On this day in history: June 7th.
1863 During the French intervention in Mexico, Mexico City is captured by French troops.
1892 Benjamin Harrison becomes the first President of the United States to attend a baseball game.
1906 Cunard Line's RMS Lusitania is launched at the John Brown Shipyard, Glasgow (Clydebank), Scotland.
1909 Mary Pickford made her screen debut at the age of 16.
1917 Battle of Messines Allied ammonal mines underneath German trenches in Mesen Ridge are detonated, killing 10,000 German troops.
1938 The Douglas DC-4E makes its first test flight.
1942 The Battle of Midway ends.
1942 Japanese soldiers occupy the American islands of Attu and Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska.
1944 Battle of Normandy At Abbey Ardennes members of the SS Division Hitlerjugend massacre 23 Canadian prisoners of war.
1965 The Supreme Court of the United States decides on Griswold v. Connecticut, effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples.
1967 The Israeli forces enter Jerusalem during the Six-Day War.
1971 The United States Supreme Court overturns the conviction of Paul Cohen for disturbing the peace, setting the precedent that vulgar writing is protected under the First Amendment.
1975 Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.
1981 The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera.
1981 The Israeli Air Force destroys Iraq's Osiraq nuclear reactor during Operation Opera.
1991 Mount Pinatubo explodes generating an ash column 4.5 miles high.
1995 The long range Boeing 777 enters service with United Airlines.
Being British was a capital crime in the eyes of Edwin Dyers Al-Qaeda killer
A harrowing account of the final hours of the kidnapped British tourist Edwin Dyer before he was murdered by Islamic militants in the Sahara desert last week has been given by an Arab intermediary who was negotiating for his release. According to the negotiator, the fate of Dyer, 60, an opera-loving sales manager who came from Reading, Berkshire, but lived in Austria, was sealed two days before the killing when his captors separated him at gunpoint from Werner Greiner, 57, a Swiss lawyer they were also holding hostage.
The mens ordeal had begun in January when they were captured with other tourists from Germany and Switzerland after setting out for a nomadic cultural festival near the lawless border between Niger and Mali. They are believed to have been sold on to a hardline Islamist group in Mali under Abel Hamid Abu Zeid, 43, an Algerian militant listed by western governments and the United Nations as an Al-Qaeda member.
Informed sources say that after weeks of intensive negotiation, Germany and Switzerland paid a substantial ransom, although they deny it. This apparently led to the release in April of the other tourists, Marianne Pezold, 76, a retired teacher from Germany, and Greiners wife Gabriella, 54, a Swiss politician. Having freed the women, the kidnappers decided to hold on to the two men to extract more concessions from western governments. They were aware that accounts by the freed hostages when they came home of how they had to sleep rough in miserable conditions, surviving on a diet of bread and brackish water with no medical supplies and under the constant threat of death, would increase pressure on government officials.
Finally the kidnappers grew tired of waiting, decided to make an example of Dyer, who was unmarried, and killed him. They separated Dyer in front of us. I could tell it was a bad sign, the intermediary said. Negotiations were deadlocked. Britain was categorical that it would not give in to their demand to release Abu Qatada, the radical cleric who is imprisoned in Britain, in return for Dyer and, above all, it rejected paying ransom money for him.
The negotiator said that Zeid, the leader of the Islamist group, was particularly hostile towards Britain. Who are these British? he asked. Just western unbelievers. Islam tells us not to have any links with unbelievers. That is why this man [Dyer] will be executed in the name of God. Also invoking the name of Allah, the intermediary told Zeid not to kill Dyer. Zeid ignored him, abruptly turning his back and walking away into the sand.
The intermediary, who cannot be named but is a dignitary from northern Mali with substantial influence among local tribes, used a satellite phone to alert the Malian authorities in Bamako, the capital, to Dyers imminent execution. The next day he was summoned back by Zeid, giving him hope that the militant leader had changed his mind. Instead, Zeid became even angrier, warning that henceforth any westerner caught venturing into the Sahara would die. They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies, he said.
Dyer was then reunited briefly with Greiner. Dyer was wearing a turban. He was very afraid and was sobbing. The Swiss man lowered his head, he said. Dyer knew what awaited him. He said something I did not understand and wept. His hands were bound. Zeid told me to leave. As I turned away I heard two gunshots. I do not know whether these shots killed Dyer and they beheaded his corpse afterwards.
