Allowing Taiwan to upgrade their fighters and defense missiles will redress that balance and is needed to keep China in check.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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Unidentified militants hurled a hand grenade on a group of people that injured four in the Swat district, police sources told Daily Times on Friday. The men had gathered in front of a shop in the Teetabat village of Khawazakhel when the militants attacked them. Meanwhile, Khawazakhel police recovered three missing children and handed them over to their parents on Friday, Deputy Superintendent of Police Karamatullah told Daily Times.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Washington allies haven't always been easy to come by for U.S. automakers, but Republican presidential candidate John McCain told General Motors Corp. employees Friday that reviving the struggling industry would be of utmost importance in his administration. "The key, integral, vital part of our ability to eliminate our dependence on foreign oil will be directly related to that sign over there," McCain told an invitation-only town hall meeting at the GM Technical Center in Warren, pointing to a sign for GM's first plug-in electric car, the Chevrolet Volt. "I wish you every success, and I want to help in every way," he said.
Organizers added seats and risers to accommodate at least 500 people in GM's Design Dome. The Macomb County technical center north of Detroit employs nearly 17,000 people and is where GM is designing the Volt.
Before the town-hall meeting, the Arizona senator toured the facility with GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner and other company executives. McCain examined and got into a model of a Chevrolet Volt, a plug-in hybrid-electric car GM says it plans to have on the market by 2010.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Excuse me but the power grid in California can barely sustain our existing load today. Where are we going to get the infrastructure and additional power plants needed to fuel cars from the grid?
It SOUNDS like a nice idea until you begin to ask where the power is going to come from, particularly in summer. Now if you build about 50 nuclear plants and double the grid capacity, now we're talking.
#2
A local Guam restaurant patron likes to say that NICHOLAI TESLA believed it was possible for man to possess vast amounts of power, including for personal travel in advanced vehicle designs, widout need of using or burning any fossil fuels which Tesla recognized was bad for the environment.
PATRON > opined that many US-WORLD POLITICOS + INDUSTRIALISTS HATED TESLA BECUZ HIS IDEAS WERE SO ADVANCED AS TO NOT REQUIRE HUGE MASSES OF PEOPLE = HUMAN LABOR TO OPERATE, THUS WAS POLITICALLY UNPOPULAR OR IMPOSSIBLE TO SUPPORT BY BOTH GOVT AND BIG INDUSTRY. In this Age of GLOBAL WARMING, Tesla's anti-fossil, pro-electro energy ideas have become relevant iff not absolutely vital??? PATRON > also opined that, despite any rhetoric or offcial denials to the contray, the USGovt + USDOD always knew Tesla's ideas had substantive merit, and is what is being dev and empowered over at AREA 51 + OTHER SECRET US MIL/SCIFACS???
#9
The anticipated demand for electric cars would be at night when demand is VERY low right now. Range is getting up around 125 miles per charge, and battery life is well over 100,000 miles. I'm frankly surprised to hear so much negative commenting on it here. I'll admit the concept isn't very sexy, but you can charge the car for about $.30 a day. Check out the Chevy Volt website, it's worth the read.
Diesel-Electric car allows the diesle to run a constant speed, which gets the greatest economy from it. Electric drive motors, computer controlled, as well as regenerative braking, provide efficiency in terms of how the energy is expended. Batteries are there for regulating power, and can be used alone for short runs, liek to the grocery, etc - the typical 5 mile or less trip. For long trips or added power, the diesel would directly drive the vehicle's electrical drive.
That way not as much battery power and space is needed as in a typical gasoline hybrid, and its a much cleaner design, one that is well known and been in use in submarines since WW2.
#12
For comparison's sake, do a google search on "subaru diesel." It'll bring up articles about the diesel-equipped Legacy wagons they're selling in Europe now.
They get 50 MPG Hwy.
I think that's about double what the US version gets.
I'm fairly sure it doesn't meet the US requirements for smog reduction and whatnot.
I'm not sure if a version that did would have as good a mileage.
We've designed pollution regulations for cars for the half of the country where it never rains and wonder why all our cars get worse mileage than everywhere else.
#14
Jay Len has a 1909 Baker Electric car in his garage. The electric car is not new. If we are going to go "electric," we'd better fix up our grid and build a bunch of new power plants.
I saw where a new Prius has a solar panel to supplement the batteries.
