Well, actually they report the NATO claim, but it's as close to a balanced report as I have ever seen in that publication.
Children as young as six are being used by the Taliban in increasingly desperate suicide missions, coalition forces in Afghanistan claimed yesterday. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), to which Britain contributes 5,000 troops in southern Afghanistan, revealed that soldiers defused an explosive vest which had been placed on a six-year-old who had been told to attack Afghan army forces in the east of the country.
The boy was spotted after appearing confused at a checkpoint. The vest was defused and no one was hurt.
The claim came only hours after the second report this week that civilians had been killed in Nato military operations.
Yesterday ISAF said it was investigating reports from the Afghan authorities that civilians had been killed. But it also accused the Taliban of using civilians as battleground cover, and said the incident with the boy signalled a new type of tactic. The boy had been ordered to target a check point in Miri, in the Andar district of Ghazni province. "They placed explosives on a six-year-old boy and told him to walk up to the Afghan police or army and push the button," said Captain Michael Cormier, the company commander who intercepted the child, in a statement. "Fortunately, the boy did not understand and asked patrolling officers why he had this vest on."
Lieutenant Colonel David Accetta, ISAF eastern regional command spokesman, told the Guardian: "In the past we have not seen the Taliban sink that low, to use children as suicide bombers. The personnel secured the vest to make sure the child was safe."
Lt Col Accetta said the procedure for dealing with an armed minor had so far been untested in Afghanistan. "It would have been difficult to know what to do considering it was a six-year-old boy and he was presumably going to push the button himself or someone was going to detonate it for him remotely," Lt Col Accetta said.
The rules of military engagement are easily muddied when a child poses a direct threat, he explained. "What we do if we identify the fact that an adult is wearing a suicide vest is we use whatever force we deem necessary to protect the lives of our soldiers and any civilians. Of course it makes it more difficult - it's a six year-old child."
The date of the incident, the boy's name and information on what happened to him afterwards were not immediately available, Lt Col Accetta said. The Guardian has been unable to independently corroborate the claim.
ISAF has accused the Taliban of intentionally living and fighting in residential areas, capitalising on the international forces' reticence to put ordinary Afghans at risk. "They will normally intermix with the civilian population with the thought that we won't engage them there, and it's true, we won't do that," Lt Col Accetta maintained. "They are deliberately putting civilians - women and children - at risk by bringing the combat into close proximity with them."
Coalition forces have struggled in recent days to pacify a swell of anger following repeated incidents where camp-followers innocent civilians have apparently been killed in military operations.
#2
Any decent human being in the realm of Islam ought to see by now what the jihadis are about: Stan's Orcs. Although their (decent humans) ability to discern may have been skewered by the Islam's ideology, it is still present.
As for Left, the moral and cultural relativism may have done ireparrable damage and the discernmet ability seems to be largely missing, or framed in such a way that the moral compass is a 90 deg mirror image--totally at odds with reality.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/23/2007 15:26 Comments ||
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#4
In the past we have not seen the Taliban sink that low, to use children as suicide bombers.
Hahaha! Very diplomatically put. The ba$tards just probably haven't figured out how to do this reliably yet. Next step: Remotely detonate these bombs on unwitting children. Or maybe pack a cat full of C4 and send it off towards a checkpoint, but that can get pretty dicey. Better use a dog perhaps.
#5
When Islam has finally forced Western nations to reduce the entire MME (Muslim Middle East) to smoking ruins, people will recall how six year-old children were sent out with bomb vests and feel a sense of solid affirmation instead of any guilt. Watch the "Obsession" video and see Palestinian kindergarteners clamoring to become martyrs in pursuit of murdering Jews. It is enough to remove all doubt for some of us.
ISLAM DEVOURS ITS YOUNG.
There can be no stronger proof that an entire culture's collective moral compass is demagnetized. Whether it is six year-olds wearing bomb vests, specifically targeting children in terrorist attacks, infants abandoned to die in a car bomb detonation or the use of children as human shields, all of these are rapacious acts that should be met with universal condemnation. The Muslim community's continued and deafening silence over such wholesale neglect for the value or sanctity of human life—especially that of the very young—is one of many things helping to ensure that, if and when their collective annihilation should come about, no one shall grieve the loss.
#6
Zen,
There are those who would say the West devours its young too. They just do it VERY young (negative nine months to zero). A little 'cultural relativism' that may explain the general lack of expression of disgust by many of the Western elite at these Muslim atrocities.
#8
Don't cha think that by now a Geneva Convention would have conviened to clearly define the rules of war for even cavemen to follow ?
The total silence in this matter indicates that either they don't know what the hell's going on, or they feel so insignificant that they will not bother with the effort. Political correctness just doesn't cover complete ignorance.
#9
Hmm... and yet not one word of the Geneva Convention.
1) Take Pictures and Videos. Show them at every press briefings and refer to them often. Sooner or later the media will get the hint and stop ignoring stories like this.
2) Take no illegal combatants prisoner. If you find a combatant out of uniform or hiding in the civilian pop - take them out and shoot them. Do it in public and announce that you find them as illegal combatants according to the GC and subject to summarily execution.
#1
nice "quagmireing" - the subhead reads: "AUSTRALIAN troops provided back-up for a Dutch-led operation against Taliban extremists in southern Afghanistan which may have resulted in civilian casualties" (my bolding)
then, further down: " significant number of insurgents, who had been terrorising the local population, had attacked the Dutch element before withdrawing into a local compound.
There were reports of “heinous events” leading up to the battle, the ADF said.
“Based on these reports, the Dutch made a decision to confront the Taliban.
“The nature and consequences of the battle are being evaluated.
“Initial reports have indicated that a number of civilian casualties may have occurred during this period,” the defence force said referring to NATO's concerns that the Taliban was attacking near heavily populated areas and intentionally putting civilians at risk"
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2007 8:36 Comments ||
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#2
“The ADF is concerned about any loss of innocent lives. Australian forces operate under rules of engagement that aim to avoid and minimise civilian casualties.”
Oh, no. Australia has the same RoE problem we have. There are no civilians as far as the talibunnies are concerned, so we should take the same attitude. If we were going to target civilians can we at least start with the ADF and DoD lawyers?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/23/2007 8:45 Comments ||
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#3
The Talibs have used the same strategy as Stalin did in WWII. Locals were forced to fight against NATO or they would be executed according to Dutch media.
The day dawned clear around 5.30 and going with my daily routine, I took a little time for my own sketching. I headed up the mountain to the outpost LAVIII hoping to sketch it standing vigil in the early morning sun. One of three soldiers manning the mountain outpost came and chatted while I worked and I ended up interviewing the Captain on duty at the post. One of the other soldiers ferried us all breakfast in a gator ATV, then we all sat and shot the breeze. Absolute luxury, breakfast and a view.
I am finding it easier and easier to approach the soldiers now. In part I think because I am gaining in confidence in the project and the art, but also because I am becoming a regular part of the scenery for most of the people here, and therefore slowly accepted.
A series of staccato thumps on the very edge of hearing sent us all to the edge of the cliff looking for a source. "Mortars" one of them thought out loud. We wandered back to the shade of the post.
I had just started the sketch of the Captain, when their radio buzzed, and the guys immediately began to suit up. They are part of the FOB Quick Reaction Force (QRF) and had been told to stand to. Likely they were going to find out first hand what the source of the thumps had been. I begged a lift and was given the all clear to tag along with them.
To help me get back to the base proper and pick up my kit, I had crash course in how to drive the gator. I drove down the mountain road way too fast to the media tent, dodged the Public Affairs Officer with the other media guys heading back to Kandahar and grabbed my camelback, camera and sketchpad, then scooted out the back door. I was out the tent just as the lads arrived at the doors in the LAVIII.
The QRF of three LAVIII's hooked up with another three at FOB Wilson after a quick drive along the road built this year specially for this purpose. Our destination was a nearby police station which had come under fire from the Taliban. We traveled along roadway for most of the trip and then cut into the desert to approach from open ground.
The station when we arrived was little more than a two story shell with sand bags piled in every window. It looked out over a checkpoint on the road and the field and village around. The policemen looked very pleased to see us.
The Canadian soldiers made their way to the roof, also ringed with sandbags. No shortage of sand to put in bags out here. Everything else seems to be in short supply though.
The soldiers spread themselves around the rooftop in the blistering heat and waited.