Other sources said Dyer had been beheaded in what Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, called an appalling and bar-baric act of terrorism. In a statement announcing Dyers death, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (a region of north Africa) quoted a verse from the Koran: When ye meet the unbelievers, smite at their necks.
Zeid had indoctrinated the young members of his faction, which called itself the Sahara Mujaheddin, with videos showing the beheading of hostages in Iraq and Afghanistan and hate-filled preaching by radical clerics. Paradoxically, given the extreme conditions in which his group lives in the desert, they watched the videos on lap-tops and listened to preaching on MP3 players, showing a sophistication they had probably acquired in militant Islamic schools. Otherwise they were dirt poor, claiming to own nothing but their AK-47 rifles and the clothes on their backs.
One of the most graphic accounts of what it was like to be a prisoner of Zeids militants came last week from an Austrian couple, Wolfgang Ebner and Andrea Kloiber, who were held captive between February and October 2008. There was constant awareness that we would be killed at any instant, said Ebner, an accountant. They repeated to us, We will kill you if your governments do not pay, and we knew they meant it.
When the negotiations for their release reached a stalemate, the kidnappers received permission from an Islamic cleric to kill Kloiber as, according to sharia (Islamic law), women, children and old people must not be harmed during a jihad, or holy war. We knew then they would not hesitate for a second to execute us. We had to live in a constant fear of death as we were being transferred from one place to another every few days. Ebner said he had been abused only once as a punishment for losing his temper. They made me sit in the sun at noon for two hours at a temperature of over 55C. I almost died then, but I learnt my lesson and did not resist after that.
Posted by: ryuge ||
06/07/2009 06:38 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
#1
The men's ordeal had begun in January when they were captured with other tourists from Germany and Switzerland after setting out for a nomadic cultural festival near the lawless border between Niger and Mali.
It's not idiotic to take risks in life and not only restrict your movements according to where you fear terrorists. Reckless, maybe, but not by any means necessarily idiotic. The only idiots in this story are the Islamist retards themselves and the Governments who are prepared to fund and encourage their peurile antics by cowing to their demands and paying ransoms.
#3
And the worst thing you can do if taken hostage is to do the expected. Instead, you have to focus on creating a psychology in them that you are either worth more alive, or that it might be dangerous for them to kill you.
By this latter I mean that such primitives are deeply superstitious, and very susceptible to carefully crafted "magic", that is not imminently threatening, but could be if they weren't careful.
Optimally, you can pull a variant of the "Scheherazade" trick, weaving some b.s. tale that they have to know the ending of, or they are going to get eaten by "it".
It helps if you give them "secret knowledge" from their own belief system.
Of course, if you get the chance to stick their own knife in them at any point, take it.
#5
Interesting is it not Parabellum, with a few exception, how often it is folks educated in the....soft disciplines who find themselves in these encampments?
That's debatable. These people took a risk that was beyond foolish. For what? Adventure? The trip they took had a very high probability of being a disaster, in my book that equates to idiotic.
I applaud whomever decided not to give in to their kidnappers demands. I feel little sympathy for Mr. Dyer, his family and loved ones on the other hand I feel quite bad for. I have no doubt that Mr. Dyer and his companions exhibit the same mentality as what we call "Liberals" here, the Kumbaya sort.
I hope the survivors go home with a lesson, and spread that lesson. Unfortunately like most Liberals they are probably unteachable.
As for Islam, it is way past time to make a few examples of our own. They want jihad, then we should give it to them. Unrestrained, unrestricted and violent in the extreme. It is the only way.
The Koran says, leaders of Islam have said, that there can be no accommodation between Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb. We should take them at their word and lay waste to them. I see no upside in deluding ourselves by saying we're better than that, and we have to be above that. BS! That is suicidal.
I say slaughter them until they beg for mercy, then slaughter them some more. When their population numbers become manageable, quarantine them in their crap holes, bulldoze their Mosque's, force their children into non-religious structured schools and control their existence. For as many generations as it takes to extinguish Islam.
#9
"any westerner caught venturing into the Sahara would die. "They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies," he said."
Poison the wells. Salt the land. Napalm. Over any village associated with that guy. He wants misery and loss of life, I say we give it to him. Tell the locals:
Blame the Islamists - we left you alone until they started murdering. WHen you fore them to stop, then we will stop. Until then, your lands will not be allowed to bear food and you will be without drinkable water, and we will hunt and destroy any human settlements in the region that associate with him and his murdering band.
#15
Actually it is.