#15
"The anticipated demand for electric cars would be at night when demand is VERY low right now"
Horse crap. People are going to drive to work and want to plug their cars in. Or they are going to drive home and plug them in right away.
Anyone who believes people are going to let a discharged car sit there until night to charge it has a serious case of cranial rectosis. People are going to charge those things at all hours of the day.
#16
I actually drove an electric car for a few years long before it was fashionable, and I hated that thing.
Basically a souped up golf cart, it had no ergonomic design, would have been a death trap in an accident, was very heat intolerant and tended to blow large lead sink fuses, splattering hot lead all over the place.
The fuses had to be replaced on a hot circuit, since the batteries were wired in parallel. And the batteries would sometimes release enough hydrogen gas to form a flammable bubble under the seat, so when you touched the accelerator--bang!
The company that made it went out of business, and finally the car's owner gave it away to a local university engineering school, writing it off for a huge amount of money as a "research vehicle".
Right after it was parked in their lot and the paperwork signed, all four leaf springs broke, leaving the plastic body of the car resting on the asphalt.
#17
The Volt looks really good. I put myself on the waiting list for it as soon as I found out about it. I believe a modest Solar array on your garage banking energy all day will easily recharge the battery system. Good to see GM stretch for a new market. They are finally starting to act like a hungry company that is trying to get back on top.
#18
What was it 'moose? Was it a home built?
Tesla is dead. My dog told me last week that he can turn meat into chocolate.
You dawg is lie! Is your dawg friend a Sheltie or and Irish Shelper? You can't trust them, they have good insticts but bad execution. Now Ima know a Border Collier that came close to making damn fine fudge, failed at reading the candy thermometre tho. Sad. Still it was ediable.
#20
I'd drive a diesel over a petrol vehicle any day, for the reliability alone. And I'm not the only person. Small diesel cars are becoming very popular.
Sudan has asked Russia to defend its president Omar al-Beshir from possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), Sudan's ambassador to Russia told Russian media on Friday.
"We asked Russia as a permanent member of the UN Security Council to use its influence, ties and contacts to dispel this spectre threatening Sudan," the Interfax news agency quoted ambassador Chol Deng Alak as saying at a news conference in Moscow.
He took over from is brother, Chol Denk Alas.
On Monday, ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo accused Beshir of masterminding a genocidal campaign in Darfur and asked judges to issue a warrant for his arrest. If granted, the warrant would be the first ever issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
Alak described the prosecutor's request as "very dangerous, since it involves arresting the president of a sovereign state which did not sign the Rome Statute" establishing the ICC.
"Such a request breaks confidence in international justice and violates international law," Alak said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
#1
As loathsome as Sudan, they have a very valid point that the ICC is overreaching its authority, and it is better that the limping scrod be neutered ASAP, or their next targets will be American citizens.
(SomaliNet) Witnesses and insurgent spokesman said Thursday six people including two insurgent fighters died and more than nine others were wounded in heavy fighting that broke out between insurgents and Somali government forces and Ethiopian troops in northwest of Mogadishu. Witnesses told Xinhua that four civilians died after shells landed in their homes in Yaqshid and Huruwaa districts in the northwest of Mogadishu while four others were wounded.
In a separate incident, two other civilians were wounded by stray bullets from the clashes in other districts in the south of the restive Somali capital Mogadishu. Abdirahim Isse Addow, spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union fighters, said that his group carried out the attacks which began after insurgents launched concerted attacks on a number of Ethiopian and Somali government army bases. He said two of the Islamist fighters were killed and three others were wounded in the fighting which last for more than two hours.
Heavy artillery, mortars, rocket propelled grenades, and heavy machine guns were used in the attack.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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(VOI) -- The Iranian embassy in Baghdad on Thursday denied U.S. military officials' accusations that Iran supports the special groups in Iraq. "Iran denies the news reported by U.S. military officials regarding Iran's support to the special group," said a press release issued by the embassy and received by Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). The announcement termed the U.S accusations as "lies and not grounded on proofs". The Iranian mission highlighted "the U.S charges aimed at festering ties betwen the two countries (Iraq and Iran)". The U.S. army in Iraq uses the term "special groups" to describe Shiite armed groups it believes trained and funded by Iran to attack U.S. troops in Iraq along with Iraqi forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
"They stole all those weapons out of our garage!"