I worked the camera hard. Gaining lots of material from which I will be able to create numerous sketches later.
The soldiers started to rotate time on the roof, so some were always in the shade. I did a run to the LAV for more water and Gatorade mix. I mixed a few bottles and handed them out. More silence.
The roof was covered in detritus of all kinds. Mortar shells, Rocket Propelled Grenades, hundreds of shell casings, unfinished food, a VHS video recorder. And a huge Russian machine gun. And a bed for its gunner to sleep in.
The soldiers had contact with the Taliban here just yesterday and the police station had been mortared earlier that day so everyone was very much on edge. Eventually the order was given to clear out, and having made their support of the local police clear, we did just that.
Back to base. I arrived just as five of our contingent of seven journalists were heading for their convoy back to Kandahar. They plan to be back in a week and promise to bring me more paper. The Global TV lads also did me proud by leaving me a towel, soap, a tooth brush, socks, and some new skivvies. I will have to find a way to return the favour later.
In the evening I finished the portraits of Bombardier Adam Holmes, and Captain Ryan Sheppard up at their lookout hooch on the mountain. I felt I owed this to them after they so willingly brought me along on the QRF mission and kept an eye on me the whole time.
During my first real day of soldiering with Canadian troops I am left thoroughly impressed by their professionalism and poise. They show incredible will in simply accomplishing their daily tasks under heat conditions that would wilt cactus. Their training is obvious too, everything is done by the book and the feeling of teamwork is difficult to remain emotionally detached from. So i don't. I can't be observer alone on this trip. There is no room for baggage. And although I probably create a lot of work for them, I try and help out where I can.
In the late evening, just as I am heading to bed I got a call from CBC radio. I am supposed to be interviewed by Jian Ghomeshi but I had forgotten all about it. Anyway my Afghan cell phone kept cutting out and they had some concern about the quality of the sound bytes — caused by my thick accent — but hopefully they will find something they can use.
#1
You really must read this at the link. This guy's sketches are better than the ones Jim Pollock and the 'army artists' of Vietnam era did. He is rather in the same league as Bill Maudlin. I'd like to see this guy team up with Michael Yon. That would be a great team - a modern era Ernie Pyle and Maudlin.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/23/2007 8:54 Comments ||
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#2
I like his clean, honest writing style too. If this is a representative sample, he's more interested in describing the events around him than he is in shaping events to a ready made mold. Good stuff.
An air strike by foreign-led forces killed 20 Taliban fighters and 25 civilians, including 12 members of a family, in AfghanistanÂ’s southern Helmand province, the provincial police chief said on Friday.
Hussien Andiwal said the raid had taken place on Thursday night as part of an operation against Taliban fighters by foreign forces and Afghan troops. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) confirmed its troops had called in air support after being attacked in Helmand province, and said it was investigating reports of a “small number” of civilian casualties. “We are concerned about reports that some civilians may have lost their lives during this attack,” said Lieutenant Colonel Mike Smith, a NATO spokesman.
Another provincial police official Colonel Mohammad Hassan said the bombing came after Taliban fighters had attacked an ISAF convoy from among houses and gardens in a village. About 20 Taliban were also reportedly killed in the strike after midnight, he said. “The NATO forces’ air strike on the area mistakenly targeted two to three civilian houses, killing 25 civilians,” he said. They included nine women and three children aged from six months to two years old, he said, adding that the bodies of the dead were lying where they had been hit.
The information that 20 Taliban were killed had come from “reports we get from the local people,” he said. “The militants seem to have taken the Taliban bodies with them.”
The ISAF said the target of the strike was a compound “assessed to have been occupied by up to 30 insurgent fighters, most of whom were killed in the engagement.”
“ISAF troops are now investigating reports that a small number of civilians may also have been in the compound,” it said in a statement. One ISAF soldier was wounded in the engagement.
Moreover, Taliban militants killed seven Afghan policemen and wounded a soldier from the US-led coalition in separate ambushes around the country. According to an Afghan official, rebels attacked a joint patrol by Afghan police and coalition forces overnight in the eastern province of Nangarhar. “One border policeman was killed while a coalition solider and one Afghan policeman were wounded in the attack in Pachir Wa Agam district,” said Noor Agha, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
A second patrol by Afghan police was ambushed in neighbouring Chaparhar district and three policemen were killed and two others wounded, the spokesman added. The Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks. In another ambush three policemen were killed and five were wounded in southern Kandahar province, district police chief Zemarai Khan said, adding that his deputy was also among those attacked. He blamed Taliban for the attack.
Dutch ISAF forces have killed two Taliban leaders in “heavy fighting” this week in Uruzgan province, General Dick Berlijn told reporters in The Hague.“Two mullahs have died in the fighting” which dealt “a heavy blow” to the Taliban, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Surgeon General's Warning "Associating with terrorists is bad for your health".
NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces killed about 60 insurgents along the border with Pakistan in what was described as the largest insurgent formation crossing the border region in six months, NATO said Saturday.
The U.S. commander in the region late Friday said the number of insurgents reported moving over the Afghan-Pakistan border has increased in recent months, though the higher numbers may be due to additional troops observing activity.
Attacks in that region - Afghan provinces bordering Pakistan where the U.S. military operates - rose 250 percent in May compared with May 2006, according to U.S. military information.
The insurgents fired on aircraft, and NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces returned fire,
NATO's International Security Assistance Force said about 60 insurgents attempted to attack Afghan and ISAF forces Friday in the Bermel district of Paktika province, near the Pakistan border. The insurgents fired on aircraft, and NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces returned fire, killing about 60 fighters, an ISAF statement said.
The ISAF statement said it was the "largest formation observed since Jan. 10 maneuvering in this area." In January U.S. forces said they had killed around 130 of 180 insurgents crossing the border.
"These individuals clearly had weapons and used them against our aircraft as well as shooting rockets against our positions. This demonstrated intent to cause serious harm to the people of Bermel ... This required their removal from the battle-space," Col. Martin P. Schweitzer, commander of Task Force Fury, said in a statement.
There were no reported Pakistan military, coalition or Afghan forces injured or wounded during the engagement, ISAF said.
Meanwhile, in Kandahar province, Afghan and coalition soldiers killed nearly 20 enemy fighters during a seven-hour firefight, a coalition statement said.
Schweitzer this month is stationed at Forward Operating Base Thunder in southern Ghazni province as part of Operation Maiwand, the first operation planned and led by the Afghan National Army.
In a separate interview, Schweitzer said an increase in U.S. and Afghan forces along the border, as well as an increase in cooperation with Pakistan's military, have led to improved intelligence in the region.
"So I've got all these forces, now I can see a lot more, so it's an increase in reporting of (insurgent) forces moving back and forth. Whether it's an increase or not it's hard to measure since we didn't have the right collection mechanisms out there in the past," Schweitzer said in an interview at a forward operating base in Ghazni province.
The U.S. military has an extra combat brigade operating in eastern Afghanistan compared with a year ago, which may have led to the increase in intelligence and attacks.
#1
Taliban claims they recruit from occupied Afghanis. This incident proves what we already know: they enlist from the 2,000,000 Afghan refugees in Pakistan. And our Pak ally does everything to encourage it. The 60 dead terrorists won't be harassing educators of young girls.
#3
I'm certain a number of numb-nuts of Pakistani origins were among the now squashed mess of dead Jihadis resembling mushed strawberries. Thank Allah for DNA samples so that their bereaved relatives can know that little Ahmed and Yahya ended up booking permanent stay at the inferno.
THE HAGUE - Two Taleban leaders have died in ‘heavy fighting’ this week with Dutch ISAF troops in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, Dutch armed forces commander General Dick Berlijn said Friday. ‘Two mullahs have died in the fighting’ which dealt ‘a heavy blow’ to the Taleban, Berlijn told journalists in The Hague.
Dutch and Australian soldiers as well as the Afghan army took part in ‘intense street combat’ with Taleban forces in the Chora district of southern Uruzgan province, he added. During the fighting, dozens of camp followers civilians -- sources report between 30 and 70 -- were killed in Chora, a district under Dutch ISAF control but where the Dutch do not maintain a constant presence.
An investigation is underway to determine who killed the camp followers civilians, the general said.
"Whatja think, Tyrone? 105?"
"No sir. 155. Look at the blast pattern."