Australian Aborigines do not kill tourists (although feeding them big maggots... uh well)
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/07/2009 20:12 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Strange, that didn't get mentioned in the Cairo speech
No need to mention it. It's just assumed.
Posted by: ed ||
06/07/2009 20:13 Comments ||
Top||
#17
I feel little sympathy for Mr. Dyer, his family and loved ones on the other hand I feel quite bad for. I have no doubt that Mr. Dyer and his companions exhibit the same mentality as what we call "Liberals" here, the Kumbaya sort.
Ditto here. My sympathy is reserved for the folks in Special Ops who may now be called upon to risk their lives in order to get some payback.
(CNN) -- Somali pirates freed a Nigerian tugboat they seized 10 months ago, and the Dutch navy frigate De Zeven Provincien was escorting it to a safe harbor, the Dutch Defense Ministry said Saturday.
The tug, Yenegoa Ocean, and its Nigerian crew were released Friday. The Dutch were providing medical and logistical aid, according to a ministry statement. No injuries were reported.
Pirates hijacked the Yenegoa Ocean, which sails under a Panamanian flag, on August 4, 2008, in the Gulf of Aden. The tug was returning from Singapore where it had undergone maintenance and repairs.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] The United Nations said Friday that 96,000 Somalis had fled fighting in Mogadishu in the last month, while in central Somalia rival Islamist groups fought for a town in battles that killed dozens. Rebels from the militant Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam groups first wrested control of Wabho town from pro-government moderate Islamists Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca in a day of mortar and machine-gun exchanges that sent residents fleeing, witnesses said. "We have pounded mortars on the infidels and entered the town from all sides. Wabho is now under our control," Hizbul Islam spokesman Sheikh Muse Arale told Reuters.
Fighters spoke of dozens of dead, but it was impossible to verify exact numbers. Central towns have been changing hands regularly between militants and moderates in on-off fighting throughout the year.
Late in the day, Ahla Sunna claimed it had re-taken Wabho, and wounded hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys.
Late in the day, Ahla Sunna claimed it had re-taken Wabho, and wounded hardline Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. Leaders on both sides spoke to Reuters by satellite phone, but other lines to the town were cut, so there was no independent verification.
The exodus from Mogadishu since a flare-up in rebel-government fighting in early May has added to the more than 1 million internal refugees in Somalia. Aid agencies say Somalia now has one of the world's worst, and most neglected, humanitarian crises.
Neglected by whom? The Somalis?
Three million Somalis need urgent food aid.
A two-year insurgency, the latest manifestation of 19 years of conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, has killed around 18,000 civilians, and unknown numbers of fighters. It has also drawn foreign jihadists into Somalia, enabled piracy to flourish offshore, and unsettled the whole region, with East African neighbors on high security alert.
In an update on the flows from Mogadishu, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said about 35,000 of those displaced since the latest flare-up began on May 8 were still in the city, seeking shelter, because they had no means to escape. Another 26,000 had reached makeshift camps in the Afgoye area, about 30 kilometers southeast of Mogadishu. "According to UNHCR's local partners in Somalia, 2,000 people have indicated they plan to cross the border into Kenya. Over a thousand said they are ready to risk their lives and make the perilous journey with smugglers across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen," the agency said. "Some 600 people told our local partners they were heading toward Ethiopia."
This article starring:
SHEIKH HASAN DAHIR AWEYS
Al-Shabaab
SHEIKH MUSE ARALE
Hizbul Islam
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Shabaab
#1
The United Nations said Friday that 96,000 Somalis had fled fighting in Mogadishu
[Bangla Daily Star] Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Touhidul Alam yesterday confessed before magistrate of a Dhaka court to have led the planning of the BDR mutiny and all operations during the carnage.
Terming the confession a big step forward, sources in the CID said Touhid, prime accused in the BDR carnage case, admitted that he had taken the leadership as rebel Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawans gave him the responsibility.
Sources in the CID, which is investigating the case, said in the three-hour-long confession Touhid said he had led a team of 14 BDR mutineers to the talks with the prime minister at her residence Jamuna on February 25 to get general amnesty. He said he knew that the army officers were already killed but he did not reveal the information during the talks with prime minister and other government representatives.
Detained Sepoy Habib also made a statement yesterday admitting that he and Sepoy Muhit shot and killed director general of BDR Maj Gen Shakil Ahmed and other senior officers at Darbar Hall in Pilkhana soon after the revolt sparked.