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/19/2008 9:13
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Kidnap-for-ransom gunmen believed to have ties with Abu Sayyaf bandits released two subcontractors of Globe Telecom who were seized Wednesday in Basilan province, dzBB reported late Friday night.
The report aired by dzBB's Benjie Liwanag said maintenance technicians Belardo Tolentino and Constancia Aizon would be taken to hospital in Isabela City in Basilan for a medical checkup and a debriefing.
Basilan provincial police director Sr. Supt. Salik Macapantar said the release came after an "emissary" talked to leaders of the gunmen. The report did not say if ransom or "lodging fee" was paid for the release of the two.
Initial investigation showed three armed men abducted the two technicians in Languyan Mohamad village in Ajul town in Basilan. Tolentino and Constancia, together with other sub-contractors, were returning home after inspecting a Globe cell site when the bandits waylaid the group and seized the two.
Naval Forces Western Mindanao (Navforwem) chief Rear Admiral Emilio Marayag Jr. said 11 persons went to Mohammad village but the nine others managed to escape.
Macapantar said the two sub-contractors were reportedly seized by the group of Usman Lidjal, a "lost command" leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who has formed an alliance with Abu Sayyaf bandits. A text message sent to one of the broadcast journalists in Zamboanga City said the kidnappers demanded ransom of P3 million for the release of the two Glob sub-contractors.
Lidjal's group is also holding captive Preciosa Feliciano, a nurse of the Ciudad Medical Zamboanga. She was seized last July 9 in Zamboanga. Feliciano was brought to Candiis village, also in the town of Mohammad Ajul. Lidjal's group reportedly asked for a P10-million ransom for Feliciano but later reduced this to P3 million.
Macapantar noted that kidnapping-for-ransom "is becoming a means of a livelihood of Lidjal's group."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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The Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Friday it would ''benefit'' from Israel's prisoners exchange with Lebanon's Hezbollah movement, suggesting the deal had strengthened its negotiating position regarding an Israeli soldier it is holding captive in Gaza.
''Hamas will benefit from the release (by Israel to Lebanon) of prisoners with blood on their hands and this will help Hamas reach a similar deal,'' Khalil Hayeh, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said.
He also called for the appointment of an international mediator to speed up the indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas, similar to the German official appointed by the UN, Gerhard Conrad, who brokered the Israel-Hezbollah deal.
''There should be role for a mediator in completing this deal,'' Hayeh told the Hamas-run Palestinian Information Centre website.
However, he added that ''the issue is not the mediator, but the Zionist enemy.''
Currently, Egypt is leading the indirect negotiations between Israel and the radical Islamic movement ruling Gaza on a prisoners exchange that would include Israeli Corporal Gilad Shalit.
Hamas and militants of two other groups snatched Shalit by digging a tunnel under the Gaza-Israel border and attacking an Israeli military outpost near the Strip two years ago.
The movement is demanding at least 450 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Shalit, including several Hamas militants, senior Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) chief Ahmed Saadat.
Barghouti is serving five life sentences for his indirect role in the killing of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk by Fatah gunmen answering to him, while the PFLP under Saadat assassinated an Israeli cabinet minister in October 2001.
Israel has in the past refused to release Palestinian prisoners with ''blood on their hands,'' militants whose attacks against Israelis resulted in deaths or injuries. But in Wednesday's controversial exchange with Hezbollah, it freed convicted Lebanese killer Samir Kuntar and four guerillas of the radical Shiite Lebanese movement in return for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.
Israeli and Hamas representatives are expected to travel separately to Egypt next week to pick up the indirect negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Smokers in the desert state of Niger who break newly enforced anti-smoking laws by lighting up in public or at work, face punishments of up to three months in prison, the government said on Friday.
Smugglers, bandits and rebels in Niger profit from the illegal trans-Saharan cigarette trade -- estimated by analysts to be worth $1 billion a year -- criss-crossing the impoverished West African state's lawless north.
The government's council of ministers in the faraway southwestern capital decided late on Thursday to adopt ways of applying a May 2006 anti-smoking law, it said in a statement.
Punishments for breaking the newly-enacted law will range from a 5,000 CFA franc ($12) fine to three months in prison, a government source told Reuters.
Many countries across the world are clamping down on the tobacco industry -- with bans on advertising, fines and even laws against actors smoking on television or in films -- but few have threatened smokers with prison.
The Niger government cites smoking as one of the leading health problems in the country, a uranium-producing nation that regularly faces droughts and needs food aid.
