(SomaliNet) Crazed Islamist terrorists insurgents battling the Somali government and Ethiopian forces are increasingly taking the fight outside of the capital Mogadishu, an African Union report said Friday, AFP reports. "Over the past weeks, the anti-government forces have spread their activities to regions that were previously peaceful, though not necessarily under government control," said the report by AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare.
Isn't that what terrorists do?
The report said insurgents were training recruits and planning attacks in the Lower and Upper Jubba regions, the two southernmost provinces in the troubled Horn of Africa country. "Armed elements are also reported to be using the Lower Shabelle region to ferry arms," Konare's report said.
The report listed recent incidents it said were further evidence that the armed wing of the Islamist movement that controlled large parts of the country for months in 2006 was seeking to destabilise the government nationwide.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Really not much more than a press release with all the right fluffy words, but the fact that it's out there might mean something.
JEDDAH - Saudi Arabias intelligence operations are set to be restructured so as to be able to cope with international information challenges, according to Prince Muqrin, head of the Presidency of General Intelligence.
Saudi Intelligence will compete with international intelligence agencies. This requires that we restructure our work to cope with global information and knowledge, he told a Press conference in Riyadh recently.
Prince Muqrin said that Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz had given him explicit instructions to develop and restructure the intelligence agency according to the needs of national security. King Abdullahs words were candid and vivid: People have moved and we should not remain still, he quoted the king as saying. Our research has shown that the world in the new millennium is moving towards space security, he said, and added that it was important for Saudi Arabia to be a participant rather than a consumer in information technology relating to national security.
Prince Muqrin said the government of Saudi Arabia has issued legislation that serves the electronic domain. This new environment obliges us in the Presidency of Saudi Intelligence to cope with such changes and study their effects on national security on a wide-scale, he said.
He added that there was a link between the usage of modern technology and the political, social, economic and security situations worldwide. He explained that the Saudi Intelligence was cooperating with intelligence agencies abroad. We do not live alone in this world. Globalisation requires that we work together for the good of the international community, he said.
He added that the kingdom had been cooperating with other intelligence bodies exchanging vital information in the war against terrorism. I do not think that any intelligence body would accept that harm be in the way of another country as a result of terrorist activities, he said. The presidency is open to society and works for the benefit of citizens and the country, Muqrin said.
Last month, a four-day conference, titled Information Technology and National Security was organised by the Presidency. In a statement issued on the eve of the conference, Prince Muqrin termed the event a historical first in the annals of the Saudi intelligence since the event coincided with the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Presidency of General Intelligence.
A number of experts, researchers, academics and persons concerned with information technology and national security from across the world participated in the conference. Nearly 38 scientific research papers were presented at the conference.
Prince Muqrin called on Saudis to do more to help the government monitor Internet usage to help fight militancy. We want to teach citizens how to monitor things on the Internet. Mom and dad must pay more attention to their kids, he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A Belarus court sentenced a newspaper editor Friday to three years in prison for reprinting a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide riots when it was initially published in a Danish newspaper.
In Vienna, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe protested the sentence and called for the release of Alexander Sdvizhkov, the former deputy editor of the small-circulation Zhoda newspaper.
Security officers in Belarus launched an investigation of Sdvizhkov in February 2006 when he published the caricatures which had originally appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. President Alexander Lukashenko ordered the paper shut the following month, calling the publication of the cartoon ``a provocation against the state.'' Sdvizhkov was arrested and charged with ``inciting religious hatred'' in November 2007 when he returned to Belarus following several months of living in Russia and Ukraine.
Does sorta seem like a convenient excuse, doesn't it? Bet every newspaper editor in Belarus got the message.
The Minsk City Court imposed its sentence Friday after a closed-door trial. Sdvizhkov said he would appeal.
Belarusian Islamic leader Ismail Voronovich called the sentence excessively harsh.
The ex-Soviet republic is overwhelmingly Orthodox Christian; less than 1 percent of the country's 10 million is Muslim.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
So, Russia has surrendered to Islam?