Metropolitan Magistrate AKM Emdadul Haque recorded the statements of Touhid and Habib. Arrested on March 3, Touhid was placed on remand four times.
Touhid also mentioned names of several BDR men who abetted him in the February 25-26 carnage that left 74 people including 57 army officers dead.
DAD Touhid tops the list of 24 people named as planners and implementers of the carnage in the summary of the probe report of the national committee, formed to investigate the bloodbath at the Pilkhana BDR headquarters.
CID sources said Touhid's confession is regarded as a big step forward in the investigation and trial process of the BDR carnage case.
Lalbagh police filed the case on March 1 against over 1,000 BDR men.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
...Boy, is this guy in deep s@it.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/07/2009 9:39 Comments ||
Top||
#2
During the course of repeated sprocketboarding sessions........Touhid also mentioned names of several BDR men who abetted him in the February 25-26 carnage that left 74 people including 57 army officers dead.
Villagers in northwest Pakistan have attacked Taliban militants killing seven of them in revenge for a bomb attack on a mosque that killed at least 40 people, a top government official and residents said on Sunday.
It was the latest in a series of instances of people turning their guns on the Taliban in recent weeks and trying to force them out of their areas and will encourage the Pakistani government which needs public support to defeat the militants.
After the blast, enraged villagers formed a militia, known as a lashkar, of about 500 men to expel the militants from the area, said the top government official in the region.
Rehman said the village militia had cleared the Taliban out of three villages and had surrounded a group of militants.
Posted by: ed ||
06/07/2009 10:09 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The public is fighting back against the Taliban terrorist thugs. This is excellent news!
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
06/07/2009 12:01 Comments ||
Top||
#2
This is the latest of several news items about western Paks rising up against Taliban and foreign forces(Al Qaeda). They must believe that the government will stand behind them. This is very good news, indeed!
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
06/07/2009 12:17 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Good news that they're fighting the orcs. Not so good that they expect the gubmint to do the right thing...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/07/2009 13:34 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The only caveat being that sometimes the villagers are fighting back purely for local reasons: for example, the Talibs were taking too much interest in the local wimmin.
I'm still pleased that the villagers are fighting back.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/07/2009 14:20 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Makes margin notes that villagers in the region get to keep and bear arms sure to be overlooked by the usual suspects.
[Geo News] Two policemen were killed and four others injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of Rescue-15 building here on Saturday. According to Geo news correspondent Asim Rana, policemen stationed at the main gate of Rescue-15 offered resistance and shot dead the accomplice of the suicide bomber. Terrorists also tried to attack the building a few days ago but security forces foiled the bid, Geo news reported.
President condemns attack on Rescue 15
President Asif Ali Zardari has condemned the suicide bomb blast in Rescue 15 building in Islamabad Saturday evening and said that such acts of barbarism could not deter the government from chasing the militants to their complete elimination. "The militants who are on the run have become desperate but they will not escape their ignoble end," the President said in a statement.
If anything, barbaric acts like the Saturday evening attack on Rescue 15 building in Islamabad only strengthens the resolve of the people and the law enforcing agencies to wipe out extremism and militancy from Pakistan, he said.
Such acts of barbarism and senseless killing of innocent people should serve as a wake up call to the apologists of militants and extremists, the President said.
The President paid tributes to the courage of the policemen. "The heroic act to challenge the bomber in the face of clear danger prevented large scale damage and destruction", the President said. "These policemen and members of the law enforcing agencies are our heroes." The nation owes a debt of gratitude to them, he added.
The President also condoled with the members of the bereaved families and directed the authorities to look after them and the injured.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Militants attacked a Pakistani Army convoy on Saturday, killing two high-level prisoners and a soldier, the military said, a strike that highlighted the reach that the Taliban still has a month after an offensive began against them.
The prisoners were connected to the militant leadership in the Swat Valley, where the campaign is taking place. They were deputies of Sufi Muhammad, a religious leader with ties to the Taliban whose son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah commands the Taliban in the area.
Mr. Muhammad leads a banned group called Tehrik-i-Nafaz-i-Shariah-Muhammadi, or TNSM, whose stated goal is the implementation of Islamic law and which is closely linked to the Taliban. His deputies who were killed were identified by the military and locals as Muhammad Alam and TNSMs spokesman, Amir Izat Khan.
A spokesman for Pakistans military, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said by telephone that the attack happened at 5 a.m. near an area called Sakha Kot just north of Peshawar, the regional capital. A convoy of about six military vehicles hit a bomb in the road. Soon after, militants started shooting at the convoy, and soldiers returned fire. General Abbas said all the casualties were caused by the bomb blast. It was not clear whether the attack was an attempted effort to rescue the two prisoners.
