The prisoners were considered some of the most dangerous men among the hundreds of terror suspects locked behind the walls of a secretive and secure American military detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan.
Their escape, however, might as well have been a breakout from the county jail.
According to military officials familiar with the episode, the suspects are believed to have picked the lock on their cell, changed out of their bright orange uniforms and made their way through a heavily guarded military base under the cover of night. They then crawled over a faulty wall where a getaway vehicle was apparently waiting for them, the officials said.
"It is embarrassing and amazing at the same time," an American defense official said. "It was a disaster."
The fact of the escape was disclosed by the American authorities shortly after it set off an intense manhunt at Bagram, 40 miles north of Kabul, on the morning of July 11. But internal military documents and interviews with military and intelligence officials indicate it was a far more serious breach than the Defense Department has acknowledged.
One of the four suspects was identified as Al Qaeda's highest-ranking operative in Southeast Asia when he was captured in 2002, a fact that emerged only during an unrelated military trial last month. Another, a Saudi, was also described by intelligence officials as an important Qaeda operative in Afghanistan.
The detainees planned their breakout meticulously, United States officials said, apparently studying the guards' routines, getting themselves moved into a cell that was less visible to the guards and taking advantage of construction work that was intended to expand and improve security at the prison.
"Based upon the findings of the investigation, it appears that the detainees had a clear understanding of the operating procedures of the guards inside the facility," said the chief spokesman for United States military forces in Afghanistan, Col. James R. Yonts.
One American intelligence official said the prisoners also took advantage of "a perfect storm" of mistakes by the military guards. The escape is believed to have been the first from one of the detention centers established by the United States for people suspected of being terrorists after 9/11. Military officials, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident are classified, said there was still much they did not know about how the men escaped.
Although an American military police guard was initially suspected of having helped the prisoners, he was eventually cleared. Half a dozen other soldiers, including officers and sergeants, have received administrative punishments, a senior military official in Afghanistan said.
"It was bizarre to me," said Maj. Gen. Peter Gilchrist of Britain, who served at the time as the deputy commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan in Kabul. "I don't understand how it could happen."
Military officials have often cited the danger posed by the prisoners at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a reason for the extreme security measures and harsh conditions there. Prisoners are typically shackled by their hands and feet when outside their cells and rarely move without an escort of at least two guards. During interrogations, they have often been forced into uncomfortable "safety positions" or chained to a bolt on the floor.
The two prisoners believed to have led the escape, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti who was the former Qaeda operative in Southeast Asia, and Muhammad Jafar Jamal al-Kahtani, the Saudi, had for months been awaiting transfer to Guantánamo Bay, officials said. For reasons they have not explained, the military authorities gave different names for both men in announcing the escape last summer.
At the time of Mr. Faruq's arrest in Jakarta, Indonesia, in early June 2002, he was considered one of the most important Qaeda figures ever captured by the United States. Three months later, he told C.I.A. interrogators at Bagram that he had been sent to the region to plan large-scale attacks against American Embassies and other targets there.
Intelligence officials gave differing views on the importance of Mr. Kahtani. One official described him as having been responsible at one point for maintaining Al Qaeda's operational support structure in Afghanistan; another said he was an important Qaeda fighter, but not a senior-level operative.
According to a classified, one-page military report on the escape that was reviewed by The New York Times, those two detainees - along with a Syrian prisoner identified as Abdullah Hashimi and a Kuwaiti named Mahmoud Ahmad Muhammad - were being held with four other men in Cell 119, on the ground floor of the Bagram prison.
A senior military official said each of the prisoners who escaped was moved into the cell in the days before his escape after causing problems with other detainees. The main cells at Bagram are large wire cages that can be easily surveyed by guards patrolling the catwalks above them. Cell 119, by contrast, was somewhat apart and out of the way, officials said. Asked whether the prisoners might have fabricated the disturbances to be moved together into Cell 119, the senior official said, "The investigation revealed credible factors that support this theory."
After a head count of prisoners at 1:50 a.m. on July 11, the military report states, the sergeant of the guard on duty at the detention center, now called the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, reported all of them accounted for, the report states.
About two hours later, at 3:45 a.m., as the detainees were being roused for the morning prayer, the four detainees were discovered missing from their cell. The military police battalion on duty at the prison, Task Force Cerberus, immediately locked down the prison and began a search, the report said.
How the men got out of their cell remains a mystery, officials said. Two senior military officials said some equipment was temporarily moved beside the cell, partly obstructing the guards' view. One senior military official said investigators believe the prisoners managed to pick the lock with implements they had fashioned while detained.
There were also suspicions that one of the American military guards, who had had disciplinary problems, might have deliberately left the door open, two senior officials said. But those suspicions were eventually discounted and the guard was never charged, they said.
The four men escaped out the southeast door of the main prison building, the report said. Military and intelligence officials said the detainees left behind their bright orange prison uniforms, apparently changing into less conspicuous blue prison garb that they might have somehow hidden in their cells or knew where to find elsewhere.
At the time, several officials said, construction crews had been working to expand and reinforce the prison, a cavernous aircraft machine-shop built by the Soviet military during its occupation of Afghanistan and converted by the American military into its primary screening center for terror suspects captured overseas. The breakout took place only days before a series of tougher security measures, including surveillance cameras and brighter lighting, were to be put in place.
The American forces have released more than 250 Taliban and other prisoners from Bagram this year as part of an Afghan national reconciliation program. Still, they have had to refurbish the prison to hold the roughly 500 detainees who remain.
The escapees also appear to have taken advantage of the construction work to move through an exercise yard and out of the prison compound. Another indication that the four men might have received help in their escape, officials said, was the apparent speed with which they found their way through a maze of buildings and roads to a small, damaged section of the perimeter wall surrounding the vast Bagram Air Base.
Once they found the faulty section of the packed-dirt wall, officials said, the detainees were able to crawl beneath the concertina wire that topped the barrier and drop down on the other side in an area of agricultural fields and abandoned homes.
"There were three or four points where they could have been caught," one American intelligence official said. "The escapees got very lucky." Within minutes of the escape, American forces began fanning out across and outside the prison, concentrating on the area near the faulty section of the wall. As the base sirens blared an alert and Cobra and Black Hawk helicopters hovered overhead, American soldiers and Afghan policemen scoured fields and homes in the area.