Wonder if Putin yet realises he's no longer a national leader, but just another Slave (Dhimmi)
Or is he Islamic?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
01/19/2008 14:54 Comments ||
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#2
Belarus is controlled by a Stalinist style dictator named Lukashenko. Putin may have influence with him, but not control ... this guy was deeply in bed with e.g. Saddam Hussein's sons, among others. (Although not so deeply as Moldovia, but that's another story ...)
Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state, is retiring after 25 years of service to join the private sector.
His resignation was announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday. Burns, 51, is to be replaced by his namesake, though no kin, US Ambassador to Russia William Burns. This is a very bittersweet time for us, because Nick Burns has decided to retire, Rice said. Burns has served as State Department spokesman and US ambassador to and Greece.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Here is an NRO article on Mr. Burns, a Clintonite:
Nicholas Burns and the Clinton Legacy at State [Andy McCarthy]
Reports indicate R. Nicholas Burns, the State Department's Number 3 official, will be stepping down. A career foreign service officer, Burns will best be remembered for his most visible post: the Clinton administration's top State Department spokesman during the mid-1990s.
It was thus he, on behalf of Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who lambasted then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for having the temerity to eject Yasser Arafat from Lincoln Center when the PLO terror master crashed a private event held in connection with the UN's 50th anniversary. Arafat "is the leader of the Palestinian people," Burns scoffed at the time, according to Agence-France Presse (Oct. 24, 1995). "He should be given the respect, dignity and hospitality in the US that a Palestinian leader deserves." When it was pointed out that Fidel Castro, as well as Arafat, had been excluded from several City functions, Burns countered, "Arafat is someone we have a good relationship with. I have no comment on Castro."
For those keeping score, that was after Arafat's first Intifada but before his second Intifada.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/19/2008 0:14 Comments ||
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#2
"He should be given the respect, dignity and hospitality in the US that a Palestinian leader deserves."
#4
This is a very bittersweet time for us, because Nick Burns has decided to retire, Rice said
The Bitter: 25 years in striped pants and probably another 40 collecting his monthly govt kiss in the mail while writing "tell all" books and lecturing impressionable college students about the evils of Uncle Sap.
The Sweet: No longer undermining the US from within.
Posted by: regular joe ||
01/19/2008 8:02 Comments ||
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#5
We were burned by Burns. Put him on the POTG tour.
After continual delays, attorneys believe they have set a "reasonable and firm trial date" for the five men accused of plotting an armed jihadist attack on Fort Dix. U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler said yesterday that jury selection could begin the week of Sept. 29. He has pushed for a speedy trial in the case, which has been delayed several times because of its complexity and size.
Before reaching trial, the lawyers will have to file and argue a flurry of motions - including one to move the case from Camden because of the intense news coverage - and sift through hundreds of hours of video and recorded telephone conversations.
Deputy U.S. Attorney William Fitzpatrick said yesterday that the government had declassified recordings of 12,000 conversations made on two of the defendants' home and cell phones. He would not say why the conversations were classified or how investigators captured them. The recordings were made from the summer of 2006 until April 2007, shortly before the men were arrested.
He said the 12,000 conversations amount to about 400 hours of recordings, the vast majority of little value to prosecutors. "So we have people ordering pizza and scheduling doctor's appointments and everything else?" the judge asked. Fitzpatrick agreed.
The prosecutor also said the government had turned over videos seized from the defendants' homes that included al-Qaeda recruitment spots, Islamic lectures in Arabic, and depictions of the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and the USS Cole.
For months, the defense attorneys and their clients have been poring over about 200 hours of conversations secretly recorded by two government informants.
In the next 60 days, defense attorneys plan to file motions to challenge the indictment and the searches of their clients' homes, and to throw out their statements to investigators. One of the defense attorneys, Michael Riley, said the men did not make any admissions of guilt in their statements.
The five defendants - Mohamed Shnewer, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan; Serdar Tatar, a legal U.S. resident born in Turkey; and Cherry Hill brothers Shain, Eljvir and Dritan Duka, all illegal immigrants from the former Yugoslavia - also pleaded not guilty yesterday to charges in a new indictment filed this week.
