#8: From the stories I've heard, JohnQC, the ladies with expat friends wear the latest designer fashion in excessively low-cut, indecently short, and skin tight, at least when socializing. Basically the message is, "Here's what he got, envy him!"
#10: gorb dear, I think you may be mistaking indecent with undesirable...the difference between attire appropriate for public appearances and that which is appropriate for very, very private ones.
KHOST, Afghanistan – A suicide attack Tuesday at a joint NATO-Afghan base in eastern Afghanistan killed two international service members and wounded several others, the military alliance said.
The attack in remote Khost province near the Pakistan border was on a compound used by both international forces and the Afghan Border Police, NATO said. Residents in the province's Ali Shir district said they heard a large blast at the base after dark.
A NATO statement later said that two international troops were killed and several others wounded. It gave no further details, but said an investigation was under way.
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DUBAI - Yemen, under international pressure to quiet domestic unrest and focus its sights on al Qaeda, has offered to hold talks with southern separatists and hear their grievances, state media said on Tuesday.
The move by President Ali Abdullah Saleh follows an escalation in violence on both sides in south Yemen that has left a trail of dead and wounded in recent weeks even as insurgent violence elsewhere in the country fades.
“We say to them: Come talk with your brothers in the authority, and we will talk with you. We extend the hand of dialogue without (you) having to resort to violence or blocking roads or raising the flag of separation,” Saleh said in an address at a military academy.
“I am certain the flags of separation will burn in the days and weeks ahead. We have one flag we voted on with our free will. We welcome any political demands. Come to dialogue,” he said, according to the Defence Ministry’s online newspaper.
Pressure mounted on Yemen to concentrate its efforts on containing al Qaeda after the Yemen-based regional arm of the militant group claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound passenger plane in December. Western allies and neighbouring Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on multiple fronts in Yemen, where 42 percent of the population lives in poverty, to recruit and train militants for attacks in the region and beyond.
The offer for talks with separatists was not Saleh’s first. Diplomats say previous such offers have not been followed by concrete action to address southern complaints that Sanaa neglects the southern region and treats southerners unfairly, including in property disputes, jobs and pension rights.
Some southerners also complain that Saleh’s ties to Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s biggest donor, have led the president to tolerate inroads by the kingdom’s puritanical Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam.
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THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport -- the departure site for the Detroit underwear bomber -- tightened security Tuesday after journalists orchestrated a sting operation that smuggled bottles of liquids onto planes bound for London and Washington.
Security at Schiphol has been under scrutiny since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian student, flew from the airport to Detroit on Christmas Day with explosives in his underwear. Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to detonate the explosives over the United States before being grabbed by passengers and crew.
In an undercover operation broadcast on television Sunday night, reporters refilled bottles bought at a duty free store, resealed them and smuggled them back into the store. They then went through the check-out counter again with the same bottles, where they were put into sealed plastic bags that were not checked by security staff.
The Netherlands National Anti-terror Coordinator says extra security staff will immediately begin patrolling duty-free stores at the airport and there will be more stringent checks on bottles bought there. Some stores will stop selling liquids altogether.
The stunt was possible because handbag security at Schiphol is conducted at boarding gates rather than before entering the departure lounge where the duty-free shops are located.
Schiphol spokeswoman Mirjam Snoerwang said Schiphol is the only major European airport that has security checks at the boarding gate for intercontinental flights and trips to Britain, Ireland and countries that are not part of the so-called Schengen borderless zone of 25 EU countries as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.
Snoerwang said the airport knew about the possible weak link in its security before it was exposed on national television.
"We considered it -- together with our minister of justice -- an acceptable level of risk," she said. But after the television show "automatically the risk is not acceptable any more so that is why we have taken some extra measures."
The reporter who led the sting, Alberto Stegeman, said he was surprised that Schiphol knew about the risk and had not acted earlier.
"If I can think of this, then so can anybody," he said in a telephone interview. "It is easy to think up and easier to carry out."
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ISTANBUL - A Turkish man armed with a gun and suspected of carrying a bomb was shot and wounded by a security guard when he tried to enter the Ukrainian consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday, Turkish officials said.
Istanbul Governor Muammer Guler said a bomb squad was investigating a bag containing cables that the man had been carrying, but it was doubtful whether there were explosives inside. ‘We don’t think it is a bomb, but the police are checking it, and will probably blow it up, just in case,’ the governor told NTV news channel.
