#3
Nothing like "engaging the enemy" with a .50 cal!
Posted by: BA ||
10/17/2012 9:26 Comments ||
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#4
I watched the Colonel testifying on TV when I was still young and impressionable. He has in many ways defined my view of the military -- in a very favorable way.
#6
Sorry LTC, those people were screwed as soon as they bought into the terror school known as Islam.
Until they, on their own, learn that the Taliban and the rest of the the fascistii known as Muslims are the problem they really won't/can't do anything about their lives.
Nothing we can do will help them in the long run short of taking on a dictatorial role and beat sense into them. Of course that seems to be a trifle self contradictory. In the short run it just costs us and pisses them off.
#7
I concur AlanC. They've "screwed" themselves. The sooner we're outta there, the better. Oliver North without a war to report on..... perhaps not a bad outcome.
#9
Until they, on their own, learn that the Taliban and the rest of the the fascistii known as Muslims are the problem they really won't/can't do anything about their lives.
Nothing to do with learning and everything to do with money. South Vietnam was defeated by a conventional invasion launched by the NVA because the Soviets sent the North billions in Migs, tanks, artillery and ammo on credit while we cut the South off cold. The Continental Army was in part fed and clothed by the French Royals, without whose financial support*, the Army might have fallen apart. Afghanistan fell to the Taliban in the first place because the Pakistanis were funding and arming them, while we stood aside and not only failed to support their opponents, but appeared to support the Taliban as Afghanistan's last chance for stability. Ultimately, the only chance Afghanistan has of standing against the Taliban, given Pakistan's financial and material support for the latter, is if we either destroy Pakistan or fund the Afghan government. Leaving the Afghan government without resources against a hostile neighbor with 5x its population is a recipe for collapse. They should fight their own battles, but we should provide them with the resources they need to do it, at least until Pakistan stops funding the Taliban. Compared to the resources we gave away during WWII, the aid needed to keep the Afghan military afloat - a few billion dollars a year - is peanuts.
* That financial support helped destroy France's finances and led to the French Revolution.
#11
I was a mere yut buy mightly impressed with Fawn Hall's testimony. And hairs.
She was what fogeys used to call a fine filly. An amusing excerpt from Wikipedia:
Fawn Hall dated Contras politician Arturo Cruz, Jr. In one mishap, she transposed the digits of a Swiss bank account number, resulting in a contribution from the Sultan of Brunei to the Contras being lost.
#12
...I wouldn't mind a few billion to keep them busy at home, but I suspect most of it would just be transfers in the utter corruption of the culture that end up in someone's bank account somewhere.
Everyone forgets that we leveled Germany and Japan first, then we rebuilt them. The latter wasn't nice or clean or 'humanitarian' in its execution. It did end hundreds of years of engrained militarism in their societies. Nation building after the scorched earth.
#13
I wouldn't mind a few billion to keep them busy at home, but I suspect most of it would just be transfers in the utter corruption of the culture that end up in someone's bank account somewhere.
Everyone forgets that we leveled Germany and Japan first, then we rebuilt them. The latter wasn't nice or clean or 'humanitarian' in its execution. It did end hundreds of years of engrained militarism in their societies. Nation building after the scorched earth.
Corruption is part of the cost of doing business there, and was a problem in all of the Axis countries we occupied, although to a smaller extent. Worrying about it in the larger context is being penny-wise and pound-foolish. All told, we took a $100b hit from 9/11 alone, and a $1T hit from the ensuing wars. A few billion a year is nugatory to prevent another such incident.
And it's not about keeping them busy. Afghanistan has 35m people. Only a handful, out of tens of thousands stateside, have been discovered to have plotted terror attacks against us. It's really about propping up a government that isn't hostile to us against an anti-American opposition that is being financed and armed by people trying to wage a proxy war against us, that we would like not to have to invade and occupy. In other words, it's a lot like the Cold War, but on a shoestring budget.
As to WWII, note that it was a different time. First, we spent 50% of our GDP every year for 4 years to defeat the Axis powers. Second, we lost 400K dead, which muted opposition to fire-bombing German cities and nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What's our excuse for slaughtering millions in Afghanistan? Like it or not, we're not Muslim conquerors, and the American public will not stand for mass killings of enemy civilians on that scale unless given sufficient provocation in the form of a nuclear attack on our cities.
Bottom line is our aid isn't going to end corruption in Afghanistan (or cure the common cold), but it will keep our enemies there at bay until they decide to engage in more productive pursuits.
#14
Corruption is part of the cost of doing business there, and was a problem in all of the Axis countries we occupied, although to a smaller extent
There's a difference between petty corruption and out right looting. Any levels of efficiency just disappear just as fast as a WH selected green company in handling money. You get nothing in the end except executives who give themselves big bonuses before closing the doors, or government officials before jumping the last helicopter out.
The point about WWII is that the enemy population knew they were defeated, that further resistance was only going to end deeper in the destruction of whatever culture/civilization they had. You didn't have State Dept types running around telling SHAEF how to conduct a 'war' and RoEs*. It was SHAEF that determined when to shift to occupation duty/support, even then it was first a shift to a military government with key decisions made by that staff, not State.
* People don't seem to grasp the number of French, Dutch, Belgium, and Italians civilians killed in the whole process of fighting the war. They sort of magically disappear in the telling of it all.
#15
The point about WWII is that the enemy population knew they were defeated, that further resistance was only going to end deeper in the destruction of whatever culture/civilization they had.
We stayed for decades to hammer that point home. If we had left after a decade, would the Nazis or the Emperor cult have resuscitated themselves? Especially if we hadn't killed millions of them? That's my point when I say we need to give the present Afghan government a stipend so it can fight off the anti-American Islamists funded by Pakistan and private donors in the Gulf states.
Now at its biggest size yet, 195,000 soldiers, the Afghan Army is so plagued with desertions and low re-enlistment rates that it has to replace a third of its entire force every year, officials say.