Troy Archie, the attorney for Eljvir Duka, said he was awaiting a report from handwriting experts who examined a note his client allegedly passed to another inmate in the Federal Detention Center in Philadelphia. Prosecutors said they have surveillance video showing the note's being slid across the floor from Duka's cell to another. In the note, they said, Duka wrote that "we were going to sacrifice all for the sake of Allah in jihad."
Archie said he was using two experts hired by Time magazine to examine the letter. Time reported this week those experts found the writing in the note does not match other samples of Duka's writing.
At the end of yesterday's status conference, one of the defense attorneys jokingly assured the judge that they would be ready by fall, adding, "Fall '09."
A court convicted 12 Hindu men on Friday in connection with the gang rape of a pregnant Muslim woman and the murder of her family in a trial seen as key to winning justice for victims of one of Indias worst religious riots.
Human rights groups say about 2,500 people, most of them Muslims, were hacked, beaten or burned to death in Gujarat after a suspected Muslim mob burnt alive 59 Hindu activists and pilgrims inside a train in February 2002.
Among the closely watched Gujarat riot trials was the Bilkis Bano case viewed as testing whether justice can be delivered to hundreds of other Muslim women sexually assaulted during the riots.
Bano, her lawyers say, was three months pregnant in early March 2002 when she was gang-raped and 12 of her family members, including her three-year-old daughter, were burned to death by a mob as they fled their village in Gujarat.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:08 ||
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#1
In answer to the Parliament questions, the UPA Home Minister gave the figures of casualties during Gujarat riots. There were Muslims killed 790, Hindus killed 254, wounded 2500 in all missing 223.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/19/2008 6:22 Comments ||
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#2
In the entire period of riots total Hindu casualties were 80 shot dead, and 207 wounded by police bullets alone. The Muslim counter attack which commenced from 1st March 2002 was no less ferocious. In the first three days alone, out of a total of 611 deaths, 101 were caused by police firing. Of these, 61 were Hindus and 40 were Muslims.
Posted by: john frum ||
01/19/2008 6:27 Comments ||
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The Islami Jamiat Talaba (IJT) said on Friday that it supported the extremists of Swat and Waziristan in their battle against the government.
The IJT expressed its support at a gathering arranged to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (AS) at Punjab Universitys Hostel No 7.
The IJT said Muslims in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya were being targeted because they were the true believers. It denounced the war on terror and the role of the Pakistan Army and government in killing Islamists and extremists.
The IJT said Muslims in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq and Chechnya were being targeted because they were the true believers. It denounced the war on terror and the role of the Pakistan Army and government in killing Islamists and extremists.
Calling the people killed by the government Hussaini, the IJT said the government had revived another Karbala through its atrocities. It praised the Islamists fighting against the government and supported. The IJT also sent an official statement of supporting the extremists to the media after the gathering dispersed.
Political activities are banned at Punjab University.
Political activities are banned at Punjab University. PU IJT nazim Atiqur Rehman told Daily Times that US president George W Bush was allegedly instructing the Pakistani government to kill innocent people in North Waziristan and Swat. He criticised the war on terror, saying President Pervez Musharraf was killing innocent Muslims in North Waziristan, Swat and various parts of the world. He said the government had killed innocent Muslims in the Lal Mosque incident. Sources said PU IJT workers arranged several similar gatherings at PU. They said anti-government and anti-Musharraf speeches were the norm at the gatherings.
This article starring:
Islami Jamiat Talaba
ATIQUR REHMAN
Islami Jamiat Talaba
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:03 ||
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Top|| File under: Jamaat-e-Islami
WASHINGTON: A leading expert has said that Pakistans nuclear assets and its weapons are fundamentally safe today.
In a written testimony submitted for a congressional hearing this week, Ashkey Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said that as compared to the 1980s and 1990s when Pakistans nuclear arsenal was still relatively vulnerable to a variety of external and internal threats, the security of these assets has improved dramatically as a result of the protective measures put in place since the late 1990s.
He said, The director general of Pakistans Strategic Plans Division, Lt Gen Khalid Kidwai deserves singular credit for remedying the security vulnerabilities that traditionally plagued Pakistans nuclear arsenal.
Now doesn't that make you feel better?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Same people who determined that Iran is not seeking to build a nuclear bomb?