The governor said the 29-year-old man’s wife was living in the Ukraine, and his motive appeared to be personal rather than political.
The man tried entering the consulate at around 9 a.m. (0700 GMT), and began firing randomly, before he was shot by a guard. The wounded man was taken to hospital and he was not in a critical condition, the governor said. There were no other casualties.
Television images showed police cordoning off the area in the Florya neighbourhood, near the city’s international airport. Police also evacuated nearby buildings.
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A Pennsylvania woman known to authorities as "JihadJane" has been charged in federal court with using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters to carry out murders and violent attacks overseas. The woman, Colleen R. LaRose, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to kill in a foreign country, making false statements to a government official and attempted identity theft, according to the indictment, unsealed Monday.
LaRose and five unindicted co-conspirators are accused of recruiting men to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe and of recruiting women who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe for similar missions. The accused co-conspirators are located in South Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and the United States.
"Today's indictment ... underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face," said David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division.
In June 2008, LaRose posted a comment on YouTube under the username "JihadJane," stating that she is "desperate to do something somehow to help" the suffering Muslim people, according to the indictment.
She was also know to authorities as "Fatima LaRose." The indictment describes LaRose as in her 40s.
Militants armed with guns and grenades stormed the offices of a US-based Christian charity in Pakistan on Wednesday, killing six aid workers in an attack blamed on Islamist rebels.
The gunmen stormed the World Vision building near the town of Oghi in the Mansehra district of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants have waged a deadly campaign.
The aid group condemned the attack as "brutal and senseless", and indefinitely suspended all of World Vision?s operations in Pakistan, where the charity has about 300 staff.
World Vision said six Pakistani employees, including two women, were killed and seven others wounded when up to 15 gunmen arrived in pick-up vehicles and began firing on the aid workers.
"They gathered all of us in one room. The gunmen, some of whom had their faces covered, also snatched our mobile phones," said World Vision administration officer Mohammad Sajid, who was in the office at the time. "They dragged people one by one and shifted to an adjacent room and shot and killed them... After that one of them said: 'It is enough, we should leave now'. While leaving they lobbed grenades."
Rienk van Velzen, World Vision's regional communications director, told AFP by telephone from the Netherlands that all staff in the office were Pakistani.
"We have four male and two female staff members killed," he said.
The organisation has operated in the area since October 2005, when aid workers flooded into the northwest after a 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 73,000 people and left about 3.5 million homeless.
#1: WV is one of the best clean charities out there. They don't suck up a lot of money into salaries, etc. They do good work and get the money to the people who need it with minimal loss.
These Mulsims are beasts. And this is who Obama wants to favor over India.
A Delhi court today sentenced a Bangladeshi national and his Kashmiri associate belonging to banned militant organisation Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami(HuJI) to life imprisonment for possessing explosives and waging war against the country.
Additional Sessions Judge Nivedita Anil Sharma sentenced Md Amin Wani, a Jammu and Kashmir resident, and Lutfur Rahman, the Bangladeshi national who is alleged to have received training at the instance of Pakistan-based Jamaat-Ud Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed to life imprisonment and said they did not deserve capital punishment as the case was not the rarest of rare.
JEHLUM: A five-year-old British boy kidnapped in Pakistan nearly a week ago has been found to be alive and police are making headway in the investigation, a police official said on Tuesday. Sahil Saeed, who is of Pakistani origin, was abducted from his grandmother’s house last Thursday.
“The child is safe. We have made some progress and hopefully, we’ll sort out this case soon,” Jehlum SP Khalid Mehmood said.
Police have said the Taliban use ransoms from kidnappings to fund their insurgency against the US-backed government. But no signs have emerged which show that the abduction of the boy is linked to terrorists.
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#1: follow up on bbc...Interesting to say the least .
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8560038.stm
my fav part being :
Pakistani community groups in Oldham have said they are considering setting up a fund to pay ransoms in the event of kidnaps.
DERA MURAD JAMALI: An anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Dera Allah Yar on Tuesday sentenced four men to 25 years in prison for burying alive three young girls in Naseerabad in 2008. ATC Judge Muhammad Alam Mengal also fined the four accused, Allah Bakhsh, Muhammad Arif, Rehmatullah and Ghaus Bakhsh, Rs 100,000 each.