This incident was the result of an I.E.D. attack, General Abbas said, which is a very usual affair in these areas.
The military has been clearing the valleys north of Islamabad since early last month, and appears to have made progress. Still, the attack on Saturday underscored the difficulty of their task.
Refugees from Swat, who lived for the past two years under Taliban brutality, said the militarys capture of Mr. Khan and Mr. Alam, which took place several days ago, was an encouraging sign. But they said they would feel safe enough to return home only if the top leadership of the Taliban Mr. Fazlullah and his spokesman, Muslim Khan is killed.
Somebody gets it!
Mr. Muhammads deputies were not among the Talibans senior leaders.
Not anymore ...
At a news conference on Saturday, the military said that Mr. Fazlullah had been singled out three times, but that he escaped each time. Mr. Muhammad is still at large. I want to assure you that we have targeted the top leadership, General Abbas said at the news conference.
General Abbas also said that the military was not yet moving into South Waziristan, the area in Pakistan of the most intense Taliban and Qaeda concentration that is expected to be the focus of the militarys next effort against the militants.
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: TNSM
Muhammad Alam, the deputy leader of the TNSM, and spokesman Ameer Izzat Khan were killed along with a Pakistani soldier; five soldiers were reported wounded. No Taliban were reported killed in the ambush.
The Taliban appear to have laid the ambush in an effort to free Alam and Izzat, as well as Maulana Said Wahab, a member of the group's ruling shura, or council, a Pakistani security official told The Long War Journal. There is no word on the status of Wahab. The three senior leaders were detained in Lower Dir on June 4. The government flatly denied reports that TNSM leader Sufi Mohammed and two of his sons were also detained.
Posted by: ed ||
06/07/2009 9:58 Comments ||
Top||
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Islamist Hamas movement on Saturday protested the killing of its members by the Fatah movement in the West Bank as its own Gaza-based security forces launched an overnight campaign of arrests against Fatah.
Around 2,200 women Hamas supporters protested against the West Bank-based Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas after a violent shootout Thursday night in town of Qalqilya between his police and Hamas left two Hamas members and a Palestinian policeman dead.
"No to Abbas, No to Fayyad," the women in Gaza City chanted, referring to Western-backed Prime Minister Salam Fayyad who has launched a security crackdown in the Israeli-occupied West Bank over the past several months.
The women waved green Hamas flags and held signs reading "Abbas's security forces are the bodyguards of the Zionists" and "No dialogue with arrests in the West Bank." Earlier this week six people were killed in a similar shootout.
An investigation by the Al-Haq human rights organisation published on Thursday said Hamas militants opened fire first on both occasions.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Hamas
#2
12 or 13 Paleostinian states, eventually. Certainly one for Dogmushes.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 9:37 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Mrs. Tirebiter: "Well, I'll just let you boys fight it out between yourselves..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/07/2009 12:01 Comments ||
Top||
#4
This is what happens when you don't use napalm and high explosives in huge quantities in a war - the other side doesn't believe you're serious. Our "president" is making the same mistakes, so we don't have a lot of room to talk...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/07/2009 13:21 Comments ||
Top||
Two people were killed and 19 wounded in an attack by terrorists suspected insurgents in Thailand's restive south on Sunday, police said.
One local defence volunteer died after gunmen armed with assault rifles opened fire from a passing pickup truck at a residential area in Yi-ngo district of Narathiwat, one of three mainly Muslim provinces near the Malaysian border. Five minutes after the shooting, a powerful bomb planted in a nearby vehicle exploded, killing a villager and wounding 19 others. Police said the bomb, which destroyed the vehicle and damaged nearby buildings, was triggered by a mobile phone as the assailants fled.
The attack was the latest in a recent upsurge of violence in the deep south, where more than 3,000 people have been killed in a jihad separatist rebellion which resurfaced in 2004 after more than a decade of relative calm. A teacher was shot dead on Saturday and five people were killed, among them two army rangers, in four separate attacks on Friday in Pattani province.
Two unidentified gunmen opened fire at a villager in the southern border province of Yala on Sunday morning. Police said Ekkayut Sae-dan, a 35-year-old resident of Kayu Borkoh sub-district of Yalas Raman district, was severely injured from gunshot wounds. Mr Ekkayut was rushed to Raman Hospital after he was attacked while riding a motorcycle back home.