The Taliban and their militant sympathisers are now holding strategic pockets on Peshawars outskirts, the police say, from where they strike at the military and the police, order schoolgirls to wear the burqa and blow up stores selling DVDs, among other acts of violence, according to a report in the New York Times on Friday.
The proximity of Peshawar to the tribal areas where the Taliban and Al Qaeda have regrouped in the past two years makes the city a feasible prize for the militants in Pakistans quickly escalating internal strife that pits the Islamic extremists against the American-backed government of President Pervez Musharraf. Though few here believe that the Taliban will rule anytime soon, the police and residents say that by the standards of the counterinsurgency warfare the extremists are doing well. They have undermined public faith in the government, sown distrust and made the police fearful for their lives, the report says.
The extremists have selected the police and the army, two important pillars of the Pakistani state, as particular targets, the New York Times reports. Last week, rockets were fired at an army barracks in Warsak on the citys perimeter, a warning of the power of the militants.
The army headquarters in the centre of the city was struck last month by a bomber who was hiding explosives under her burqa that were set off by a remote control.
At the core of the troubles here, many say, are demands by the United States that the Pakistan military join in its campaign against terrorism, which means killing fellow Pakistanis in the tribal areas. Even if those Pakistanis are extremists, the people here say, they do not like a policy of killing fellow tribesmen, and fellow countrymen, particularly on behalf of the United States.
Defections: The standing of the Pakistan military is being further harmed by an increasing awareness here that it is for the first time suffering significant numbers of defections, mostly among soldiers reluctant to fight in the tribal areas. The defections gain only scant mention in the press, but people talk about them, it added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
So the obvious question.... um what effect will this have on the Kalishnikov market?
Posted by: Thomas Woof ||
01/19/2008 18:39 Comments ||
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LONDON: Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Shahbaz Sharif on Friday ruled out talks with President Pervez Musharraf, saying that his party does not believe in back-door diplomacy. The PML-N president said he would be leaving London within the next three days, while President Musharraf was arriving here on January 25, and there was, therefore, no chance of meeting him.
I don't think he wants to meet with you either. Is there any 'opposition' politican in Pak-land who's political skills rise above high school?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Security officials said on Friday that they believed militants from a Sunni extremist group linked to Al Qaeda were behind a suicide attack on a Shia mosque in Peshawar that killed at least 10 people on Thursday. The use of a gun and then a suicide blast in Thursdays attack is the signature method of the banned sectarian outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), AFP quoted the officials as saying. The bomber first fired some shots and then blew himself up. The modus operandi is the hallmark of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and it shows they have plans to stoke sectarian hatred, a senior Peshawar-based security official said.
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has strong links to Osama Bin Ladens network and its members have been convicted of involvement in the 2002 murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl and of several attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf.
Security officials, who asked not to be named, said the group had forged close ties with Baitullah Mehsud, who the government accuses of being an Al Qaeda leader and of masterminding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. There is a convergence of interests and militant outfits pool resources. Sometimes member groups can pick up individual targets and LJ is known to thrive on its anti-Shia policy, he told AFP.
This article starring:
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi
Baitullah Mehsud
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Two major Al Qaeda operatives in the Tribal Areas have called upon their followers to intensify the holy war against security forces and to seize control of Islamabad, media reports said on Thursday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. Jihad is compulsory in Pakistan as it is compulsory in Afghanistan, said the chief of the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan and Uzbek militants in North Waziristan, Qadri Tahir Yaldeshiv, in a video message, according to Adnkronos International.
He also urged Muslims to avenge the Lal Masjid operation in July 2007 that left more than 100 militants and hardcore madrassa students dead, the German news agency said. Yaldshiv also talked about the need for strict Sharia law in Pakistan. Pakistan came into being in the name of Islam, therefore Islam should be enforced in the country.
The Uzbek commander is not popular among pro-Taliban militants in North Waziristan. Hundreds of his men were killed early last year in an offensive by local tribal fighters led by Mullah Nazir. The rivalry was renewed last week when suspected Uzbek militants attacked two pro-Taliban offices in North Waziristan, killing eight. There are reports that local tribesmen have assembled an army of hundreds to avenge the killings.
