At least 30 people have been killed and 40 wounded in four suspected suicide bombings in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, hospital officials say.
The first blast happened at about 2000 (1530 GMT). Police said the attackers struck near a prison, a hotel, a mosque and at a city centre road junction.
Previous attacks in Kandahar province have been blamed on Taliban insurgents, who have regularly launched suicide car bomb attacks. Reports quoted a website statement by the Taliban saying that they had carried out the latest bombings.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Clashes between rival clans have left at least 20 people dead in the Mudug region of central Somalia, where sub-clans of the Hawiye tribe are battling over water and land.
The fighting occurred late on Saturday as militiamen armed with heavy machine guns engaged in a deadly exchange of fire, killing up to 20 people, mostly combatants. Ten fighters were also wounded in the clashes.
"The heaviest fighting occurred near Jildhere village and there are bodies still strewn in the streets and forests close to the village," AFP quoted a Hawiye elder as saying.
"Their argument is all about water and land for their livestock. The matter looks to have gotten out of hand now," said another.
The clans engaged in violent confrontations after tribe members residing in Ba'ad Weyn and Amara town, northeast of Galgadud's provincial capital of Dhusamareb, disputed over an animal watering point.
Mediation efforts failed on Saturday, and the clans are reportedly preparing for yet another battle.
A report by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said more than 100,000 people have been displaced in the country since the beginning of the year, with clashes in Mogadishu accounting for 33,000 of the refugees.
The UNHCR also expressed concern for an estimated 8,300 internally displaced people.
"We are especially concerned about the safety and well-being of some 8,300 people who, without any means to get out of Mogadishu, remain displaced within the capital," UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic told journalists in Geneva.
"As the fighting rages on, aid agencies cannot access and assist these extremely vulnerable IDPs [internally displaced people]," he added.
Despite President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's efforts to bring long-feuding Somali factions together, parts of the capital and large areas in the south of the country remain under the rebels' rule.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Oh Oh. More IDP's. They'll turn up in Lewiston, ME before long. Riding the gravy train.
CAIRO - Twenty-four people were injured in clashes between Christians and Muslims in northern Egypt, a security official said on Saturday. Twenty people, both Coptic Christians and Muslim, were also arrested in Friday's troubles, the official said.
Fighting broke out in the northwestern province of Mersa Matrouh when Muslim residents began to hurl stones at Christian construction workers they thought were building a church. The Christians said they were building a wall for a hospice, not a church, the official said.
"Around 400 people were involved in the fighting. Twenty people were arrested, both Muslims and Christians, and 24 were injured," the official said. "A heavy security presence was deployed to the town and remained overnight to make sure there are no more clashes," he said.
The Copts, the Middle East's largest Christian community, make up between six and 10 percent of Egypt's 80 million people but complain of frequent discrimination and harassment. Copts are considered equal to Muslims under the Egyptian constitution but must gain presidential permission to build churches and clearance from a governor to renovate them.
Must be the Arabic definition of 'equal' ...
Not necessarily Arabic, but definitely Muslim. The Muslims like to forget that the language predates the religion by a very, very long time.
"What's ours is ours. Now let's talk about what's yours ..."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A Saudi court gave suspended prison sentences to 10 former Saudi Guantanamo detainees who had completed a rehabilitation program, Al-Hayat newspaper reported on Saturday.
The men, who were returned to Saudi Arabia in 2008 and 2009 after serving time at the U.S. military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, received sentences of three to 13 years in a ruling on Thursday, the paper said. They were also ordered to remain inside the country for five years, the report said.
Returnees from Guantanamo are routinely tried and given prison sentences by Saudi courts which are then suspended based on their already having passed time in U.S. custody, and also on successfully passing through the Saudi "Care" rehabilitation program.
Launched in 2006 by the Deputy Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, the Care program aims at wooing the former militants away from radical and violent Islamist ideology.