Janat, Farida and Izaat were tortured and buried alive on July 2008 in the Baba Kot area of Naseerabad district, after they had attempted to choose their matches without the consent of their families.
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#1: How do you put a human face on a culture such as this?
#2: The same way mexican drug cartel sewed a man's face on to a football in January, penguin.. A lot of effort and stretching , but in the end its unrecognisable from its real form .
Truely sad, and why the rest of humanity has put up with Islam for so long is totally beyond my comprehension
#3: Oscar: A rule of thumb in anthropology is that a primitive culture cannot exist next door to a more advanced culture for more than a short time before it is assimilated or destroyed.
In history, this rule become more encompassing, that barbarism cannot coexist with civilization. In such situations, barbarism is either absorbed or destroyed--with the only alternative the complete destruction of civilization.
This presents the great irony of Islam, because at its inception, *it* had the power of civilization, compared to the tribal barbarism that surrounded it.
Mohammed even integrated what was then the most advanced rural technologies into the religion, to modernize the Ummah; but he failed to incorporate the idea that it must continue to intellectually advance.
Several hundred years later, a Persian philosopher then formalized the idea of fundamentalism, that all knowledge was within the Koran and its commentaries, and so outside knowledge should be shunned. And there have been several other fundamentalist themes introduced since then, with the same idea.
But this leaves modern Muslims in a paradox. They still have the "righteous arrogance" of civilization, as superior to barbarism. But at the same time, they have become the new barbarians, surrounded by what is obviously a superior civilization.
Yet their choice remains the same. As the situation stands today, Islam and its ways are dying out. So the only choices left to it are either a complete and blatant hypocritical reformation, or to utterly destroy modern civilization.
It is far less the actions of civilization that is intolerable to them, but just its existence, which eats away at them. If you ask the typical Muslim on the street, he will choose civilization. So half their effort has to go into *forcing* Muslims to stay Muslim, under threat of severe abuse and murder.
Otherwise, they just defend the indefensible, such as arguing that wrapping women in burqas and denying them an education, while treating them like farm animals, is somehow *better* for women than treating them like intelligent and capable human beings.
KHAR/GHALANAI: Security forces and a local tribal lashkar (militia) torched 14 houses of the Taliban in the Mamoond tehsil of Bajaur Agency on Tuesday.
Political administration officials told Daily Times that nine Taliban also surrendered to the political authorities in the Mamoond tehsil. Explosives material and mortar shells were recovered in a large quantity from the Taliban houses.
Separately, security forces in a raid in Barokhel area of Halimzai tehsil on Tuesday arrested three suspects and demolished the house of a wanted terrorist in Safi tehsil. An administration official said the arrested suspects were identified as Jehanzeb, Roohullah and Samiullah.
Also on Tuesday, members of a peace jirga and tribal elders destroyed the house of a wanted terrorist, Jamshed, in the Mulla Mandi area.
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#1: Just givin' it back to them. I'm going to enjoy watching this movement as it picks up momentum.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two gunmen were killed and a third one was arrested in a failed attack in central Baghdad on Tuesday, a police source said.
“Three gunmen, driving a modern car, opened fire on a checkpoint in Abu Nawas street in al-Karada region, injuring a policemen,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
“The policemen responded to the attack, killing two of them and arresting the third,” he added. “Security forces sealed off the whole region."
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ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: An armed group commander was arrested and a large weapons cache was found inside his house in Falluja City, a local security source said on Tuesday.
“On Tuesday morning, a force from the Anbar police arrested a leader of an armed group during a raid on his house in downtown al-Aameriya district, southern Falluja,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.
The man has been involved in acts of violence against civilians and security personnel, the source pointed out. A cache containing arms, explosives, 31 IEDs, five Katyusha rockets and materials used in manufacturing explosive belts was found inside his house, the source noted.
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Reuters) - A suspected mastermind of the Bali bombings was killed in a police raid in Indonesia in the latest blow to an Islamist militant movement in the world's most populous Muslim country. Dulmatin, who once trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, was one of three militants killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe and a house nearby, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.
"Today I can announce to you that after a successful police raid against the terrorists hiding out in Jakarta yesterday, we can confirm that one of those that was killed was Dulmatin, one of the top Southeast Asian terrorists," Yudhoyono said in a speech in Australia's parliament house in Canberra.