The district police chief, Colonel Assadullah, said in an interview in Bagram that he was asked to have his men search for a yellow pickup truck, which was apparently seen leaving the area. The district governor, Kabir Ahmad, said the Afghan authorities set up checkpoints on the highway leading to Kabul and other roads in the area, but turned up nothing suspicious.
Military officials said American soldiers questioned laborers who had been working at the prison, as well as local Afghan officials. But no arrests were made, and neither Afghans working at the base nor American officials said they knew of any laborers fired as a result of the inquiry.
In a recent interview, a former Bagram prisoner, Moazzam Begg, said he had heard during his detention there that American intelligence officers had once proposed staging an escape to release a detainee whom they wanted to act as a double agent against Al Qaeda. He said he had no knowledge that any such scheme had been carried out, and several American officials strongly dismissed the idea that that had happened with Mr. Faruq and the others.
In a videotape delivered to the Pakistan bureau of the Arab-language satellite television station Al Arabiya, Mr. Kahtani boasted about the preparations for the escape, suggesting that they had been painstaking.
"We decided to escape on Sunday because that is the day off for the nonbelievers," he said on the tape, which was broadcast Oct. 18. "To escape we studied the plan very carefully."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2005 00:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
A Death Row inmate walked out of escaped from prison last month in Texas. Got caught again over in Shreveport full of whiskey. Time to go back to the old 40lb ball and chain to the ankle again.
#2
Military officials, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident are classified, said...
According to a classified, one-page military report on the escape that was reviewed by The New York Times...
former Bagram prisoner... said he had heard during his detention there that American intelligence officers had once proposed staging an escape to release a detainee whom they wanted to act as a double agent against Al Qaeda... several American officials strongly dismissed the idea that that had happened with Mr. Faruq and the others.
I most sincerely hope the reason military officers are speaking sub rosa, and showing classified documents, to the New york Times is because they are either trying to plant double agents or because they want to destroy the ability to function of the escapees. Otherwise I cannot understand why military officers would be speaking off the record to such people, who have so clearly proven themselves to be on the other side.
The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has called for the resumption of peace talks with the Ugandan government, a call mediators say rekindles hope for a peaceful settlement of the 20-year civil war in the north of the country. The chief mediator in the on-and-off talks and former Ugandan minister, Betty Bigombe, said on Wednesday that LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti had contacted her and expressed willingness to resume talks with the government. Otti, the number two in the LRA hierarchy, called the BBC on Tuesday to announce that the rebels were willing to negotiate an end to the brutal war that has ravaged northern Uganda.
In October, the Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants for Kony, Otti and three other LRA commanders, one of whom has since died. Otti told BBC radio that he was willing to cooperate with the ICC, but added that government officials should also face justice at the same court because they "were responsible for some of the crimes committed in northern Uganda." Otti maintained that he was speaking with the permission of rebel leader Joseph Kony.
The Uganda government welcomed the offer but hoped it was "serious and genuine". Attempts to hold peace talks between the rebels and the government collapsed last December when last-minute hitches thwarted the signing of the first ceasefire agreement. Within hours, President Yoweri Museveni ordered the resumption of the military campaign against the rebellion - a move observers said curtailed any further peace attempts.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and over 1.5 million displaced in northern Uganda since the beginning of the conflict.
Saudi security forces arrested a criminal gang who was running a large-scale counterfeit money operation in the Ghaleeel neighborhood in south Jeddah. The densely populate area is renowned for harboring criminals who seek refuge amongst its poor housing and squalor. Asharq al Awsat has learnt that six men of African origin were arrested after police discovered their hideout. During interrogation, the men revealed the whereabouts of their accomplices, five men and three women, who were residing in the Qariyat neighborhood, another poor area of the city.
A special machine was used to produce counterfeit US dollars which were then spent in Jeddah, according to the preliminary findings of the investigation. The authorities are continuing their search to discover the stores where the money was used in hope of identifying other criminals. Lieutenant Gen. Misfr al Zhami, Jeddah police commander was overseeing the investigation in association with Lieutenant Mohammad Nahar and Lieutenant Hassan al Nafei from the criminal investigation unit as well as Captain Hashem al Sheikhi.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Saudi security forces have arrested 17 suspected fighters in a series of raids around Riyadh, state television said.
"Into the paddy wagon wit' yez!"
They also seized weapons and ammunition early on Saturday in the raids on 12 homes in the capital and nearby districts of Kharj and Mujamma, television quoted an Interior Ministry source as saying. Some of the arrested men had taken part in operations carried out by the "deviant group" - a label used by authorities to describe supporters of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network - or sympathised with them, the television report said. It said all the arrested men were Saudi nationals, but gave no details of their identity. Security forces also seized electronic equipment and printed material in the raids.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Members of Bangladeshâs secular judicial system in Gazipur and Chittagong were battered this week after three suicide bomb attacks left 11 dead, including two militants, and wounded more than 100 others in the worldâs third largest Muslim-majority nation.
On Tuesday, two suicide bombers that police allege were members of Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), or the Party of the Mujahideen, killed ten people, including lawyers and police, at the bar association building in Gazipur and a police checkpoint at the entrance to a courthouse in Chittagong.
âThe threat of suicide terrorism has reached Bangladesh for a reason. You have to wonder why they have resorted to suicide bombing at this stage. Suicide bombing attracts a lot of attention in the media and it has a major impact and itâs very accurate,â Colonel Christopher Langton, a terrorism expert and the head of the Defense Analysis Department at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies told ISN Security Watch.
A third suicide bomber survived the attack he launched on Thursday, but the device he detonated killed one person and injured more than 30 others just outside the chief government administrator's office and the courthouse in Gazipur during a national strike protesting the recent violence.
The strike, which was called by the Supreme Court Bar Association in response to Tuesdayâs bomb attacks, resulted in the closure of courts, shops, schools, and private businesses.
The country has been hit by a series of bomb attacks this year, including two attacks on the judiciary in October and early November that left four people dead, including two judges, and multiple attacks in August during which over 400 small bombs were detonated across Bangladesh, killing two people.
Bangladesh, which came into existence in 1971 when Bengali East Pakistan seceded from its union with West Pakistan, is not unused to violence, but the latest suicide attacks mark a sinister turn in events.
âThe suicide bomb attacks this week in Bangladesh are definitely an escalation and a change in tactics by JMB. Itâs the first-ever suicide bomb attack in Bangladesh and it makes the situation much more difficult. Itâs a different genre,â Ahmad Tariq Karim, Bangladeshâs former ambassador to the US and a diplomat with 30 years of experience, told ISN Security Watch on Friday.