Yep, that'll hold.
The better program would have been to support the non-Pashtun's like the Northern Alliance to begin with the like Kurds after the first Gulf conflict.
The better program would have been to support the non-Pashtun's like the Northern Alliance to begin with the like Kurds after the first Gulf conflict.
These people have the mindset of militia rather than professional troops. Both sides are plagued with desertions. Taliban recruits head home for the harvest or if the near-misses are hitting a little too close to home. Ultimately, these people aren't brainwashed like the people in modern armies who fight to the death in large formations. It's not that much of a weakness given both sides have the militia mindset. Obviously the attackers on suicide missions get all the press, but there are precious few of those, and those attacks are ultimately a waste of highly-motivated men.
#19
We have this habit of making out our enemies to be 10 feet tall. The Taliban aren't fanatical warriors - our guys have killed tens of thousands of them while losing 2,000+ dead. In a slightly shorter time interval, Vietnamese communists, North and South, inflicted 58,000 military deaths on us, while losing 1.2m fighters. North Vietnam's population was 23m people, compared to Afghanistan's 35m. The Taliban's reputation far outstrips its actual motivation and combat skills.
#20
In terms of their tolerance for punishment, what was truly impressive about the Vietnamese communists is that they lost in the Vietnam War almost as big a % of their population as the Germans in WWII, and a higher % of their population than the Japanese. And their spokesmen said frankly that when Kissinger gave the communists everything they wanted during the Paris Peace Accords, the North Vietnamese were on the verge of giving up. Kissinger is a very entertaining essayist, but practical foreign policy was not his metier, which leads one to wonder if his flair with the written word masked deep flaws in his analyses.
A Taliban leader who aided an insider attack was captured in a joint Afghan and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... troop operation in eastern Nangarhar The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country.. province on Tuesday, Isaf said, a day after it confirmed a Taliban leader Qurashi was killed in a security operation in eastern Kunduz province.
The Nangarhar leader "is directly associated with facilitating the movement and escape of an insider-attack shooter across Afghan borders", Isaf said Tuesday.
Qurashi, also known as Baz Khan and Zubair, who was killed Saturday, specialised in the use of improvised bombs (IEDs) and was directly involved in planning and executing IED attacks, Isaf said in its operations update on Monday.
Isaf also said two recently tossed in the clink Book 'im, Mahmoud! hard boyz captured in two separate Afghan-led operations in southern Kandahar province were confirmed to be Haji Mama, a controller of weapons, ammunition, homemade explosives and improvised bombs (placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... Oct. 4) and Mohammad Nabi, a controller of IEDs and radios (placed in durance vile ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... Oct. 12).
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea: there was a simple way to tell whether Manetti had been the triggerman -- just look at his shoes!... a Haqqani leader was captured with a number of other suspected hard boyz in a joint forces operation in eastern Ghazni province Tuesday. He coordinated attacks against Afghan and coalition forces and provided weapons to direct action cells located in northern Pashtun-infested Logar province, Isaf said.
It comes after joint forces killed Haqqani leader Rahmatullah during a security operation in Pashtun-infested Logar province on Saturday.
"Rahmatullah, also known as Qari Moktar or Mohammad Qasim Qari, was responsible for coordinating direct fire and improvised bomb attacks against Afghan and coalition forces in Pul-e Alam district," Isaf said Sunday.
(Sh.M.Network) --Somali forces netted dozens of alleged Al shabab fighters during a security sweep inSomalia's southern port city ofKismayo, reports said on Tuesday.
The forces focused their operations in some villages in the northern of city, where most of the arrests took place, according to the local residents. The Al shabab suspects are being held at cop shoppes in Kismayo for investigations.
Somali and Kenyan forces are dealing with the alarming insecurity acts in the city after Al shabab bully boyz declared their withdrawal early this month. Since then the city has seen a rampant security vacuum.
However, a person who gets all wrapped up in himself makes a mighty small package... Officials have called on Kismayo residents to co-operate closely with Somali and Kenyan forces and report any dangerous or suspicious activity.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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(Sh.M.Network)-- Suspected Al-Shabaab ... Harakat ash-Shabaab al-Mujahidin aka the Mujahideen Youth Movement. It was originally the youth movement of the Islamic Courts, now pretty much all of what's left of it. They are aligned with al-Qaeda but operate more like the Afghan or Pakistani Taliban... hard boyz rubbed out an engineer working for the Kenyan mobile phone firm, Safaricom, early Tuesday in the northern part of the East African country.
The Orcs and similar vermin ambushed Patrobas Nyamboga as he was carrying out regular maintenance on Safaricom's base stations in Kulan area, about 50 km from Liboi town near the border with Somalia.
The divisional police commander, Abdalla Shariff, confirmed the incident saying no suspect had been placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! "As for now we cannot disclose the identity of the dear departed because his next of keen has not been informed. Our officers are already on the ground pursuing the bandidos and hope we will catch up with them with time,"Sharitold Xinhua by telephone on Tuesday.
Safaricom spokesperson Victoria Kaigai also confirmed the incident, saying the dear departed was ambushed on Tuesday morning as he was carrying out regulator maintenance of the mobile firm's stations in northern Kenya.
"Yes, Safaricom can confirm that our sub-contractor was killed this morning in an ambush by unknown gunnies. Nyamboga was delivering fuel to one of our stations in Kulan near Liboi border. We are condoling with his family at this difficult time," Kaigai told Xinhua by telephone.
The dear departed was in the company of four other staff members on his way to a Safaricom mask to refuel it.
The suspected attackers who were estimated to be about 20 ambushed the vehicle the Safaricom crew were travelling in before shooting indiscriminately and in the process shot Nyamboga in the head.
"The hard boyz then shot the vehicles' tyre making it immobile and then proceeded to rob them off their valuables before escaping on foot," said one of the witnesses who did not want to be identified.