The series of police raids that led to Dulmatin's death will be seen as a coup in Indonesia's fight against Islamist radicals ahead of U.S. President Barack Obama's visit March 20-22. But analysts said Dulmatin's emergence in Indonesia with a new group showed a worrisome ability of local militants to forge international links, including with al Qaeda-affiliated outfits.
Police shot dead Dulmatin, who they said fired at officers with a revolver he was carrying, and two others in a series of coordinated raids on the outskirts of Jakarta on Tuesday.
Dulmatin's body was identified after DNA tests and also by his chin shape, eyebrows and freckles, police said on Wednesday. The other two men killed were said to be his bodyguards.
Dulmatin, an electronics specialist, was a top bomb technician for the Southeast Asian Islamist militant group, Jemaah Islamiah. Authorities say he helped plan the suicide bombings that ripped apart two night clubs in Bali and killed 202 people in 2002.
He fled to the southern Philippines in 2003 and the U.S. government had a $10 million reward for his capture. The 40-year-old who was born in Central Java is said to have been wounded after escaping a raid by Philippine security forces.
JIHADIST BASE
Indonesia's counter-terrorism unit, Detachment 88, has launched raids across the archipelago following the discovery of a militant Islamist training camp in Aceh last month. Books on jihad, rifles and military uniforms were found during the raids in which 21 suspected members of the group were detained in Aceh and Java.
Aceh's governor, Irwandi Yusuf, was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying on Tuesday the group planned to set up a Southeast Asian jihadist network in the Sumatran province. Analysts said Dulmatin had the capability to succeed Noordin Mohammad Top, a Malaysian-born militant and bomb maker killed by police last year during a raid in central Java.
Top, who set up a violent splinter group of Jemaah Islamiah, masterminded a series of bombings including suicide attacks on the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta last July.
Sidney Jones, an expert at the International Crisis Group, said the new group was also a splinter of Jemaah Islamiah, likely calling itself the Aceh branch of al Qaeda for Southeast Asia (Tandzim Al Qoidah Indonesia Wilayah Serambi Makkah) Jones said that the militants were probably planning attacks but the recent arrests and deaths should have damaged their capacity to carry them out for now.
But the analyst said it was unclear if there were other Aceh-like cells and the re-emergence of Dulmatin in Indonesia showed the worrying extent of the international links Indonesia militants have forged. "This means that there probably was far more coordination with the Philippines over the last five years than we had any appreciation of," she said.
In the Philippines, Dulmatin was last thought to be operating with the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group, along with another Indonesian wanted over the Bali bombings, Umar Patek.
National Police chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri told a news conference that the raids in Jakarta had turned up remote controls that could be used to detonate bombs. He also said that Dulmatin was more dangerous than some other well known militants, including expert bomb-maker Azahari Husin, who was killed by Indonesian police.
Dulmatin's group had secured 500 million rupiah ($54,500) to buy weapons and for military training, with more money available, he added. Security analyst Dynno Chressbon said Dulmatin's group was believed to have supplied about 27 weapons, including M-16s and AK-47s to the group in Aceh.
Since the 2002 Bali bombings, Indonesian authorities have captured or killed around 440 militant suspects, with around 250 convicted in courts and three executed by firing squad.
The alleged driver for a terrorist group led by the late Noordin M. Top faced his first hearing Tuesday at the South Jakarta District Court. Supono faces charges of harboring known fugitives and obstructing a police investigation, and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
“Supono was fully aware that Noordin and his accomplices were terrorists, yet he failed to report the matter to the police,” said prosecutor Lila Agustina. “We therefore charge him with harboring terrorists.”
Supono previously worked at a factory before joining a Koran recital group led by Bagus Budi Pranoto in Surakarta, Central Java. Bagus was one of the suspected terrorists killed on Sept. 22 last year alongside Noordin during a police raid in the town. Other wanted terror suspects killed in the incident were Aji and Adib Susilo. Supono has claimed Bagus had indoctrinated him on jihad, or holy war.
Lila alleged Bagus had taught Supono that jihad was obligatory for all Muslims, particularly in light of the “oppression by Western powers”.
“Supono was fully aware that Noordin and his accomplices were terrorists, yet he failed to report the matter to the police. He was told that everyone must perform their own personal jihad in revenge for their Muslim brethren,” she said.
The trial has been adjourned until Wednesday next week, when the court will hear from the defense team led by lawyer Ashluddin Adjani.