âThe timing and the targets are interesting with the focus on the judiciary,â said Karim, who is also a senior advisor for governance institutions at the Center for Institutional Reform in the information sector at the University of Maryland.
âItâs possible that the attacks may be designed to paralyze the court system, with some 100-plus of their group [JMB] facing trials in the courts,â noted Karim.
According to local media, Bangladeshi State Minister for Home Affairs Lutfuzzaman Babar said the cases against the JMB militants allegedly involved in the attacks in August would start after the vacation of the courts in January.
So far, 154 cases against 116 individuals have been filed in connection with the detonation of 434 bombs in 63 districts on 17 August.
âItâs eerily similar to whatâs been going on with the trial of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, with the attacks on his lawyers,â Karim added.
The JMB was formed in 1998 in Bangladeshâs Jamalpur district, according to one regional security analyst who spoke to ISN Security Watch on condition of anonymity.
The groupâs exact origins are vague, but it came to prominence in May 2002 when eight Islamic militants were arrested in Parbatipur, in the northern Dinajpur district. The militants were caught with 25 petrol bombs and documents detailing the outfitâs activities.
Then in February 2003, the JMB allegedly carried out seven bomb attacks in the Chhoto Gurgola area of Dinajpur, in which three people were wounded.
The government banned the JMB in February this year, after the group was linked to a series of bomb attacks on non-governmental organization offices, shrines, and entertainment events in the country. Leaflets bearing the groupâs name and calling for the introduction of Islamic law were found at all the bombsites.
The leaflets in Bangladeshi and Arabic, which the group used to claim responsibility for attacks, also revealed the groupâs intentions.
âWeâre the soldiers of Allah. Weâve taken up arms for the implementation of Allahâs law, the way the Prophet, Sahabis, and heroic Mujahideen have done for centuries. It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law,â the leaflets stated.
According to local media, the JMB is led by a triumvirate consisting of Maulana Abdur Rahman, a former activist of the Jamaat-e-Islami political party; Siddiqur Islam, who is also known as Bangla Bhai; and Dr. Muhammad Asadullah al-Ghalib, an Arabic language lecturer at the Rajshahi University.
While Maulana Rahman is regarded as the spiritual leader of the organization, Siddiqur Islam (Bangla Bhai) is reportedly its âoperational chiefâ. Dr. Muhammad Asadullah al-Ghalib was arrested in February 2005 and charged with sedition. The other two leaders remain free.
âThe JMB is an associated group of al-Qaida. Prior to October 2001, the JMB received significant al-Qaida assistance in training and finance,â Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, a Singapore-based terrorism expert, claimed in an interview with ISN Security Watch on Friday.
Gunaratna is the author of the book, âInside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terrorâ. He is also head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, at Singaporeâs Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies at Nanyang Technological University.
Some analysts have suggested that the JMB has within its ranks many men who left Bangladesh to join the battle against the former-Soviet Unionâs invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.
âIt was always known by officials [in Bangladesh] that there was a large number of JMB, and many had participated in the conflict against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Over 1,000 of these fighters returned to Bangladesh,â Karim claimed.
In April 2002, the Far Eastern Economic Review reported that after the fall of Kandahar in Afghanistan in late 2001, hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters arrived by ship from Karachi, Pakistan, to the Bangladesh port city of Chittagong.
âThe JMB has a huge infrastructure of several thousand members throughout Bangladesh. Due to political considerations, the government is reluctant to target the group,â Gunaratna said.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia won landslide election victory in October 2001 with a four-party alliance led by her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The alliance includes the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Islamic Oikya Jote parties, both known for their support of Islamic fundamentalism, the Taliban, and al-Qaida.
Observers largely agree that Jamaat-e-Islami collaborated with the military regime in Pakistan during the 1971 war that led to the creation of Bangladesh from Pakistan and continues to be close to Islamabad.
Zia suffered a major embarrassment when Abu Hena, a member of parliament for the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party, accused the four-party coalition government of sheltering and patronizing Islamic militants in an interview with the BBC last month.
A number of killings blamed on the JMB have taken place in Henaâs parliamentary constituency in the western district of Rajshahi since last year.
âIslamic militancy started to spread in Bangladesh soon after Jamaat-e-Islami came to power, riding on the BNP. The militants in fact did not exist four years ago,â local media quoted Hena as saying.
The BNP moved quickly after Henaâs comments and announced that Zia, who is also the chief of the BNP, had cancelled Henaâs party membership âas a disciplinary action for his misconduct and for tarnishing the image of the partyâ.
An anonymous source close to the government told ISN Security Watch on Friday that even if Jamaat-e-Islami had not been directly responsible for acts of terrorism, its very inclusion in government had encouraged radical Islamist groups to feel protected by the government to some degree.
âThe current campaign could be designed to see if society and the government can be intimidated,â Karim said.
âThe next stage would be to change the constitution [and bring in Sharia law] if their campaign [to intimidate society and the government] was successful,â Ambassador Karim added.
Many Bangladesh observers say the current violent campaign will continue until Dhaka makes a more serious commitment to clamp down on the JMB and introduce reforms, although the escalation in the JMBâs tactics this week may prompt a serious rethink of official strategy.
âThe JMB will continue to employ suicide as a tactic. The terrorist threat will escalate in the coming years in Bangladesh,â Gunaratna warned.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2005 00:22 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A British general is facing possible criminal charges over one of the most controversial incidents of the Iraq war, The Sunday Times has learnt. The allegations levelled against Major-General Peter Wall relate to alleged attempts by senior officers to prevent an investigation into the deaths of a British tank commander and an unarmed Iraqi civilian.
The death of Sergeant Steven Roberts at al-Zubair in the early hours of March 24, 2003, led to widespread public outrage after the Ministry of Defence confirmed he had no body armour. In a taped message, recorded the evening before he died and released by his widow Samantha, Roberts described the lack of equipment as a âjokeâ. It only emerged later that a civilian had died in the same incident.
Wall, who is deputy chief of joint operations, is by far the most senior officer to have been implicated in a case involving alleged wrongdoing by British troops. He was commander of 1 (UK) Armoured Division at the time of the alleged offence. His actions were investigated after Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, told Geoff Hoon, the former defence secretary, that the evidence suggested âa concerted attempt by the chain of command to influence and prevent an investigationâ. Goldsmith then removed the case from the armyâs control and ordered that any charges be heard by a civilian court.