Ironically, the shooting came just an hour after security forces engaged in a fierce gun fight with the militias a few km from where the shooting took place. Nobody was injured in the four- hour shootout.
"Security had been enhanced at the area in a bid to apprehend those terrorizing citizens along the way," Shariff said.
"It is unfortunate that many lives have been lost along the Dadaab-Liboi road in the hands of bandidos. We are appealing to citizens to cooperate with security agents and offer crucial information that will assist us in apprehending the suspects behind this ugly incident, as hiding them will be aggravating the matter," he added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the pie fight, Bella opened her mouth at precisely the wrong moment... Sharif said that no person has been placed in durance vile Into the paddy wagon wit' yez! in connection to Monday's killing of the 40-year-old Mahat Muhumed Said, who was the security committee leader at the Ifo refugee camp.
Northern Kenya, particularly GarissaCounty, has of late witnessed a spate of grenade and gun attack on innocent Kenyans, refugees and the police over the past two weeks which are seen as retaliatory attacks from the embattled Al-Shabaab militias in Somalia since the capture of the port city ofKismayo.
More than 20 security officers and scores of civilians have been killed, many maimed and property worth millions of dollars destroyed in Mandera, Wajir, Garissa,Nairobi and Mombasa, since the Kenyan soldiers entered Somalia in a bid to forestall threats of Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab.
Kenya says the deployment of troops in the southern regions have so far helped to prevent the movement of explosives to the strategic towns of Husingo and Badhade, the conduit points for the improvised bombs, the counterfeit electronics and contraband sugar smuggling across the region.
Military officials said these regions are crucial to the stabilization ofKenya's coastal and northeastern provinces, which have been targeted by attackers preying on soft civilian targets.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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(Sh.M.Network)--Fierce festivities has erupted on Tuesday between Somali forces backed by AU peacekeeping soldiers and Al shabab Death Eaters in the main road linking Mogadishu to Baidoa city, reports said.
The combat reportedly sparked this morning as Somali and AMISOM forces moved closer to the rebel-held Buurhakaba city, just about 180 Km northwest of Mogadishu.
Local residents reported that both sides have used heavy artilleries fire and machine-guns during the festivities, forcing people to stay in doors and stop movement in Leego and Yaqbariweyne villages outside the town.
It was immediately unclear whether there have been any casualties in the battle on either warring sides or local civilians.
But, Ibrahim Yarow, an army commander told Shabelle Media that his forces have executed on Tuesday a pre- planed and over measured attack against the Al shabab in the city, seizing two strategic villages close to Buurhakaba town located on the main road to Baidoa city.
Though Al-Shabaab ... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda... has been pushed back in the ongoing offensives, their bushwhack and face-to-face attacks and bombings still haunt theLower Shabelle region.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Egypt's state prosecutor has asked the general intelligence service and Interior Ministry to provide possible evidence in a probe of Islamists over festivities with liberals last week, state media said Tuesday.
The prosecutor was acting on 53 complaints, some against senior members of President Mohammed Morsi's Moslem Brüderbund movement, of orchestrating Friday's unrest in which dozens of people were maimed, Al-Akhbar newspaper reported.
Essam al-Erian, the acting head the Brotherhood's political party, is among those accused of organizing the rally that degenerated into the worst festivities between supporters and opponents of Morsi since his election in June.
The demonstration was called to denounce the acquittal of former regime members accused of a deadly attack against protesters during the uprising that overthrew president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... in early 2011.
It was held in Cairo's Tahrir Square a day after Morsi unsuccessfully tried to remove the prosecutor, Abdel Meguid Mahmud, following the acquittal of 24 former regime officials and supporters.
Mahmud, a Mubarak appointee, cannot be fired or replaced unless he quits or hits retirement age, according to a law meant to shield him from presidential interference.
Opponents of the Brotherhood accused the Islamists of organizing the rally to overshadow a protest by liberal and secular-leaning groups to denounce Islamist domination of a body drafting the new constitution.
Witnesses said the violence erupted in Tahrir Square after Brotherhood supporters took apart a podium from which protesters were chanting against the Islamists.
The Brotherhood said its members had come under attack, and accused its opponents of defamation.
"Campaign of incitement against Islamists," read the front page banner on the Freedom and Justice Party's newspaper. The Moslem Brüderbund, banned under Mubarak, formed the party after his overthrew in February 2011.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Unidentified gunniesrubbed out a military adviser to Yemen's defence ministry, an Iraqi national, in central Sanaa yesterday, a security official said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the victim, Khaled Hatem al-Hashemi was killed when "two gunnies on a cycle of violence" fired "two bullets" into his head as they drove past him.
It is believed that many Iraqi military officers who served under Saddam Hussein fled to Yemen after the fall of his regime and took jobs as military and defence advisers to the Yemeni government.
So far, no one has grabbed credit for the killing but al-Qaeda has been blamed for a spate of attacks on Yemeni security officials, both in the capital and throughout the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Haven't they heard about gun control?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2012 6:16 Comments ||
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SANAA: Two masked hard boyz men on a motorcycle shot dead an Iraqi military adviser to Yemens army on Tuesday, security and medical sources said. Iraqi Brigadier General Khaled Hashemi, who works as a consultant at the Ministry of Defense, was gunned down near the foreign intelligence service building in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, a security source said.
This operation is almost identical to the assassination of the security officer at the US Embassy and has the fingerprints of Al-Qaeda (on it), said the source, who asked not to be killed named. Last week, Qassem Aqlan, a Yemeni man who worked in the security office of the US Embassy in Sanaa, was killed by gunmen in a drive-by shooting.
Hashemi was part of a team tasked with restructuring the Yemeni army after the popular uprising that ousted longtime strongman President Ali Abdullah Saleh in February. He was one of several Iraqi military experts hired by the Sanaa government after the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003, a government source said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] Several people claiming to be relatives of Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year-old Pak girl shot in the head by the Taliban, tried to enter the British hospital where she was being treated, an official said Tuesday.