One in five children in Niger die before their fifth birthday and aid agencies fear the current rising world prices for basic foods will put nutrition out of reach of millions even if the harvest there is good.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
1. The Niger government cites smoking as one of the leading health problems in the country
2. One in five children in Niger die before their fifth birthday
Even if children started smoking at birth, I really don't think that they are dying because of tobacco. As usual, government elites are ignoring real problems to solve made up ones.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/19/2008 20:30
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A meeting of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Swat commanders was held at an undisclosed location on Friday. No details of the meeting, which was headed by Mullah Fazlullah, were disclosed.
TTP Swat spokesman Muslim Khan told reporters after the meeting that it would continue on Saturday (today).
He termed the arrest of suicide bombers on Thursday as "security forces' propaganda" against the Taliban. Khan said the security forces were misrepresenting the Taliban and the time to enforce Shariah in Malakand was nearing.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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Unidentified gunmen killed four people on Friday, three on suspicion of spying for NATO forces, and one head of a local madrassa.
The bodies of the three suspected spies were found in the Karwan Manza area of South Waziristan. A note, written in Pashto, was also found near the bodies, accusing the dead of spying for the United States. It warned that other "US spies" would face the same fate.
Separately, unidentified militants shot dead a madrassa head in the Mir Ali subdivision of North Waziristan. The attackers shot at Maulana Abdullah while he was standing in front of his madrassa before escaping in a car with tinted glasses.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
rose-tinted glasses? or blue-blockers?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 6:40
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#2
"shot dead a madrassa head"
It's too bad they can't do a full Abu Nidal.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/19/2008 7:45
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#3
Buy some shades of cheap sunglasses.
Posted by: ZZ Top ||
07/19/2008 7:47
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#4
Wayfarers. They never go out of style and look good on any car.
Afghanistan has been drawing a fresh influx of fighters from Turkey, Central Asia, Chechnya and the Middle East, one more sign that Al Qaeda is regrouping on what is fast becoming the most active front of the war on terror groups.
More foreigners are infiltrating Afghanistan because of a recruitment drive by Al Qaeda as well as a burgeoning insurgency that has made movement easier across the border from Pakistan, United States officials and experts said.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mike Mullen warned about an increase in foreign fighters crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan, where the government was trying to negotiate with militants. Two US officials told the AP on condition of anonymity that the US was closely monitoring the flow of foreign fighters into both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Militant web sites from Chechnya to Turkey to the Arab world featured recruitment ads as early as 2007, said University of Massachusetts Islamic History Associate Professor Brian Glyn Williams. He has tracked the movement of militants for the US military's Combating Terrorism Centre.
He said there were rumours of hardened Arab fighters from Iraq training Afghans in the tactic of suicide bombing.
Recruits' source: Turkey also appears to have emerged as a source of recruits. Williams estimated as many as 100 Turks had made their way to Pakistan to join the fight in Afghanistan.
"The story of Turkish involvement in trans-national terrorism is one of the best kept stories of the war on terror," said Williams, who noted that Al Qaeda videos posted on YouTube mention Turks engaging in the insurgency. He said, "The local Afghans whom I talked to claim that the Turks and other foreigners are more prone to suicidal assaults than the local Taliban."
Dozens of Turkish Islamic militants have trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and taken part in attacks there, said Emin Demirel, an anti-terrorism expert in Turkey. He said images of attacks on mosques or Muslim villages provide propaganda for recruiting young Turkish Muslims.
"Nowadays, they are effectively using the Internet to communicate with fellow militants, and police have difficulty in keeping tabs on several of the militant sites," said Demirel.
He added, "Turkish courts sometimes locally block access to one particular site, but it is still accessed outside Turkey. These websites eulogise fallen fighters as martyrs in order to recruit radical Muslim youths."
A senior official in Turkey's Interior Ministry said it had no information to confirm the claims of an increase in the number of Turks fighting in Afghanistan.
Taliban: Al Qaeda has financed the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the resultant chaos, it has been able to steadily recruit, re-establish its public relations wing, plot new attacks and re-establish areas of operation on both sides of the border.
Afghan and Western officials say a key route for Al Qaeda recruits is from Central Asia into north-eastern Kunar and Nuristan provinces, where former US intelligence officials suspect Osama Bin Laden is hiding. Both provinces border Pakistan's Bajaur Tribal Area, where the Taliban hold sway and where the US has targeted Al Qaeda's Ayman al Zawahri.