As a result of a Metropolitan police investigation, two soldiers from 2nd Royal Tank Regiment face possible murder charges over the death of Zahir Zabti Zaher, the unarmed Iraqi civilian. Another soldier from the same regiment faces a possible manslaughter charge over the death of Roberts. Wall faces possible charges relating to the alleged attempt to prevent the investigation.
The allegations against Wall, one of the armyâs most senior commanders, and other serious claims made by an army whistleblower, will raise doubts over its ability to police its soldiersâ conduct in Iraq. If Wall is charged, the armyâs role as a peacekeeping force may be undermined, with soldiers under fire fearing legal scrutiny for every action they take.
The Ministry of Defence issued a statement on Wallâs behalf. In it the general said: âIt is inappropriate for me to comment on the case as it is still under investigation, but I am confident I acted in accordance with the interests of justice and appropriate care for the soldiers under my command.â
The whistleblower, who first informed The Sunday Times of Wallâs alleged involvement, said the army Special Investigation Branch (SIB) team that was sent to the scene of the killings realised immediately there were grounds for a criminal investigation. However, they were told by a senior SIB officer not to pursue the soldiers as possible suspects and to treat them simply as witnesses, a move that seriously hampered subsequent investigations into the killings.
The lead SIB investigator, a warrant officer, wanted to interview the soldiers under caution, but he was ordered by the senior SIB officer to take witness statements and compile a report later, the source alleges. The senior officers who decided the investigation should not go ahead âvery nearly succeeded in making any subsequent investigation impossible due to the loss of primary evidence,â the source said.
The MoD declined to comment but senior defence officials said Wall had been faced with two conflicting pieces of legal advice and âextremely correctly, sought policy advice and further legal advice about the caseâ.
#1
Crap like this is what happens when you do like the democrats wanted the US to do: treat a war like a police matter. You cannot fight a war if there are contingency lawyers standing behind each soldier, eagerly awaiting some mistake over which they can sue.
There is also an intentional effort to *confuse* this nanny-behavior will legitimate prosecutions of truly criminal behavior. Being a soldier does not give license to torture, murder, abuse prisoners or otherwise violate the UCMJ. Plenty of soldiers in a war theater are regularly disciplined or even sent to prison for such offenses. And rightly so.
The difference between the two is foresight vs. hindsight. In the US, now, soldiers are starting to be encouraged to use their judgement as to when to use force in a questionable situation. Iraq has generally become too peaceful to continue with a "shoot first and ask questions later" attitude.
If the soldier has doubts as to whether to "take the shot", it isn't a bad idea to ask his superior, assuming no imminent risk, otherwise. This is foresight. Having someone there who will back your play, either way. You have reached a point where it is actually better to *not* kill somebody who deserves it, rather than to accidently kill someone who doesn't. More peace than war.
Hindsight is leaving the soldier in a state where he must solely rely on his own judgement, without having good advice, but then possibly to face punishment because someone not there decides, after the fact, that he did something wrong.
Even in the civilian world, in a real police matter, you see how screwed up it can become.
Let us say some naked, drug-crazed individual is walking down the street in a suburb, randomly firing a shotgun.
The police gun him down, then are attacked for having used "excessive force", whiners even complaining that they should have used non-lethal means. "Couldn't you have just arrested him without hurting him? (snivel) He was a good boy and they murdered him!"
The police have to contend with this crap all the time. However, this is not what soldiers should have to put up with. It demoralizes them, and makes them hesitate in dangerous situations.
Dutch police detained the imam of a mosque in Eindhoven on Wednesday and handed him over to the immigration authorities in preparation for his extradition, according to the Dutch news agency. The government in The Hague had decided in February to extradite the imam along with two others suspected of âdriving Muslims in The Netherlands to extremismâ. The three imams appealed against the decision but one later decided to drop his appeal as he no longer wished to live in the country. In June, immigration Minister Rita Verdonk informed the men that they would have to await the outcome of their case outside of The Netherlands but this was later rejected by the courts.
Meanwhile, the legal representative of a Dutch-Moroccan who previously worked as a translator for the intelligence services asked the court to drop the charges. His client Othman is suspected of sharing secret information with members of a Dutch terrorist cell. If convicted, he faces up to six years behind bars. The 35-year old proclaimed his innocence and said his 14-month detention was unwarranted. He claimed he was a victim of the security forces and said âthe matter appears to be a political game.â According to the Rotterdam general prosecutor, the translator had informed members of âHofstad Networkâ that they were under surveillance by the security forces. Othman claims his low rank precluded him from knowing such matters. âHofstad Networkâ is thought to be an extremist groups to which Mohammad Bouyeri, a Dutch- Moroccan, convicted of killing Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, belonged.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
BERLIN - The German government has a list of at least 437 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency in German airspace, the news magazine Der Spiegel claimed in its edition to be published on Monday.
The number includes both movements by planes of the CIA spy agency in German airspace and landings at German airports, it says. âSuch planes could be used to transfer presumed terrorists and place them in secret locations,â Der Spiegel writes.
Or moving our own people, or freight, or other stuff. The CIA uses planes for all sorts of things; you'd be amazed. Wanna see the freight manifestos?
Der Spiegel says that in 2002 and 2003 two CIA aircraft alone accounted for 137 and 146 uses of German airspace or landings, chiefly at Frankfurt in the west, Berlin or the US base at Ramstein in western Germany.
"We've been evacuating baby ducks from Afghanistan. They're on the endangered species list. Sssssh."
In an interview published on Saturday in the Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper the secretary general of the German branch of the human rights organisation Amnesty International claimed the German government knew of the CIA flights.
Der Spiegel said the government was worried that the affair could prompt a fundamental debate about the use of German airspace by US planes for the war in Iraq and the basing of US troops in Germany. Berlin has also been asked to inform the 46-member Council of Europe by February 21 what action it has undertaken in specific cases of âkidnappingsâ after being told about them, the magazine says.
Why, wait for proof, of course.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
the affair could prompt a fundamental debate about the use of German airspace by US planes for the war in Iraq and the basing of US troops in Germany.
So Der Spiegel wants a discussion about whether American airplanes can fly through the air to get to American bases? Their position stikes me as unsound and, more importantly, unwise.