The medical director of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham where Malala is in intensive care stressed that the incidents did not create any security concerns and police said nobody was placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
"We have had some, I guess I would say, irritating incidents overnight and I understand that a number of people have been placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! but there are no security concerns," hospital medical director David Rosser told journalists.
"I understand that a number of people turned up claiming to be members of Malala's family -- which we don't believe to be true -- and have been placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
However a police spokeswoman denied that any arrests were made.
"We are investigating what happened but I can confirm that there were no arrests," the spokeswoman for West Midlands Police told AFP.
The teenager spent a comfortable first night in the hospital, Rosser said, after she arrived in Birmingham in central England on a flight from Pakistain on Monday.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
Were they armed?
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
10/17/2012 6:43 Comments ||
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#2
Were they armed?
Apparently Studs had a heater, Eric. Beyond that, one cannot say. ;-)
A Bangladeshi terrorist tried to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan this morning using a 1,000-pound bomb, according to a criminal complaint.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, of Jamaica, Queens, parked a van filled with the fake explosives -- which were provided by an undercover FBI agent -- outside of the Liberty Street building, authorities said, then tried to set them off using a cell phone detonator.
This morning, after he and the agent loaded up the van with the fake explosives, which were placed in trash cans and covered with a tarp, before driving to the bank. He parked the van, then he went to the Millennium Hilton near the World Trade Center, where he called the cell phone in the van. It did not explode, and he was arrested by federal agents.
During a recorded meeting in Central Park with the agent, Nafis said his goal was Muslim global domination."I don't want something that's like small. I just want something big," he said. "Something very big. Very very very very big, that will shake the whole country, that will make America, not one step ahead, change of policy, and make one step ahead, for the Muslims ... that will make us one step closer to run the whole world."
Nafis, who is here on a student visa, came to the US to carry out a terror attack, authorities said, and claimed to have connections to al-Qaeda overseas. What do we have for him, Johnny?
Well, Bob, Quazi wins an all expense paid lifetime trip to... PMITA Federal Prison!
#2
This is from the Post. The Times story is a hoot. Never once is the forbidden "M" word mentioned and the last three paragraphs pretty much accuse the Feds of entrapment:
The plot is the latest to fit a model in which, in the process of flushing out people they believe present a risk of committing terrorist acts, federal law enforcement officials have played the role of terrorist enabler providing targets with encouragement, guidance, money and even, the subjects of sting operations are led to believe, the materials needed to carry out an attack. Though these operations have almost always held up in court, they have come under increasing criticism from those who believe that many of the targets, even some of those who openly espoused violence, would have been unable to execute such plots without substantial assistance from the government.
Both F.B.I. leaders and federal prosecutors have defended the approach as valuable in finding and stopping people predisposed to commit terrorism.
In another prominent case from 2009, several minor criminals, under the urging of an unusually persistent government informer who played a role in other setup operations, planted what they believed were homemade bombs in front of synagogues in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. All four men were convicted, but the judge who oversaw the trial gave them the minimum sentences of 25 years in prison even though she said they were prepared to do a terrible thing, extending her criticism to the law enforcement agents who helped push the plots forward: The government made them terrorists.
#3
It's sad that I actually have a twinge of sympathy for Nafis - hard to think of a better target, though I cannot actually condone somebody trying to blow it up.
WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Tuesday threw out the conviction of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama Bin Laden who served a prison term for material support for terrorism. In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said that material support for terrorism was not an international-law war crime at the time Hamdan engaged in the activity for which he was convicted.
Since when does a US appeals court rule on international law?
Hamdan was sentenced to 5 1/2 years, given credit for time served and is back home in Yemen, reportedly working as a taxi driver.
If the government wanted to charge Hamdan with aiding and abetting terrorism or some other war crime that was sufficiently rooted in the international law of war at the time of Hamdans conduct, it should have done so, wrote Judge Brett Kavanaugh. All three judges on the case were appointed by Republican presidents.
The war crime for which Hamdan was convicted was specified in the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
The government suggests that at the time of Hamdans conduct from 1996 to 2001, material support for terrorism violated the law of war referenced in US law, said Kavanaugh, but we conclude otherwise.
To date, the cases against seven prisoners under the military commission system in place at Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba have involved material support for terrorism. In five of the cases, those charged pleaded guilty. Hamdan went to trial, as did Ali Hamza Al-Bahlul, who helped Al-Qaeda produce propaganda and handled media relations for Bin Laden.
Bahlul was convicted in November 2008 of multiple counts of conspiracy, solicitation to commit murder and providing material support for terrorism, and is serving a life sentence at Guantanamo.
It is highly likely that the result of this decision in Hamdan will be to vacate the convictions of Bahlul, said Hofstra University constitutional law professor Eric M. Freedman. Even the conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder counts are very probably headed toward reversal.
Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said the department is reviewing the ruling.
In 2006, Hamdans lawyers successfully challenged the system of military commissions set up by President George W. Bush. That resulted in congressional enactment of the Military Commissions Act under which Hamdan was eventually tried. A six-member military jury in 2008 cleared Hamdan of conspiracy while finding him guilty of material support for terrorism.
The Center for Constitutional Rights, a private group
A hard left, progressive group with funding from all the 'proper' places, and which is waging law against the Constitution and our country in hopes of bringing it down, not that the MSM will ever tell you that...
which has been deeply involved in detainee issues, praised Tuesdays decision but said it does not go far enough. The center says detainees at Guantanamo Bay are civilians under the laws of war and must be charged under domestic laws or released, rather than being tried under a system of military commissions.
Just simple civilians. Heavily armed, simple civilians...
Raha Wala, a lawyer for Human Rights First,
Op cit...
said the case has repercussions for every other flawed military commissions case like it. Its a basic rule of law principle that a defendant cant be prosecuted for acts that were not criminal at the time they were committed.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Zachary Katznelson said the decision strikes the biggest blow yet against the legitimacy of the Guantanamo military commissions, which have for years now been trying people for a supposed war crime that in fact is not a war crime at all.