Out of 123 Saudis returned from Guantanamo, 111 have passed through the program, nine came before it was created, and three are currently in it, according to the interior ministry.
Thirteen of those who passed through the program returned to militant activities, according to the ministry.
Riyadh is seeking the return of another nine Saudi citizens who remain in the Guantanamo facility.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Saudis wont do us any favours as they fund/support global islam!
Paul2 , posting here as Kofi etc. - please stick to one 'nym right now.
Fred and the mods are dealing with a huge spam storm and other attacks. Your cooperation will be helpful as the sources of attacks are painstakingly tracked down and holes plugged.
President Barack Obama is "deeply saddened and outraged" at news of the murders of a federal employee and two relatives of workers at the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an administration spokesman said.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer gave the statement Sunday in response to "brutal murders" of the American consulate employee, her husband and the husband of a consulate employee who was Mexican. Obama "extends his condolences to the families and condemns these attacks on consular and diplomatic personnel serving at our foreign missions," Hammer said. "In concert with Mexican authorities, we will work tirelessly to bring their killers to justice," Hammer added. Mike Hammer? Maybe they should put him on the case.
Ciudad Juarez, near the Texas border, has been at the center of drug-related violence in Mexico that has claimed nearly 19,000 lives. The State Department authorized relatives of employees at the U.S. consulates in Ciudad Juarez and five other Mexican cities to leave until April 12 out of concerns of rising violence.
U.S. officials have plans to send American intelligence agents to work with Mexican law enforcement to go after the drug cartel, the Washington Post reported last month. Hammer said the United States "will continue to work with Mexican President Felipe Calderón and his government to break the power of the drug trafficking organizations that operate in Mexico and far too often target and kill the innocent. This is a responsibility we must shoulder together, particularly in border communities where strong bonds of history, culture, and common interest bind the Mexican and the American people closely together," he said.
#2
National Security spokesman? Since when was Mexico a part of the nation? Wish he was this sincere regarding our massacred troops in Texas, but we were told "not to rush to judgement"...
Posted by: Bob Gleanter3083 ||
03/14/2010 14:20 Comments ||
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#3
"paging Mitch Rapp. Mr. Rapp to the courtesy phone"
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/14/2010 14:35 Comments ||
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#4
19,000??? They're having themselves quite a little war down there.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/14/2010 15:02 Comments ||
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#5
Failing state alert.
I think I know of a sleeper issue for this fall's elections....
Maybe it's time to start protecting the border? And stop importing an underclass while we're at it?
#8
Yes. As an Army War College paper pointed out a few years ago, gang activity is a form of uban insurgency designed to prevent the state from exercising control in an urban area. In Mexico they've been so successful they've branched out to major regions of the country and are now emboldened to take on the US directly, with these assasination and border incursions.
#9
What % of Mexican cities are now effectively no-go zones? I'd guess that when the number of no-go cities exceeds 20%, you're witnessing state collapse.
Black Bart, you were asked to stick to one 'nym. The mods are busy right now and don't have time to check out your 6 or 7 nyms used today. Moreover you've been asked in the past to stick to one, and you told Trailing Wife you would do so.
#12
Drudge is reporting Mexico under seige. 13 killed in Acapulco...11 others elsewhere. Corrupt cops are probably hiding somewhere until the shooting stops.
#13
Illegal immigration from Mexico is not like illegal immigration from other countries. It's much more pernicious, because it enables a) an irredentist US-based ethnic political faction that thinks it "owns" the southwest, and b) a Mexican political class that thinks it can export its political failures and import many many billions in hard currency in the bargain.
And all because TweedleDee wants a lock on cheap labor for its business class and TweedleDum wants a lock on the fastest-growing voting bloc.
Indian police said Sunday they prevented a major terrorist strike in Mumbai by arresting two men who were preparing to attack several targets in the city, the country's financial and entertainment hub.