#4
If we were to simply pack up and leave, I wonder how long it would be before the Europeans would be at one another's throats again?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/04/2005 20:31 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The Germans around Kaiserslaughtern want the Americans to stay. Most of the Germans in Frankfurt are upset that Rhein-Main is closing. The people of Berlin are split. Several German cities have already lost their American bases, and are screaming about it. The government is filled with socialists, former communists, Greens, and other idiots, and want the Americans out. Guess what the decision will be.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2005 21:11 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Auf Weidersen?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 21:29 Comments ||
Top||
The killing of an al Qaeda commander in a U.S.-led operation in a remote corner of Pakistan marks an advance in the struggle to locate and eliminate the network's leadership, which has managed to replenish its ranks after suffering key losses in recent years, counterterrorism officials and experts said Saturday.
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said that Hamza Rabia, a top operational planner for al Qaeda, was killed Thursday in an explosion in a tribal area along the border with Afghanistan. Although there were conflicting reports about the details of Rabia's death, Pakistani intelligence sources said U.S. operatives killed him and four others with a missile fired by an unmanned Predator drone.
Pakistani and U.S. officials described Rabia as a major figure in al Qaeda's murky hierarchy and said he would have been responsible for plotting large-scale attacks against U.S. or European targets. At the same time, however, his rapid rise in the network shows how al Qaeda has been able to regenerate after similar setbacks in the past.
Intelligence officials said Rabia, an Egyptian, had replaced Abu Faraj Libbi, another al Qaeda leader who was captured in Pakistan in May. Libbi had taken over the role held by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States who was also caught in Pakistan, in March 2003.
"It's a success story, but al Qaeda has turned into a multi-headed hydra: you chop off one head and another head takes its place," said Magnus Ranstorp, a specialist on al Qaeda at the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm. "It's a good thing they got him, but I'm sure there are others in the wings who are ready to play a similar role."
Despite their success in tracking down Rabia, there is no indication that U.S. or Pakistani forces have come closer to locating their biggest targets: al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, who are still believed to be hiding in the region.
The Bush administration had no public comment on Rabia's death. In the past, the administration has publicly praised Pakistan as a partner in the fight against terrorism. But U.S. officials have become increasingly frustrated with what they see as limited cooperation from the Pakistani military and intelligence services in the hunt for bin Laden.
In June, CIA Director Porter J. Goss said he had "an excellent idea" where bin Laden was hiding but lamented that the al Qaeda leader had taken advantage of "sanctuaries in sovereign states" beyond American reach. Although Goss did not single out the Pakistani government as the problem, U.S. and European officials said bin Laden had almost certainly taken refuge in the semi-autonomous tribal areas near the Afghan border.
Musharraf has recently acknowledged that he is not eager for bin Laden to be caught in his country, where he is seen as a hero to many and is probably more popular than Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 bloodless military coup. "One would prefer that he's captured somewhere outside Pakistan, by some other people," he said in an October interview with Time magazine.
Counterterrorism officials and analysts said Pakistan serves not just as a hiding place but as an effective base of operations for al Qaeda and other Islamic radical networks, giving them the ability to plan or carry out attacks around the world.
British investigators have found that some of the suicide attackers responsible for the July 7 subway and bus bombings in London had spent time in Pakistan before the attacks. U.S. officials have also complained that Taliban forces fighting the U.S. military in Afghanistan are able to regroup and find fresh recruits across the border in Pakistan.
"The real point here is that Musharraf is not making any dent in the issue that matters -- which is that the extremists are still operating rather freely in Pakistan and feel as comfortable there as ever," said M.J. Gohel, chief executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a London research institute that specializes in security issues in South Asia. "What you need is to completely eradicate and eliminate the entire extremist infrastructure, but nothing has been done there. What has been done is the capture of individuals now and then to please Washington."
The United States and Pakistan seized a series of high-profile figures in the months immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks. Abu Zubaida, a top al Qaeda recruiter and member of bin Laden's inner circle, was arrested in Faisalabad in March 2002. Ramzi Binalshibh, said to be a key Sept. 11 plotter, was caught in Karachi in September 2002. Six months later, Pakistani agents grabbed Mohammed while he was sleeping in a house in Rawalpindi, not far from the headquarters of the Pakistani military.
The arrests fueled hopes that investigators were closing in on bin Laden and would be able to completely dismantle the al Qaeda central leadership. But in the past two years, the search for ranking al Qaeda figures has sputtered while others have emerged to lead terrorist attacks elsewhere.
In Iraq, for instance, Jordanian fighter Abu Musab Zarqawi has become a leader of the insurgency, pledging loyalty to bin Laden and giving al Qaeda a new base of operations. Al Qaeda has also created affiliates and alliances with regional extremist groups in North Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia.
Rabia was killed Thursday along with four associates in a missile strike in the tribal region of North Waziristan, officials and a witness said Saturday. The incident was first reported by the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, which cited witnesses in asserting that the men had been killed by rockets fired by an unmanned U.S. surveillance drone known as a Predator.
In public statements, Pakistani officials declined to say whether Rabia had been killed by an American missile, although several privately confirmed the report. The use of such tactics is highly controversial in Pakistan, especially in the remote tribal areas where there is strong opposition to the presence of any U.S. military forces.
"Here is what I can tell you: Our troops were not involved in the operation, but this is one of the areas where our intelligence and operational cooperation with U.S. services is most intense," said a senior Pakistani intelligence official in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which is near North Waziristan.
"Comments on media reports that it was a Predator strike would invoke sovereignty issues," the official added. "Let's enjoy the fact that al Qaeda has lost another key person."
Rabia's name does not appear on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists. But Pakistani officials described him as a major catch and a close associate of Zawahiri, the second-ranking al Qaeda leader and a fellow Egyptian.
They said Rabia had been the focus of an intense manhunt since the arrest in Pakistan last May of Libbi, a Libyan whom U.S. intelligence sources described at the time as al-Qaeda's third-ranking leader. Libbi and Rabia are suspected of orchestrating two assassination attempts against Musharraf in 2003.
The interrogation of Libbi by U.S. and Pakistani intelligence operatives "confirmed that Abu Hamza Rabia was in touch with Ayman Zawahiri and he was an important connection between Zawahiri and various Al Qaeda cells, at least until last year," said another Pakistani intelligence official who is involved in counterterrorism work in the tribal areas. The official added that contact between Rabia and Zawahiri appears to have ceased during the last several months.
A third Pakistani intelligence official said that for the past few months, Rabia had been "playing hide-and-seek with the Americans, who were on his tail. He was a fast mover who shuttled between the tribal areas and Afghan border areas frequently."