"You're right. Tell the arty boys, 'nice shooting.'"
"Yessir."
‘Civilians were forced to fight by the Taleban and eight women had their throat cut in the middle of the street,’ he said, adding that some 150 inhabitants were forced to flee their homes.
Brave, brave Lions of Islam™
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
pretty obviously the Dutch artillery and automatic weapons fire cut the women's throats...yep
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2007 9:25 Comments ||
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(SomaliNet) Five people, four of them government soldiers died and three others were wounded in a huge explosion which occurred on Friday near the main seaport in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. According to local witnesses, the blast which happened around 10:00 am local time was caused by a roadside bomb on a car carrying government policemen. Among the dead people was a ten year-old boy who was severely cut by the explosion and was beyond recognition while the wounded were civilians who were walking alongside the road in time of explosion.
Gee, Lebanon cools off and Somalia hots up again. It's almost like there's a .... plan or somethin'.
Investigations over the latest bomb explosion is now underway as government soldiers began house to house search in the villages near the port which is heavily guarded by the African Union peacekeepers from Uganda. No one was reported to have been arrested for the attack and no group has claimed responsibility so far. "I have heard a huge and load explosion, I saw ahead of me a car carrying police men that went up by roadside bomb," said one eye witness who asked not to be mentioned. The latest bomb attack followed last nightÂ’s explosion in Hodan neighborhood, south of the capital killing one civilian.
Meanwhile, on Friday the Transitional Federal Government imposed a dusk to dawn curfew on the capital Mogadishu following escalation of violence in the city. The TFG blamed all these acts of violence on the local insurgents who had recently been defeated by the Ethiopian forces in weeks of non-stop heavy street battle which killed hundreds of people mostly civilians and made thousands of people displace their houses in the capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
I'm assuming it's Christian v/s Muslim. Am I correct? It's always "warring clans", TNG, Government forces, local insurgents. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm correct in my assumption.
(SomaliNet) Fresh gun battle between rival soldiers within the Transitional Federal Government has erupted in SomaliaÂ’s southern port city of Kismayu on Friday killing seven people and wounding 30 others - as heavily armed Ethiopian forces are heading to Kismayu to go between the warring clans.
The fighting that lasted for four hours in Bulo-Gadud and Gobweyn villages village, near Kismayu went between Sade and Majerten clans of Darod, one of powerful tribes in Somalia. Both clan soldiers in the government are fighting for the control of Kismayu, 500km south of the capital Mogadishu.
Unconfirmed reports say the soldiers that hailed from Sade clan who now control Kismayu overrun those from Majerten clan, led by Col. Abdirisak Afgadud who was close to the president of Somalia Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed. A spokesman for Sade clan who declined to be named claimed that his militia seized six war vehicles from the other side and took hostage their commander Aden Bojar. There is no independent confirmation on that. Just in reports say that the fighting still continues as both sides regain reinforcements.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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(SomaliNet) Huge and load explosions could be heard late Friday in the Somalia capital Mogadishu as the city is under curfew. Around seven blasts rocked the capital tonight and it is not yet clear where the explosions happened and the casualty so far. The latest explosions came shortly after the curfew was put into effect in Mogadishu with government troops together with the Ethiopian forces patrolling the city enforcing the curfew.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Hey!!!
No explosions allowed after 10:00!!
People are trying to sleep around here!!
Algerian source in Madrid told El Khabar that the Spanish Criminal Court started considering 8 Algerians cases living in Spain guilty for fraud and support to “Ansar el Islam” group affiliated to Al-Qaeda organization in Iraq. While “La Razon” newspaper reported Thursday that intelligence services-led investigations ended up by charging an Algerian detainee called Salah Eddine Berkoune for leading a property robbing group the amounts of which they’ve been transferred to the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat GSPC in Algeria.
“La Razon” added that Spanish Security Finance Investigation Department Chief Javier Caragoca has put in review with European security chiefs in Netherlands 20 June the latest investigations’ results of the Spanish Intelligence Services come up to, concerning arrests along the last two years against people from Maghreb. Caragaca revealed, according to “La Razon”, the different money transfer methods that “Al Qaeda” cells use to supply GSPC by transferring funds from European countries including Spain and Switzerland to Algeria, highlighting the use of money order system not related to bank accounts. The security official concluded by insisting on the need to garner European security services efforts to confront what he called the "domestic security threat to the North Western Mediterranean countries.”
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Notice the proliferation of IED's across the world? Maybe the UN ought to come up with some kind of treaty we can all sign.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
06/23/2007 9:00 Comments ||
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#2
UN won't do shit, except generate more hot air. No wonder we have global warming. Muzzies go with what works. IED's are a spectacular success, like blowing up buses and exploding vests in a crowd. They'll keep doing it until it doesn't work. The only question is, when will it appear in a road/mall near you ?
Security services-led investigations allowed the arrest of Salafist extremists namely Abu Sajida brotherÂ’s boss, an immigrant student taught radical Islam by a famous Imam in Sania municipality, and a pay phone manager in the same commune. Preliminary information revealed that the group members were about to join Iraqi insurgents, and underscored that two others have already moved there. This information mirror that Oran is being a key region for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb Jihadist recruitment plans.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Authorities had better begin to realize that terrorism runs in the family. DNA collection will facilitate future investigations and entire families need to be deported when even a single member or relative engages in terrorist activities. Islam is a high context ideology and Islamic terrorism relies upon familial ties to maintain cell secrecy, financing and contact networks.
Germany's federal prosecutor has indicted for attempted murder a Lebanese man who is accused of planting terrorist bombs a year ago on German trains, officials said Wednesday. Police say neither of the bombs exploded because of inshallah circuitry a mistake in their construction.
Both Lebanese Moslem suspects were seen on closed-circuit TV carrying booby-trapped suitcases into trains and were caught within weeks. The trial of the other man has already begun in Lebanon.
The 22-year-old Lebanese is the prime suspect in what was an apparent attempt to explode suitcase time-bombs on two regional trains on July 31, 2006. He and Jihad Hamad, a compatriot now on trial in Lebanon, were filmed at Cologne station with suitcases. The suitcases were left behind seats of trains. Al-Haijib left the train near Bonn as it continued towards the city of Koblenz. The timer and detonator went off, but not the main explosive. The bag was later handed in as lost property.
Had the camping gas and spirit exploded, the bombs would have created a massive fireball which would have badly damaged the trains and likely have caused many deaths, German prosecutors said.
The indictment will charge that al-Haijib and Hamad, who were living in Germany, decided in April 2006 to harm their host country in protest at publication by newspapers of cartoons they believed were insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Capitalized without a moment's hesitation. Nice work DPA.
In Beirut, Hamad has admitted the plot to German and Lebanese police,
"Put those away! I'll talk!!!"
prosecutors say, whereas al-Haijib, who is being held in a Berlin jail, refuses to answer questions. Lawyers said there was no accusation of forming a terrorist organization because under German law, at least three persons were needed to constitute such a group.
Gah.
Police have investigated two other men, but have not found sufficient evidence to charge them.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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A senior Taliban military commander warned the government against undertaking military operations against the Taliban and hurled a similar threat at the US, saying that the militants were “destined to achieve victory”.
“Let me make it clear that we will take up arms if any military operation is carried out in the name of training camps,” Maulvi Abdul Khaliq, who reportedly put up stiff resistance during military operations last year, told a group of journalists. “To say there are training camps in Waziristan is absurd because tribal people are born trained. We do not need any training,” said the Taliban commander.
They're born brilliant, too, apparently.
The warning from the commander is the first such threat since the government struck a peace deal with pro-Taliban elements in September last year. According to Khaliq, the government had violated the deal four times while the militants had “exercised restraint and not attacked security forces”.
He described the government’s claims about the presence of training camps and foreign militants as “baseless”. “We neither allow foreigners here nor do we shelter them,” he said. “Every resident of North Waziristan will take up arms if there is a military operation.”
He said all foreign militants had crossed the border after last year’s agreement, under which the militants had pledged to “purge Waziristan of all foreign militants”.