Hamdan met Bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1996 and began working on his farm before winning a promotion as his driver. Defense lawyers say he only kept the job for the $200-a-month salary. But prosecutors alleged he was a personal driver and bodyguard of the Al-Qaeda leader. They say he transported weapons for the Taleban and helped Bin Laden escape US retribution following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Hamdan was captured at a roadblock in Afghanistan in November 2001.
I wouldn't care if Hamdan was Binny's latrine digger. He couldn't be that close to Binny and not be part and parcel of the whole al-Qaeda operation.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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#1
How much of our tax dollars are being wasted on cases where there is nothing to fix? I mean, they guy is already working out of Jihadi Central. Do they want to pay him for his time served?
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2012 10:45 Comments ||
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[Dawn] Police on Sunday night set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! what they believed to be the prime suspect of the Oct 7 firing incident at a rally organised by the Pakistain People's Party in Sadoro Janwari village of Khairpur district.
Six people, including a journalist and four PPP workers, were killed and 19 others maimed in the attack on participants in the rally where Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah's daughter, MNA Nafisa Shah, was also to speak.
The suspect, Azizullah Janwari aka Kaffan, was set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! in a raid on a house in Mailaiwali Gali, Tibba Badar Shah, Bahawalpur.
Khairpur SSP Irfan Baloch told a presser in his office on Monday that he led the team that conducted raids in Mailaiwali Gali to arrest the culprit with a head money of Rs2.5 million.
A resident of Sadoro Janwari, the suspect had recently moved to Bahawalpur with his family, he added. The suspect had shaved off his face to conceal his identity, the SSP said, adding that he was wanted in several criminal cases. The police official also claimed that a Kalashnikov rifle and bullets were seized from the suspect.
Azizullah Janwari was produced before journalists at the presser.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/17/2012 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] An activist of the Sunni Tehrik ...formed in Karachi in 1992 under by Muhammad Saleem Qadri. It quickly fell to trading fisticuffs and liquidations with the MQM and the Sipah-e-Sahaba, with at least a half dozen of its major leaders rubbed out. Sunni Tehreek arose to become the primary opposition to the Deobandi Binori Mosque, headed by Nizamuddin Shamzai, who was eventually bumped off by person or persons unknown. ST's current leadership has heavily criticized the Deobandi Jihadi leaders, accusing them of being sponsored by Indian Intelligence agencies as well as involvement in terrorist activities... was rubbed out in New Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... on Monday, police said.
The killing caused fear and tension in the area and later an activist of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement ...English: United National Movement, generally known as MQM, is the 3rd largest political party and the largest secular political party in Pakistain with particular strength in Sindh. From 1992 to 1999, the MQM was the target of the Pak Army's Operation Cleanup leaving thousands of urdu speaking civilians dead... was shot at and maimed in the same locality in what police described as an incident apparently related to the ST man's killing.
They said that assailants riding a cycle of violence fired shots at Usman Qadri, 26, who was sitting with a friend outside an ST office in New Bloody Karachi's Sector 5-J within the remit of the Bilal Colony cop shoppe.
The victim suffered five bullet wounds and was struck down in his prime. The gunnies managed to escape.
Area DSP Mohammad Akhtar said that the victim was an ST activist. He used to sit at the party's office, which had been closed for the past two months. Therefore, he spent his time at a shop located between his house and the party's office, he added.
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[Dawn] Five workers of the outlawed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat were bumped off in two separate acts of violence in the city on Monday, police said.
Four of the ASWJ activists, including two brothers, were bumped off in Gulshan-e-Iqbal on Monday evening. Earlier in the day an activist of the party was rubbed out in Gulberg.
The police said the latest incident took place in Scout Colony, off Abul Hassan Ispahani Road, within the remit of the Mobina Town cop shoppe.
"The four men were sitting at a shop located outside Masjid Siddiq-e-Akbar, off Abul Hassan Ispahani Road, where they were targeted by assailants riding cycle of violences," said DIG-East Shahid Hayat.
"Two of the four victims were brothers," he said, adding that they were killed in a sectarian attack.
The critically maimed victims were rushed to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where they were pronounced dead on arrival.
The victims were identified as Umar Haq Nawaz, Abdul Shakoor, Asadullah Khan and Imran.
The funeral prayers for Umar Haq Nawaz and Abdul Shakoor were held on the main Abul Hassan Ispahani Road.Police said Umar worked at a shop selling caps and perfume outside the mosque.
His friend Abdul Shakoor was also present at the shop when his guests Asadullah and Imran, both brothers and residents of Manghopir, arrived there.
Police said the brothers hailed from Swat.
They said the cycle of violence-riding suspects, said to be four to five, arrived at the shop and sprayed the four men with bullets.
Following the incident tension gripped the entire locality and shops and markets of the area were shut down. Additional police and Rangers personnel were deployed in the area to avert a law and order situation.
Police collected around a dozen spent bullet casings of 9mm and 30-bore pistol from the scene of the crime.
Soon after the incident, a front man for the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat claimed that the four men were the party's workers. The front man condemned the killings and called for the immediate arrest of the suspects involved in the crime.
In an early morning incident, another ASWJ activist was bumped off in Gulberg, the police said. The police said the incident took place in Moosa Colony within the remit of the Gulberg cop shoppe, where Abdul Hanan, 27, was working in his air-conditioning and refrigerator repair shop when two suspects riding a cycle of violence came at the shop and opened fire on him.
Police said Hanan was repairing a fridge when suspects shot him in the head. The victim died before he could be taken to hospital.
Gulberg cop shoppe SHO Amjad Kayani ... four star general, current Chief of Army Staff of the Mighty Pak Army. Kayani is the former Director General of ISI... said the victim was a resident of Kausar Niazi Colony in North Nazimabad, father of a child and the owner of the shop.