K.P. Raghuvanshi, chief of Mumbai's anti-terrorism squad, said the two Indian men both residents of the city had targeted a popular shopping mall, a market and a state-owned gas facility. He said Abdul Latif Rashid and Riyaz Ali were arrested late Saturday in Mumbai's Matunga suburb.
Police said the men had links with terror groups in Pakistan and were acting on directions from handlers there. "They were getting instructions from Pakistan to execute their activities here," Raghuvanshi said.
Posted by: ed ||
03/14/2010 09:35 ||
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#1
According to the Mumbai Anti Terror Squad (ATS) the terror suspects have revealed during their police interrogation that for the above purposes they undertook reconnaissance trips to areas in Eastern Mumbai including some ONGC installations. Police suspect that the two operatives could have been planning an attack on ONGC oil storage tanks as well as other key installations in Mumbai. Maps and documents have been reportedly recovered from them pointing to these areas.
Speaking to the media, Maharashtra ATS chief K P S Raghuvanshi said the two men had been monitored for 20-25 days before it was decided enough evidence had been gathered to book them under the law for terrorist activities.
"They were picked up on the basis of telephone calls made to a handler in Karachi who is definitely a part of some terror organisation. We suspect that these men were very close to launching the terror attack," he said.
"Investigations are on. They were small time shop keepers. We are trying to establish the identity of 'uncle' via central agencies, which is expected to take some time as he is in another country. We feel that there are more people involved, and are trying to uncover the whole network," added Raghuvanshi.
Posted by: john frum ||
03/14/2010 10:25 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"They were picked up on the basis of telephone calls made to a handler in Karachi
Jeez -- if they go on the internet, American electronic surveillance will pick it up. If they use cell phones ________ surveillance will pick it up. All that remains is secure couriers like Osama bin Laden and his inner circle rely on, hiding in their mud huts or guest houses somewhere.
PESHAWAR - At least ten people were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley on Saturday, a day after a series of bombings brought chaos and bloodshed to the city of Lahore, police said. The bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a building used by security forces in Saidu Sharif, on the edge of Mingora, the main town in Swat, where the military said last year it had quelled a Taliban uprising.
Pakistan's Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, in which three security personnel and a nine year old child were among the dead.
Senior police official Qazi Jamil confirmed the death toll, adding that 37 were wounded. "It was a suicide attack," he told AFP. "The suicide bomber was on foot. He was trying to enter the building and blew himself up after being stopped by police."
The bomber was carrying 15 kilograms (33 pounds) of explosives and almost two dozen vehicles were damaged, he added.
A spokesman for the army-run Swat media centre also confirmed the death toll, adding that two policemen and one soldier were killed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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In a joint operation combining the forces of the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and police,
The Palestinian police (PA branch) are now teaming up with Israel in the West Bank... the Egyptian army is now teaming up with Israel on the Gaza border... Miracles do happen!
member of the Hamas military wing Maher Ouda was arrested overnight Saturday in Ramallah.
According to the IDF Spokesperson's office, the Ein Yabroud native, born in 1963, founded in 1990 Ramallah's Hamas military wing. Ouda was allegedly involved in the deaths of dozens of Israelis, and was on Israel's most wanted list since the late 1990s.
Ouda began to engage in terrorist activity two decades ago, when he founded an armed Hamas cell in Ein Yabroud. The cell kidnapped and interrogated Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, in addition to acquiring weapons with which to carry out terror attacks.
He was taken for questioning by Palestinian Authority security forces in 1998 and was interred for several months in a PA prison. Intelligence from the Second Intifada showed Ouda was involved in the planning and funding of a military branch of Hamas which was responsible for the murder of ten Israelis.
Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) intelligence enabled Ouda's arrest.
According to an IDF statement, the operation was the final stage in a plan to thwart Hamas military activity in Ramallah, which during the Second Intifada was culpable for the deaths of 70 Israelis.
In some societies this sort of thing is punished ...