The senior Taliban commander also rejected claims that his followers were crossing the border to attack NATO and US forces and Afghan troops. “Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is making these accusations to conceal his own weaknesses, as the border is heavily guarded on both sides,” said the commander who has been termed a “hard shell to crack” by security forces. He said the NATO forces had “failed to demoralize the Afghan mujahideen” and that foreign forces would “never make the mujahideen surrender”. The Taliban commander also denied involvement in the suicide attack on Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao Khan on April 28 in his hometown in Charsadda district. The commander said the Pakistani ruler was attacking “innocent people” in Waziristan to “appease” the Americans. He predicted a “Soviet-like fall” for the US in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
the militants were “destined to achieve victory”.
Victory goes to the military that fights the best. This "G_d will give us victory" doesn't stand up too well to HE, napalm, and willie pete, and nukes REALLY do a number on your turban. The only thing the talibunnies are going to achieve is getting half a generation killed, maimed, or missing. How big of them, how 'brave', how muzzie.
“Every resident of North Waziristan will take up arms if there is a military operation.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. If the US napalmed a few villages, I'd bet there wouldn't be a muzzie in pakland that would dare take up arms against us again. The US and NATO need to take the gloves off. If that pisses off Karzai or Perv, take them out.
He predicted a “Soviet-like fall” for the US in Afghanistan.
Another village is missing their idiot. The US troops are professional, not the rag-tag draftees and drunken officers of the Soviet army. This guy needs to be made aware that there's a target painted on his forehead, and a few hundred US Special Forces aiming for it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/23/2007 13:07 Comments ||
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#2
Ho, hum. Another day, another death threat, or fatwah from a muslim cleric.
A handful of clerics belonging to various religious parties on Friday gathered at the Data Darbar under the banner of Almi Tanzeeme Ahle Sunnah and termed the Queen Elizabeth a ‘blasphemer’ for the conferral of “knighthood” to the blasphemous writer Salman Rushdie.
The clerics, while protesting outside the Data Darbar, demanded the government to call Pakistani diplomats back from the UK. They said the government should cut off the diplomatic and trade ties with the UK. The clerics also endorsed the floor statements of Federal Religious minister Ejazul Haq and Punjab Assembly speaker Chaudhry Afzal Sahi terming to kill a blasphemer justified even in a suicidal attack. The PA speaker while speaking on the floor on Thursday said that he would kill a blasphemer if he/she comes in front of him. The clerics aimed to follow the words of the PA speaker.
They were shouting anti-America, anti-UK and anti-Musharraf slogans. The speaking aimed to continue their protest till the death of Rushdie. The emotionally charged participants said it was a war between Islam and the infidels. They also shouted anti-Christianity slogans.
They burnt effigy of the Queen Elizabeth. They termed this burning a symbolic killing of the Queen. The clerics were escorted by heavy contingents of police. The clerics tried to gather the attention of the Data Darbar visitors over the issue. However, it seemed that a less number of people were aware of the issue. Some passers-by were found asking, “Why are they protesting? Who is Rushdie?” “ What do these clerics want?”
Daily Times learnt from various people the clerics in their Friday sermons denounced the British government for the conferral of the “Knighthood” to Rushdie. In the Punjab University’s main mosque, teachers made a hue and cry over the issue. They also demanded Muslims for boycotting the UK products.
MMA observes anti-Rushdie protest day: On the call of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal a protest day was observed across the country to denounce the British government for awarding the title of ‘Sir’ to blasphemer Salman Rushdie. The protestors demanded the British government should immediately withdraw this title. They said Muslims should raise this issue on the platform of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. They said, “We want to make it clear to the British government that this step has hurt the feelings of Muslims.”
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
"Protesting clerics say Queen Elizabeth also a blasphemer"
#5
Then I knighted Rushdie, now I'm a blasphemer!
Not a trace of sense in their minds
I hurt the poor muzzies' feelings,
Now they seethe and bitch and whine!
Posted by: Once A Knight Is Enough ||
06/23/2007 8:15 Comments ||
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#6
They said the government should cut off the diplomatic and trade ties with the UK.
#7
Maybe Pakistan will forbid anyone from traveling to Britain.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/23/2007 9:14 Comments ||
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#8
Maybe Britain should deport all pakis and refuse to allow them to return. I'm sure that would hurt pakiland more than Britain. Think of all the welfare checks that would suddenly no longer be needed.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/23/2007 13:12 Comments ||
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#9
> Maybe Pakistan will forbid anyone from traveling to Britain.
Pro-Taliban militants in the tribal belt beheaded an Afghan national allegedly spying for the US-led forces in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.
The head and body of the man were stuffed in a sack and dumped by a road side near Khar, the main town in Bajaur district, security official Mahmoor Khan a French news agency. “We found the beheaded body of an Afghan man today,” Khan said. “We also found a note with the body saying ‘Whoever spies for the Americans will meet the same fate’.” Authorities named the man as Sarwar Khan, 45, a livestock trader originally from Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, who was living with his family in Bajaur. The body had been handed over to his relatives, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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Two died and 16 people sustained injuries when a grenade was exploded at a tableeghi markaz in Bannu district late Saturday night.
Rizwan from the Bannu Cantt police station told Daily Times that ‘proclaimed offender’ Shakirullah alias Madakay detonated the grenade and himself succumbed to injuries at around 3 am at the local hospital. He said Shakirullah lobbed the grenade when markaz guards nabbed him. The blast occurred at around 10:45 pm, he said. Bannu Tableeghi Markaz Ameer Afsar Ali told Daily Times the incident was an accident. He said Shakirullah was carrying weaponry meant for his own protection and had lobbed the grenade when he was being taken away by guards.
Bannu SSP Investigation Sikandar Khan told Daily Times that Shakirullah was not a suicide bomber and was in fact a resident of the same tableeghi markaz. “He was a proclaimed offender. When markaz guards saw him with a pistol, they tried to arrest him,” the SSP said, adding that Shakirullah had lobbed the grenade as guards were taking him away.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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At least four people were injured when an unknown man hurled a hand grenade on Friday at a barberÂ’s shop located on the Prince Road in Quetta. Hanif, Sajjad, Shabaz and Nazir were injured in the attack on Gold Hair Dresser. One of them is said to be in critical condition. Separately, two bomb explosions rocked coastal areas of Pasni. The first bomb exploded near the Pasni Tehsil Council Building. It smashed the buildingÂ’s windowpanes. The second bomb exploded in the courtyard of a hospital. No loss of life was reported in both the explosions.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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Authorities in Pakistan have arrested three Germans for suspected links to Islamist extremist groups, police in Germany said Friday. Two of the Germans were converts to Islam, the head of the federal police Joerg Ziercke, told reporters in the southwestern city of Wiesbaden, adding that the suspects were being held in Pakistan. The third man, already considered by the German authorities to be a dangerous individual with links to Islamist extremists, was of foreign origin and had been living in the Wiesbaden region, officials said.
They would not immediately say when the Germans were arrested, but the German newspaper Die Welt reported in its Saturday edition that the arrests were made “several days ago”.
One suspect was arrested trying to cross illegally from Pakistan to Iran, the second was apprehended in Karachi, while the third was trying to return to Germany, Die Welt reported, quoting government sources. News of the arrests followed an announcement by the German authorities that they had stepped up security in response to a greater threat of attacks at home and abroad due to the countryÂ’s military involvement in Afghanistan.
The European Union’s Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini on a trip to Rome Friday, echoed German concerns about the threat of attacks. “We have registered an increase in the movement of people ready for terrorist attacks who are trained in hard-to-reach areas like Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the commissioner said.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#2
Nah, #1 - if they're German, it's more likely they're named Hans-Abdul, Franz-Ahmed and Johann-Mohammed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
06/23/2007 0:50 Comments ||
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#3
Ya gotta wonder about the wisdom of Germany and France importing all of these people who will never, ever drink a drop of beer or wine. That simple fact alone should have set off all sorts of warning bells about the likelihood of thorough assimilation.
#4
Two of the Germans were converts to Islam. The third man was of foreign origin and had been living in the Wiesbaden region.
Hans-Jorg Pfaffelhuber, Wilhelm Christian Grobusch, Abdullah Mohammed ibn Mahmud Abdul al Ghamdi al Mizr, known as Dully to his friends. (Yes, I know the al Ghamdis are Saudi troublemakers rather than Egyptian ones, but I'm trying to be universal and nondiscriminatory.)
Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa students raided a Chinese massage centre in Sector F-8/3 and took hostage five Chinese nationals, including three women and two men, on late Saturday night in Islamabad, Geo television reported. According to the channel, two vehicles full of armed seminary students raided the massage centre, abducted the staff and brought them to the mosque.