ASWJ front man Maulana Saeed Akbar said the victim, an active worker of the party belonging to the North Nazimabad sector, was killed in a sectarian attack. The dear departed hailed from southern Punjab.
The ASWJ front man announced a 'day of mourning' for Tuesday and a 'day of protest' for Friday across Sindh in connection with the killing of their five workers on a single day. He said their workers were being killed because of government inaction.
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[Dawn] Indian police on Tuesday filed a chargesheet against an alleged key conspirator behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed 166 people, an official said.
Police officers filed the hefty document to a local court accusing Syed Zabiuddin Ansari, who was placed in durance vile Keep yer hands where we can see 'em, if yez please! in June, of being a key planner, Joint Commissioner of Police Himanshu Roy told AFP.
"It's been sent," he said, without giving details. He told the Press Trust of India news agency that the chargesheet, at more than 14,600 pages, includes names of 1,783 witnesses and 47 others wanted in connection with the attacks.
...Which still won't be enough for certain parties who believe that no evidence from a kaffir can be valid as a matter of principle.
Ansari, also known as Abu Hamza or Abu Jundal, is an Indian-born member of the Pak beturbanned goon group Lashkar-e-Taiba ...the Army of the Pure, an Ahl-e-Hadith terror organization founded by Hafiz Saeed. LeT masquerades behind the Jamaat-ud-Dawa facade within Pakistain and periodically blows things up and kills people in India. Despite the fact that it is banned, always an interesting concept in Pakistain, the organization remains an blatant tool and perhaps an arm of the ISI... . He was nabbed You have the right to remain silent... at Delhi international airport on June 21 when he arrived from the Middle East.
He was allegedly one of the handlers based in the Pak city Bloody Karachi ...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It may be the largest city in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous... , who issued instructions by telephone to the 10 gunnies during the November 2008 attacks.
The heavily armed gunnies stormed targets in Mumbai including luxury hotels, a Jewish centre, a hospital and a busy train station.
Ansari, 30, is accused of teaching Hindi to the gunnies, including Pak-born Mohammed Kasab, the lone survivor now awaiting the death penalty for his role.
Delhi police also filed a chargesheet last month accusing Ansari of involvement in terror activities across India to avenge "atrocities" against Mohammedans, the PTI reported.
That chargesheet said he had admitted his involvement in the Mumbai attacks during questioning.
India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba for training, equipping and financing the Mumbai gunnies with support from "elements" in the Pakistain military.
Pakistain has denied any official involvement. It charged seven alleged plotters behind the attacks in 2009 but has insisted more evidence is needed to convict them.
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[Dawn] Police on Tuesday cooled for a few years Book 'im, Mahmoud! Qari Saeed, chief of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain's (TTP) Orakzai chapter in Nowshera; front man of the banned outfit denied the police claim, DawnNews reported.
Qari Saeed was cooled for a few years Book 'im, Mahmoud! with an accomplice during a raid conducted by the police in the Banda Nabi village in Nowshera's Pabbi Tehsil.
Police sources said they suspected Qari Saeed was in town to collaborate a sabotage attempt on a gathering being organised to observe the second death anniversary of Mian Rashid Hussain, son of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa ... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central... Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain.
Rashid Hussain was bumped off in July 2010 in his ancestral town of Pabbi, Nowshera district.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Senate, Odius Sepulcher called for war against the Visigoths... speaking to this correspondent from Qazi's guesthouse an undisclosed location over the telephone, TTP front man Ehsanullah Ehsan denied the police claim of arresting Saeed. "Ameer Qari Saeed is safe in Orakzai," said Ehsan.
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[Dawn] The Indian army says Pak troops have fired across their disputed frontier in the Himalayan region of Kashmire, killing three civilians. That was, naturally, covering fire for infiltrators...
Indian military front man Col. Brijesh Pandey said Pak forces fired mortars into the Uri sector in Indian-administered Kashmire on Tuesday.
A shell hit a house close to the military line dividing Kashmire between the countries, killing a man and two teenagers, including a girl, Pandey said.
There was no independent confirmation of the incident.
Indian troops did not retaliate and have accused Pakistain of violating a 2003 cease-fire accord. Though the cease-fire has been holding, there have been isolated shooting incidents.
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#1
To take the pressure of the North Waziristan pleas from the West?
[Dawn] Gunmen rubbed out four people from the Shia community on Tuesday, in what appears to be a fresh sectarian attack in Pakistain's troubled southwestern province of Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , police said.
All those killed ran junk and scrap shops in the Kabarhi Market in Quetta, the quiet provincial capital where sectarian and separatist violence is common.
"It was a sectarian attack. Gunmen on cycle of violences opened fire on them and drove away," Asif Ghafoor, a senior police official, told AFP.
The province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is plagued by sectarian violence between the minority Shia and majority Sunni community, as well as by Taliban attacks and a separatist insurgency.
Riasat Ali, another police official confirmed the incident and told AFP that the victims were critically injured and died on their way to hospital.
The victims of the shooting were from the Hazara community, the APP said in its report.
Sectarian violence involving Sunni and Shias, who account for around 20 per cent of the population, has killed thousands of people since the late 1990s.
Despite having large reserves of oil and gas, Balochistan remains one of Pakistain's most impoverished provinces, and kabooms and attacks on police and security forces are common.
In 2004 Baloch rebels rose up, demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's mineral resources.
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[Ma'an] Paleostinian gunnies fired anti-aircraft missiles at an Israeli warplane flying over the Gazoo Strip last week, Israeli media reported Tuesday.
The missiles missed their target but the incident marked the first time anti-aircraft weaponry has been used in Gazoo, the Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth said.
Israeli warplanes have killed eight Paleostinians in a series of Arclight airstrikes on the Gazoo Strip in the last 10 days.
On Oct. 7, Israel bombed a busy neighborhood in Rafah in southern Gazoo, killing one thug who was riding a cycle of violence and wounding 10 others, including five children.