According to Dawn, Rabia died along with four other men, two of them also Arabs, when an explosion destroyed the mud-walled compound where they were staying in the village of Asoray near Miram Shah, the administrative capital of North Waziristan. Local authorities claimed the men died while making bombs. But the newspaper cited witnesses who said the house was destroyed by missiles around 1:45 a.m.
That account was supported by another witness, Zammarud Khan, who runs a grocery store in the village, according to his brother, Wazir, a driver in Karachi. Wazir Khan said in an interview that his brother told him that at least one of the men had just arrived the day before the attack. Following the collapse of Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001, al Qaeda members streamed across the border and took refuge among the ethnic Pushtun tribesmen who populate the area. Many subsequently left for other parts of Pakistan, and hundreds have been caught, although some have remained in the tribal region. Earlier this year, a member of al Qaeda, Haitham Yemeni, was killed by a Predator in North Waziristan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2005 00:11 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Al-Qaeda's third-ranking leader has been killed by a missile fired by an American drone in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, NBC television news reported yesterday. President Pervez Musharraf confirmed Rabia's death yesterday.
Quoting unnamed officials, NBC said Rabia was killed by a missile launched from an unmanned Predator drone controlled by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA would not comment. Tribal witnesses in Pakistan said a "hail of missiles" struck the mud house in the village of Haisori. Other witnesses told NBC that missile remnants bearing US markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been explosives detonating inside the house.
Rabia was involved in two attempts on President Musharraf's life two years ago and security forces had been hunting him for some time.
Which is why Perv ain't complaining about the Hellfires.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
... another top Al Qarda temporary position available. Send resume to Monster.com (no offense Monster, just had to throw that in.)
A senior suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban supporter in North Waziristan has surrendered to the government, a senior administration official said on Saturday. Maulana Ajab Noor, a former resistance commander against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s, has pledged allegiance to the anti-terror war. The administration official in Miranshah said that Noor, along with hundreds of supporters, had surrendered to the political administration. âI and my comrades fully support the governmentâs policies against foreign elements and will remain loyal to the country,â Noor declared during the ceremony at a seminary in Khaisor, 10 kilometres south of Mir Ali, the town where top Al Qaeda commander Hamza Rabia and two other foreign militants were killed on December 1.
Senior administration officials attended the ceremony and praised the former resistance commanderâs support to the government. Noor, 55, assured the government that he will not shelter foreign terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the official said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Just a couple of days after a Predator zapped an A-Q biggie - wonder if it could be linked? hehehe hehehe hehehehe
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2005 21:30 Comments ||
Top||
Al-Qaida has denied claims made by President Pervez Musharraf that one of their operatives has died in an explosion in a northwestern Pakistan tribal area.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened."
Musharraf, arriving in Kuwait at the start of a three-nation visit to the Middle East, said on Saturday that Hamza Rabia was among five people killed in an explosion on Thursday in North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan. "Yes, indeed, 200% confirmed," Musharraf said.
"Yep. Doorknob dead! Pushin' up daisies! Takin' a real long nap in the dirt!"
But Dubai-based satellite TV channel Al-Arabiya said on Saturday that it had been contacted by a person claiming to be from al-Qaida who denied that Rabia had been killed. "An official from the al-Qaida group has denied, in a telephone conversation with the Al-Arabiya channel, that Hamza Rabia has been killed," a presenter on the channel told viewers.
"Nope. Nope. Wudn't him. Just a flesh wound..."
The Al-Arabiya presenter cited the caller as saying that five people were killed in an explosion in the tribal region but these were two local men, two Tadjiks and an Arab called Suleiman al-Moghrabi.
"Yeah. We're gonna miss ol' Solly. But it wudn't Hamza. No way, Jose!"
A Pakistani intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Rabia was believed to have been the operational commander of al-Qaida fighters in North Waziristan and adjoining South Waziristan. The explosion near North Waziristan's main town, Miranshah, was triggered as suspected Islamist fighters were making a bomb, Syed Zaheerul Islam, a government administrator, said on Thursday.
"The manual sez to connect the red wire to the black wire, and the green wire to the white wire... That can't be right. Gotta be a misprint. See, if you so it this way [KABOOM!]"
Islam said the blast also killed four other people, including two area residents, and injured two others, who have not been identified.
In another report, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper said on Saturday that Rabia, believed to be of Syrian origin, was killed in a missile attack on a mud-walled home in Isori, a village east of Miran Shah. The attack may have been launched from two unmanned aircraft, or drones, the newspaper said, citing unidentified sources. Associates who were also from outside Pakistan retrieved the bodies of Rabia and two other foreigners and buried them in an unknown location, the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
After keeping their distance for months, Iraqis in this Sunni Arab city suddenly began cooperating with U.S. troops, leading them to insurgents and hidden weapons caches. The reason: anger over the assassination by insurgents of a local tribal chief.
"That's when they decided to make a stand," said Capt. Ryan Wylie of Lincoln, Neb., commander of Bravo Company, 3rd Battalion, 69th Armored Regiment. "They definitely had an idea of the terrorists and where they hang out."
U.S. commanders cite other reasons for a lull in violence in this city 60 miles north of Baghdad. They include construction of an 11-mile berm around the city to block gun runners and a greater reliance by the military on covert monitoring positions.
But almost everyone agrees that the biggest reason for the reduction in violence here was the public backlash against the insurgents after the Oct. 11 assassination of Sheik Hikmat Mumtaz Bazi, chief of one of the area's seven tribes.
The reason for the killing remains unclear. Some say he was targeted for working with U.S. forces. Others believe he was killed because of a contract dispute over a U.S.-funded project. Most agree that the sheik's American connection cost him his life.
"They killed him to send a message that you can't be working with coalition forces," said Lt. Col. Mark Wald, commander of the 3rd Battalion. "I think they were trying to rein him back in."
Tribalism is deeply rooted in Iraqi society and adds a dimension to the insurgency that outsiders find difficult to understand. Some tribes support the insurgency, while others back the government. In many cases, tribes are divided in their loyalties.
Before Mr. Bazi's death, U.S. forces in Samarra had struggled to cope with the insurgent threat in this city of 200,000, many of whom strongly opposed the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.
Last year, al-Qaida in Iraq, led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, openly operated in Samarra, and the group's black flags fluttered from rooftops until U.S. forces regained control.