Geo reported Jamia Hafsa administration as alleging that a brothel was being run under the garb the massage centre. The Lal Masjid clerics could not be contacted as they had switched off their mobile phones. Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) officials reached the seminary and were trying to secure the release of the abducted Chinese through dialogue, it reported. Earlier, the students had abducted an alleged brothel owner and released her after a couple of days. They had also abducted and later released two police personnel.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Chinese Embassy call to Pervert:
" Get your dumb ass over to the shithole madrassa and get our people back now !"
Pervert: "Yessir. My people are already working on it.
Embassy: " You'd better get your dumb ass cracking. If anyone is injured, we're going to make mainstreet Islamabamabadass look like Tiannemen but 100 times worse. Got it ?"
Pervert: "Yessir, yessir, I'm handling it right now."
Phone slams in Perv's good ear.
U.S. and Iraqi troops captured two senior al-Qaida militants and seven other operatives Saturday in Diyala province, an Iraqi commander said, as an offensive to clear the volatile area of insurgents entered its fifth day.
The U.S. military also cracked down elsewhere in Iraq, saying in a statement that seven other al-Qaida fighters were killed and 10 suspects detained in raids in Tikrit, east of Fallujah, south of Baghdad and in Mosul.
Three other militants suspected of having ties to Iran were detained in a predawn operation by U.S. forces working with Iraqi informants in Baghdad's main Shiite district of Sadr City, the military said separately.
Coalition forces are determined to counter Iranian influence in Iraq, pursuing those suspected of smuggling arms and other forms of lethal aid into Iraq
``Coalition forces are determined to counter Iranian influence in Iraq, pursuing those suspected of smuggling arms and other forms of lethal aid into Iraq,'' military spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said in a statement. ``Disrupting the bombing network in Baghdad remains a high priority for us, and we will continue to target the cells' leaders and members.''
Roadside bombs, including EFPs and other makeshift devices used by Sunni and Shiite militants alike, are the No. 1 killer of foreign troops in Iraq. At least 20 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq this week - all but five from wounds suffered from improvised explosive devices, the term the military uses for roadside bombs.
The British military also said Saturday that a British soldier had died of wounds suffered the day before in a roadside bombing in the southern Iraqi city of Basra. The death raised to at least 153 the number of British troops killed since the war started in March 2003.
Violence also continued to target Iraqi forces.
Gunmen stormed a school building being used by commandos sent to reinforce security in the northern Sunni city of Samarra, killing two officers and wounding six other people, including five civilians, in a 45 minute gunbattle, police and hospital officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
The attackers, some masked and armed with rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, were targeting Iraqi special forces sent to Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, following the most recent bombing that brought down the twin minarets of the revered Shiite shrine there, the officials said.
Six men also were killed after they were seized by gunmen at an illegal checkpoint near the Shiite holy city of Karbala, 50 miles south of Baghdad, according to a member of the provincial council, Ghalib al-Daami. He said those killed included a local council member from the nearby town of Ayn Tamir.
The announcement of the capture of two senior al-Qaida members in Diyala province came after concerns were raised that much of the terror organization's local leadership had fled before a major U.S. military crackdown began on Monday.
The announcement of the capture of two senior al-Qaida members in Diyala province came after concerns were raised that much of the terror organization's local leadership had fled before a major U.S. military crackdown began on Monday.
The U.S. ground forces commander, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, has said more than three-quarters of Baqouba's al-Qaida leadership fled before the Americans moved into the city in force.
Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abdul Karim al-Rubaie said the suspects had been transferred immediately to Baghdad, but he provided no more information about their identities. Seven other suspected al-Qaida fighters had been arrested in the center of Baqouba, and 30 hostages were released from a prison elsewhere in the provincial capital, al-Rubaie said.
The U.S. military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but it said in a statement earlier Saturday that at least 55 al-Qaida operatives have been killed and 23 detained since the start of Operation Arrowhead Ripper. It also said 16 weapons caches have been discovered, and 28 roadside bombs and 12 booby-trapped structures have been destroyed.
U.S. soldiers made a startling discovery: a suspected al-Qaida field hospital stocked with oxygen tanks, heart defibrillators and other medical equipment
Earlier this week, creeping house-to-house through western Baqouba, U.S. soldiers made a startling discovery: a suspected al-Qaida field hospital stocked with oxygen tanks, heart defibrillators and other medical equipment.
The find displayed al-Qaida's sophisticated support network in Baqouba, a mostly Sunni town of about 300,000 people, located 35 miles north of Baghdad.
And that may presage great problems in an outright defeat of al-Qaida even if U.S. forces succeed in ousting the group from Baqouba. The city has received little aid or other services from the central government, which feared supplies would end up in al-Qaida hands. As the al-Qaida field hospital proved, much assistance did bypass residents and found its way to the terrorist organization.
Until trust is mended, U.S. military commanders say, any success they have in this offensive could be lost on a city unable or unwilling to reconcile sectarian differences. Historically a mixed province, Diyala has become predominantly Sunni as Shiites fled an influx of Sunni militants from Anbar province. The militants were welcomed by many of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party members.
The shifting population balance only increased tension between local Sunni tribal leaders and the Shiite-dominated federal government in Baghdad.
``There are a multitude of systematic functions that aren't working,'' said Maj. Robbie Parke, 36, spokesman for the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division. ``The Iraqi government has to say, `Look, Baqouba is in trouble, and we need to help.'''
So far that has not happened, U.S. officials say. But there are signs of hope.
``The (Iraqi) government is very immature, but they're getting better and saying the right things. We've got to hold them to that,'' said Odierno, the ground forces commander.
He spoke to AP during a trip to Baqouba on Thursday as American forces began in earnest to squeeze al-Qaida, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militiamen after the arrival of the final brigade of an additional 30,000 troops dispatched by President Bush.
An Associated Press employee in Baqouba contributed to this report.
Posted by: lotp ||
06/23/2007 09:11 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
#1
There is a 3 hour delay at the water board due to an increase in late arriving candidates. Additional tanks are being constructed as we speak which will relieve the demand resulting from the ripping of a new arrowhead.
#2
Interestingly enough, it used to be a guiding principle of authoritarian regimes ruling over divided peoples that first thing, you create a national police, and have policemen from one group policing the group different from their home region.
Then, you create a program like Tito and Saddam did, of intermingling your peoples to make them more homogeneous. But what afflicted them both was that they went at it in a half-assed manner.
Instead of a program that would blend them so thoroughly, while under tight control, that it wouldn't matter where they went in the country, there would be NO ethnic or religious difference, there were still entire regions heavily dominated by different groups.
On top of everything else, you need to create what amounts to duplicates of every special ethnic monument or treasure, like in Iraq of a special mosque, and insure that every different group has a stake everywhere, not just in a particular place.
Coalition Forces attack helicopters engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen southwest of Khalis, Friday. Iraqi police were conducting security operations in and around the village when Coalition attack helicopters from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, observed more than 15 armed men attempting to circumvent the IPs and infiltrate the village. The attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen and destroyed the vehicle they were using.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
This is turning into a quaqmire... for both Pelosi and Reid.
Coalition Forces intercepted an ambulance carrying seven suspected al-Qaida operatives attempting to circumvent security elements operating in Baqouba, June 19.
Local doctors called the Diyala Provincial Joint Coordination Center and reported five children injured near Khatoon, a neighborhood in southwest Baqouba, Iraq. The PJCC dispatched an ambulance to that location.
Later, the ambulance was seen heading north on a road northwest of New Baqouba when it bypassed the road that led to the hospital.
The ambulance was stopped by alert Soldiers from 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Lewis, Wash., who are conducting missions in the area as part of Operation Arrowhead Ripper.
Soldiers checked the ambulance and found a driver and six men, who appeared to be in their 20s and 30s, two of which were injured. There were no children in the ambulance.
CF provided medical treatment to the wounded men and detained all seven.
“Using emergency service vehicles to move fighters and equipment is a common tactic of al-Qaida in Iraq,” said Col. Steve Townsend, commander of 3rd SBCT, 2nd Inf. Div. “We are controlling ambulances and other service vehicles in the city to ensure they are being used legitimately.”