Militant factions affiliated to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, and Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... joined forces to fire a barrage of rockets at Israeli military sites leading to further Israeli shelling and the death of two more Paleostinians in an escalation that lasted several days.
Violence flared again over the weekend, when a series of Israeli bombs killed five Paleostinians in 24 hours and gunnies in Gazoo fired rockets across the border into southern Israel.
#6
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has developed some of the most advanced airborne defensive systems in the world. We've got the AN/ALQ Countermeasures Set of systems. I'm not overly concerned.
#7
Besoeker - I worked on (the computer cards for) some AN/ALQ systems 40 years ago, but don't think I ever knew what the letters stood for.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/17/2012 12:19 Comments ||
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#8
Northrop Grumman is the 'big dog' in the flares and MWS (missile warning measures) business. My facts are dated, but those individual flares used to cost about $125. each. Pretty costly when you see entire cans dumped in a photo demo.
[Ma'an] Paleostinian Authority security services have confiscated documents and weapons belonging to Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,' military wing in the West Bank, an official said Tuesday.
A security official told Ma'an that the preventive security force uncovered a stash of documents, computers, CDs and ammunition belonging to the Al-Qassam Brigades in an apartment in a residential block in west Nablus.
The official described the stash as the brigade's "complete archives" in the West Bank.
The discovery followed a lengthy investigation and surveillance, the official said on condition of anonymity. He declined to give further details as the investigation is ongoing.
Hamas said Monday that 10 of its supporters were set to sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, in a pestilential prison with a life-long lock Please don't kill me! in the West Bank over the past 24 hours. Three others were summoned for questioning, a Hamas statement said.
Fatah, which dominates the West Bank government, also released a statement saying Hamas' government in Gazoo had summoned its front man in the territory.
Hamas 'bunker'
In September, Paleostinian Authority security services said forces discovered an underground bunker used by Hamas members in the northern West Bank.
Officials said at the time that a long tunnel under Urif village, near Nablus, led to a room next to a small bunker containing communication equipment.
PA security forces rounded up scores of Hamas supporters the same month in a campaign that sparked criticism from Paleostinian human rights When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much... groups.
[An Nahar] Syrian regime warplanes unleashed relentless pre-dawn air raids Tuesday on rebel positions around Maaret al-Numan, a strategic northern town captured by gun-hung tough guys last week, a watchdog said.
The raids were the "most violent" since the rebels took full control of the town in the province of Idlib last Wednesday, Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
Maaret al-Numan is strategically located in the northwest on the highway linking Damascus ...Capital of the last overtly fascist regime in the world... to the embattled city of Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... Large swathes of Idlib and Aleppo as well as the countryside abutting the Turkish border have fallen into rebel hands in recent months, setting regime forces on the back foot in the country's north.
The warplanes dropped bombs in a bid to break a rebel blockade of the highway, which is preventing army reinforcements from reaching Aleppo, theater of intense fighting between rebels and the army for the past three months.
"The bombing is targeting the villages of Hish, Maarshamsha, Maarshamrin, Talmans and Deir al-Gharbi in the vicinity of Maaret al-Numan," the Observatory said, adding that rebels were responding with anti-aircraft guns.
The loyalist army is trying to regroup its forces but is failing to get its reinforcements through, said Abdel Rahman.
While it tries to subdue the insurgency in the north, the army is also engaged in an attempt to put down rebels in the Eastern Ghuta area of countryside on the outskirts of the capital.
On Tuesday, the army pounded the eastern Damascus district of Jobar, home to strong anti-regime sentiment, the Observatory said.
The army meanwhile clashed with rebels in the town of Ain Tarma, also east of Damascus, and pounded the nearby town of Douma, the watchdog added.
The festivities and bombings come after another day of violence across Syria which left at least 151 people dead -- 78 civilians, 46 soldiers and 27 rebels, according to the Observatory.
The Observatory also said Tuesday it had managed to verify that most of the 28 corpses found near Damascus on Sunday were members of the regime's forces, while the rest were rebels.
"The 28 were killed in fighting around the capital in recent weeks," said Abdel Rahman.
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[An Nahar] British police on Tuesday charged a man with kidnapping two Western journalists in Syria, one week after he was tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! at London's Heathrow Airport, Scotland Yard said.
Shajul Islam, 26, is alleged to have "unlawfully and injuriously imprisoned" photographers John Cantlie from Britannia, and Jeroen Oerlemans from the Netherlands, between July 17 and 26, it said in a statement.
Islam, who is a Brit, acted "together with others," it said.
He will appear in court on Wednesday.
A 26-year-old woman who was tossed in the calaboose Don't shoot, coppers! I'm comin' out! at the same time has been released without charge. She has not been named.
The man and the woman were tossed in the calaboose Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! by officers from the counter-terrorism command on October 9 after arriving on a flight from Egypt. Officers also searched two homes in east London.
Cantlie and Oerlemans were kidnapped by suspected Islamist cut-throats while covering the fighting between Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad's Leveler of Latakia... regime and rebel fighters.
They both suffered gunshot wounds when the Free Syrian Army, the main rebel movement, freed them from their captors.
The journalists said that between 10 and 15 of the kidnappers were British while others were from Pakistain and Bangladesh. Cantlie said one of them told him he was a doctor in Britannia.
Shortly after his release, Cantlie described how he and his colleague were regularly threatened with death.
"It was inferred that we would meet our god," he told the BBC. "We had sowed the seeds of our own destruction. We would be shot or beheaded.
"At one point they even started sharpening knives for a beheading. It was pretty frightening.
"When you're held captive, you're blindfolded and you have a guy sticking a gun at your head, it's very real," he added.
The photographer entered Syria from Turkey, the same route he had used previously, but was tossed in the calaboose Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages! after passing through a jihad boy camp.
"Their attitude was they were united under the Islamic flag, the wish to follow Sharia law, that they had come to Syria to fight the Assad regime, that Assad himself wasn't a true Moslem, but after that it was about imposing Sharia law on the Syrian people," he said at the time.