Also facing terrorism-related charges in a separate hearing at the court Tuesday was Muhammad Jibriel Abdulrahman, who ran the online Arrahmah network allegedly to raise funds for terrorist activities.
Jibriel had earlier moved to be transferred to Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta from the Kelapa Dua Maximum Security Penitentiary in Depok, West Java. His father, Abu Jibriel, said the motion had been filed following repeated visitation denials by wardens at Kelapa Dua.
Jibriel has also moved for his trial to be heard in South Tangerang, pointing out he had been arrested at his home there and should thus stand trial in that jurisdiction. Prosecutor Firmansyah objected to the motion, saying the trial should proceed in the capital where Jibriel’s security and that of the trial itself could be guaranteed.
Still allegedly dead
JAKARTA - AN ALLEGED mastermind of the 2002 Bali bombings is believed to be one of three suspects shot dead by Indonesian anti-terror police yesterday. The authorities said they were still trying to confirm whether the man was Dulmatin, a leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terrorist network and an explosives expert. It could take up to two days to identify the body.
Dulmatin, nicknamed 'Genius', has been wanted by the police since 2002.
The suspect was killed in a shootout when members of the anti-terror Detachment 88 (Densus 88) raided a shophouse in Pamulang district in Tangerang around noon. About an hour later, the other two suspects, said to be his bodyguards, were shot dead near the shophouse, which houses an Internet cafe.
The trio had been the target of a series of raids across the country following the discovery of a terrorist training camp in Aceh last month. Police operations conducted in Aceh and Java have so far nabbed 21 people suspected of being members of an Aceh-based terror group with links to JI.
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#1: seems like all these terrorist groups have alot of leaders
TEHRAN, Iran — The trial in Iran opened Tuesday for 12 suspects accused of torturing to death three anti-government protesters tortured in prison during the turmoil following the June elections, the official news agency reported.
The IRNA report did not identify any of the suspects, saying the judge has banned reporting details of the trial. The opening sessions will hear the complaints and charges against the men. Expect this to be quietly dropped just as soon as a distraction can be arranged ...
In January, a parliamentary probe found a former Tehran prosecutor, Saeed Mortazavi, responsible for the torture death of the three in Kahrizak detention center in the capital. There has been no word of any action to punish Mortazavi so far and he currently heads a government body tasked with fighting smuggling of goods.
Anger over the abuse emerged in August, after influential conservative figures in the clerical hierarchy condemned the mistreatment of detainees. The outrage forced Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to order the immediate closure of the Kahrizak.
The confirmation by the hard-line judiciary of the prisoner deaths proved one of the most devastating claims against authorities over their treatment of protesters.
The opposition says more than 80 protesters have been killed in the postelection crackdown, but the government puts the number of confirmed dead at less than 40. Authorities initially denied the abuse claims, accusing the opposition of running a campaign of lies against the ruling system.
The unrest broke out after pro-reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed he was robbed of the presidency through massive fraud in the vote.
One of the detainees who died in custody was the son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a top aide to conservative presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei. Rouhalamini’s death, two weeks after he was arrested, sparked anger even among government supporters.
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DUBAI - Yemen, under international pressure to quiet domestic unrest and focus its sights on al Qaeda, has offered to hold talks with southern separatists and hear their grievances, state media said on Tuesday.
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport -- the departure site for the Detroit underwear bomber -- tightened security Tuesday after journalists orchestrated a sting operation that smuggled bottles of liquids onto planes bound for London and Washington.
A Delhi court today sentenced a Bangladeshi national and his Kashmiri associate belonging to banned militant organisation Harkat-Ul-Jihad-al-Islami(HuJI) to life imprisonment for possessing explosives and waging war against the country.
BAGHDAD / Aswat al-Iraq: Two gunmen were killed and a third one was arrested in a failed attack in central Baghdad on Tuesday, a police source said.
ANBAR / Aswat al-Iraq: An armed group commander was arrested and a large weapons cache was found inside his house in Falluja City, a local security source said on Tuesday.
Reuters) - A suspected mastermind of the Bali bombings was killed in a police raid in Indonesia in the latest blow to an Islamist militant movement in the world's most populous Muslim country. Dulmatin, who once trained with al Qaeda in Afghanistan, was one of three militants killed in a shootout with police at an Internet cafe and a house nearby, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Wednesday.