[Straits Times] AN ISLAMIC militant was killed and another captured in the restive southern Philippines, the military said on Saturday. Marine troops attacked a jungle hideout of the Abu Sayyaf militant group near Tipo-Tipo town on Basilan island on Friday, killing a suspect and capturing another, said Captain Neil Estrella, spokesman for a counter-terrorist task force based in this city.
The raid led to the capture of Kamsa Limaya, accused by police of being behind the abduction of two female hostages last year. The two victims were freed unharmed after two months of captivity. One of the fleeing gunmen was shot dead in a firefight with the troops, Mr Estrella told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under: Abu Sayyaf
#1
Dead Abu's in Tipo Tipo are good.....
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
06/07/2009 9:41 Comments ||
Top||
[Straits Times] THE Philippines' military said on Saturday its troops had killed 30 Muslim separatist guerrillas in three days of fighting on the southern island of Mindanao. Ground troops supported by artillery barrages and rocket-firing ground-attack aircraft seized the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf) camp near the town of Guindulungan early on Saturday, said Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Ponce, spokesman for an army division whose units took part in the fight.
He estimated that, in addition to the 30 dead, 20 wounded rebels escaped with the camp's defenders after they were routed by the assault that began on Thursday. Earlier, the government reported that 13 rebels were killed.
Five soldiers were wounded in the successful operation, Mr Ponce added. 'We used artillery and we used close air support, explaining the large casualty count,' he said.
Soldiers retrieved some of the bodies from shallow graves dug by the rebels for their dead comrades, he said, explaining that Muslim custom required that the dead had to be buried before sundown.
The 12,000-member Milf, however, denied suffering any casualties, and accused the military of setting fire to the homes of Muslim families in Guindulungan. 'The soldiers torched the houses after they failed to find any rebels in the area,' Milf spokesman Eid Kabalu told reporters in a conference call. 'Muslims are fleeing their homes because they are scared of the soldiers who are notorious for their human rights records,' Mr Kabalu claimed.
Mr Ponce said soldiers found bunkers, an administration building, foxholes and reinforced trenches around the captured training camp, along with 'improvised explosive devices,' munitions and Milf uniforms.
He said the group was behind the sacking of a string of Christian communities in Mindanao last year that touched off a major humanitarian crisis by displacing at least half a million people from their homes. The pillage followed a Supreme Court ruling that outlawed a draft peace agreement between the Milf and President Gloria Arroyo's government. The deal offered Muslim rule over large areas of the south of mainly Roman Catholic Philippines.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under: Moro Islamic Liberation Front
#1
I don't think that headline is getting the appreciation it deserves...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/07/2009 12:02 Comments ||
Top||
[Iran Press TV Latest] Two members of the Jundullah terrorist group who were involved in terrorism in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan have been executed. "Abdolhamid Rigi, brother of the notorious terrorist leader Abdolmalek Rigi, was hanged in provincial capital city Zahedan Saturday morning," ISNA quoted a source in the Justice Administration of Sistan-Baluchestan.
Pakistani authorities handed over Abdolhamid Rigi and three other members of the Jundullah group to Iran last year.
"Abdolhamid Rigi has been sentenced to death on charges of moharebe [enmity of God], through membership at his brother's terrorist cell. He was executed after his verdict had been approved by Iran's Supreme Court," the source added. "Warring against the Islamic Republic of Iran, storage of ammunition and weapons and smuggling of drugs are among other charges."
Pakistani authorities handed over Abdolhamid Rigi and three other members of the Jundullah group to Iran last year. Reza Qalandarzehi was also executed on Saturday on the same charges.
The Pakistan-based Jundullah terror group claimed responsibility for a major terrorist attack in a mosque in Zahedan near Iran's southeastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan. The bomb blast killed 25 people and wounded 125 others last week.
This article starring:
Abdolhamid Rigi
Jundullah
Abdolmalek Rigi
Jundullah
Reza Qalandarzehi
Jundullah
Posted by: Fred ||
06/07/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under: Jundullah
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.
[Bangla Daily Star] Deputy Assistant Director (DAD) Touhidul Alam yesterday confessed before magistrate of a Dhaka court to have led the planning of the BDR mutiny and all operations during the carnage.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Islamist Hamas movement on Saturday protested the killing of its members by the Fatah movement in the West Bank as its own Gaza-based security forces launched an overnight campaign of arrests against Fatah.