ISF and Coalition Soldiers continue to use a variety of security measures to prevent al-Qaida operatives from using emergency response vehicles to move fighters, munitions or as a disguise for car bombs.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Enough of this crapulence. If these rectal cavities are going to escape in anything, it'd better be an effing hearse.
Coalition Forces killed two terrorists and detained 29-suspected terrorists during operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq and its foreign fighter network Friday.
Two coordinated operations in Mosul targeted a Kurdish extremist known for helping al-Qaeda in Iraq facilitate foreign fighters and conduct financial and media operations. Coalition Forces entered the first targeted building, isolated the women and children and moved further into the house. While maneuvering through the target building, an armed man engaged the ground force with small arms fire, endangering the force and the innocent family members. Coalition Forces defended themselves and the women and children by killing the armed terrorist.
Coalition Forces identified the terrorist as part of the al-Qaeda in Iraq network that recruited and transported foreign fighters into Iraq for participation in suicide bombings and other terrorist activities. Coalition Forces detained seven suspected terrorists during the raids for their alleged involvement in the network as well.
In Baghdad, Coalition Forces conducted an operation to capture an al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader in the area. As Coalition Forces entered the building, a man continuously made hostile attempts to evade the ground forces and ignored the translatorÂ’s instructions to comply with the ForcesÂ’ orders. Reacting appropriately to the perceived hostile threat, Coalition Forces engaged the man, killing him.
Inside the building, Coalition Forces detained 10-suspected terrorists, including two who have alleged close ties to al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders. Coalition Forces also destroyed a vehicle used in transporting weapons and personnel for terrorist activity.
West of Tarmiyah, Coalition Forces targeted an individual suspected of facilitating the movement of foreign fighters into Iraq. The ground force captured the individual and three more suspected terrorists allegedly tied to the al-Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighter network.
Coalition Forces raided a building northeast of Habbaniyah in search of an al-Qaeda senior leader there. The ground force detained eight suspected terrorists for their alleged involvement with the senior leader. “Al-Qaeda in Iraq members continue to threaten the safety of Iraqis with indiscriminant violence, even deliberately endangering their own family members,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, MNF-I spokesperson. “Al-Qaeda’s operatives, many of them foreigners to Iraq, do not represent the will or the desires of the Iraq people.”
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Maybe like Hitler and Goebbels, they can't imagine how their family will get along without them, so they bring them along.
Posted by: Bobby ||
06/23/2007 7:11 Comments ||
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On day four of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, Task Force Lightning and Iraqi soldiers continued sweeping through Baqouba, Iraq, to root out al-Qaida in Iraq.
CF Soldiers worked shoulder-to-shoulder with the Iraqi soldiers and police officers in and around the city during the operations. Coalition ground forces and air support provided critical assistance in targeting and destroying al-Qaida operatives and their safe havens.
In the Khatoon neighborhood of Baqouba, ISF and CF discovered a building suspected of being used as a torture chamber. Ground forces observed various weapons, including knives and saws, inside the building as well as blood stains throughout the building. After securing the area, the building and its contents were destroyed by an attack helicopter armed with Hellfire missiles.
Also in Khatoon, CF destroyed two houses that contained 45 water heaters filled with homemade explosives, IED making materials and computer equipment. One of the houses also contained several booby trapped freezers.
Iraqi police were conducting security operations in and around the village of Khalis when Coalition attack helicopters from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, observed 15-20 armed men attempting to circumvent the IPs and infiltrate the village.
The attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaida gunmen and destroyed the vehicle they were using.
Since the beginning of Operation Arrowhead Ripper, at least 55 al-Qaida operatives have been killed, 23 have been detained, 16 weapons caches have been discovered, 28 improvised explosive devices have been destroyed and 12 booby-trapped structures have been destroyed.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq
#1
Is it possible the alleged torture chamber was actually a makeshift hospital? Knives, saws, and bloodstains would be consistent with both. And there should be plenty of AQ in need of amputations etc. after being engaged in battle with our guys for a week. Even bloody tie-downs might only indicate a lack of anesthetic for the surgeries (grin). Ditto witness reports of screaming. Shackles or tie-downs, or bloody clawed walls in holding rooms would confirm the identification as torture facilities.
US Forces were last night battling hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters making a last stand in an Iraqi city north of Baghdad. Thousands of American soldiers were facing fierce resistance from militants in and around Baqouba with one general reporting: "It is house to house, block to block, street to street, sewer to sewer."
Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al-Qaeda fighters remained in the city after some of their leaders fled, and that fighting would prove fierce. "They're clearly in hiding, no question about it," he said. "But they're a hard-line group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can. They will not go any further. They will fight to the death. There have been houses that were used by al-Qaeda as safe houses ... their entire structures rigged with massive explosives."
On Tuesday, US-led forces launched Operation Arrowhead Ripper in Iraq's Diyala province, one of its biggest deployments since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Not far from Baqouba yesterday, US attack helicopters killed 17 suspected al-Qaeda gunmen on the outskirts of the town of Khalis, the US military said, bringing to 68 the number of militants killed so far in the operation. The military said the gunmen had been acting suspiciously around an Iraqi police patrol.
Baqouba is the capital of Diyala province. The region has long been an al-Qaeda hotbed, but attacks against US and Iraqi forces have soared since a four-month-old US-led security crackdown in Baghdad and operations elsewhere prompted many al-Qaeda militants and other gunmen to seek sanctuary in Diyala. The campaign is part of a broader offensive involving tens of thousands of US and Iraqi soldiers in simultaneous operations in Baghdad, and to the south and west of the capital.
Gen Bednarek said the fight against al-Qaeda in Diyala also involved local Sunni Arabs who opposed the US but who wanted to end al-Qaeda domination of their communities. He said this included fighters from the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a large Sunni Arab insurgent group that has fallen out with al-Qaeda over its indiscriminate killing of civilians.
Gen Bednarek said US forces were making some grisly discoveries in Baqouba. He said residents led soldiers to a house in the west of the city that appeared to have been used to hold, torture and kill hostages. Soldiers destroyed it. "When you walk into a room and you see blood trails, you see saws, you see drills, knives, in addition to weapons, that is not normal," Gen Bednarek said.
US military commanders have said the combined operations were taking advantage of the completion of a build-up of American forces in Iraq to 156,000 soldiers.
US President George Bush has sent 28,000 extra troops, mainly to Baghdad, to help curb sectarian bloodshed and buy time for Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Michael Yon, an American internet journalist embedded with US troops at Baqouba, wrote: "The combat in Baqouba should soon reach a peak. Al-Qaeda seems to have been effectively isolated. "The initial attack on 19 June achieved enough surprise that al-Qaeda was caught off guard and trapped. They have been beaten back mostly into pockets and are surrounded and will be dealt with. Our guys are winning. Al-Qaeda is about to be strangled and pummelled to death in this town. A big fight seems to be brewing."
Posted by: Seafarious ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
Wish this was San Francisco the Marines were successfully assaulting...
#2
Read somewhere today, that some American general was quoted as saying the top level of the b*^%ts had already left town before they got there.
He also vowed, they would be hunted down. But, intel was compromised and one has to wonder, the only route they had, was to Iran. Just how long ago did they leave? I also read somewhere today, that the Iraq/Iranian border is now secure....
#4
Killing cannon fodder isn't that big of a deal. There's plenty more where they came from. Madrassas churn out radicals by the thousands. The leaders are the ones with the connections to get things done.
#6
Kill enough cannon fodder, and it will get very difficult to replace them. Nobody really wants to die at the hands of "infidels". The more we take out, at every level, the easier it will be to find the new guys. Pretty soon it begins to really pinch.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/23/2007 13:43 Comments ||
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#7
Concur OP - human resources are not infinite. Even to train a sub-par guerilla takes time, $$$, and a certain amount of logistics before the basic martial standards of diminishing returns rears its head.
#8
Look at what happened when the IDF targeted upper and middle management in the boomer trade against Israel. Booms went down, were botched, or work accidents went through the roof, so to speak. Same story here in Iraq. It takes time and resources to breed an Orc.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/23/2007 22:21 Comments ||
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Long article warning that Hamas should not be pressured by both Fatah and Israel on the West Bank. The strain there is palpable in the comments quoted.