U.S. soldiers heard some Samarra residents speak openly of the right of "legitimate resistance" to the American presence.
Others admitted they could not cooperate with the Americans for fear of insurgent reprisals.
Those fears vanished when one of their own leaders was slain. All of a sudden, Iraqis began coming forward with information about insurgent hideouts and weapons caches.
The flood of intelligence was welcomed. Attacks against U.S. forces tapered off after Mr. Bazi's death, dropping to one or two a day -- compared with seven a day in January. The decline prompted a U.S. decision to remove about two-thirds of the American soldiers inside the city and replace them with Iraqi paramilitary commandos.
Samarra is still far from peaceful, and some soldiers said the wealth of information revealed how deeply rooted the insurgency was in the city.
In addition, soldiers say, it is difficult to say whether the trend toward greater cooperation will last.
Some caution that the surge in tips has recently tapered off. Samarra's population could return to the old habit of looking the other way when insurgents plant roadside bombs or launch mortars from the streets.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2005 00:27 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Every one of these mooks the Jihadis take out helps us twice: first it weakens the tribal system by lopping its leadership, and secondly it pisses off the locals -- which costs the Jihaidis their local cover and support.
These Jihadis must love pissing in their own well, the do it often enough.
#2
By killing the pro-american shiek, the jihadis forced the tribes to commit early.And right now it is safer for them to side with the Americans. If they kill all the current residing jihadis, and a new crop of jihadis comes up strong, they can just apologize and say it is a tribal thing. WHich it is, which is why they want to staddle the fence, to see which way they should commit. Do it now when the Americans will remember. Before the elections.
These fuckers know what they are doing. But the tribal system will kill them in the end. It is an automatic tax on anything you do. It's like an endemic union, where even if the leaders suck or are stupid, they are still in charge. No matter what.
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team apprehended two terrorists near Daquq. The terrorists were attempting to emplace an improvised explosive device that detonated, injuring both men. They were taken to a local hospital, where one later died of his wounds. The soldiers searched the terrorists' vehicle and found a second IED, which an explosives team detonated.
#3
I've often wondered if the US could come up with a high-frequency signal-transmitter that would destabilize RDX. Every compound has a specific frequency with which it will vibrate in harmony to. Could you see a big Greyhound bus tooting on down the road, with explosives suddenly going off in front of and and on both sides of it? Unfortunately, I don't have enough chemistry or physics to know if the idea is possible, or what it would take to acutally make it work if it was. Would be neat, though...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/04/2005 22:12 Comments ||
Top||
#4
they all have natural harmonics, OP, but not necessarily enuf to excite to explode....good idea tho'
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 22:44 Comments ||
Top||
Task Force Baghdad soldiers rescued two kidnapping victims during a routine vehicle search at a checkpoint in western Baghdad on Dec. 1, military officials in Iraq said today. Soldiers from 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, found two Iraqi civilians bound and gagged in the trunk of a white sedan. The two individuals, employed by an American contractor, claimed they had been taken hostage and were to be murdered. The car's driver and a passenger had false Iraqi police badges and were carrying pistols. They were detained.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Teach your children well, their father's hell will grow nigh
Five Palestinians, including a policeman, were killed and many were wounded, some seriously, on Saturday as members of two rival clans clashed in a fierce firefight in Gaza, local medics and witnesses said.
Palestinian security forces were having difficulty restoring calm and mediators and bystanders were also wounded as bullets and grenades flew in a neighborhood of the town of Beit Hanoun in north Gaza.
It was a further example of lawlessness in the Gaza Strip, seen as a testing ground for future Palestinian statehood after Israel withdrew from the coastal territory last September following 38 years of military rule.
The motive for the clash which began on Friday was unclear, but medics said at least five of some 40 wounded were in critical condition as rival family members used assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades in the clash.
Witnesses said the policeman was killed by a stray bullet which hit the police station in which he was situated. Many families fled their homes in fear of being hit by stray bullets as gunmen took up positions on rooftops.
Posted by: too true ||
12/04/2005 07:29 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
back to burrowing? That seems to be when they're happiest
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 11:17 Comments ||
Top||
#2
It's autumn, the overflowing fields of the pali people have been harvest. Thanksgiving is over. A quiet falls over the land while the peaceful pali farmers and merchants pounder another bountiful year allen has given them. Now it's time to clean the guns, check the RPGs and prepare to fire randomly on neighbors.
Palestinian gunfire was also aimed at the Israeli boat from Gazaâs shore. Return Israeli fire sank the Palestinian vessel.
Palestinian spokesmen claim it was a fishing boat and the single 22-year old man aboard was killed in the incident. The Israeli navy reports sighting several people on deck, and has no information on casualties.
DEBKAfile adds: The incident fits in with the general free-for-all reigning on the Gaza Strip since Israel pulled out. Terrorists and war materiel flow in from every direction. The US-brokered Israel-Palestinian-Egyptian accords which enabled the reopening of the international Rafah crossing - supposedly monitored by European inspectors - exist only on paper. Israel has lost security control over the crossing, while Egyptian police border guards place no limits on Palestinian smuggling through the Philadelphi border strip they are committed to guard. The Israeli navy reports increasing smuggling attempts of terrorists and weapons by sea into the Gaza Strip.
In the three-and-half months since Israel withdrew from Gaza, attacks against Israel from this territory is reverting to the status quo ante: The IDF counts 22 explosive devices, 8 intercepted infiltrations to Israel, 75 shooting attacks and at least 170 missile and mortar salvos.
#1
Palestinian spokesmen claim it was a fishing boat and the single 22-year old man aboard was killed in the incident. The Israeli navy reports sighting several people on deck, and has no information on casualties.
Film?
I sincerely hope so.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/04/2005 18:59 Comments ||
Top||
After three Qassams were fired into Israel â two just short of Ashkelon â Israel informed the Palestinian Authority via the US that it would not longer tolerate these attacks.
#1
Until such time as Israel has a cost-effective anti-rocket/anti-mortar laser, which may not be too far off, the best bet would be to time-on-target any missile launching site.
This obviously can be countered in many ways by the Paleos, so that the artillery has little effect, unless Israel creates an inexpensive solution: small, unmanned, tethered, observation balloons.
Little more than a weather balloon with a zoomable video camera on it, and maybe a couple of battery powered fans to stabilize it.
The Israelis then can TOT any rocket site before they can launch, and actually plant the rounds more accurately, perhaps 10-digit accuracy, minimizing collateral damage.