AMMAN - A 21-year-old Jordanian man was sentenced on Monday to 15 years in prison with hard labour for killing his married sister last year over an alleged affair, a court official said. He was charged in May 2008 with premeditated murder after fatally stabbing his 18-year-old sister 26 times in different parts of her body because she allegedly "lived and slept with another man," in the Jordan Valley, the official said.
"He claimed he wanted to cleanse his family's honour, but the court did not find any reason to commute or reduce the sentence, especially as the convict had previous knowledge of the affair and decided to plan the murder," he told AFP.
Under Article 340 of the penal code, a defendant who "surprises his wife or any close female relative" in an act of adultery or fornication may invoke a defence of "crime of honour" should they murder the woman.
Article 98 stipulates that "an extenuating justification can be invoked by anyone who commits a crime in a fit of rage as a result of an unrightful and dangerous act carried out by the victim."
The official said, however: "The court found that there was no justification for the crime, and rejected pleas by his family to cut the jail sentence." But apparently life in prison wasn't in option ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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As well we all know, there is nothing 'honorable' about it.
AMMAN - A Jordanian on death row for the murder of his married sister who used her mobile too often in an apparent "honour killing" has had his term commuted to 10 years in jail, a judicial official said Monday.
"The man confessed to the crime after he was arrested shortly after the crime," the official told AFP.
The defendant said "he stabbed his sister, who was in her 40s, in the stomach, back and chest because she frequently talked over her mobile phone and allegedly had suspicious behaviour," said the official, on condition of anonymity.
The man, 21, was charged with premeditated murder, which is punishable by death, but the court reduced the sentence on Sunday after the family dropped all legal claims against him, the official said. He said the 2007 killing took place in Jabal Akhdar, near the centre of Amman.
Between 15 and 20 women are murdered each year in Jordan in so-called honour crimes, in which male relatives kill female kin they suspect of illicit behaviour with men.
In September, the US-based Human Rights Watch urged the kingdom to reform its penal code, which it says encourages condones the murder of women in the name of honour crimes.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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TEHRAN - An Iranian court has sentenced a top female reformist arrested after last year's election dispute to three years in jail for plotting to harm national security, her lawyer said on Saturday.
Azar Mansouri was arrested in September during a widespread crackdown on opposition supporters who challenged the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009. Mansouri, a senior leader from reformist political party, Islamic Iran Participation Front, was sentenced to a three-year jail term, lawyer Mohammad Reza Faghihi told ILNA news agency.
"She has been charged with disturbing public order while participating in gatherings, issuing propaganda against the regime, spreading lies and plotting to harm national security," he said, adding he had filed an appeal against the verdict.
Iranian authorities have sentenced several top reformists and political activists to varying jail terms after accusing them of acting against the regime since the election dispute erupted. In recent weeks several detainees have also been released but Iranian news reports say 10 protesters charged with participating in the post-election unrest have been sentenced to death so far.
On January 28, Iran executed Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour, two members of a monarchist group. It was unclear when they were arrested but they were put on trial along with several other post-election protesters.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
I got this picture from an Iranian Christian in Iran last year.
Talk about a fate worse than death.
We know how the scum of allah treat
women generally, imagine in prison!
#5
I would be rather surprised if a Christian woman from Iran were to paint a picture with a nipple showing on the breast - especially if she had been raped.
The Iraqi women I've met - only a dozen or so, to be sure - were all quite body modest, even the Kurds in jeans and sweaters. I doubt the Iranians would be much different, but perhaps you've found one who is so sanguine about her rape and bondage that she would paint the subject with glowing skin and silky clean hair.
BEIRUT - A Lebanese man has been arrested in northern Lebanon for killing his sister earlier this week in what authorities described as an honour killing, a security official said on Friday.
"The 24-year-old victim was single and apparently had a boyfriend," the security official told AFP. "(Her brother) admitted shooting her twice in the head to cleanse the family honour."
The woman was only identified by her initials, as was her 28-year-old brother. Her body was discovered on Tuesday on the main road of the village of Hakr al-Daheri, in the northern Akkar region.