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#1
The man and the woman were tossed in the calaboose...
Isn't it against Islamic law to be imprisoned with a member of the opposite sex without their relatives? Should be locking up families.
[An Nahar] The Syrian government is interested in exploring a ceasefire in the 19-month conflict as proposed by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, foreign ministry front man Jihad Maqdisi said on Tuesday, as the opposition Syrian National Council said it "would welcome any halt to the killings."
Maqdisi stressed that for a halt to the violence, the rebels and their backers would need to be involved too.
"In order to succeed in any initiative, it takes two sides," Maqdisi said in answer to a question from Agence La Belle France Presse.
"The Syrian side is interested in exploring this option and we are looking forward to talking to Mr. Brahimi to see what is the position of other influential countries that he talked to in his tour," he said.
"Will they pressure the gangs that they host and finance and arm in order to abide by such a ceasefire?"
Brahimi, joint envoy of the Arab League ...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing... and the United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... , was in Cairo on Tuesday on the latest leg of a regional tour that has already taken him to Turkey and Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in their national face... , staunch backers of the opposition, and Iran, Syria's closest ally.
He has proposed a truce for the four-day Eid al-Adha Mohammedan holiday at the end of the month to pave the way for a political process.
Brahimi's office said that the envoy had appealed for Iranian help to broker the truce.
"He reiterated the call by U.N. Secretary General the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon ... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan... for a ceasefire and a halt to the flow of arms to both sides. A ceasefire, he said, would help create an environment that would allow a political process to develop," his office said.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... Syria's exiled opposition said it would welcome a ceasefire later this month but responsibility lies primarily with the government, SNC chief Abdel Basset Sayda told AFP on Tuesday.
"We would welcome any halt to the killings but we think the appeal needs to be addressed first to the Syrian regime, which has not stopped bombarding Syrian towns and villages," the opposition leader said.
Rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army "are only acting in self-defense so it is normal that they would halt hostilities when the war machine does so," he added.
Meanwhile, ...back at the shattered spaceship, Fffflirgoll the Arcturan slithered stealthily toward the control room, where the humans had barricaded themselves... regime forces unleashed multiple air strikes on rebel positions on a key highway.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the pre-dawn air raids around Maaret al-Numan were the "most violent" since bully boyz captured the strategic town on the Damascus ...Capital of the last remaining Baathist regime in the world... -Aleppo ...For centuries, Aleppo was Greater Syria's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third, after Constantinople and Cairo. Although relatively close to Damascus in distance, Aleppans regard Damascenes as country cousins... road last week.
Syrian warplanes targeted the rebel blockade of the highway to Aleppo, theater of intense fighting for the past three months, the Observatory said, adding that rebels responded with anti-aircraft fire.
"Since this morning, there have been 29 air strikes on the area of Maaret al-Numan," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman. "Most civilians from the area have fled."
Army shelling of nearby Kafr Nabal killed two children, aged six and 10, said the Observatory, adding they were among at least 78 people who died in bloodshed around the country.
Another five children under the age of six died along with two adults in shelling of homes at Mayadeen village in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, added the Britannia-based group.
The Observatory -- which relies on a network of activists, medics and lawyers for its information -- says children account for 2,300 of the 33,000 people killed in the conflict.
The escalation in Idlib province, which borders Turkey, came as a senior U.S. official visited Ankara for talks on the conflict in Syria amid heightened tensions between the two neighbours.
"We continue to consult with our partners in the region including Turkey on a variety of issues related to Syria," U.S. embassy front man in Ankara T.J. Grubisha told AFP.
Tensions between Syria and Turkey have soared as Ankara and Damascus banned flights from each other's airspace after Ankara confiscated a cargo of radar equipment from a Syrian flight from Moscow last week.
On October 3, five Turkish non-combatants were killed by cross-border fire against the rebels that Syria charges are receiving arms from Gulf Arab states through Turkey.
The United States has called on all Syria's neighbors to monitor their airspace carefully.
"We are encouraging all of Syria's neighbors to be vigilant with regard to how their airspace is used, particularly now that we have this concrete example," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
A day after the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... imposed a 19th round of sanctions on Damascus, Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... said it has blocked 100 million francs (almost $108 million, 83 million euros) in assets linked to the Syrian regime.
And the U.N. food agency said prices for basic provisions have nearly doubled in Syria since the conflict erupted, and that it has failed to deliver supplies to 100,000 people because of the spiraling fighting.
Syrian state news agency SANA, meanwhile, announced by-elections on December 1 to fill five seats in parliament, two of which became vacant when sitting MPs defected to the opposition.
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[Beirut Daily Star] European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... governments imposed sanctions Tuesday against major Iranian state companies in the oil and gas industry and strengthened restrictions on the central bank, cranking up financial pressure over Tehran's nuclear program.
Iran's supreme leader said his country would not give in to "bullying," as China opposed the move and Israel welcomed it.
More than 30 firms and institutions were listed in the EU's Official Journal as targets for asset freezes in the EU, including the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), a large crude exporter, and the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC).
Both are vital to the Iranian oil industry, the main source of revenue.
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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.
(Sh.M.Network)--Fierce 
Unidentified 
WASHINGTON: A US appeals court on Tuesday threw out the conviction of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama Bin Laden who served a prison term for material support for terrorism. In a 3-0 ruling, the appeals court said that material support for terrorism was not an international-law war crime at the time Hamdan engaged in the activity for which he was convicted.
An activist of the 
Five workers of the outlawed Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat were 
cycle of violence
Syrian regime warplanes unleashed relentless pre-dawn air raids Tuesday on rebel positions around Maaret al-Numan, a strategic northern town captured by 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
The Syrian government is interested in exploring a ceasefire in the 19-month conflict as proposed by international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, foreign ministry 
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon
[Beirut Daily Star] 