A top Fatah security commander resigned on Friday over his failure to prevent HamasÂ’ takeover of Gaza, Palestinian officials said. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accepted the resignation of Rashid Abu Shbak, who headed the Fatah-linked Internal Security organization in Gaza and the West Bank, officials in AbbasÂ’ office announced on Friday. Long hated by members of Hamas for his role in crackdowns against the Islamic group, Abu Shbak became the target of criticism from his own men after FatahÂ’s forces collapsed in Gaza last week, allowing Hamas to seize full control of the coastal territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
F**king Arab. If he had any pride, he'd degut himself over his rotten performance. No samurai among the camels, I guess.
June 22, 2007: Last Summer, intelligence analysts in Iraq got a new tool called Constant Hawk. It's an image analysis system that's basically just another pattern analysis system. However, it's been a very successful system. Recently, the army named Constant Hawk one of the top ten inventions for last year. The army does this to give some of the more obscure, yet very valuable, developments some well deserved recognition.
Pattern analysis is one of the fundamental tools Operations Research (OR) practitioners have been using since World War II (when the newly developed field of OR got its first big workout). Pattern analysis is widely used on Wall Street, by engineers, law enforcement, marketing specialists, and now, the military. Constant Hawk uses a special video camera system to observe a locality and find useful patterns of behavior. Some of the Constant Hawk systems are mounted on light aircraft, others are mounted on ground structures. Special software compares photos from different times. When changes are noted, they are checked more closely, which has resulted in the early detection of thousands of roadside bombs and terrorist ambushes. This has largely eliminated roadside bomb attacks on supply convoys, which travel the same routes all the time. But those routes are also watched by Constant Hawk. No matter what the enemy does, the Hawk will notice.
Constant Hawk, like most geek stuff, does not get a lot of media attention. Mainly it's the math, and TV audiences that get uneasy watching a geek trying to explain this stuff in something resembling English. But it works, and the troops want more of it. The troops like tools of this sort mainly because the systems retain photos of areas they have patrolled, and allows them to retrieve photos of a particular place on a particular day. Often, the troops returning from, or going out on a patrol, can use the pattern analysis skills we all have, to spot something suspicious, or potentially so.
#2
Funny thing is, some of the analysis done for ASW works for this sort of thing. I'm not going to say the whats and wherefores since I don't know the boundaries on whats talk about and whats not, but the cold war is still paying dividends in some places, where people are smart enough to go outside the box (and bypass the brass).
#4
Hmmm... wouldn't disturbed soil have a different IR profile than undisturbed? I wonder if there's some other, detectable differences -- maybe something to do with water content, maybe detectable with special radar...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
06/23/2007 19:03 Comments ||
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#5
High tech is great stuff. If we could keep track of people moving at night from high up, then we would know where they go and where they come from. After removing the night shift at the fig factory, the rest would be insurgents positioning themselves for action. No doubt this or something like it is done in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
#6
Doesn't matter. I'll just find another way for us to lose.
Posted by: Sen Harry Reid (D-himmi) ||
06/23/2007 21:02 Comments ||
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#7
When they can put this technology on a satelite and use it much like a video recorder in a store, then one would be able to get the longitude and latitude of a spot where an incident occured, roll the "tape" back to maybe 48 hours, and not only see who planted the IED, but follow the people to and from the scene to their abodes, no matter how far away from the scene the people approached or retreated from.
#8
Pattern analysis is one of the fundamental tools Operations Research (OR) practitioners have been using since World War II (when the newly developed field of OR got its first big workout). Pattern analysis is widely used on Wall Street, by engineers, law enforcement, marketing specialists, and now, the military.
All of this boils down to one of the most fundamental and important aspects of human consciousness. It's called "pattern recognition" and this has been the crux of advances made in most AI (artificial intelligence) or "Expert Systems" for the last few decades. Huge strides in machine memory have made possible higher resolution frame storage and retention of pre-programmed comparison templates.
None of this is rocket science. It is the result of applied machine intelligence combined with the input of seasoned personnel who have actually experienced real time execution of these procedures.
As Rob Crawford observes, "wouldn't disturbed soil have a different IR profile". While dependent upon advances in detector technology, it is these sort of simple measurements that can reveal a host of useful observations.
Astride technological advances, ground penetrating radar is becoming far more economical. There is no reason why such detection systems can't be lofted on drones to prowl roads used by our troops in hostile territory. With UAV technology undergoing a similar cost-performance decline, 24/7 surveillance should cease to be a challenge as well. DARPA's competition to devise wholely automated driverless surface vehicles could yield unmanned minesweeping "decoys" to draw IED attacks as well.
#9
AT9310 - that assumes geosynchronous orbit over the spot....
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/23/2007 23:02 Comments ||
Top||
#10
None of this is rocket science.
Only if your familiarity with pattern recognition is confined to classroom exercises.
I call BS on this and your other pronouncement today re: IED detection.
As it happens, I know a number of people working on both of these issues. Military and civilians, with PhDs from places like Stanford in disciplines like applied math, computer science, physics and electrical engineering. They've been working long days, weeks and months on these issues. They've made some progress, more remains to be achieved. None of it came easily.
You would look less like a pompous fool if you confined your remarks to subjects you can speak with real knowledge about.
#11
I call BS on this and your other pronouncement today re: IED detection.
So, you maintain that drones with ground penetrating radar, combined with day/night surveillance and autonomously guided vehicles to sweep for or elicit premature detonation of IEDs are not of use?
While my catalogue of useful technologies is not comprehensive by any means, it is also in no way irrelevant. I don't know if you're familiar with "top down" or "bottom up" machine intelligence, but it's the input of boots-on-the-ground people that is helping to advance battlefield detection and analysis methodologies. This in no way demeans the work of laboratory based research, but the contributions of our fighting people will probably bear the most fruit.
Three teenage boys were killed and a Buddhist man slain and his body set on fire in separate attacks in Thailand's restive southern provinces, police said Saturday.
Three 14-year-old Muslim boys were killed when suspected separatist insurgents threw a grenade and opened fire with automatic weapons at a busy teashop in Yala province's Bannang Sata district late Friday, police Lt. Anan Ritthitham said. Another 10 people were wounded, he said.
Manoon Sangthong, 46, was shot dead Saturday morning and his body set on fire near his rubber plantation in Narathiwat province's Rue So district, 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Bangkok, Police Lt. Khanchitphol Kuenor said. Manoon was a Buddhist, he said. Seven schools were also torched in Yala and Songkhla provinces on Friday night, police said. Songkhla borders the three southern provinces and violence often spills over into there.
Thailand's Defense Minister Gen. Boonrod Somtad, speaking to reporters Saturday, said the government is willing to talk with insurgents and knows some of the leaders. Boonrod made the comments on his return from visiting Malaysia and said Thailand's neighbor to the south offered to give full cooperation in efforts to resolve the violence in the south.
An uneasy calm has settled in northern Lebanon a day after the government claimed to have "crushed" Islamist fighters at a Palestinian refugee camp and declared victory. Leaders of Fatah al-Islam at the Nahr al-Bared camp were on the run, Defense Minister Elias Murr said on Thursday.
Officials said sporadic explosions on Friday were caused by soldiers blowing up booby-trapped buildings and mines. A month of fighting has left 170 people dead in Lebanon's worst internal violence since the 1975-90 civil war. Murr told Lebanese TV that the army had "crushed those terrorists".
"What is happening now is some clean-up that the army's heroes are carrying out, and dismantling some mines," he said.
'In hiding'
A group of Palestinian Muslim clerics that had tried to mediate during the clashes, said Fatah al-Islam had declared a ceasefire. One of the clerics, Sheik Mohammed Haj, told Associated Press news agency that the militants would "comply with the Lebanese army's decision to end military operations".
Troops would continue to pursue the leaders and remaining fighters of Fatah al-Islam, Murr said. He said they were believed to be hiding deep within the refugee camp among the civilian population, suggesting some clashes could still flare up inside the camp as a result.
Nahr al-Bared, near the northern city of Tripoli, was home to 31,000 people before the fighting broke out. Approximately 2,000 refugees are now believed to be inside the camp. Large parts of the camp have been left in ruins after a bitter struggle that began in late May when the Lebanese army tried to arrest a number of alleged members of Fatah al-Islam.
Lebanon has 12 refugee camps housing more than 350,000 Palestinians, many of whom fled or were forced to leave their homes when Israel was created in 1948. There is a long-standing convention that Lebanon's army does not go into the camps, leaving security inside to militant groups.