The hulking mountains of Kunar and Nuristan soar thousands of feet and are heavily forested, giving militants good cover. Kunar was the location of the war's two deadliest attacks on US soldiers on Sunday, with the killing of the nine Americans, and in June 2005, when militants shot down a helicopter and killed 16 soldiers.
Naseer Ahmed al Bahri, Bin Laden's bodybuard until 2000, told the AP in Yemen last year that Al Qaeda had field commanders in countries from Indonesia to Senegal.
While Al Qaeda may be sending most of its trainees to Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is probably also creating cells with the mission of attacking Western countries, including the US, warned Erich Marquardt, senior editor with the Combating Terrorism Centre.
"I think we have to accept the fact that Al Qaida has not taken its sights off the far enemy, it recognises that it is fighting in multiple theatres and is therefore likely training fighters for different areas of operation," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
Oh, joy. Well, the foreigners will make themselves obnoxious in Pakistan, and either offend the Paks or sit in coffee shops. Because the trip to Afghanistan is one way.
#3
Unless and until the terrorists opium payroll / recruiting money dries up, this will continue apace. Just mention opium eradication, however, and listen to the whining ( can't be done, what will the farmers do to make a living, etc. ) from every direction begin...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/19/2008 13:12
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#4
Issue an ultimatum to Karzai that opium poppy growth will not be tolerated, that opium fields will be napalmed (with or without the farmers), and anyone suspected to be involved with opium production and distribution will be the target of Special Forces kill teams. That includes Karzai. Watch the slippery brown stuff impact the air recirculation device. Most importantly, CARRY THROUGH ON THE THREAT. Lots of things will change, and fast, the second time one of Karzai's underlings or family members gets capped.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 16:03
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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq (AP) - With al-Qaida falling away, U.S. forces in Iraq are turning their attention to another front: the Iranian border. They aim to crack down on weapon smuggling from Iran by tightening the frontier with Iraq's neighbor to the east, a U.S. commander told The Associated Press on Friday. The effort is aimed at smugglers who supply Shiite extremist groups with rockets, missiles, mortars and assembled explosive devices that have killed many U.S. troops.
"We're going to start squeezing this network pretty hard," said Maj. Gen. Michael Oates, who leads a contingent of 19,000 U.S. troops in regions south of the capital as commander of the Army's 10th Mountain Division.
About bloody time ...
U.S. troops will establish small outposts in the vicinity of two or three official border crossings and seek to build relations with local tribes whose cooperation is critical, the general said. One such outpost already is set up.
For much of the war, U.S. and Iraqi forces were focused mainly on al-Qaida and other insurgent forces that threatened to plunge the country into all-out civil war. Shiite extremist groups inside Iraq took advantage of that narrow focus to develop a network of weapons supply routes from Iran, he said. "Now that al-Qaida is hurt very badly, we're able to shift our emphasis and take a look at this other threat - and this is a significant threat that these Iranian-based extremist groups are attempting" to carry out, he said, not only by killing American troops but also seeking to topple the Iraqi government.
Oates called the weapons smuggling from Iran "the last remaining major threat" to be handled for Iraq. Oates said he doesn't expect to stop the smuggling from Iran, only to lessen the movement of weaponry. "We think we can actually have some success interdicting blatant smuggling by making sure the Iraqi people see that this stuff is being brought in and it's not helpful," the general said. To date, however, neither the U.S. nor its coalition partners have succeeded in intercepting weapons crossing the border, he said.
Asked about the timing, Oates said the improved overall security situation in Iraq "allows us to deal with this last remaining major threat, which is the Iranian lethal support" of Shiite extremist elements. U.S. officials term those elements "Special Groups" to differentiate them from members of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army.
Oates said that much of the smuggled weaponry comes into Iraq through Maysan province, which borders Iran and has an official frontier crossing, called Sheeb, east of the city of Amarah. He said Amarah, which was recently cleared of Shiite extremist forces by the Iraqi army, long was a hub for the shipment of smuggled weaponry from Iran. The arms would move from Amarah toward Baghdad either by heading west or by moving south to the Basra area and then north to the capital.