This article starring:
Islamic movement of Uzbekistan
Qadri Tahir Yaldeshiv
Islamic movement of Uzbekistan
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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CIA director Michael Hayden said in a Washington Post interview published Friday al-Qaida linked militants allied with Pakistan's most wanted militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto last month.
Raza Rabbani, Deputy Secretary of Ms. Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, says the PPP is not ready to give a reaction to the CIA statement. "Obviously we'll have to go into it and we'll have to see in what light and in what context the statement has been made," he said. "And then I think the party would be in a position to give its reaction."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#2
Whadya wanna guess that at the right time, the CIA will leak that they 'now believe' that Mushharaf was responsible and islamic terrorists were just patsies?
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
01/19/2008 9:11 Comments ||
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#3
The fact that she is dead pretty much proves the CIA didn't do it.
General elections will be held on February 18 as planned and there is no possibility of rigging, said President Pervez Musharraf to a select group of six editors of the national media with whom he had a 90-minute chat at his camp office in Rawalpindi on Friday. Among the editors were Najam Sethi of Daily Times, Arif Nizami of The Nation, Zia Shahid of Khabrain, Sultan Lakhani of Express, Wamiq Zuberi of Business Recorder/Aaj and Qazi Aslam of KTN/Kawish group.
The president said that he was determined to use the army and paramilitary forces before, during and after the elections to ensure law and order.
The president dilated at length on the three crises facing Pakistan at this turbulent time: the crisis of the transition to democracy, the crisis of the war against terrorism and extremism and the crisis of the economy if the first two crises could not be contained and resolved.
Nukes are safe: He referred to the erroneous perception and image of Pakistan in the world and exhorted the domestic media to help in restoring balance to the debate. He explained how, given the successful establishment of a National Command Authority and failsafe procedures that had been independently developed by the Pakistani nuclear establishment, there was no technical possibility at all of Pakistans nukes or any fissile material falling into the wrong hands or of any accidental detonation of such weapons. In theory, he said, if Al Qaeda ever managed to defeat the Pakistan Army militarily, or if Talibanised elements succeeded in contesting and winning the elections in Pakistan, then the nuclear programme could be hijacked. But in practice, he insisted, neither of these things was conceivable because Pakistanis would never vote for extremists and the army could not be defeated by terrorists.
No meeting: President Musharraf ruled out any possibility of a national government before the elections and said he did not intend to meet any opposition politician, and certainly not Shahbaz Sharif, even though he was going to the UK and Europe soon and intended to visit the home of his friend Brigadier Niaz in London. However, he said he was open to the idea of a national government after the elections.
Stability after polls: President Musharraf was worried about the post-election scenario because it would entail coalition governments which were known to be unstable. He thought no single party would be able to win a large enough majority to form a government in Islamabad. He thought political instability would distract from the war against extremism and terrorism and hurt the economy and scare away foreign investment and donors.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
The top U.N. official responsible for monitoring the clandestine nuclear programs of Iran and Pakistan is a Russian spy, according to a new book on Moscows espionage operations in the United States and Canada.
The official is identified only by his Russian code name, ARTHUR, but other sources identified him as Tariq Rauf, 54, a Pakistani-born Canadian who is chief of verification and security-policy coordination at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The job puts him in direct contact with both inspectors and countries around the globe, a Canadian online magazine reported last year. Rauf is responsible for ensuring IAEA scientists get into countries such as Iran and negotiating the access they need to completely verify the use of nuclear material.
The allegations appear in Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russias Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War by former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley, author of two previous books on Russian spying in the United States.
The book amounts to a blistering memoir by Sergei Tretyakov, a former top Russian intelligence operative stationed in New York and Canada during the 1990s, first with the communist-era KGB and then its successor, the SVR.
#2
el-Barradei doesn't need any more paymasters than he already has. He'll willingly let any Muslim country get the bomb.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
01/19/2008 18:58 Comments ||
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#3
Tretyakov has other sensational allegations in his book, which officially goes on sale Jan. 24 but is available now online. Tretyakov says Russian intelligence considered Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III, the Clinton administrations top Moscow hand, such a valuable source of inside information, and so vulnerable to its manipulation, that it classified him as a SPECIAL UNOFFICIAL CONTACT.
Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III Qualifications for the USSR/Russia position at State:
1) Clinton Rapture. Trained Oxford Sycophant.
2) From FOB Journalist/Rapporteur was appointed to Deputy Secretary of State from 1994 until 2001.
But a Russian official under the control of the SVR, then-Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi Mamedov, Tretyakov alleges, was able to get inside information from Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III by massaging his considerable ego.
He became a valuable intelligence source, Tretyakov says.
Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III, who now heads the Brookings Institution, called the books interpretation of events erroneous and/or misleading in several fundamental aspects.
Jebus another 60s midget who at best is and was incompetent and at worst another SPY who betrays/betrayed us.
Mamedov, now Russian ambassador to Canada, also dismissed the allegations, calling them rubbish, an attempt to smear a fine American patriot . . . who was always tough as nails in nuclear arms negotiations with us.
My that's reassuring eh?
Nelson Strobridge "Strobe" Talbott III is a [self avowed] world federalist who wrote in a July 20, 1992 Time magazine article, "The Birth of the Global Nation", that "The best mechanism for democracy, whether at the level of the multinational state or that of the planet as a whole, is not an all-powerful Leviathan or centralized superstate, but a federation, a union of separate states that allocate certain powers to a central government while retaining many others for themselves."[1]
The Colonel Karim Jwamir police chief Center Aledumiz agency for the site of the Central Office of Information of the National Union strike that police forces had received intelligence information Thursday night from the security elements in Kirkuk, on the presence of a large cache of chemical materials in the village (Sary Tappah) south of the city of Kirkuk, and that special force joint police and the security apparatus and the American forces went today, Friday, at the scene said, after examining the place of American experts specialists, found that cache containing large quantities of toxic agricultural chemicals belonging to the Baathist regime honors.
The source said a special Asaic Kirkuk site, the quantity of chemical substances were found estimated at 8 tons, indicating that the deposed Baathist regime had faded materials listed in that location without knowing the reasons for that yet.
#1
Some agricultural chemicals, especially pesticides, which are often organophosphates, are extremely toxic. The commonly used Parathion, for example, has a lowest dosage with toxic effects (TDlo) in humans is 240 ug/kg (less than 0.1 ounce). It is essentially a nerve agent, and doesn't take a whole lot more to kill you than Sarin gas.
#2
How easy are these to deliver?
I assume a standard chemical munition would not be sufficient?
Posted by: john frum ||
01/19/2008 15:18 Comments ||
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#3
Could this stuff be a precursor cache, available for conversion into actual chemical arms?
Posted by: john frum ||
01/19/2008 15:19 Comments ||
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#4
Delivery systems can be simple or complex. Let's just say it could be done, but only an expert could insure it was done properly. In the final analysis, the most effective use of chemical weapons is against civilian targets; ideally lots of civilians in the open.
Something like that big Shiite festival would be ideal.
#1
yet the Paleos continue to fire rockets into Israel, provoking consequences that they then demand the world protect them from. F*ck em. Let em starve in the dark
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/19/2008 16:15 Comments ||
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday denounced Israel's ongoing military strikes in the Gaza Strip as "brutal," but also accused Gaza's Hamas rulers of trying to destroy the Palestinian dream of statehood. "In these days, we can only condemn gravely what happens in our cherished Gaza, this brutal attack on this cherished part of our land, every hour, which targets women, children and elderly," Abbas during Christmas celebrations of Armenian Christians in Bethlehem.
Abbas also reiterated his demand that Hamas relinquish control of Gaza, saying that since it took over the area last June, the Islamic group has "destroyed and tries to destroy our dreams, future and national aspirations."
Meanwhile, with the intensified Kassam rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip continuing to pound Negev communities for the fourth consecutive day, the IDF has responded in kind, striking an abandoned building which had once served as the Hamas-run interior ministry. According to Palestinian witnesses and hospital officials, one woman was killed in air strike, and at least 48 people were injured. The building, which was situated in a residential district of the Gaza Strip, sustained severe damage, the witnesses said.