The Lebanese government believes Fatah al-Islam is backed by Syrian intelligence, a claim Syria denies. Syria has closed a border crossing in the north-east of Lebanon for "security" reasons. Damascus closed two other crossings when fighting first broke out in the camp, also for safety reasons. Only the Masnaa crossing remains open.
Fatah al-Islam militants will leave 'in coffins'
An Islamist preacher barred from Britain two years ago for his radical views says the militants besieged in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon will be destroyed. A Lebanese of Syrian origin who headed the radical al-Muhajiroun group in London until 2004, Omar Bakri Mohammed says the militants will "pay" for the conflict. "Attacking the Lebanese army the way they did was very wrong. They made a big mistake and now they are going to pay for it - they're going to be destroyed," Bakri said. "[They] are going to be killed. You will not hear a single complaint in Lebanon. They have not even called for their 'Islam brothers' to come to their rescue."
He said the Lebanese Army had the full support of all Sunni Muslims in the country to succeed in their avowed aim of crushing Fatah al-Islam. "These people inside have only one way out - in a coffin. They have no way out, specially the Saudi jihadists. If they're sent to Saudi Arabia they will be hanged," Mr Bakri said.
He said defeat for the militants would be a lesson for jihadists everywhere. "They will see that if they have no support from indigenous people they're going to be killed," he said. The Lebanese army has insisted right from the beginning on the surrender of Fatah al-Islam fighters ,but its leaders vowed to fight till death.
Posted by: Fred ||
06/23/2007 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Fatah al-Islam
#4
Mr Bakri said...He said defeat for the militants would be a lesson for jihadists everywhere. "They will see that if they have no support from indigenous people they're going to be killed,"
Bakri said that? Hmmm. Whom does he believe are the indigenous people of England?
#5
Fatah al-Islam had declared a ceasefire. One of the clerics, Sheik Mohammed Haj, told Associated Press news agency that the militants would "comply with the Lebanese army's decision to end military operations".
Um, it's a little late for that now. They sound like they are going to hunt this guy down and kill him like a dog, ceasefire not withstanding.
#6
A Lebanese of Syrian origin who headed the radical al-Muhajiroun group in London until 2004, Omar Bakri Mohammed says the militants will "pay" for the conflict.
Aiming for an 'expert talking-head' gig in the Media, eh Bakri?
#7
The Lebanese army needs to flush out Nahr al-Bared's entire population and level the whole place as an example of what will happen to any other refugee camp that tries this crap. I also wouldn't believe a single word that Bakri has to say. The guy is a terrorist and whatever garbage he's spewing is only for popular consumption.
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
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
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An air strike by foreign-led forces killed 20 Taliban fighters and 25 civilians, including 12 members of a family, in AfghanistanÂ’s southern Helmand province, the provincial police chief said on Friday. 
NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces killed about 60 insurgents along the border with Pakistan in what was described as the largest insurgent formation crossing the border region in six months, NATO said Saturday.
THE HAGUE - Two Taleban leaders have died in ‘heavy fighting’ this week with Dutch ISAF troops in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, Dutch armed forces commander General Dick Berlijn said Friday. ‘Two mullahs have died in the fighting’ which dealt ‘a heavy blow’ to the Taleban, Berlijn told journalists in The Hague.
(SomaliNet) Fresh gun battle between rival soldiers within the Transitional Federal Government has erupted in SomaliaÂ’s southern port city of Kismayu on Friday killing seven people and wounding 30 others - as heavily armed Ethiopian forces are heading to Kismayu to go between the warring clans. 
(SomaliNet) Huge and load explosions could be heard late Friday in the Somalia capital Mogadishu as the city is under curfew. Around seven blasts rocked the capital tonight and it is not yet clear where the explosions happened and the casualty so far. The latest explosions came shortly after the curfew was put into effect in Mogadishu with government troops together with the Ethiopian forces patrolling the city enforcing the curfew.
Algerian source in Madrid told El Khabar that the Spanish Criminal Court started considering 8 Algerians cases living in Spain guilty for fraud and support to “Ansar el Islam” group affiliated to Al-Qaeda organization in Iraq. While “La Razon” newspaper reported Thursday that intelligence services-led investigations ended up by charging an Algerian detainee called Salah Eddine Berkoune for leading a property robbing group the amounts of which they’ve been transferred to the former Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat GSPC in Algeria. 
A diplomatic delegation from Mali survived miraculously from a terrorist ambush in Boumerdés Wilaya, where a highly effective bomb exploded moments after they passed the village of Nassiria by that road. Security sources in Boumerdés said that the diplomatic convoy came from Tizi Ouzou Wilaya in its way to Algiers when a powerful bomb exploded suddenly wounding with its fragments a security element. This unexpected operation put the security convoy in a state of panic. The security elements dismantled another bomb which has been found on the same road.
Sania Court in Oran remanded Wednesday 5 people under custody for terrorism related charges, among them Zoubir Abu Sajida, one of the 4/11 suicide bombers brother, working in a construction workshop, according to El Khabar sources. The same sources mentioned that Abu Sajida brother recognized during the investigation by the second military region security services that he recognized his brother immediately after he’d seen him in Al Jazeera aired Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb communiqué. To recall Abu Sajida is the only suicide bomber who remained unknown after Abu Dadjana and Mouad Ibn Djabal’s identities have been unveiled.
Germany's federal prosecutor has indicted for attempted murder a Lebanese man who is accused of planting terrorist bombs a year ago on German trains, officials said Wednesday. Police say neither of the bombs exploded because of 
A senior Taliban military commander warned the government against undertaking military operations against the Taliban and hurled a similar threat at the US, saying that the militants were “destined to achieve victory”.
A handful of clerics belonging to various religious parties on Friday gathered at the Data Darbar under the banner of Almi Tanzeeme Ahle Sunnah and termed the Queen Elizabeth a ‘blasphemer’ for the conferral of “knighthood” to the blasphemous writer Salman Rushdie.
Pro-Taliban militants in the tribal belt beheaded an Afghan national allegedly spying for the US-led forces in Afghanistan, officials said on Friday.
At least four people were injured when an unknown man hurled a hand grenade on Friday at a barberÂ’s shop located on the Prince Road in Quetta. Hanif, Sajjad, Shabaz and Nazir were injured in the attack on Gold Hair Dresser. One of them is said to be in critical condition. Separately, two bomb explosions rocked coastal areas of Pasni. The first bomb exploded near the Pasni Tehsil Council Building. It smashed the buildingÂ’s windowpanes. The second bomb exploded in the courtyard of a hospital. No loss of life was reported in both the explosions.
Authorities in Pakistan have arrested three Germans for suspected links to Islamist extremist groups, police in Germany said Friday. Two of the Germans were converts to Islam, the head of the federal police Joerg Ziercke, told reporters in the southwestern city of Wiesbaden, adding that the suspects were being held in Pakistan. The third man, already considered by the German authorities to be a dangerous individual with links to Islamist extremists, was of foreign origin and had been living in the Wiesbaden region, officials said.
Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa students raided a Chinese massage centre in Sector F-8/3 and took hostage five Chinese nationals, including three women and two men, on late Saturday night in Islamabad, Geo television reported. According to the channel, two vehicles full of armed seminary students raided the massage centre, abducted the staff and brought them to the mosque. 
Coalition Forces intercepted an ambulance carrying seven suspected al-Qaida operatives attempting to circumvent security elements operating in Baqouba, June 19.
Coalition Forces killed two terrorists and detained 29-suspected terrorists during operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq and its foreign fighter network Friday.
Brigadier-General Mick Bednarek, assistant commander for operations with the 25th Infantry Division, estimated that several hundred low-level al-Qaeda fighters remained in the city after some of their leaders fled, and that fighting would prove fierce. "They're clearly in hiding, no question about it," he said. "But they're a hard-line group of fighters who have no intention of leaving, and they want to kill as many coalition and Iraqi security forces as they possibly can. They will not go any further. They will fight to the death. There have been houses that were used by al-Qaeda as safe houses ... their entire structures rigged with massive explosives." 
An uneasy calm has settled in northern Lebanon a day after the government claimed to have "crushed" Islamist fighters at a Palestinian refugee camp and declared victory. Leaders of Fatah al-Islam at the Nahr al-Bared camp were on the run, Defense Minister Elias Murr said on Thursday.