"This kind of crime is not common in Lebanon but we have a few every year," the official said.
Lebanese law stipulates extenuating circumstances for so-called honour killings. In 2007, Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah issued a fatwa, or religious edict, banning honour killings as repulsive acts that contradict Islamic law. Worked well, didn't it ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Which has less honor, a woman talking to a male non-relative, or a man who commits fratricide? IMHO, murder is murder, regardless of the reason. Remember Cain's punishment for slaying Abel.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/14/2010 17:52 Comments ||
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#2
"Which has less honor, a woman talking to a male non-relative, or a man who commits fratricide?"
Silly OP. We're talking about the Arab world here - you know the answer. :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/14/2010 18:08 Comments ||
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#3
Fratricide is evil. Sadly, to some people, sororicide is not.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
03/14/2010 23:36 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran has busted what it says was a U.S.-funded cyber network group linked to an exiled opposition movement that collected data on its nuclear scientists, state media reported on Saturday.
Thirty members of the network with links to the outlawed People's Mujahedeen and monarchists have been arrested, Fars news agency said, quoting a statement from the Tehran prosecutor's office.
State-owned Press TV said Iranian authorities have asked Interpol to arrest two other prominent members of the cyber network group.
One of the two leaders whose arrest is sought by Iran is Ahmad Batebi, a prominent student activist who fled the Islamic republic in 2007 after serving nine years in prison, the English-language channel said.
He is reportedly in the United States and has regularly appeared on opposition television channels criticizing human rights violations in Iran.
Press TV named the other wanted leader only as Rafie and also reported that the cyber network group gave a "wrong death toll" on the post-election violence in Iran.
Dozens of people were killed when supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rivals clashed with security forces following the hardliner's disputed re-election last June.
U.S. links
" The funds given to the cyber network group were allocated by the administration of George W. Bush to launch a cyber war against Iran "
Fars news agency
Fars said that according to the prosecutor's office the "busted cyber network group was funded by the United States and comprised of members from the exiled People's Mujahedeen and monarchists."
The prosecution said the main members who were in Iran have been arrested inside the country, while "the Interpol has been informed to take action against some who live in the United States."
"The funds given to the cyber network group were allocated by the administration of (former president) George W. Bush to launch a cyber war against Iran," Fars quoted the statement as saying.
"The cyber network group allowed Iranians to access the Internet by bypassing state filtering systems."
It said the group "waged psychological war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, organized and encouraged people to take part in illegal gatherings, collected information on nuclear scientists and gave information to spy agencies."
The People's Mujahedeen has in the past reportedly passed on information on Iran's nuclear program which the West suspects is aimed at making atomic weapons, a charge denied by Tehran.
The group, however, is classed as a terrorist organization by the United States.
It accuses Ahmadinejad's administration of committing rights abuses and recklessly pursuing nuclear weapons, and it supports international sanctions on Iran with the aim of regime change.
In January, Iran's state media blamed the People's Mujahedeen, the United States and Israel for a bomb attack which killed nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi in Tehran.
Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, died when a bomb strapped to a motorcycle was triggered by remote control outside his home in the northern Tehran neighborhood of Qeytariyeh.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/14/2010 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
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.
CAIRO - Twenty-four people were injured in clashes between Christians and Muslims in northern Egypt, a security official said on Saturday. Twenty people, both Coptic Christians and Muslim, were also arrested in Friday's troubles, the official said.
PESHAWAR - At least ten people were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley on Saturday, a day after a series of bombings brought chaos and bloodshed to the city of Lahore, police said. The bomber blew himself up at the entrance to a building used by security forces in Saidu Sharif, on the edge of Mingora, the main town in Swat, where the military said last year it had quelled a Taliban uprising.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran has busted what it says was a U.S.-funded cyber network group linked to an exiled opposition movement that collected data on its nuclear scientists, state media reported on Saturday.