An IDF spokeswoman confirmed the strike, and said it targeted "a Hamas headquarters", and was part of Israel's campaign against the constant firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. Friday evening's air strike was the second for the day. Hours earlier, the IAF targeted a cell of rocket launchers, killing one civilian and wounding three Hamas operatives.
Also on Friday, Israeli troops from the elite under-cover "Duvdevan" unit killed a top Palestinian terror chief in the West Bank who was affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, group with ties to the Fatah movement headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Ahmad Sanakra, a commander in Tanzim, was killed in the Balata refugee camp in Nablus. The PA has in recent months been unable, or at least claims to have been unable, to rein in the renegade group. Sanakra had been on Israel's wanted list for several years but repeatedly eluded capture. However, on Friday he was shot and killed by troops in what the IDF calls the "pressure cooker" tactic: a house where refugees hide is surrounded and the troops call for those hiding inside to give themselves up.
Sanakra refused to surrender, however, and an exchange of fire ensued. He was killed and four of his men, also Tanzim members, were taken into custody. A commander in the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Noam Tivon, praised the soldiers of Duvdevan for their achievements over the last few days.
Kassam rockets have continued to rain down on Sderot and other Negev communities throughout Friday. Eight rockets were fired towards Sderot, two of which landed in open fields. Two rockets fired Friday afternoon landed near Havat Hashikmim, a farm owned by hospitalized prime minister Ariel Sharon. The two rockets caused no casualties or damage. Of the four rockets that reached Sderot, one landed near a WIZO center, damaging several cars in the area.
This article starring:
Tanzim
Ahmad Sanakra
Tanzim
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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[9 views]
Top|| File under: Palestinian Authority
#1
I'm sure your new girlfriend agrees, Aby Mazen.
The head of the Arab League arrived here Friday for talks with Syrian officials, who wield a great deal of influence in Lebanon, on an Arab plan to solve the deepening Lebanese political crisis.
Amr Moussa crossed into Syria by land after three days of talks with Lebanese politicians to end their 15-month political crisis, the worst since the end of that country's 1975-90 civil war. "We are making progress in solving the crisis," he told reporters on his arrival. "There is still a possibility of reaching a solution if there is good will."
Syria is a key player in Lebanon and backs the opposition, led by the militant Hezbollah group, against Prime Minister Fuad Saniora Western-supported government. Moussa is expected to meet with President Bashar Assad, Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/19/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Syria
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.
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - A Belarus court sentenced a newspaper editor Friday to three years in prison for reprinting a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad that sparked worldwide riots when it was initially published in a Danish newspaper.
Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state, is retiring after 25 years of service to join the private sector.
The 
The Taliban and their militant sympathisers are now holding strategic pockets on Peshawars outskirts, the police say, from where they strike at the military and the police, order schoolgirls to wear the burqa and blow up stores selling DVDs, among other acts of violence, according to a report in the New York Times on Friday.
Two major Al Qaeda operatives in the Tribal Areas have called upon their followers to intensify the holy war against security forces and to seize control of Islamabad, media reports said on Thursday, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported. Jihad is compulsory in Pakistan as it is compulsory in Afghanistan, said the chief of the 
General elections will be held on February 18 as planned and there is no possibility of rigging, said President Pervez Musharraf to a select group of six editors of the national media with whom he had a 90-minute chat at his camp office in Rawalpindi on Friday. Among the editors were Najam Sethi of Daily Times, Arif Nizami of The Nation, Zia Shahid of Khabrain, Sultan Lakhani of Express, Wamiq Zuberi of Business Recorder/Aaj and Qazi Aslam of KTN/Kawish group.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday denounced Israel's ongoing military strikes in the Gaza Strip as "brutal," but also accused Gaza's Hamas rulers of trying to destroy the Palestinian dream of statehood. "In these days, we can only condemn gravely what happens in our cherished Gaza, this brutal attack on this cherished part of our land, every hour, which targets women, children and elderly," Abbas during Christmas celebrations of Armenian Christians in Bethlehem. 
The head of the Arab League arrived here Friday for talks with Syrian officials, who wield a great deal of influence in Lebanon, on an Arab plan to solve the deepening Lebanese political crisis. 