The Paleos would probably try to surround their launchers with women and children, but the Israelis could just use the video tape to prove that it was the Paleos who were using them as shields.
#2
time to up the ante - big-time artillery response. Women and children killed? TFB. By using them as human shields, teh Paleos demonstrate how low they value their lives. Take them to hell with the rocket and mortars
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 11:21 Comments ||
Top||
#3
A tiny blimp could do the same thing and carry advertising.
#4
"These Kosher cluster bombs courtesy of Arik Sharon"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 11:31 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Unfortunately even if Israel produces video of the Paleo's literally hiding behing women and childen the MSM will produce 'experts' who whould state that it's all Israel (and Bush'es) fault.
Paging Dan Rather! Dan Rather to make-up and forgeries Costuming please.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, military arm of Palestinian mainstream Fatah, claimed responsibility Saturday for firing rockets at the Israeli "Kfar Azza" settlement. Spokesman for the brigades said over the telephone with newsmen here that Al-Aqsa fighters fired Aqsa-2 missiles at Kfar Azza settlement east of here. He affirmed that this comes in retaliation to the Israeli killing of two Palestinians last night in Rafah and Khan Younes.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:28 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"Kill Us" requests? What could be more appropriate for the holidays....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2005 0:54 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Kfar Azza is a kibbutz in Israel - stop repeating Arab propaganda.
Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip early on Saturday in separate incidents, Palestinian security officials said. Fisherman Zyad Al-Abael, 20, was killed off Rafah in the south of the strip by shots from an Israeli naval patrol boat. Said Abu Libdeh, 16, was hit as he tried to sneak into Israeli territory near Khan Yunes. Two other Palestinians with him were wounded, the officials said. The latest deaths brought to 4,891 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. More than three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinians.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/04/2005 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Government anti-terrorism agents arrested during a sting operation in Taguig on Tuesday a suspected local terrorist who reportedly delivered the explosives used in the deadly Valentineâs Day bus bombing in Makati City this year, a source from the Anti-Terrorism Task Force (ATTF) bared yesterday.
The source, however, refused to divulge the identity of the suspect, but disclosed that the man is now undergoing military and police debriefing to determine the degree and extent of his groupâs operation in the country.
Tuesdayâs supposed arrest in Taguig, the source added, capped long months of intelligence build-up against the terrorist group behind the Valentineâs Day bombings in Makati, Davao and General Santos City.
âHe was arrested in Maharlika Village. He is still undergoing debriefing,â the source said, describing the suspect theyâve bagged as a Balik Islamist and an active member of the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM) â an Islamic militant group, tagged behind the foiled Holy Week and All Saints Day bombings.
RSM founder and leader, Hilarion Santos is now jail following his arrest in Zamboanga last month while his group was reportedly plotting to conduct bombings runs in Metro Manila on All Saints Day.
His brother, Tyrone âDawudâ Santos, who also reportedly planned to flatten a nightclub frequented by foreigners in Ermita district with 600 kilos of explosives last Holy Week, is now out on bail.
Initial interrogation showed that the RSM, the Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesian-based Jemaah Islamiyah have been operating jointly in all their terrorist activities in the country, the source added.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/04/2005 00:35 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
His brother, Tyrone âDawudâ Santos, who also reportedly planned to flatten a nightclub frequented by foreigners in Ermita district with 600 kilos of explosives last Holy Week, is now out on bail.
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.
The rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) has called for the resumption of peace talks with the Ugandan government, a call mediators say rekindles hope for a peaceful settlement of the 20-year civil war in the north of the country. The chief mediator in the on-and-off talks and former Ugandan minister, Betty Bigombe, said on Wednesday that LRA deputy commander Vincent Otti had contacted her and expressed willingness to resume talks with the government. Otti, the number two in the LRA hierarchy, called the BBC on Tuesday to announce that the rebels were willing to negotiate an end to the brutal war that has ravaged northern Uganda.
Saudi security forces arrested a criminal gang who was running a large-scale counterfeit money operation in the Ghaleeel neighborhood in south Jeddah. The densely populate area is renowned for harboring criminals who seek refuge amongst its poor housing and squalor. Asharq al Awsat has learnt that six men of African origin were arrested after police discovered their hideout. During interrogation, the men revealed the whereabouts of their accomplices, five men and three women, who were residing in the Qariyat neighborhood, another poor area of the city.
Saudi security forces have arrested 17 suspected fighters in a series of raids around Riyadh, state television said. 
Dutch police detained the imam of a mosque in Eindhoven on Wednesday and handed him over to the immigration authorities in preparation for his extradition, according to the Dutch news agency. The government in The Hague had decided in February to extradite the imam along with two others suspected of âdriving Muslims in The Netherlands to extremismâ. The three imams appealed against the decision but one later decided to drop his appeal as he no longer wished to live in the country. In June, immigration Minister 
BERLIN - The German government has a list of at least 437 flights operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency in German airspace, the news magazine Der Spiegel claimed in its edition to be published on Monday.
A senior suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban supporter in North Waziristan has surrendered to the government, a senior administration official said on Saturday. 
Al-Qaida has denied claims made by President Pervez Musharraf that one of their operatives has died in an explosion in a northwestern Pakistan tribal area. 
Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team apprehended two terrorists near Daquq. The terrorists were attempting to emplace an improvised explosive device that detonated, injuring both men. They were taken to a local hospital, where one later died of his wounds. The soldiers searched the terrorists' vehicle and found a second IED, which an explosives team detonated.
Task Force Baghdad soldiers rescued two kidnapping victims during a routine vehicle search at a checkpoint in western Baghdad on Dec. 1, military officials in Iraq said today. Soldiers from 1st Squadron, 71st Cavalry, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, found two Iraqi civilians bound and gagged in the trunk of a white sedan. The two individuals, employed by an American contractor, claimed they had been taken hostage and were to be murdered. The car's driver and a passenger had false Iraqi police badges and were carrying pistols. They were detained.
Israeli soldiers shot dead two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip early on Saturday in separate incidents, Palestinian security officials said. Fisherman Zyad Al-Abael, 20, was killed off Rafah in the south of the strip by shots from an Israeli naval patrol boat. Said Abu Libdeh, 16, was hit as he tried to sneak into Israeli territory near Khan Yunes. Two other Palestinians with him were wounded, the officials said. The latest deaths brought to 4,891 the number of people killed since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. More than three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinians.