Oates disclosed in the interview that among the stored weapons the Iraqi army has uncovered in Amarah since entering the city in force in mid-June were more than 2,200 mortar rounds, nearly 600 rockets, nearly 1,000 artillery rounds, 22 missiles and 141 of the most deadly version of roadside bombs.
U.S. forces, which have not operated in Maysan province recently, intend to set up a patrol base not far from the border, Oates said. The U.S. troops, along with American civilians who include retired FBI agents and customs enforcement agents, will work with Iraq's border enforcement squads to tighten passport screening, cargo inspection and other border actions, Oates said.
The intent is to take a comprehensive approach at crossings up and down the border with Iran, the general said. "If you block at one, then they'll move to another, so we're looking to develop a coherent strategy across that entire border," he said. U.S. forces already have set up a patrol base not far from an entry point called Zurbatiyah in Wasit province, and they plan to take similar actions with regard to the Shalamcheh border crossing station in the southern province of Basra, Oates said. He made clear that the intention is to take aggressive action inside Iraq, not across the border. He said it appears that most, if not all, of the weapons smugglers are Iraqis, although their networks begin in Iran.
The U.S. government has a wider variety of intelligence capabilities than Iraq to apply to this mission. "We are beginning to understand the smuggling network," Oates said. "We will interdict it, with the Iraqis, and if we discover it's Iranian munitions, we're going to advertise it." If successful, such efforts would add a new level of credibility to U.S. assertions that Iran is fueling violence inside Iraq, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/19/2008
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#1
wow, a border enforcement and control policy? Hmmmmmm
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/19/2008 7:42
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#2
i wonder why they think they can do it in iraq, when they say you cant do it here in usa???
/sarc
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
07/19/2008 13:52
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#3
It will work in Iraq because we can SHOOT to KILL when someone violates the border over there.
It is a free fire zone. No positive recognition required.....
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/19/2008 14:30
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#4
So, what's the problem? I don't see a big difference between the Iraq/Iran border and ours with Mexico. The drug traders are equally as deadly, and SHOULD be in a "free-fire" zone, So should the ACLU lawyers that try to help those same murderous drug-runners. I'll even volunteer to man one of those outposts, as long as the rules of engagement don't differ much from the ones in Iraq. Give me a dozen men and a nice hilltop near the border, some night-vision equipment, and a sniper-rifle per person, and we'll "do our duty, to God and country". Why should Iraq have secure borders, while ours are as wide-open as the landscape?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 18:38
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Thirty Tamil Tiger rebels and four soldiers were killed in two days of gunbattles in Sri Lanka, the defence ministry said yesterday.
Ground battles took place on Wednesday and Thursday across the tropical island's war-torn northern region, the ministry said in a statement.
Sri Lankan warplanes on Friday carried out air raids over the rebel-controlled northern region of Mullaittivu, targeting a Tiger logistics base, the airforce said, adding that the mission was successful.
Troops have killed 5,017 rebels since January and 446 soldiers have died in combat over the same period, according to defence ministry figures.
Meanwhile, air force jets bombed a rebel storage facility Friday morning and attacked and destroyed three rebel boats, the military said.
The violence came amid a sharp increase in fighting in recent months, with the government vowing to crush the rebels and seize control of their de facto state in the north.
In the worst fighting Thursday, troops attacked rebel bunkers along the front lines in the Vavuniya area, killing 10 Tamil Tiger fighters, said military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara. Fighting in the area also killed four soldiers, while a fifth soldier was missing in action, he said.
Fighting in Welioya killed nine rebels and one soldier, while another rebel was killed in Jaffna, he said. Nanayakkara had earlier reported 11 rebels were killed in Welioya, but later said that was an error.
Rebel spokesman Rasiah Ilanthirayan was not immediately available for comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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At least 14 Somalis were killed in inter-clan clashes sparked by land ownership disputes, witnesses said Friday. Fighting broke out late Thursday near Kismayo, a port town located some 500 kilometres (310 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, between the Huber and Shekal clans. "The fighting left around 14 people dead. Many of them are combatants and some of them are civilians caught in cross-fire," said Haji Adan Moalim Shure, an elder in Kismaio.
Another elder, Hassan Farah. said they secured a ceasefire which was soon violated by reprisal attacks from one clan.
Separately in Mogadishu, gunmen killed three civilians, two of whom were assisting displaced people in camps near the capital, late Thursday, witnesses said. "They were not involved in anything wrong. We don't know why they were targeted," said Abdulahi Herri Nur, an elder.
Twelve aid workers have been killed so far this year in Somalia, where attacks on humanitarian officials have been on the rise in recent weeks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/19/2008
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#1
The fighting left around 14 people dead. Many of them are combatants and some of them are civilians caught in cross-fire,"
But was there a shutter-gun?? No shutter-gun, no crossfire.
#2
But was there a shutter-gun?? No shutter-gun, no crossfire. Posted by: Free Radical
That's only for Bangladesh, FR. The shutter gun™ is a registrered trademark of the RAB. Can't use it in Somalia. Most of the tribes are armed with AK-47s, thanks to our "good friends" the Russians.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/19/2008 15:15
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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.
A WOMAN was saved by her son's dog when she was attacked by a huge male kangaroo on a farm. Rosemary Neal, 65, suffered facial cuts and other injuries when she was attacked yesterday afternoon while checking on horses in a paddock in Mudgee, central-western New South Wales.
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A jury of military officers is traveling to Guantanamo Bay this weekend as part of final preparations for the first U.S. war crimes trial since World War II.
(PTI) At least 10 militants were killed by Pakistani security forces during an operation to flush out the Taliban fighters from the restive Hangu region in the country's northwest, a military spokesman said today.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Two French humanitarian workers were kidnapped at gunpoint Friday in Afghanistan and spirited out of the house they were sleeping in, the aid group Action Against Hunger and the French Foreign Ministry said. The two are believed to be alive, the Paris-based group said in a statement.
TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Two government officials have been convicted and sentenced to prison in connection with an alleged plot to carry out terror attacks and overthrow the Tunisian government, according to their lawyer and court documents. The documents were the first public information about the case against national security official Souhail Guezdah, deputy prison chief Sami Belhaj Aissa and three other defendants.
SRINAGAR - At least, 32 people, mostly commuters, were injured when suspected militants tossed a hand grenade at a stationary police vehicle at Banihal, a township along the Srinagar-Jammu highway, yesterday. Police officials in capital Srinagar said that the four members of India's Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and two local policemen besides 26 civilians including 15 schoolchildren and six women sustained splinter injuries in the powerful blast. Four of the seriously injured persons have been brought to Srinagar for specialised treatment, they added.
ZHUKOVKA, Russia (AP) - Russia's foreign minister on Friday called for an internationally developed "road map" to resolve the hot tensions over separatist Abkhazia, but raised serious objections to a plan devised by major countries. Sergey Lavrov's comments underlined the deep divisions in the dispute, which many have feared will boil into war. Lavrov met Friday with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is pushing the three-step plan that was rejected by Abkhazia's president earlier in the day.
VIENNA - Ahead of briefing the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board of governors and representatives of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), Indian Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon yesterday met IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei and discussed the text of an India-specific safeguards agreement. Menon told ElBaradei, a strong advocate of the India-US civil nuclear deal, about the finer aspects of the safeguards pact and sought to know from him the perception among the IAEA board about the pact. ElBaradei also met US Under-Secretary of State William Burns, who is in Vienna to push the nuclear deal with the IAEA board and the NSG countries.
KABUL, Afghanistan: American Special Forces troops and Afghan commandos killed two influential tribal leaders and a number of their followers in western Afghanistan in a joint airborne operation on Wednesday night, military officials said Thursday. 
Arab foreign ministers are expected to discuss a proposal Saturday calling on Sudan's president to hand over two Darfur war crimes suspects to an international tribunal in an effort to fend off the longtime leader's own prosecution on genocide charges, Arab diplomats said.
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A Dutch court punched a hole in toughened immigration restrictions, ruling an illiterate Moroccan woman cannot be required to pass a Dutch language test to join her husband in the Netherlands. The order dismayed politicians who have sought to curb immigration from non-Western countries and they vowed Friday to fix the law to cover the loophole exposed by the Amsterdam District Court.
Kidnap-for-ransom gunmen believed to have ties with Abu Sayyaf bandits released two subcontractors of Globe Telecom who were seized Wednesday in Basilan province, dzBB reported late Friday night.
Smokers in the desert state of Niger who break newly enforced anti-smoking laws by lighting up in public or at work, face punishments of up to three months in prison, the government said on Friday.
A meeting of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Swat commanders was held at an undisclosed location on Friday. No details of the meeting, which was headed by Mullah Fazlullah, were disclosed.
